John woke up earlier in the morning than he would have liked to and got ready for school, like any normal school day. It took until he had already left the house for it to stop being such a normal school day. At least, as normal as it had been since he got his powers. When he saw the women standing at the side of the road next to his house, he knew nothing about this would be mundane. 

That woman belonged to a guild that had, in quite quick succession, come to a decision in John’s regard. Despite being inactive on Earth for almost a hundred years now, the Council quickly voted to bring the late bloomer to them. The council didn’t have any particular interest in late bloomers. One would usually be discovered by local guilds, and if lucky enough, would find safe haven in those guilds. This one, however, was one they were looking at with curiosity, as Ember herself had found him.  Combined with his apparent power for only having magic for a very short time led them to disregard their disinterest with Springfield, and send Ember back. Perhaps to recruit him or perhaps to take him there. That was up to what she could accomplish.

Unlike his previous encounter with Ember, John greeted her politely. Despite being as surprised by her appearance from thin air by the side of the road as he was in the school.

“Hey Miller, I guess you don’t have to worry about us killing you after all,” she began with an almost reassuring statement. Her hand grasped his and pulled him to the space between the next house and his. As John was shocked to see her again so suddenly, he just stood there, half frozen. He was somewhat reassured by what she had said, however, “as I said, I’m not here to kill you or do anything of the like. I’m here to recruit you. I was sent back since I’m the person who saw you first and the only one you have any reason to trust. And I do hope you trust me, because if you don’t you’ll very likely die in the next few hours or survive those and end up kidnapped and sold to a Mana factory-” She continued. When he heard that, John, who was now listening intently, quickly spoke up.

“A Mana factory? What the hell is that?” John’s interjected, mostly panic in his voice, although a hint of curiosity was also present.

“Somewhere you don’t want to find yourself in,” Ember quickly responded, her answer somewhat less than assuring, “I’ll explain everything in more detail later, but for now you need to do two things. Trust me, and keep up. Understood?” she continued her tone harsher and quicker than before. John only responded with a verbal “Yeah,” not sure what he was getting himself into or how bad it would be.

Once John responded, Ember began taking him towards some unknown location inside the city. A path which took them further away from both the academy and John’s house. Taking them through a few crowded streets, a bus drive to the city's industrial area, and some alleys. Eventually, they reached a small building that looked abandoned. It was at the other edge of town from anywhere John tended to go. Deep into the industrial district near the docks. The building, a large concrete warehouse, was in clear disrepair. What John thought was painted white was now washed out gray, and salt and sand were piled at the bottom of the walls. Near a large steel door built into the side of the back wall was a small modern looking keypad. All the numbers had a purple outline and on the top of it was a symbol that was too dark to see. 

Approaching the door, Ember pulled out some sort of card from somewhere behind her head. The card itself was completely black but began glowing in a bluish light as she directed her hand towards the keypad. A moment later, she touched it with the card and the door slid open with a pleasing sound, the mechanism showing no wear from old age. 

The inside of the building was large, but they had clearly only entered a smaller room within it. It was almost pitch black, apart from a giant arch made of marble that stood recessed into the wall. Around it were small lights illuminating the indigo colored liquid that was standing in the arch. John at least guessed it was a liquid, it was see through, and stayed there with nothing containing it, but he couldn’t imagine it was anything else. Ember quickly grabbed his hand and headed through the arch. Just like when Ember had left him, he saw the world shatter again. This time, however, it was much more vivid. With each individual part of the world becoming a shard and falling onto a black floor, revealing only darkness behind them. Once it finally stopped, he knew not a moment had passed, despite it feeling like eternity. He stood there, darkness surrounding him for a second, before a bright object appeared above him and revealed the terrain around him.

He was standing on the other side of another arch, which was also made from marble. All around him was an open field that looked completely deserted. It only stretched for a while before being replaced by dense forests as far as the eye could see. Except ahead of him, where in the distance, a small stone tower could be seen. Small paths were leading to it from the forests and the arch.

Ember began heading towards that lone sign of civilization with John following, confused about where he was and what had happened to him exactly.

’Was I transported here when we stepped through the gate somehow? Is this the Gateway she was talking about?’ John thought, asking these questions and many more to himself. He tried coming up with answers to them alone, but he didn’t understand any of this. Instead he put his hopes on Ember answering his questions soon.

It took them almost ten minutes of walking to make it across the field and to the tower. John had seen many stumps of trees as they walked there, as if the forest had been carved away to build the tower.  When he looked over the tower, he realized it resembled pictures of towers he saw in his medieval ages history books. Strangely, however, it showed no sign of aging. The cut stone bricks being almost perfect, and those flaws that were there looked purposeful to him. 

As they reached the tower’s doors, which were made of wood and just a medieval in style, Ember told him to wait there. She leaned her head in through the half open right door and found it eerily empty.

“They were supposed to be here,” Ember whispered under her breath, confused. “I hope nothing happened to them... But we have to keep moving anyway. John, you should search the basement,” she continued, her tone matter of fact as she pointed towards a staircase that led down to the tower’s basement. “take anything you find there, we’ll leave straight afterwar-” before she had a chance to finish, however, John interrupted her.

