“Doesn’t any of this bother you,” Matthew asked curiously, pointing towards the large pile of dead gibberlings which they were now working their way arounds.

“It does,” Rebecca told him, “but I’m trying not to let it. It’s the world we’re in now, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Would curling up, crying, and pulling my hair out while I had a nervous breakdown accomplish anything for us? Fretting over it doesn’t go any good at all,” she reasoned, before whispering quietly, “but I’ll probably have to deal with it later, if we ever get out of this immediate mess.”

Smiling sadly, Matthew gently squeezed the arm that was interlocked with his. He had to admit, he understood what she was feeling all too well. It was just a year ago when he started playing the game, and there were a lot of times where he simply had to bottle up his emotions and sit them aside until he could deal with them later. Honestly, Matthew didn’t think a lot of people were strong enough to do such a thing, and the fact that she was made him smile lightly to himself. She might not have been his initial choice for a companion, but it didn’t mean she was the wrong one.

As they got to the classroom, Rebecca finally pulled her arm free from his and hesitantly eased in first. A slight gasp escaped her and a few tears trickled silently out of the corner of her eyes as she stared for a few moments at the corpses in the room. “That’s Becky DeHart,” she whispered softly under her voice, as she half pointed to one of the girls who laid bloody and unmoving in the second row. “Her mom Betty is friends with mine. We grew up together.”

“And that’s Charlie Wilson at the back of the room.” Her voice was barely audible and she trembled noticeably as she stared back where the body was. “I always thought he was a jackass, and even told him to drop dead and die a few times, but he didn’t deserve this.” With an obvious effort of will, she turned her head away and started to scan the floor near the door.

“What are you doing?” Matthew asked gently. “We don’t have to be in here, you know. We should just head out and either get out of here now, or else head back to the auditorium like we’d first planned. You don’t need to stay in here and see this.”

“It’s fine. I’m fine,” Rebecca lied. “I’m looking for my stuff. Everything’s such a mess, I can’t find my purse, and it should be right here somewhere. I left it at my desk here when I led you out this morning.”

Frowning, Matthew asked gently, “Do you really need it?” Softly, he reached out and tugged gently on her arm to try and pull her away. With a shrug of her shoulders, Rebecca ignored his touch and kept staring down at the floor. “I... I can’t find it.” Barely audible, she hung her head and trembled even harder.

“I’ll find it,” Matthew promised, as he grabbed her shoulder and tugged more insistently, pulling her to the door. “You wait out here.” When he finally let go of her, Rebecca slowly sunk down and sat on her knees and cried.

Sighing, Matthew walked back into the classroom and began to shuffle through the mess that the classroom had turned into. He’d thought that she was holding up so well, and compartmentalizing everything, but it seems that seeing one of her close friends dead, it was just too much for her. Frowning, Matthew had to admit, he really couldn’t blame her – things had been incredibly difficult for him, and he didn’t have to deal with the shock of everything else in his life falling apart and his friends and family dying, when he joined the game. If he was in her shoes, he wasn’t certain if he would’ve faired any better back then.

Finding a pocket book, he tugged it out of the mess and laid it on top of a nearby desk, before looking for another one. He’d only been in the classroom for a few moments, and he really didn’t know Rebecca from before that morning, so he had no idea which pocketbook might actually be hers, and he didn’t want to have to cause her any more anguish than needed. Best to just grab every damn pocketbook in the classroom and then she could pick hers out of the lineup, rather than to bring them out one at a time and leave her thinking about whichever dead girl they belonged to.

Spending several minutes, Matthew dug through all the overturned chairs and scattered debris, and gathered every purse, handbag, pocketbook, backpack, or duffle bag he could find. Feeling rather proud of his search skills, he grabbed the handles of several in each hand, and walked out into the hall so Rebecca could pick hers out – only to stop and drop them all as his mouth slowly opened wide and he stared at the sight before him.

