Matt's first quest

I open my phone as soon as I wake up, curious to see what happened in the app, I first check my profile:

Matt completed an advanced quest. [+7 xp] [+3 bonus xp]

Maria completed a basic repeated quest. [+2 xp]

Quest Master : John
Surname : Moore
Gender: Male
Age : 25
Level 3 (5 / 10 xp)
Class : None
Perks : Quest Designer I, Recommended Reward I, Class Designer
Perk Points : 1

I leveled up again, and I have a perk point to spend. And Matt completed his quest too. I see I also received some bonus xp from his quest, which should be because cleaning the kitchen would be what a Housewife would do?
I open his profile.

Name: Matt
Surname : Weaver
Gender: Male
Age : 23
Level 2 (5 / 10 xp)
Class: Housewife
Perks : Cleaning I
Perk Points : 1

I thought I noticed this with Maria’s quest yesterday too, my targets receive more xp from quest than I do. At least the xp requirements don’t grow so I don’t have to worry to much about levels getting harder to obtain for now.
I also check Matt’s new perk.

Cleaning I : 20% increased speed when cleaning. (Hidden: small cleaning compulsion)

That’s new, so he just gets a permanent buff to cleaning speed, I wonder what that would look like. It’s also the first time I see this Hidden part, I can guess Matt can’t see this. Actually maybe I should check how he gets the quests too.
At first I thought the targets received text messages, but now I’m starting to wonder if they also get the QuestMaster app, maybe they can also add targets? I’d really like to avoid someone putting me in and giving me a bad class.

I’ll just give a quest to Matt and be done with it. I can’t have the quest talk about me without being suspicious, so I’ll stay vague.

Matt will receive the following quest : “Talk about the quests to someone”

Reward: “Increased relationship with chosen confidant.”

Good, Matt doesn’t have many friends so I should be the only choice. Making those kind of plans makes me feel manipulative, but I want to know more about how this works, and this is a great way to do that.

I also check Maria’s profile and notice that she’s close to her own level up, I should also give her a quest now, since it looks like there’s no cooldown between quests.
I think about what quest to give her for a while and then about the xp bonus I received from Matt. I know I shouldn’t, but as I write the quest I feel less guilty than I was when choosing her class yesterday, maybe I’m starting to warm up to the fact I might not be a great person…

Maria will receive the following quest : “Get a gym subscription”

Reward: “Training Efficiency I perk”

No warning, which means it isn’t a particularly hard quest, but she’ll still get a perk for it, so that’s pretty good.
I prepare for the day, and I check on Matt, but he’s still sleeping, so I’ll have to wait until tonight for him to talk to me. Now that I think about it, I didn’t really saw him at all this week.

(Matt's POV)
Fuck it hurts. What the hell got into me yesterday night? First I’m launching a weird app I never heard off, and then I’m off scrubbing my kitchen for an hour. My arms hurt, I didn’t work that hard physically since basketball in Highschool, and all for a fake xp bar to increase in a mobile game.

I already knew about apps like Life Quest, making up stats in your head to motivate you to do your chores, but I never tried one, and I never thought I would. I was just turning my stream off, and I felt the need to download it, and as soon as I saw the quest I just wanted to do it. It’s like my body really wanted to move and I was just curious enough to do it.

What surprised me was that I didn’t stop half way through, I actually cleaned the kitchen all the way.

I turn on my phone, god it’s already 1pm and I just woke up. I check the app and my profile is still the same as when I got to sleep yesterday, I got this cleaning perk and I’m supposed to pretend it makes me faster at cleaning.
I'm also still confused by the Housewife class, the app autofilled my profile as male, why didn't it make me a Househusband? I wonder how I'm supposed to change it, maybe it will let me choose when I level up some more?

I notice I also have a new quest, it looks pretty easy, I just have to talk about the quests with someone… If it was real, the reward would even be good this time, I would just magically gain affection with people, maybe I should tell John about it.

No, that’s a bad idea, I don’t want to reduce my work by telling him I did it for a game, he already thinks I’m a loser addicted to games, I don’t need to give him anymore proof. So I should think about who to talk to.

