After having spent the last few days struggling to gain some understanding of his situation and eventually revealing he was simply being tested, John found the comfy and homely environment he was now in strange. Truly, it was a fantastically cozy little place he had appeared in. A small, at least in comparison to his home, wooden cabin. It was composed of multiple rooms that were separated from one another by fairly simple sliding doors that all coalesced into the main room. He had found that out by looking around for a short while. The walls and floor were made out of large oak logs that were almost entirely unrefined, still being rough in shape and appearance. On top of the logs in the main room were many different decorations. Several hunting trophies, a large array of maps, and a few bookshelves.

The first of the rooms John found was a small kitchen on the right of the cabin that was far too technologically advanced to have been built at the same time as the main room. It had all the modern essentials of a kitchen. Various cupboards inside it even contained fresh produce and other foodstuffs. 

Next, he found a bedroom that was larger than he expected this place to have. A fairly fancy queen sized bed that also didn’t match the era was tucked into the corner, along with a nightstand and table to its right. Instead of being modern, however, the engravings that could be found on the headboard told the young man that like the place he was in earlier, it was Victorian in design. Strangely, it showed signs of use, as the bed sheets were disorganized and unkempt. 

After that, he found a small study to the left of the main room that was obviously used for drawing maps. The smell of old paper and ink filled the room, and there were various maps hanging in it. What mainly drew John attention, however, were the various bookshelves. On them were books from topics relating to exploration, such as terrain features and formatting maps. Also in the room were an old wooden work desk, which still had a half finished map on it, and a chair that was placed right next to. Once he took a cursory look at them, he decided to return to the maps and books later. 

The last room he found was a bathroom containing both a bath and toilet, both of which were of modern design. In addition, it contained a small area for various toiletries and makeup. Which was populated by quite a few items that John didn’t recognize, and even looked to have been moved recently. 

Returning to the main room, a small living room with some couches and a coffee table, John finished his search through the house, ’what do I do now? Nobody told me what my goal is. I guess I might be able to find it in this house somewhere, but I should look outside first. View my situation as a whole,’ he thought, resolving to explore outside. 

As he walked towards the heavy oak door that he was sure led there, he heard a light sound come from beyond it. In a split second the sound of the door dragging across the wooden floor filled the air, and a ray of natural light began entering the room. Beyond it appeared yet another young woman. One which looked as different to Ingrid as he could imagine. Where Ingrid radiated authority, she radiated a common sort of charm. Her hair and eyes were both of ordinary colors, black and brown respectively, and she was wearing simple clothing that was far more practical than elegant. Her arms were bandaged in the way a fighter’s would be in so many mangas he had read. Upon her sharp but pretty face John saw, that just like him, she was confused. Twisting in a second, her body took a martial arts stance and threw the Gamer onto one of the couches. 

Damage taken: 10 HP lost

“Who the fuck are you and what are you doing here?” The woman, who was now sitting on top of John, asked. She was using her body weight to lock his movement while grabbing his shirt at the collar and bringing his face up to her. He was surprised how strong she was, she looked about his age and she was shorter as well. Only by a couple centimeters, but it still showed. 

“WHY MUST EVERYONE FUCKING ASK ME THAT!” he shouted, his annoyance at the continual questioning by all parties having reached critical mass.

“I don’t know. Do you spend a lotta time breaking into people’s houses?” she responded, shrugging her shoulders while still pinning John down. Her almost bantering response relaxed John, and from her grip’s strength it was clear she had too.

“You know, I wasn’t seriously asking you that. I’m just really sick and tired of every single person I meet thinking that is a legitimate way to start a conversation. Is the Abyssal concept of manners to just stick a weapon in someone’s face and ask them who they are?” he asked, finding the already more relaxed tone of the woman a nice change of pace. In response, she gave him a once over and began letting go of him, jumping to her feet with clearly trained movement. 

“Pretty much, yeah,” she said nonchalantly, chuckling afterwards. “I guess you’re a late bloomer then?”

“That’s what they say. Not that I know what the hell that really means,” he chuckled as well, there was something about her that just warranted it. 

“Ah, you must be from the Council, cause my superiors sure haven’t told me anything,” she shook her head, her hands now casually sitting at her sides. 

“I guess? Not sure what that means exactly either...”

