Of Quests and Their Completion

After departing the art room, The Gamer found himself making his way through Ashcroft’s halls, shuffling through memories of the day and letting his mana regenerate.

’It’s nice that someone besides Mom and Dad remembered my birthday.’ John thought.

He hadn’t quite made it to the cafeteria yet; he had no more pressing quests or notifications, and, to John’s own surprise, he found himself excited to see what the rest of the day would bring.

Normally, he’d long since have been dreaming of home and his games and just being alone again. He didn’t even hate school itself all that much, but he’d never wanted to be here, never wanted to do anything at Ashcroft.

’How long has it been since I was actually just enjoying my day like this?’ John wondered as he crossed the campus, ’I suppose my fortune in not seeing Frank again so far goes quite a ways on that one.’

Soured somewhat by that, John ended his train of thought and checked his character sheet once more. He wanted to verify exactly where his last achievements had left him. Not much had changed but, notably, John had passed the bar for which completing his quest would now take him to level four, if he finished the bonus.

A level up would hopefully give John a nice bump. Though as he’d first thought that, he realized that he didn’t actually know what a level up did. Humans didn’t normally have those, as far as he was aware.

He arrived at the cafeteria before he could begin another mental tangent. Thanks to the pancakes in his inventory, John didn’t think he would actually need to buy any food, but he figured it would be the easiest place for him to try and finish his quest.

He’d formulated a simple plan during his art class. If he knew at least a couple individuals who had magic already, he hoped they would interact with some other quest targets. He knew that it was far from foolproof as far as plans went, but it was the best he’d come up with.

’Six degrees of Bacon logic, really. With any luck, I can try and pick them out fast and leave,‘ The Gamer thought, wandering around the cafeteria in search of his targets. ’Too many people in the cafeteria… I’d rather eat in one of the halls or something.’

The cafeteria was loud and obnoxious, as always. Drab walls of yellowing concrete encased a far too small area for as many students as Ashcroft had. The students were always split into various cliques, each yelling and screaming over the others.

The sound alone would be headache inducing for John given too much time. Hoping to be in and out as fast as he could, John entered the food line and began scanning the crowds for the quest targets he’d already logged.

He found one of his previous [Observe] targets easily enough. Moira Brighton’s red hair was all but a beacon amongst the rabble. The Gamer purchased a single bottle of water and nodded to the lunch lady before wandering into the mass of bodies and tables towards his target. There were two other people at her table today. The first John recognized as the Asian girl that he’d passed on the way to the art room, Kim something, if he remembered right; the second was an unknown, exactly what John had hoped for.

John did his best to remain inconspicuous as he passed by, using [Observe] as he cracked open his water bottle and took a big gulp. For once, he hoped his nobody status was working for him instead of against. The person with Moira was, shockingly, yet another beautiful woman. She, Kim, and Moira were having a quite intense discussion it seemed like, but they were speaking in such low tones that it was hopeless to try and hear them over the roar of the student body.

Not that John wanted to get spotted eavesdropping on people five times his level.

The mystery woman sitting across from Moira was tall and well-built, sporting thick locks of dirty-blonde hair. A smattering of freckles covered her face. She seemed somewhat upbeat, despite the tense frown that the redhead at her table was sporting. It wasn’t until John had passed their table that he realized that he vaguely recognized the blonde from History.

’Dang, I could have gotten her earlier today if I hadn’t used the Skill Tome when I did,’ he lamented, trying not to break stride. The Gamer didn’t stop to fully check the [Observe], but a cursory evaluation showed a level of 12, which John felt pretty good about.

’Oh well, I think the plan worked. One down, hopefully.’

John kept walking until he was at a table on the far side of the room, near a door. Only then did he sit down and feign pulling the ziploc of pancakes from his bag. Noting that the pancakes were still fresh and warm, John rolled one up and started chowing down as he checked the full [Observe] results.

’Boom!’ John cheered internally, ’One to go!’