Rebecca was once again out in the middle of the hallway, once again dancing slowly, lost in her own little world. A gray, somber mist whirled itself around her; her steps a slow mournful shimmy that instantly tugged at his own heart and put tears in the corners of his eyes. The tug of magic was palpable in the air, and Matthew knew from experience that she was the cause of it all.

Stopping a wizard when they were in the middle of a casting a spell could sometimes have drastic, unforeseen results – sometimes warping the magic, sometimes harming the wizard, and even in the most extreme cases burning out their talent so they could never use magic again – and that wasn’t something Matthew was willing to risk with Rebecca. Still though, the longer he stood and stared, the stronger the sorrowful depression inside him was growing, and he couldn’t allow himself to exposed to such a dangerous mood altering effect any longer. With a grunt of effort, he tore his gaze away from Rebecca and tossed the purses and bags down on the ground before retreating back into the classroom and shutting the door behind him.

Panting, he wiped at the sweat which was beginning to bead on his forehead and flopped down in one of the chairs that he’d straightened up. “What the hell was that?” Muttering to himself, Matthew tried to sort out what he’d just experienced. Emotion magic was rare from what he understood, but it wasn’t impossible that a person would encounter it in the game. In fact, it was stories of some of the emotion-altering creatures that had made him want to acquire a partner of the opposite sex that he could indulge his passions with. Sirens, nymphs, dryads, succubi – there was a whole list of creatures which tried to lure a horny guy to his doom.

But to think that a spelldancer could work such powerful magic?! And at such a low level too! Matthew’s mind boggled at the possibility of how dangerous such a power could be, in the right circumstances. The dance he’d just witnessed was a dance which had just about caused him to collapse, curl up, and cry – and there were several levels difference between the two of them! There was the very strong likelihood that anyone near her level would just crumple and be a quivering mess if they saw her – and Matthew suspected that any NPC who witnessed her performance out there would probably end up committing suicide!

Revising his opinion considerably, Matthew decided that dancers – or at least spelldancers – could be a very terrible opponent to face!

And, the worst part was, he wasn’t even certain how long she was going to be out there like that. Frowning, not liking the uncertainty, Matthew rubbed his ring to open his dimensional storage and then got up and started looting everything in the room. The bags and purses he hadn’t carried outside, he tossed into the hole. The two bodies, he stripped of everything valuable – the boy’s watch, wallet, keys; the girl’s earrings, ring, and bracelet – and then he stripped them of everything else. Socks. Shoes. Pants. Underwear. It didn’t matter to Matthew, as he was really just looking for an excuse to pass time. By the time he was finished, both bodies were as naked as the day they’d been born.

Glancing around and not seeing anything else of interest to toss into his bag, Matthew slowly made his way to the door and hesitantly cracked it open. Closing his eyes, he leaned up and sniffed at the air though the crack, seeing if he could smell or feel that slight electric tingle which said magic was still being used in the vicinity. No sensing anything out of the usual, he cracked the door open a little further and hesitantly stuck his head out, ready to jerk back at the first sign of trouble.

After a quick glance, Matthew finally pushed the door open and walked out. Across the hall, Rebecca had collapsed and was lying in a heap, not moving. “Mana exhaustion, idiot.” Snorting to himself in half disgust, half relief, Matthew took a moment to gather up all the bags and packs which he’d left lying in the hall. Rubbing his ring after, he eased over and slowly picked Rebecca up.

“Dumbass. You can’t work magic endlessly, no matter what.” Even though his words were harsh, Matthew held her gently in his arms as he stared down at her unconscious form. “Everyone and everything has their limits – even the gods. You’ve overdid it, and now you’ve ruined my plans. If you think the school sucks now, just wait until we come back in a few days.”

Taking a deep breath, he pulled in his own magic and then released it, saying the simple word “RETURN”, as he did so. A moment later, the hallway was empty, except for the slowly decaying corpses which were left behind to rot on their own.