“I’m here to help you out. Nice to meet you, I’m Orianna Harknis! And I’m as close as this place has to a permanent resident,” she introduced herself cheerfully, stretching her hand out. John quickly took her hand and shook it, and he could feel a strange warmth in it that passed through the bandages.

“I'm John. And ok… So what is this place? And what do you mean by permanent resident?” he was still confused, but her demeanor had helped reassure him. 

“Well, it’s a sort of testing ground for the two main factions in the Gateway. The one you know, the Council, and the one I’m from, the Federation. I’ve been failing this test for a long time now, so I know my way around. That’s why I’m a permanent resident,” she said, a smile not leaving her face the entire time, “always fun when new people are around. Though most of them just end up leaving here and never coming back,” she continued, a light frown showing, her eyes locked on his. 

“Wait, how long have you been around here?” he looked back at her. 

“Umm... Three years, I think,” she said, breaking their stare and taking a second to respond. 

“That’s a really long time, what even is this test that you’ve been stuck here?” he asked.

‘Does that mean I could be stuck here for that long too?’ John thought to himself, but shook the thought off, refusing to accept he wouldn't be seeing Alice or his family again before long. 

“I don’t know. That’s the trick, you can only finish it when you know what it is. Obviously, it has to have something to do with exploration, but no one knows until you finish the test. And no one alive has done that.”

“And these people that disappear? Do monsters outside kill them or something?” just the thought made John sick, he hoped that wasn’t the case.

“A few, but there’s mostly beasts outside and the like. People don’t really die to them, though. They die because they don’t know how to survive. I’ve found more than a few bodies when looking around the outside. Most of them more skeletons than corpses,” her frown deepened, “but it doesn’t matter, you’re here. So we’re going to help each other get through this test, got it?”

“Yeah,” John responded, feeling a mix of admiration, pity and worry for Orianna. It was a weird combination, but he knew they could help each other. 

“I should show you what I’ve explored then!” she said, walking towards the study. John followed quickly behind, and when they entered Orianna began approaching one of the larger maps. It showed the entire area, with the middle of it very obviously containing a small drawing of the cabin. Forests and plains filled most of it, though there were some mountains to the north. There were also several blotches of grey scattered around.

“These are my current ones. All the gray bits are places I haven’t looked at yet, I’ve been trying to look through them one by one. Over here though, there’s this one place,” she pointed to a marking on one of the gray areas on the map. “I think there’s something there. Anytime I go near there, I get this strange feeling and my power gets stripped away. I bet with your help I can find what’s there, maybe we can finish this test together ,” she looked to John, as if asking for his consent. He only nodded, his mind was elsewhere, something she had said earlier bothered him. 

“Hey, random question, but what exactly is the Federation?” he asked, curious as to why there were two factions in the Gateway.

“When the Gateway was discovered the Council were a bunch of noble asshats sent by the monarchy to explore the Gateway, and they didn’t wanna let common people join them. The Federation was formed by those common people who still wanted to explore and thought that it shouldn’t be just nobility. We’ve been rivals ever since,” her tone was more serious, but still more lighthearted than anyone else John had met. 

“Why have you been so nice to me then?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I wanna get out of here, I don’t care who you are. Hell, I don’t really care about this whole Federation-Council business in the first place. Though I can’t say I like noble asshats either,” she laughed.

“I suppose that makes some sense.”

“Anyways, anything you wanna ask before we head out there? I need to show you some things, but that can wait.”

“There are a few things I’d like to ask, but I think I need to eat something first,” his stomach grumbled in agreement.

’I should be much worse off, guess I have Gamer’s Body to thank for that,’ thought John, happy he was starting to learn his new limits.

“Yeah, sure. Let me just cook something up. I think I owe you after that incident earlier. You can never be too safe in the Abyss though, you should remember that,” Orianna agreed, proceeding to the kitchen. Her hands pulled a few corpses of what looked like bats from the air behind her and she started to cut them. 

’That’s my first question right there,’ John thought and then asked, “where did you get those from?”

“Oh, right, guess you aren’t that familiar with this kind of stuff yet. It’s a sort of pocket dimension, a lot of people in the Gateway have these. Can be incredibly useful for storing things without needing to carry them, so it’s great for exploring. Though it is fairly Mana intensive. If you want it, there’s a spell book on one of the shelves here… Somewhere,” she happily explained, chuckling about the last part. 

“I don’t think I need it, I have a similar ability from my powers. But thanks regardless,” John said, curious about the implications such a thing would have.

