Chapter 9 (10): Back to school
Jennifer lifted her hand to cover her eyes from the sudden brightness. Her eyes adjusted to the light as she turned a corner. Her heart beat hard and fast in her chest. Woozle walked slightly ahead of her with Kevin in front of him. She brought up her menu. Rover was listed as gathering healing moss. On her power tray, a new power had appeared.
Anadromous: Activation on an item, cost- minor amount of mana will return the item to caster. Tiny cool down time. Like salmon, what goes away must come back.
She stopped in her tracks and reread the power description. She could not remember when or where she got the power, but in her heart, she knew this was important. Her mind drifted to the facts. Orca eat salmon, but the salmon returning home was told in old legends.
Something bumped into her leg, bringing her out of her thoughts. Looking down, both of her companions were giving her a tilted head look. “So, I have a power that can return used potion vials.”
Woozle scoffed, “Bah, we missed the show. Normally, the Devs like to make a show of these things. They must be behind in tickets or something. I bet it was Dea Tacita Cass, they do not want to be seen but could be around every corner. I guess we have one less thing to do kid, what’s next?”
Jennifer jogged beside Woozle on the route back to Bishop’s University. When she leveled she had three new powers to add to her growing collection. The first was taken up with her new return item power. It was just simpler for her to think of the power in terms of what it did rather than what it was called. The first power she selected came from her alchemy tree, craft stamina potion. The last power she had at this level was to upgrade her navigation trait. At this level she could start thinking about her future travel power. Always a pressure to decide now, for things that will affect her future.
Closing her eyes, she pictured the way she used to travel. She was always the passenger of something moving. There were times she was on trains, buses and cars. Pulling up her options for cars, she found the option was grayed out. Checking taxis she said that option was BANNED. In red letters. She liked the idea of using a train for travel, but decided against it. The travel powers were for her, and Woozle. She saw the options for Superspeed, Teleportation, and flight. She liked the idea of flight, but unsure how that would work.
Mentally flipping through the flight options, she saw jet packs, wings, and even planes. None of those suited her, she wanted something she would be able to get from point A to point B. A plane was just not an everyday mode of transit for her. If only there was a car version of an airship.
The search for a suitable power did come up with something. Her eyes shot open.
Personal airship. At this level the only option was Flight Navigation, a passive skill that would also synergize with her navigation trait. Her ability to not get lost would improve by fifty percent. Looking at the powers in this tree. At level fourteen there was a power called Falling with style - Falling is the easy part, the ground not so much. It was not until level twenty eight she would be able to fly an airship.
She wanted something like a canoe with a hot air balloon above it.
She tested her new abilities. The power added a fish head, tail, and fins to whatever item she wanted to return to her.
The craft stamina potion came with a couple of downsides. Drinking one stamina potion recovered half the cost of making it. So, having one on hand would greatly aid her in times of need but could not be created in the moment she needed one. The second downside was that she was only able to carry two stamina potions at a time in her inventory. If she had access to all of the slots it would bring her total potion count up to a total of six.
The return item power was low mana use, but the longer the distance the higher the mana use. The items looked pretty on the return trip and always landed neatly in Jennifer's hand.
The navigation skill was always on. Although it did not consume any mana or stamina, having it constantly running did lower her stamina recharge speed, but unless she was tracking that bar, she would not notice.
She smiled and felt good about her choice. With the paper raid coming up, she knew the return item power would come in handy.
Jennifer jogged back to the university at a pace that did not consume much stamina over time. She was trying to make up for lost time. Running faster would cause her stamina to drop to a point she needed a longer break. The pace she was at allowed a constant speed. Kevin loped alongside her with his tongue hanging out, making him seem happy. The wolf could probably run much faster. Four legs seemed like they would just be faster, but she needed to conserve her stamina.
Woozle stayed neck and neck with Kevin while not using his jets and showing no sign of running out of stamina.
Jennifer's spider was nowhere to be seen, but he had a teleport power with his trapdoor ability and could return if she needed him or when he wanted to come back.
The group reached the school rather quickly. Opening her mini map, she was able to quickly navigate to the dean's office.
She opened the door to the office. “Hi!” she yelled. She turned in the mayor's letter of recommendation to the dean hologram who read aloud, “Dear person, Jennifer is good, and I recommend her. Signed the mayor.” The dean was clearly not impressed, giving Jennifer an eyebrow raised glare. But the letter of recommendation was a letter of recommendation.
Jennifer looked back at the dean and smiled.
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“And the next letter?”
“Oh, I am working on that.” She looked down.
“You could have waited until you had all three.”
She left the office, without another word. Closing the door behind her, she promised the next time she would have all three.
Jennifer spoke to her empty shoulder, “Okay, my little spider. Can you get your grandmother to come out?”
A trapdoor appeared on her shoulder, and Rover scurried out. The arachnid jumped to the ground and ran off only to disappear behind a grandfather clock. Jennifer sat on a nearby bench to wait.
The dean came out of his office. She could not tell where the light of the hologram was coming from as the transparent blue man walked towards her, giving her a more questioning eyebrow raise. Weighing her options, she decided to ask, “Do you have other appointments?”
