John Moore, 25 year-old librarian

I grab my phone under my desk, ready to pass some time as I glance around the library one last time.

Nope, nobody’s here. I can relax a little.

I look at my bright screen, ready to launch a game, but something catches my attention. A new icon that has no right being here, is showing on my menu, right next to my browser.

Did this shitty phone just install some bloatware without asking me?

I hold my finger on the app icon to open it’s context menu and uninstall it, but it simply opens instead.

Before I can process what’s happening, an info box display information.

Quest Master : John
Surname : Moore
Gender: Male
Age : 25

Level 1 (0 / 10 xp)
Class : None
Perks : None
Perk Points : 0

Okay that’s creepy, this app just took my info from my phone.
I look around the pretty simple UI, looking for a way to remove my info from the app, but all I find is a pen icon, which displays a popup as I click on it.
Impossible to modify profile without the Character editor I perk.

I have no idea what this actually means, but I feel like the app might be some kind of rpg game. I take a look at the UI in more details, it’s actually made of multiple tabs:

• QuestMaster
• Targets
• PerkTree

Since I was already on the QuestMaster tab, I swap to Targets.

No target added, please press Add Target to use a slot. You have 3 slots remaining.

I tap the PerkTree tab, curious to see what it would look like. It is actually pretty big, a large tree of “upgrades” costing different number of perk points to unlock. I notice a few are already unlocked and as I tap on them, I can read further descriptions.

Quest Designer I : Allows the creation of basic one step quests.

Recommended Reward I : Create a recommended reward for basic quests.

“Playing instead of working again?” I jump a little and turn off my phone.

Looking up I can see the unexpressive face of Maria, my co-worker. I let out a sigh of relief at the idea of avoiding being talked down by my boss again.

Maria is a pretty woman, slightly older than me. She has curly black hair that fall down to her shoulders, and a very thin body that makes her look like she could pass out at any point.
Actually, we got invited to a bar not far from here when I joined, and after a few drinks she told me about her trouble with eating properly, and skipping meals too often. She never opened up again, I think she’s hiding her feelings all the time because I never saw her smile and she doesn’t talk about herself.

“Y-yeah sorry, didn’t mean to bail on you, but I thought you were on a break.” I answer, trying to deflect her rightful accusations.

“Nah, I was in the back opening up the box, can you go put them in?”

“Sure, I’ll get to it.” I say as I slide my phone in my pocket and stand up. She takes my spot without another word, and opens a book while waiting on customers.

I take the full box, and start moving around the different aisles, trying to put the new books where they belong. At some point I hear a ringing, meaning someone arrived. It is late in the afternoon now, and classes must have ended. I keep working as the library fills up with students.

“Come on babe, do we really need to come here?

• I told you I had exams coming up and you said you wanted to spend time with me! So don’t make this difficult.
• Fine, but next time, we study at home.
• So you can distract me again? No way, if you don’t want to come, I’ll just study alone.”

I hear a couple flirting at a table not far, and I try to ignore them, searching for the right shelves. But as I turn back, I’m face to face with a woman I’ve seen before. Actually, face to chest because she’s severely shorter than me. She has blonde hair in a bob cut, and is wearing a simple shirt with a skirt, and a small vest. I remember her, as she comes here to study at least once a week. I’ll admit I had a bias about her, to me she looked more appropriate at parties that at a library, but I was wrong, and she kept coming here to study once in a while.

She seems slightly shocked, surely by my abrupt movement, and she does take a few steps back while looking at me in full.

“Hum, excuse me miss, I didn’t watch where I was going.” I try to leave it here, but someone comes up behind her.

“What’s up Babe…” The man frowns as he sees my face. And I frown in return when I see his.

“John… What the hell are you doing here?” He asks, ready to blow up on me as he always did.

“I-I… I’m working here.” I say as I point at my employee badge.

He looks at it and snirks.

“Heh, I guess nobody really expected more from you anyway.” He smiles like an asshole, but stops his smile when the girl glares at him.

“I can’t even talk with an old friend?” He asks sarcastically as she sighs.

“Glad to know you’re still a loser John. Maybe you should try to find a real job someday.” He says as he grabs the girl by the back and pull her back to their table.

I want to say something back, but I stop myself. He’s not worth it. I repeat in my head, to cope with the feelings of inadequacy.

I didn’t know Brad was in town, which means he must have found a job here. I would have loved to never see him again, but I guess things don’t always go right. He was always kind of an asshole, berating me whenever he could at school, but I guess his bullying never got physical at least. The worst part is that I don’t know why he started harassing me in the first place, I wasn’t particularly bad looking, I had a few friends, and we never really interacted. But one day he just blew up on me, and he kind of never stopped until the end of college.

An hour or so later, he and the girl he came with left, and I cleaned the desk.

“John! Is everything ready for closure yet?

• Yes, mr.Newman.” I answer as my boss looks at his plastic watch.

“Good, you can go then, I already sent Maria away a few minutes ago. See you tomorrow.”

I nod and leave the building.

I’d like to say I have an active social life after work, but I just go home most of the time, even if I wasn’t tired after work, there isn’t much you can do in town if you aren’t ready to spend money. I just take my cheap car, and drive home to my small apartment.

“Matt I’m back, did you have dinner yet?” I ask as I go inside, looking at the dirty dishes in the kitchen.

“Yeah, I left pizza in the fridge!” I hear back from my roommate’s room.

I make myself at home and wash the plates. I’d like it if Matt did some more work around the house once in a while, it’s kind of tiring also doing part of his chores.

I take the remaining slices and heat them up before bringing them to the living room, where I choose a random show on Netflix to watch.

I get interrupted by a notification on my phone.

You haven’t chosen a target yet, please choose a target to design your first quest.

I unlock it, and I’m still on the weird app from earlier, wondering exactly what it’s asking of me, I finally click on the Add Target button.

A list appears on screen, a list of names, that seems to extend way out of the screen, and needs to be scrolled through. I don’t recognize most of them but a few are instantly noticeable.

Matt Weaver is the first one. Did this app also steal my contact list? Why is my roommate here? I scroll some more, Maria Finocci, Delia Moore, Philip Moore, Brad Likstein. Not only are my parents available as “Targets” but my coworker and old bully are.

My pulse increases, I don’t have Brad in my contacts, how does this app know him? As I scroll even more, I notice many more people I know, my best friend, my neighbours, even my friends. I’m confused, but an idea is starting to make it’s way in my head, what if it was real? The popup talked about designing quests for targets, what if it worked? Maybe they would receive a text about a quest? Not sure what that would achieve but at this point why not try it.

I look at the very long list, decided to choose my first target among them.

Author's Note: I don't have a very clear picture of where I'm going, just some things I'd like to write. So don't hesitate to propose whatever you want, I just can't promise I'll actually follow suggestions.