“Saturday’s so soon!”

Brenda beamed at her son.

The look she was giving him made the gamer flush uncomfortably, stammering a little. “Y-yeah. Just a couple days, I guess. But it’s just coffee.”

She rolled her eyes and half sighed as she spoke, “It’s never just coffee, John.” She paused, smirking as she looked him over. “You’ll see.” At that she turned and started tidying up the kitchen after dinner. Seeing the opportunity to slip away, John slid out of his chair and snuck off to the sanctuary of his room.

With his door securely locked, John flopped onto his messy bed face down with a groan. He was more worn out now than he’d felt before dinner. ’I guess I can finish the yard work tomorrow…’ With effort, he rolled onto his back and kicked off his shoes, unzipping his jeans to work them off, too.

Finally comfortable, he stared at the ceiling a moment before he could gather enough energy to get up and trudge to his computer. He mulled over his plans for the next day, meeting back up with Emily and wondering if he’ll have to fight with Chester. “Though, now that I think about it,” John mumbled to himself as his Globe of Fightcraft session loaded, “it wasn’t really aggressive, I was more just startled by it. Maybe it’s another quest?”

The gamer jumped when a window popped up before his eyes with a loud ding.

Reward a quest with another quest? Good idea. I’ll steal that.

“Well, good to know that the Goddess that gave me my powers isn’t inherently cruel. Though I should be careful about giving her ideas like that.” Chuckling to himself as he closed the window and logged into his main, John settled into a night of fetch quests for his guild, idly wondering if he might run into April online.

He was a few hours in, nearly done with the weekly tasks assigned to him, when he noticed a friend request from someone named “Snowball.” The image of April’s Observe screen popped up in his mind.

’Aah. I guess that’s why it was her title. Maybe that makes a difference.’

A glance at his own screenname made the gamer frown. ’Maybe not.’

He turned in his loot, excited for a chance to play with April already, but when he accepted the friend request, he saw she was already offline, as if she’d just logged in to send the request and hopped off. Disappointed, he logged out and shut off his system, not really feeling like staying up all night playing alone. He never really noticed it before, but it felt lackluster when he played solo now. The glimmer of hope John had of joining April online in the future made him smile as he pushed away from his desk and pulled off his shirt before collapsing back into bed, now drained.

John felt like he’d only just closed his eyes when he was woken by a loud ding that repeated relentlessly every few seconds. He blearily reached for his phone, groping at it without opening his eyes while the noise started to drive him mad.

Grumbling, he rolled over, finally blinking away the sleep to look at the offending device. Glaring at his screen, he remembered that he’d canceled his alarm while he was excused from school for the week. Vision clearing, rubbing his eyes, he saw a popup that was the actual source of the alert.

“It’s only seven, goddamn it!”

Goddess.

“Oh, fuck off.”

New Quest: Playtime with Chester
Interact with Chester the Mimic.
Reward: 50xp, $42.00
Accept Refuse

He clicked accept with a snort at the ease of the daily mission. “You’re not going to trick me again like the one with Frank, right?” John half said to the room, not expecting a response as he kicked away his blanket and rolled out of bed. The house was silent as he ran his hands through his hair. ’Mom could be working, I guess…’ His joints popped a bit as he stretched and, grabbing his phone, left his room in just his boxers.

Brenda had left him a message on the countertop hoping he felt better today and he sent her a reassuring text before ducking into the hot water to continue his daily routine.

The gamer was half-hard in the shower, the water rinsing his cum off the wall when he heard his phone ringing. It took some scrambling, but he managed to rinse, shut off the water, and dry himself enough to answer it, though his “hello” was more a gasp than a word.

“Hi, uh, is John there? I think I dialed right…” He’d recognize that voice anywhere, though the phone didn’t do it justice. Tala had finally called.

“Tala! Yeah, it’s, uh, me. I’ve missed you,” John practically sighed the words, his smile obvious in his voice, even to him.

There was a pout in hers when she answered, “You didn’t come see me. I was worried something bad happened.” She took a deep breath and his heart ached. “How are you doing? Have you gone to see Des yet?”

“Uh, no, not yet. And I meant to come by, but I’ve been running a fever and wasn’t sure I was… going to be able to find you.” The new lycan’s excuses sounded lame and he cringed, waiting for her to call him out on forgetting his promise to visit.

“What’s your temp?” She paused as he told her, then giggled. “You’re not running a fever, silly. That’s normal for a Lycan. It’s worse after you start to change, but gets better once you’ve fully shifted, not that it’ll ever really get back to human numbers. Have you shifted yet?”

There were voices in the background on her end but Tala didn’t seem bothered by her audience. ’Right, the only phone is in the pack house…’ “Uh, yeah, actually, I have. I think, at least.” He paused, frowning to himself. “I don’t remember much of it, but I made a friend and she helped me work through it.”

“That’s great! Another friend and you’ve shifted… Oh! That means we can train together now, at least a little. Come see me! Today, I insist. I’ll wait by the bench for you!”

She didn’t let him get a word in before she hung up the phone. John stared at his refurbished device and chuckled. ’At least she doesn’t seem the jealous type. She did say she wouldn’t be too clingy… Not that I’d mind if she was.’ He paused a moment, ’That was… a deeper voice than usual. Odd.’ Shaking his head, the gamer quickly added the contact to his phone and went to get dressed, realizing he’d have a busy day today. Luckily, his mom was at work so she wouldn’t notice he’d be gone all day as long as he beat her back home.