The head of the school quickly looked down and brought up a holographic calendar. It was empty and blinked off. Lifting his head back to Jennifer. He asked, “So, why take classes, when you can have power and skills added with quests?”
“I want to learn. I want to learn how to make the world a better place. Power may help me make the world a better place, but knowledge will keep me from making the same mistakes others have made.”
“So, you can blow up the beehive, but you want to learn to move the beehive?” the dean asked.
She blinked slowly at the university’s top person, not fully understanding the reference.
“This school was put here as a point of access for fragments. And as a possible school for parallels to attend when in-person classes from their own world weren’t possible or when it made more sense to attend virtually.” The dean seemed saddened at the lack of the need of the school. “This school has been so ill used. There is a goblin colony here now. The last time it was used was during one of our connected Earth's regularly scheduled plagues. Even though I miss having full classrooms, hoping for another plague just seems wrong.”
She wanted to point out how the dean did not have an immune system. Changing course, she asked, “Why not teach the goblins?”
The Dean burst out laughing.
“Why not teach the illiterate, unwashed, cannibal, green skins.” He laughed and said, “I don’t think they even know not to soil the land they live on.”
She eyed the dean. She was going to see the goblins for herself before accepting the judgment. Since she did not remember if goblins were real in her world, and having only ever met three, she did not know if what he said was true or not.
“When the school was running, I gave out quests to kill mammoths. The goblin’s main food source. Every dead mammoth equals ten goblins gone,” the dean said with a chuckle.
Jennifer got up, went back into the dean’s office, and unplugged him. “That’s better.” She looked at her companions through the door, who were both napping in the hallway near the bench she had been sitting on. Looking around the dean’s office for something to do, she read the names of the books on the shelves.
She eventually found a book with an interesting title, pulled it off the shelf, and went back to the bench to read it. The book was called, “Classical Guide to Sociology.” On the cover was an old man in traveling leathers sitting by a river. After opening the book, Jennifer discovered that this world also had phone books.
The book had a good title and a good cover, but it was just window dressing for an office. “Never trust the cover of the book.”
“Those are good words. My grandson said you wished to speak to me?” the giant armored trapdoor spider said from on the ceiling.
Jennifer squeaked in surprise. “How could something so big be so stealthy?”
Kevin was up in an instant, jumping between Jennifer and the giant spider, barking.
Kevin's heart was in the right place at least. Woozle had only swiveled his head to look at the source of the noise. She reached out her hand to pet and sooth the great beast.
“Kevin, this is my pet spider's grandmother. She’s not a threat.” She made sure her voice was calm but loud. Kevin went from loud barking to low growling.
“Kevin, this is a friend. Friend.” She put emphasis on the second friend. Kevin stopped growling, but he did not relax his stance.
Jennifer took this as a sign to continue her conversation with the older spider. “So, your grandson asked me to cast mend on him. I don’t know if that will hurt or help him.”
“Speaking human already. What a smart boy he is.” The grandmother spoke with affection.
“He is. He laid a trap that helped our adventuring group greatly.” Jennifer turned to see Woozle, who only raised his head to yawn then went back to his nap.
“Hmm, mend. What are your classes again?” The monstrous arachnoid asked.
“Techno-Necromancer-Alchemist. I have the navigation, mend, and can return items.” She counted off on her fingers.
“And you are at least partly organic?” A note in the spider’s voice that told Jennifer the eight-legger was trying to be polite.
She hesitated, for several heart beats. A few days ago, she would have said she was fully organic. Looking at her hands, she remembered how there were wires that moved under their own power. “I’m not sure.”
The giant armored spider paused for a moment, then bobbed her body in an approximate nod. “May I bite your hand?”
Her head jerked up in surprise, “Wait, what?”
That, in turn, caused Kevin to growl again.
Jennifer knelt down beside Kevin, soothing the beast once more. When Jennifer touched him for calming pets. He took a deep sniff but continued to watch the giant armored spider. After a few pets, Kevin seemed less nervous but never let down his guard.
“Why do you want to bite me?” She had run through the question in her mind a few times, not finding an obvious reason.
The giant spider answered in a caring tone that only grandmother could use, “To see the color of your blood, dear.”
Woozle added his voice to the conversation from under the bench. “So, if it’s red, she’s human with bits of the system. If it is black or green, she is not?”
Jennifer wanted answers, so she held out her hand to the giant armored spider that could easily take her arm off. She was unable to meet the spider’s eyes with her own. The legs of the spider alone were menacing. Smaller spiders legs had small hairs. On a giant version, there were more spikes. If this one stepped on her accidentally, it would be like having a car drive over her foot.
Jennifer looked at her pet spider as a way to both distract herself and to remind herself of the missing spider leg. Spiders should have eight not seven. Jennifer felt her brows coming together, standing straighter with her hand reaching out firmly towards the mandibles of the spider. She never saw the pointy bit coming but felt a pinch on her hand. Looking back, she saw a red line of blood dripping down onto the ground.
Jennifer kept herself from screaming. The larger spider was fast and powerful. That, coupled with the sight of her own blood, made her heart pound. She looked at her log and status bars.
You have been bitten by a Giant Armour Spider for 5 piercing damage.