“What even are your powers?”

“I’m not sure how best I can explain this. But basically, I have the powers of a video game character. I can level up, I have stats, and I get skills and other abilities. Stuff like that, if it makes any sense. I’m not really sure how popular video games are in the Abyss,” he answered, scratching the back of his head in slight embarrassment. It was true that he was indeed like a game character, and he was called the Gamer, but John didn’t know much else about how his powers worked.

“So you’re like an RPG character?”

“Basically, yeah. I was kind of expecting you to be confused about that part,” he laughed.

“News to me! We have video games too. Probably more advanced, they’re usually magic based, just like most our stuff-”

“You have magic based video games?” The Gamer’s interest was piqued by the idea.

“Yeah, we do, they’re pretty great. If you want, when we get the hell out of here, I’ll show you some of ‘em. But you wanted to ask me some questions first?” she now

“Yeah… I wanted to know what your powers were, and if you could give me a brief rundown of the basics of the Gateway and all that. Nobody really bothered to tell me anything.”

“Sure. My powers are life magic based, if you know what that means?”

“Not really?” John asked, confused.

“There are a bunch of categories of magic, I don’t remember all of them, but life magic has to do with living things. You know, plants, animals and the like. Humans too, which is how my powers work. I am a Biomancer, I think is the proper term. Basically, I infuse life force into my body to make it stronger,” she explained. Having almost completed her task of butchering the bat like creatures, one of her hands began to glow with a gold tinted green light. In just a second her movements turned from trained but rigid to fluid like John had never seen, “like that, for example,” her hands still glowing as she continued to work.

“Huh, that’s a pretty awesome set of powers. Does everyone in the Abyss have unique magic like that?”

“Most do, yeah. If I remember my last anatomy lessons right, everyone is born with an affinity for one type of magic, and you develop your own style of it based on your personality and psyche. I would be interested to hear which you are, if you know, at least?” she asked as she completed working on the creature’s meat and threw it into a pot along with various vegetables and herbs to make some kind of stew.

“Psychic, I think.”

“That’s a rare one, makes sense if the Council’s interested in you. Probably means you have a lot of potential. Guess I should call you by a title or something,” she spoke cheerfully, laughing. John’s only response was to join her. “anyways, about the Council and the like. I can’t really tell you much, I don’t follow the politics and I have been stuck here for three years. But I’ll tell you what I do know. The leader of the Council, I’m sure you’ve met her, goes by the name of Ingrid Bluespark. Bluespark’s the name of her house, it’s the one that’s been leading them for a couple hundred years. Got something to do with Psychic powers, I think. There are a few other houses, each one of them usually focuses on a specific type of magic or something of the sort. Some of them originate from noble houses from the real world, some got added later. That’s all I remember though, sorry.

“I can tell you a bit more about the Federation, but it’s also a lot more chaotic. There are a few major wings that centralized different parts of it. Like exploring, military forces and the like, but nothing much else. And I doubt the leaders have stayed the same since I’ve been gone. My superiors send me a message when someone’s coming, but they don’t bother to fill me in on much else. Guess they don’t think I’m ever gonna amount to much. But that’s enough of me blabbering about that though. I think this stew is done.”

“You sure about that? It’s only been a few minutes.”

“That’s one thing you still need to learn, John,” she said, seemingly naturally calling him by his name, “magic improves basically everything,” Orianna explained, pointing to the vapors John now noticed were coming from the pot in which the stew was being cooked.

A few minutes later, they sat down to eat at a small oak table that was also in the kitchen. The stew was surprisingly good, being made out of various plants and meats John could not and did not want to recognize. It tasted almost like beef stew, but he knew it really wasn’t. A popup also informed him of his regen boosts for eating after a few minutes, and that reminded him of something he should have done right away, use Observe on Orianna. First though, he wanted to prevent a repeat of what happened with Ingrid, so he asked her explicitly.

“So, I have this fairly simple scrying spell that’s one of the things I got from my powers. It’s called Observe, mind if I use it on you? It seems it’s bad manners to do that kind of thing without warning, which is why I wanted to ask,” John requested as politely as he could, stressed that maybe that wasn’t the best idea.

“Go ahead, I don’t really care. Not like I have anything to hide,” Orianna responded nonchalantly.

Happy that she agreed, John used Observe on her.