Unfortunately for John, his master plan only worked one time. Ela wasn’t in the cafeteria - most likely eating lunch somewhere around the library, he reasoned. Moira, Kim, and Erica were the only three that each interacted with, leaving him with no other leads. He’d also expended almost half of the remaining lunch time waiting to see if they’d move.

’At least lunch has been peaceful today,’ John conceded, finishing another pancake. ’That’s a very nice change of pace.’

With little of interest to [Observe], John had begun to eye the skill point he had lying around. He’d gotten some good XP on his [Reshape Matter] skill during art, but it hadn’t leveled up yet.

’Maybe it’s going to really need me to spend some points so I can perform more advanced moves with it… That could be a trick to leveling,’ he pondered with a sigh. ’Dang it, John, stop stalling. You’ve gotta get this quest done, and you probably aren’t getting a better gathering than lunch.

’I really don’t have the time or mana to just use [Observe] on every student at the school until I strike a jackpot…’

The Gamer leaned back on the bench he was sitting in and started to ponder what other clues he might have on discovering his missing fifth target. John closed his eyes and began to think, remembering all the events of the day so far for any idea on how to proceed.

He thought back to every encounter with his quest targets throughout the day, hoping for anything that might link them together, before remembering what had started him on the quest in the first place - nameplates. He’d nearly forgotten about them as he’d gotten used to their presence throughout the day, but Ela’s missing nameplate was the catalyst for everything.

’Wait a second… so Moira and Ela had no nameplates at all. Never checked on Kim, but I don’t think Erica did? Not sure.’ John’s mind raced, finally stringing things together, ’It’s not a lock, but that could be it. Maybe just a level gap thing… doesn’t matter. That’s something to look for that doesn’t cost mana.’

Looking around the room for a couple minutes, John noted that everyone he could see (including Moira, Kim, and Erica, since he’d [Observed] them) had a full nameplate, including name, level, and sometimes a title, though that was quite rare. He stood up, walking the long way around the room to a trash can, eyes peeled for anyone who didn’t have one.

He spent a couple minutes pacing the cafeteria, before conceding that perhaps there wasn’t anyone else in the room at the time. John moved out to the halls, looking for the groups of other nerds or other asocial groups that avoided the mass of the cafeteria. He scoured campus up and down in search of anyone who could be his target.

In the last ten minutes of lunch, in a far corner of Ashcroft’s courtyard, he finally spotted her - a relatively plain looking brunette with headphones in. Her music was turned up so loud that John could nearly make out the bass, even though he was several feet away.

’I’d have never guessed…’

He cast [Observe].

’Wait… pink hair? Rave girl? That’s… OK, sure, why not. Not gonna question it.’

John was perplexed at the disparity between the results and the girl he was looking at, but he brushed it off and kept walking, not wanting to get caught staring. There was too much pep in John’s step as he hurriedly left the area. As notifications began to roll in, The Gamer’s dopamine rush started. The little purple bar at the bottom of his vision filled up all the way to the right.

’LET’S GO!’

A quick check of his inventory confirmed that a hundred dollars had automatically been added to his inventory total. He also now had 5 more stat points to spend however he chose. The Gamer set that aside in his mind for now though; he didn’t want to make any rash decisions without formulating a plan.

He then checked his codex, which had now been unlocked. It had many tabs that he couldn’t yet access, with only his quest reward tab available to use. The Persons of Interest section seemed to contain just his most recent [Observe] information for all of the subjects of his quest.

It wasn’t necessarily critical information yet, he surmised, but being able to keep track of more things was nice. Hopefully the information would become more detailed with time.

’Now to figure out how I’m using these stat points!’ John thought, excited.

Not even the ringing of the bell and the onset of his most boring class, English, could knock John down at this point.

’Best get to class so I don’t get in trouble; I’ll figure it out there.’

John sat down in his English class with a fat grin on his face. As the teacher began to call roll, John opened his character sheet and began eyeing his stat points.

’There’s so much potential here! Five whole points, too…’ he thought, ’It looks kinda like a D&D array, but Libido is new, and the names don’t really match up.’