I finally get out of bed, and something jumps out at me, god my room is a mess! I don’t clean often, but let’s at least make the floor walkable…

(John's POV)
“Yes, mr.Newman, I’ll do it right now, sir.” I answer as I look at the older man, slowly reading off his phone.

“We need the last version, we received the license on the library’s email. It needs to be ready this afternoon.”

I nod one last time and I leave toward the computer area. Being in a pretty big town, the library has a dozen desks with computers, and I’m supposed to update all of them in a few hours.

I notice someone is already logged on, a blonde woman I recognized as my bully’s girlfriend. Obviously my first reflex is to see if Brad is around, but fortunately he isn’t.

“Excuse me miss, I’ll have to update the computers…”

She turns around, slightly surprised.

“Ah J- I mean, hi, you’re John right?” She seems to already know the answer to that.

“Yes, that’s me.” I scratch my head awkwardly.

“Name’s Jessica, nice to meet you.” She reaches for a handshake, and I return it.

“Sorry John, I really need to print those pages right now, can it wait a little while?”

I want to say no because I really need this to be done soon, but her politeness forces me to let her a few more minutes. As she does however, she keeps talking.

“I saw that you and Brad knew each other?” She asks fishing for info.

“Y-Yeah, we were going to the same school.” I answer, hoping to satisfy her curiosity.

“I see, do you know why he seems… cranky… when he sees you?”

I would have said furious but sure.

“No idea, I guess he doesn’t like my face. I mean, It’s been a while so I thought he would have cooled down by now.” I explain.

She grabs the pages coming out of the printer.

“Alright John, it was a pleasure, I’m studying hard for exams right now, so guess we’ll meet again soon. Bye!” She says as she leaves in a hurry, pages in hand.

She’s pretty easy to talk to, but I’d still like to avoid spending too much time with her if that means Brad gets angry with me.

It’s late in the afternoon now, the computers work, and a class of high schoolers comes in with their teacher, something about internet prevention. Sometimes schools come by to teach a class, I remember I was always excited to be outside a classroom at this age, but now, I’d prefer it if they did less noise.

Whatever, Maria is watching them which means I have a small break. I check my phone but something I wasn’t expecting appears.

Maria completed a basic quest. [+3 xp] [+2 bonus xp]

With this quest done, we both leveled up, I check her profile, and she’s already halfway to her next level, I also check her new perk.

Training Efficiency I: +50% effect from physical training. (Hidden: Small compulsion to train)

This is a great perk, I wish I could also get it, maybe if I also get a class. My profile has been hinting at it for a while, maybe I can get one from the perk tree. Let’s see what I can buy.

I have 2 perk points. So I check what perks are available for this cheap.

Recommended Reward II (1 perk) : Create a list of three recommended reward for basic quests and let the QuestMaster choose one.

Public Unawareness (1 perk) : When toggled, nobody will notice the target doing anything inappropriate for a quest.

Character Editor I (1 perk) : Enables small changes to character info every 24h.

Target Perk Tree (2 perks): Enables targets to spend points for Target perks.

I don’t really want the Character Editor for now, there’s not much info on people’s profile, so it’s very limited, I guess I could change someone’s name?
I should also be able to buy Reward Designer I for 2 perk points and create my own rewards, but it seems locked until I buy Recommended Reward II so I might do that.
And if I ever want Maria to do something embarrassing Public Unawareness would help.
Target Perk Tree seems pretty good too, I could let Maria spend her points before it accumulate too much.

Maybe I should scroll further and also check the unavailable perks, I might change my goals if I see one I like.

Perk Sharing I (2 perks): Enables perks of target to affect you.

Perk Sharing II (2 perks): Enables perks of target to affect you without compulsions.

Interesting, but it seems locked by Target Perk Tree, and I have no idea how strong the perks compulsion actually are.

I wonder what I should buy?

Author's Note : Originally, I started by writing the story's first chapter from Matt's pov, but I changed my mind, and it's now completely different from the original.
You can suggest which perks John should choose, and even suggest new ones (I also add a few when I get new ideas). Thanks for reading!