Creatively [Izix]

Hi I'm TheDespaxas, presenting to you a new branch by Izix. The usual thing applies (less usual if this is the first non-me branch that you read), things and the way they work will vary from author to author. I read the beginning of this branch to review it and it seems interesting, can't wait to see how it goes further. Good reading, everyone.

John racked his brain as to how he could get something to eat before having to catch the bus, his eyes lingering on the inventory screen that kept following him about. Then it hit him. He casually walked up to the fridge, opening it while casually chatting with his mother. The fridge was not very well stocked: there were a few slices of ham, some cheese and some leftover Thai food they had had a few days ago. He considered taking those, but A, that would look strange later during lunch, and B, his stomach did a preemptive roll at the thought of having to eat cold, three day old thai food. Looking over his shoulder to see his mother tapping at her phone, he quickly grabbed the slices of ham and the cheese and tried to put them into his inventory screen. The cheese alone took up one inventory slot while the three slices of ham together took up a single one as well.

"So stacks are a thing," he mumbled as he closed the fridge.

His mother looked up from her cell phone with a smile. "What was that, honey?"

John, mentally kicking himself for speaking out loud, scrambled to find an excuse. "Oh, nothing, I was thinking out loud about this problem I faced in a game yesterday." Before he could dig the hole any deeper, however, his mom held up her hand.

"Lost me already, don't bother explaining," a wink accompanied that statement, getting John to sigh in relief. His mom returned to looking at her cell phone as he walked up to the toaster, seeing a few slices of yet to be toasted bread. John quickly tossed them into his inventory too, thinking that a ham sandwich and some cheese would be better at least than going hungry through lunch.

After packing his lunch, his mom looked at the clock. "Now, John, time to go, the bus will be here any second now," she said in her motherly tone, the one she tended to use when giving advice, wanted or otherwise. John gave a quick nod, walking up to her, pecking her on the cheek, and a few moments later he was running to the bus stop with his backpack slung over his shoulder.

When he arrived at the stop, slightly out of breath and mentally cursing his bad endurance, he saw the bus coming around the street corner. When he got on, after getting a dirty look from the middle-aged driver, obviously not the kind of person that enjoyed working with kids, he saw that there were just a few empty seats left. As he approached a few, the people sitting next to said seats put great effort into placing their bags or feet on the seats. He sighed, they got their point across quite clearly. Those seats were taken. With another sigh, John trudged to one of the two benches with no one on it. He knew who would be sitting on the front seats: a duo that would get picked up at the next stop, so he sat down on the bench behind it.

John had just sat down when the two biggest causes of torment in his life got onto the bus: Vanessa Hawthorne and her pet ogre. Correction, boyfriend, Frank. John decided to cast observe at them, getting prompted with two screens as well as a small notification.

With that, he saw that people now also had a bar above their heads ranging from -200 to +200 with Frank having a solid -102 and Vanessa a whopping -150 above her head. ‘What did I ever do to those two?’ he thought as he tried his hardest not to be noticed. Call it luck, call it something else, but the two were too busy talking about something to notice their favorite bullying target sitting behind them.

During the rest of the trip, John made an effort to cast observe on a few more people, seeing that the general opinion of people around him hovered between -10 and + 10; people didn't particularly like him, but they did not hate him either. He was just... there, according to most people at least.

Ten minutes later, the bus pulled up at the school, and people started to pile out, trying to beat one another to the exit, at the front of them Vanessa and Frank with Frank blocking the people behind them while Vanessa, head held high, walked out of the bus like she owned the place. John took a deep breath of relief as yet another window popped up in front of him. He grabbed his bag and looked at it while simultaneously getting up and getting in line to exit the big yellow vehicle.

‘So, I get skills by performing certain actions? Good to know!’ John thought, only to find his eyes drawn to the ludicrous mana cost. ‘10 mana per target? Just trying to avoid Frank and Vanessa set me back a third of my entire mana pool!’ he cursed internally. John continued to grumble as he made his way to his locker to put the books he would need after lunch into the small metal box the school gave their students. After making sure it was properly locked, he looked at the clock, showing that it was almost time for class to start, so, with a healthy dose of aversion, John made his way to the first class of the day. Literature.

Literature was one of the classes that John dreaded. While it was not an inherently bad class, it was just one of those classes you sat around in, doing nothing and pretending to pay attention until a teacher called your name and you had to scramble to find out where you were in the book the class was to read out loud, one by one, that day. It did not help that it was given by one of the oldest, plainest teachers on campus. Mrs. Flung. A 60 something looking woman that seemed to have only one color of clothing in her wardrobe: gray.