The Gamer reached up slightly and moved to tap on his INT stat to see if he could get any detailed information. The blurb that popped up was helpful, but also nonspecific.
’INT measures mental capacity and the ability to reason… OK then, I guess I’m getting descriptions, not formulae,’ John mulled over again, ’STR measures raw physical ability and power. AGI measures…’

“NEWMAN!”

John jumped in his chair, heart thumping in his ears. He choked on his own saliva and began coughing uncontrollably. Looking up and around the room, he realized that the teacher was staring at him.

“Thank you for joining us, Mr. Newman,” grumbled the ever-grouchy English teacher. “Now, if you would please pay attention, we are beginning today’s lesson.”

John looked at the clock, then back at the glare of his instructor, then down at his book, then at a new message he’d gotten.

Lol

The Gamer flushed in his chair.

’I need to be careful how easily I get distracted.’

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

John had spent the entire hour of English inspecting the small blurbs he’d gotten about his stats, pouring over the information to make a decision on what to do. The more he looked at his stat sheet, the more and more the comparison to either a version of Dungeons and Dragons or an older CRPG based on that system seemed apt, but he likened it to its own variant rule set.

STR measures raw physical ability and power.
AGI measures dexterity, reflexes, and ease of movement.
END measures stamina, durability, and recovery.
INT measures mental capacity and the ability to reason.
WIS measures sensibility, intuition, and willpower.
CHA measures personality and attractiveness.
LIB measures sexual capacity and drive.

There was enough detail for John to roughly work out what each did, but not enough for him to start thinking about a spreadsheet for it all. As such, John had started working on ideas that he thought would be true regardless of exactly how his stats functioned.
’Well… first off, dying is bad, so whatever stat governs health is probably going to be really important, no matter what,’ John reasoned, ’I’ve always liked the saying that ‘you do zero DPS while dead’ anyway, and that’s extra true in real life, pretty sure. Almost certainly Endurance, as expected.

’I think I’ve been pretty defaulted into being a wizard since I’m a nerd, so, secondly, whichever stats affect my casting and mana are probably safe locks as well. I’m not actually sure which stats or what breakpoints are important, but I do know that INT and WIS were the pre-requisite stats on the book earlier, so it's probably some amount of those.

’Third, I probably don’t want to leave myself entirely deficient in anything if I can help it. Some baseline Strength probably wouldn’t hurt. I wonder if AGI affects casting times?’

’Charisma…’ John drifted off, thinking of all the people he’d met that day, ’that might be really nice, honestly.’

The only decision on stats that John felt somewhat confident in was boosting his Endurance at least up to 10. He liked the breakpoint there, and health seemed like an evergreen stat choice. The fifth point was puzzling him, so he resolved to hold on to it until later.

John sighed and leaned back in his chair. His English teacher had been trying for almost an hour now to explain the various correct, incorrect, formal, and informal usages of the almighty comma to John’s class, to little avail. There were the usual folks who paid perfect attention and got things quickly, but there were far too many who simply didn’t care to try and figure it out.

John flipped his book a few pages so he was caught up with the class and then spent some time appearing to pay attention. There were only a few minutes left in class, and he might as well end on a positive note.

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Finally, the bell rang and freed John from the confines of English. As he walked from the classroom, he tried to plan the rest of the day. As John arrived at his locker and opened it, only to remember that nothing was in it anymore, he was grappling with a decision for the rest of the afternoon.

He’d never skipped school before, not even for the biggest game releases he’d been the most excited for, but, today, he really just wanted to go home and tinker with things. The Gamer had so many things that he wanted to try out.

’If I leave now, I’ll be home sooner than I would have with the bus for sure…’ he rationalized, beginning to wander towards the front of the school, ’Why not? I did all my chem work earlier, so it's not like I have a need to be here. I’m not even sure that it’s actually against the rules to leave early if the study hour is at the end of the day...’

Swallowing his guilt and giving into his desire to really play around with his powers and stats, The Gamer departed school early for the day, anxious to find out what else he could do.