Day 4

--- Jon ---

Stealth training was -he’d discovered- an odd thing, even compared to the rest of his ma’s training regime. This was largely due to the fact that the training itself both did and did not actually have to do with what most people thought of when they heard the word ‘stealth’.

Something he hadn’t actually realized until Ying asked him for some tips, and he found out she thought that walking around in a crouch had something to do with practical stealth (for some really weird reason…)

In reality practiced stealth was the art of being inconspicuous, blending into the background enough that people wouldn’t notice you, being quiet enough that they couldn’t hear you over the surrounding noise, or skilled enough to do something without your target noticing.

What this meant was rather than trying to merely walk up on someone quietly in the middle of a city street -a relatively easy task given the noisiness of said city street- his mother instead wanted him to successfully pick-pocket her while she walked around the block crowded with people coming and going from work.

“You know I’d expect you to be better at this as quietly as your walking.” His ma told him as she grabbed his wrist in a vice. “Also, nice touch with the hat.”

“Yeah, I figured it might make it harder for you to notice me when I pass you by.” He explained taking the hat he’d bought at the corner store off. “Also, the fact that you’re expecting me to pickpocket you, makes it a lot harder to actually pull it off. Especially since I’m pretty sure you’d break the legs of anyone who bumped into you too hard in a crowd.”

“Fair points.” His ma admitted letting him go. “We’ve got time for another round if you want.”

“Sure, why not.” He shrugged, wishing he had a decent idea for a distraction so he could rob his mother.

(Still don’t get why Ying thought these exercises were so weird.)

Scene Consequences

-Gained 2XP to Stealth.

--Currently: Stealth Lv. 6 (2/14).

---

“Alright, it’s probably better to knock this out sooner than later.” He told Pix as he began setting a series of pots he’d bought along the windowsill of his room, before filling each one with dirt from a bag of soil he’d gotten at the same time.

Due to Miss Edna’s profession as a potion maker and enchantress, he’d picked up a number of skills from both. Particularly the one that had little to no chance of hurting him at his current skill level.

It was to this point that Miss Edna had given him a number of seeds for some of Blackwell’s more unique flora. The one’s that had in someway or another mutated from their more common cousins due to the overwhelming amount of magic that tended to saturate the forests of Blackwell, making them ideal for the more experimental potions Miss Edna had a preference towards.

Now if these were regular plants this would mean he’d have to spend the next three months tending to them before they’d reach a point he could harvest them. But as luck would have it, thanks to some odd fact of nature and magic he didn’t quite understand, most flora possessed an accelerated growth rate based on the amount of magic in their environment.

He was still trying to piece together Miss Edna and De Sade’s contrasting reasons for why the local flora hadn’t taken over the area completely. (Something to do with how fauna processes magic differently and all of the Malice Bleeds in the area…)

Regardless of the more complicated how’s and why’s, this meant that that seeds he had, were breed in such a way that they took half of the time it would take similar plants to reach their prime.

(And that’s before we bring up the fact that I have a fairy.) He thought with just a hint of pride. “Pix you mind doing your thing?”

The little fairy flew over from where she’d been busying herself eating a pastry he’d left out, and began circling all of the pots, leaving a trail of pixie dust over all of them, before going in for a much more active sweep as her hands began to glow.

After a few minutes of this treatment, and a glass of water to each pot, small green sprouts began to push their way out of the dirt.

With a satisfied nod at her work, Pix leapt into the air backing away from her project, only for him to have to reach out and catch her as she had trouble flying properly.

“You okay?” He asked with concern.

Pix glanced between her wings and the plants before nodding in a way that said even if she was fine physically, she was still more than a little troubled by something.

“Yeah, I’m guessing since there’s less magic to work with in the city, using it probably takes it out of you faster.” He told her as he adjusted her into a more comfortable position.

The little fairy nodded with a thoughtful frown, agreeing with him but not liking the implications.

“Look, don’t worry. It just means you’ll have to take it a bit easier until we work all of this out.” He tried to comfort her.

Pix nodded again, though this time she ended up leaning against him just a little listlessly.

(I guess since magic is a way of life for fairies this is a bigger problem for her than for me…) He was going to have to do something about that.

Scene Consequences

-Jon has set up a garden with a number of mystical plants that will be ready to harvest in a month or two.

-Thanks to Pix’s Assist, base garden time reduced from 45 to 40 days, without further modifiers or actions.

-Any day that Pix doesn’t perform an Assist, she will passively tend to garden further accelerating its growth.

A/N: This is one of those things that’s meant for long-term gains and can be upgraded to improve it in a number of ways. Once the garden is grown it’ll provide regular benefits in much shorter intervals.

-New Quest: Pix’s Power Shortage: Pix is getting depressed over the fact that she has to be so careful with her magic. Find a way to help her.

---

Setting Pix down after she’d begun to nod off, he decided to try going through Miss Edna’s books hoping one of them would possess something that could help the little fairy with her magical problems.

He was pretty sure De Sade’s books would have something too, but he was also pretty sure they’d involve killing things and stealing their magic. Something that left a bad taste in his mouth the last time he had to do that, and that he knew Pix wouldn’t approve of.

(Better to trust the more morally just mentor on this one.) Sometimes he wondered what it said that half of his mentors would make decent horror movie villains. (Nothing good probably…)

Shaking his head, he turned his attention back to the books on his floor.

Thanks to the fact that he was more of a kinetic learner than anything else, he’d always found his talent for magical research -or any research really- to be… abysmal, if there wasn’t someone there to help break it down for him.