Mrs. Flung opened the door five minutes before the bell rang, letting the class waiting outside in for their first lesson of the day. John made his way to a seat near the back of the room, not all the way back, the place that teachers tended to pay extra attention to, but far enough not to be in direct line of sight. With a mental command, John once more opened his character sheet, looking at his stats while he reached into his backpack to get the book they were reading that week. 'Gulliver's Travels.' Something something, giant in land full of little people. At least, that's as far as he could remember from that lame flick with Jack Black; granted, he was a good musician, but acting was clearly not his thing.

A few minutes passed and the bell rang, indicating the start of class. Looking at his mana, John pondered if he should cast camouflage at Mrs. Flung; he hoped it would give him some time to process what had happened to him, his life, or if he had just gone insane. As her slow voice started talking about the meaning behind the little people in the story was when John thought to hell with it and pointed his finger at the teacher as stealthily as he could, mumbling: "Camouflage." Showing him that his cast was successful, John saw his mana drain to a measly 7 points and the exp bar for camouflage crawl forward slightly.

John sighed, something he found himself doing a lot since this morning, and decided to see what he could do with his stats, hoping that camouflage would save him from being made to read out loud today. ‘Ok, so I woke up this morning, then what happened?’ he thought. ‘I got a quest, took a shower, fapped, got rewarded for that, and then I went to school. I got a skill for hiding from Frank and Vanessa, which means that I get powers by doing things. Would this mean that if I, let’s say, gain enough experience or do enough quests I could gain a level? Do I get stat points? What do my stats even do!?’ He felt like someone had dropped him in a game without letting him play the tutorial. Fear, anxiety rising. ‘No! I don't have to fear this. I have done this many times before. First look at the basics, John’ He took a deep breath, calming his nerves, focusing on the things he knew. Only to get a pop-up springing up a moment later.

Achievement unlocked: Fear is the path to the dark side
Use rational thought to calm yourself, no use losing yourself in emotions just yet!
Wisdom +1

‘Someone thinks they are clever,’ he thought as he resisted the urge to facepalm. He dismissed the pop up with a wave of his fingers, seeing that his wisdom had indeed gone up by 1. ‘So there are quests, achievements and stats. As well as an inventory system and skills,’ he recapped once more. ‘Now to see what those stats actually do.’

He fiddled about with his character screen, trying to tap at it, but nothing happened, then he stared intently at the words, nothing once more. He was about to give up when he had one last thought. He held his finger in place over one of the stats, seconds ticked by, then a new pop up appeared above the strength stat. "So that's how it works," he mumbled to himself, looking around skittishly to make sure no one heard him or looked at him, before he began to read the pop up.

Strength: Strength indicates muscular strength, the ability to carry a certain amount of weight as well as increasing the power of one's body. Damage with melee weapons is dependent on strength. Health regeneration goes up along with the strength stat as well.

Knowing how it worked, John was soon able to read all the stat descriptions.

Agility: Agility shows the nimbleness and/or dexterity of a person; it also slightly increases the speed while running. Most ranged weapons depend on agility for both correct handling as well as damage calculation.

Endurance: The ability to take a hit. The higher your endurance is, the higher your health shall become. Endurance also increases the amount of time you can actively do physical activities without getting fatigued.

Intellect: A basic measure of smartness, the higher one's intellect, the higher one's thinking capacity; it increases one's ability to logically approach problems as well as the power of deduction. Your total mana is dependent on your intellect.

Wisdom: Where Intellect works towards improving your thinking capability, wisdom is there to help you put said capability to use. As the saying goes, intellect is knowing a tomato is a fruit, wisdom is not putting a tomato in your fruit salad. Mana regeneration is mainly dependent on your wisdom stat.

Charisma: Likability. The higher your charisma is, the more likely people that don't know you will be to help you out. As people get to know you, Charisma will play a smaller and smaller role in the way they see you.

Libido: Sexdrive, one of humanity's most primal desires. As libido increases, your recharge time will shorten as well as the times you can cum before shooting nothing but air. Sensitivity of erogenous zones also depends on the libido stat.

Health: A numeric value that indicates the points of damage you can take before you die. Let this drop to 0 and it's game over. When health is not at 0, it will recharge over time slowly; this can be sped up with certain items and/or elixirs.

Mana: A numeric value that indicates the amount of magic you can use. Mana recharges over time or can be replenished with certain items/elixirs.

John rubbed his eyes, taking it all in, thinking it over when another pop up appeared in front of him.

Achievement unlocked: Off to a good start.

You managed to figure out one of the secrets of your new powers, congratulations.

+ $5,00

John just sighed, feeling a minor headache coming up; while it did answer a few questions, it left him with many more unanswered.