“Ok, that’s enough of the “I’ll explain later” schtick. What the hell is going on?” The young man said angrily, his patience slowly crumbling.

“There was supposed to be an escort waiting for us here, they’re not. Whatever happened to them is probably not something we can deal with on our own. So we need to move, now. They were supposed to give us some supplies and some equipment for you, maybe it’s still here. It should be down in the basement,” Ember said, her tone impatient but less harsh than before. John, his faith in her slightly restored, headed down the stairs.

The small circular room was almost empty, except for some items leaning on the wooden beams that supported the ceiling. A few bags containing food and water for a couple days, a simple staff of some kind and what looked to be a worn gambeson. First, he used Observe on the staff.

The Council, or whoever put this stuff there must have known the extent of his powers more than he did. As the staff was able to specifically help his Psychic and Arcane magic. He quickly grabbed it and when presented with the option to equip it he decided to do so. It was then slung across his back with a few pieces of rope that had not been there before. Afterwards, he used Observe on the gambeson.

It was a simple piece of armor, but John figured it would protect him well. Wondering what AC was exactly, he pressed on it. A brief popup explained that it would negate damage much lower than the AC and would reduce all other damage by a percentage. He took it into his hand and was once again asked if he wanted to equip it, which he did quickly. It was made of some linen-like material that was actually quite comfortable, if a bit itchy. Nothing like he had imagined a real gambeson feeling.

“Hurry up!” Ember shouted from upstairs, and so he did. He grabbed the supplies and placed them in his inventory, which was now almost full, and headed up the stairs.

Exiting the tower, John could see nobody around him and it looked to him like Ember had completely disappeared. A hand then suddenly appeared and grabbed him, pulling him into a close embrace.

“I saw something,” The cold voice of the spy whispered, “it’s possible whoever is responsible for this is still around somewhere. So from now we’re going to be walking with my invisibility up. Hopefully it can cover us both if we’re this close,” she said, holding John in front of her strongly with her left arm while her right grabbed her knife tightly. 

John grumbled in response, ’this again?’ he thought to himself, but began walking in the direction Ember pointed him towards nonetheless. It was towards the forest, and soon enough they were inside it. Apart from being far more dense than most forest John was used to, it looked just like the ones back on Earth. He was reminded of his trip to the black forest somehow, but he wasn’t quite sure why.

For what was probably a few hours they continued walking through the forest, making stops occasionally below roots and in hidden clearings where they could rest for a few minutes. It was an uncomfortable walk for John, having to go lockstep with her. Their movements hit each other almost every few steps, and he could feel her breath on his neck at almost every moment. A thing he might have found pleasant if not for the current predicament. Both most uncomfortable and least was the feeling of her breasts pressed against his back. It was a situation John was unfamiliar with, but not one he found entirely unpleasant. Ember was also having a hard time as she was breathing heavily and taking longer and longer breaks. He guessed that making them both invisible was taking a larger physical toll on her than he expected. 

On one of the breaks, he decided to outright ask her, “I can see you're tired, why is that? I’m guessing it’s because of making both of us invisible but none of my magic seems to take that much of a toll on me,” his tone was casual and curious, but perhaps a little too direct.

“Huh, so there is yet more to your powers. It takes the rest of us significant effort to regenerate Mana, though it usually depends on which art they use,” she said, almost jokingly, before getting up again and lightly grabbing John. “we need to keep moving, more explanations will have to wait,”

After a few more hours had passed walking in the woods, they reached the end of the forest and found themselves in front of a brick road that went north. The road was made of a material that was pearl white with blue edges. Its texture looked like marble but it reflected the light like metal. Ember led him to it, and immediately when he stepped on it he got a strange popup.

Road enchantment applied: Movement speed increased by 50% as long as you stay on the road.

’The benefits of magic,’ John thought to himself, before beginning to move in the northerly direction of the road. He really felt the increase, it was as if his body weighed almost nothing. It  felt like he was more running than walking, even with the slow pace of their lockstep movement. 

After what felt like another couple of hours to John, they began hearing sounds from further down the road. The sun had already started setting, and it soon became too dark for John to see much. Strangely a minute later, he could see everything.

“It’s part of my powers,” Ember whispered quickly, before directing John to walk at a slower pace than before. A few seconds later, he noticed a small camp that was set up near the side of the road. In the camp sat four people around a campfire, all individually armed with what looked to be modern weaponry. They were all holding what John figured were P90 rifles. although they looked modified. To what extent, he didn’t know. Laying around them were yet more guns, mostly pistols, and a few boxes of ammo. That made John question Ember’s lack of a firearm, but this wasn’t the time to ask her about it. 

Her grip tightening on John, Ember directed him towards the edge of the road on the other side. Attempting to sneak by the group, they began moving extremely slowly away from the group and off the road. Despite their attempts, the next thing John noticed was the sound of gunfire and darkness enveloping him

Eventually, the darkness was replaced with an unfamiliar sight.