Unfortunately, being that he was miles away from Blackwell this meant he was largely on his own, especially since he refused to bug others with a problem he could solve for himself if he was just a little smarter. (Which is probably half of the reason De Sade was actually okay giving me his contact information…)

What all of this meant was that even trawling his way through half a dozen books he’d made no notable progress towards his goal. In fact, the only progress he’d made was the fact that he’d maybe discovered a couple of things he could look into when he had more time.

First was Script-craft which was -as far as he could tell- similar to Enchanting, only instead of binding a passive effect to an object revolved around writing out the formula of a spell and then triggering it for a one use effect. Something he’d seen a few hints towards when he’d forced himself to read the extremely complicated beginner’s guide Miss Edna had given him over the course of the summer. (Who knows maybe the two can feed into each other…)

On it’s own this wouldn’t do much to help Pix, but if he could figure out a way to create a script specifically for passing magic on to another individual, something he figured possible due to a mention of healing scripts at higher levels.

The other possible solution provided something that based on what he could piece together would allow him to form a magical ‘Contract’ with another entity. These contracts could then be used for a number of effects including the transference of magical power, which -alongside binding agreements- was one if it’s primary purposes. (Which might explain why a couple of De Sade’s books talk about it too…)

If it wasn’t for the fact that it was one of Miss Edna’s books that had contained this information he may’ve been a lot warier of it. (Hell, De Sade’s books would probably tell me how to make a contract with hell.)

But regardless of which of these avenues he decided to pursue, he wasn’t going to be able to look into it just yet. At least not if he wanted to catch Garcia before she got off shift.

(Still, I have to do something…)

Scene Consequences

-Due to how many options Jon found, can now spend an action to learn basic Script Craft or Contracting from the Magic Menu.

---

Knowing that it was Garcia’s turn to patrol that day made it significantly easier to find her, given how often he’d run across her patrols he had already had a fairly solid idea of just what her patrol route through the neighborhood was.

This meant he had her jumping as he tapped on her window without noticing him.

“Gah! You almost gave me a heart attack!” She scowled at him before her expression softened into something a little more thoughtful. “Is something up?”

“Mm, yes and no.” He hedged, knowing that it wasn’t a problem for him directly it was something he was concerned about. “I’ve noticed something since I got back from camp, but I’m also pretty sure it’s not as a bad as I think it is.”

“What is it?” Garcia wondered with a touch of concern.

“No, it’s just since I got back I’ve been seeing a lot more gang activity in the neighborhood, and I know most of the gangs try -or at least tried- to stay away from our little neighborhood because of all the cops nearby.” He explained, hoping she’d have some answers. “Normally I’d ask my ma about this but, it might just be in my head since this is the first time I’ve been gone for a while since we came to town.”

“Okay, I can see why you’d be worried.” Garcia admitted with a grimace. “Go ahead and get in shotgun, this might take a minute.”

“Alright, so what is this about?” He asked once he’d gone around and slid into his seat.

“So, first off what do you know about the local gangs?” Garcia questioned as she pulled out of her parking spot.

“Street level?” He clarified, receiving a nod in return. “Well we’ve got three or so little gangs in this district each with about a hundred to two hundred members. First up would be, well they’re not a gang-gang but they’re called the Dealers. There a hodgepodge of drug dealers who have divvied up the area to keep from undercutting each other’s market, while also allowing them to buy in larger bulk from the cartels by splitting the price.”

“Then there’s the Tiger’s Den, the -I don’t want to say Asian, but they’re like eighty percent Asian- gang,” He word vomited, feeling just a little badly about saying it that way. “Despite being the smallest of the three also controls most of the district’s prostitution and money laundering. Though they may also have a deal with a mafia branch in one of the other districts for a larger trafficking ring.”

“Last would be, the Mad Dogs, who own the local fight clubs and can be considered the largest of the three, especially since they’re the local muscle for hire. These guys represent what make the street gangs dangerous, while they may each claim ‘territory’ the fact of the matter is they have no problem working together in their niche fields.” He finished summarizing everything he knew about his district’s gangs.

Garcia just blinked at him.

And not understanding the problem, he just blinked back.

“So, uh, does your mom read you crime reports to bed or something, chico?” Garcia asked with an awkward chuckle.

“Not since I was twelve.” He admitted.

Garcia blinked again, her eyes a little wider this time.

“Yes, I know I was bit old to have my ma reading me stories to sleep, but she spent so much time working… and it was, it was this whole thing.” He started rambling once the silence had begun to drag on.

“Okay, um, anyway!” Garcia cut him off before he could make things any more awkward. “Well, you know a lot more than I was expecting if I’m being honest.”

“Know your enemy and all that.” He shrugged.

“Right.” Garcia shook her head. “So, the increased gang presence? Yeah, um, since your mom ‘s apparently cleared you for a lot more than I was expecting. The reason they’re putting up a larger show of force than usual is because the three gangs have finally decided to unify into a single conglomerate or some shit like that.”

“So, this is a show of unity then?” He figured piecing several things together with that little bit of information. “This is all a way for the gangs to press out a bit, saying they’re all together now? Probably means it’ll calm down once they’ve run their high and realized nothing has changed, but that also mean all of their activity will up until they cross the point where the police or one of the local Masks has to make them back down. Which would explain why the local patrols have pretty much doubled.”

“Wow,” Garcia laughed with an impressed look. “Your mom just has you ready for that shield, doesn’t she?”

“What? No.” He frowned. “I’m actually thinking of going into childcare. You know like a teacher or something. Maybe pediatric nursing if I can get my grades up.”

“Oh.” Garcia blinked again. “Huh… I can see that.”

Scene Consequences

-Jon has learned more about the situation with the local gangs.

-Grown a bit closer to Garcia.