Day 2 - Early Morning

I woke up the next day… to the sound of a new Quest.

Quest: Get The Gang Back Together

Description: Reconnect with your old friends

Eric (1/1)

Blair (0/1)

Kate (0/1)

Marshall (0/1)

Blessing (0/1)

Ginger (0/1)

“Uh huh.” I say, looking miserably at my phone. “So much for opting out.” Despite my best attempts to delete the app it was still on my phone. I’d played enough Persona 5 to understand where this was going. The app was there, and would be there forever and ever amen, until I beat this thing. “What’s the reward?”

Reward: Utilities for the house

I looked around the attic. I was all by my lonesome up there, curled in a nest of blankets and clothes. Naked though, very naked.

And alone.

Eric had hit it and quit it, classy guy.

“Oh fuck.” I was just realizing that we had had sex. I waited for feelings of betrayal or disgust to catch up with me but they never came. I was numb to it. Intellectually I knew how I should feel, but I just didn't. “What did you do?” I asked the app which stoically kept silent. It only had two things to tell me: Find my friends, and stop the Quest Master.

Maybe I didn’t have any choice in this.

It could make me play, it could make me fuck…

There came the emotions. Deep terror. I fell helplessly onto my back and shuddered. Fear is such an animal emotion, but what I was experiencing wasn’t animalistic, it was biblical. It was the horrific knowledge that your fate was in the hands of a being you could not comprehend. The great flood, the Trojan war, Ragnarök, these were the fears that wracked by body now. Glands and nerves pulsed and ached, and drove my body and mind mad. My lungs constricted, my heart raced, this thing was bigger than me and I could not resist it...

But I could fight it.

There was a timer and everything.

Quest: Harem in a Small Town

Objective: Discover The Identity of The Quest Master, and end The Game.

Reward: Emancipation

I sacrificed much of the early morning to shivering and crying.

When that was done I eat some crackers some canned peaches, and made a plan.

As much as I don’t want to follow along with the quests, I do need to gather more information. Maybe I can catch Eric in a lie, or the truth. Either way I need to build a list of suspects and the app just gave me one.

Now if I was an evil quest giving pervert, maybe I wouldn’t put myself on a list of people for my opponent to talk to. BUT if you were trying to start a harem, you would certainly be a common factor between those people.

So who were these fuckers?

There was Eric my newest lover and chauffeur. It was Monday so he was probably at school. Gosh what to say about Eric? He was a dorky little dork. A good guy, smart guy, that everyone liked and no one loathed. I always knew he had a crush on me but I was way too much of a lesbian to date an ugly guy. Straight girls can date ugly guys, and good for them but I wanted everyone to know I dated big beautiful men and had high standards.

Bah, I’m done talking about Eric. I still feel so gross about the sex I don’t want to see him again … then again it might be nice to ask him what the hell happened. Seeing that he had the class to escape my attic before my wrath could be unleashed. I mean from his perspective... I'd initiated, hadn't I?

Okay so who next?

There was Kate, if we’re going by proximity. Back in school she was debilitatingly shy. Such a shame because she was so cute, and always wore these long skirts that I just loved. Plus she was a blonde… whatever that means. But the thing that got me was that she was nice. Have you ever been a teenager stuck in the Darwinian horror that his highschool, only for someone, anyone to be nice to you? How could you not fall in love? Or at least that longing lust teenagers call love.

But the thing that always kept me safe and closeted was that Kate was a bonded pair. Like rabbits in a shelter she and Marshall had to be taken as a matching set. The two were so perfect for each other they looked like siblings, both blonde, with green porcelain doll eyes. Marshall for all his sins, and my personal vendetta against him was a great guy. It was really the only thing that kept him tolerable to me. He was just such a good hang. He wasn't exactly a troubled kid, just a stoner slacker like yours truly but for the sheltered church mouse known as Kate he might as well have been James dean. He could afford to be a slacker because his dad owned the biggest grocery store in town. The nearest big box store was a few villages over and not exactly on good terms with county commissioners. As a result Marshall's future had been guaranteed from birth.

I doubted either of them were behind this scheme. Eric had a house, a job, and a wife. People who have those things are satisfied aren't they? Then there was kate. I had an easier time imagining her mouth opening up like a mantis and eating Marshall's head than I did picturing her as some sort of harem mistress.

So, who else?

There was Blair of course, who was apparently ripping through levels like they were hostess fruit pies. Level five if Eric could be believed, which i wasn't so sure about anymore. Blair's my biggest disappointment. She was the one who was supposed to get out. She had it all, height, good looks... okay well she had height and good looks. Plus the fucking mean kind of ambition. We'd been friends in middle school, when she got the popularity bug. Then she spent half of high school trying to become popular, and the other half shitting on those who'd gotten her there. So cute. She absolutely would use an evil app to rule the world, and I'm surprised she hadn't already. In truth her failure to launch out of this town had been one of my secret joys in life. It's not enough for me to succeed, my enemies must also fail.

Then there was Blessing. The other tall kid in our group. He's also my ex, cause' he's also the handsome one of the group. I have high standards remember? Heh poor guy, I got so anxious about sleeping with him after prom that I got blackout drunk at the afterparty, and he had to drive my puke covered self home. And he still told me he loved me, fucker. Let me tell you, this guy had potential. Tall dark handsome, but wonderfully awkward. Eric had the confidence he should have had, and vice versa. He was a nervous worrier, and a true nerd. So god knows how he became a **** dealer, but he did. Nothing crazy he was kind of our weed guy, mostly because he was such a pushover he'd give us plenty of free joints. Well besides a bad temperament for the business he was also one of the only black guys in town. Welp wouldn't you know it a random traffic stop he got pulled over, and bingo bango he was off to county for a few years. Last time I visited he was still in prison, but he was out now. He wrote me when he got out, I never wrote back. We weren't dating when he got picked up, it's not like I owed him anything.

That left us with Ginger. Her parents named her after the character from Gilligan's island, but the kids at school didn't really get that, ya know? They just saw a little redhead girl and though it was hilarious that the ginger was named Ginger. It kind of sucks to think a person was cursed at birth, but it really looked like that was the case. She was constantly getting bullied, I guess that's not true. Once everyone got to highschool and started smoking weed things kind of chilled out, but I know the early days were hard for her. Then you know, she got into yearbook, and theater, clubs and shit and things got better. Then she went and got brave and trusting on us and...

Listen I don't want to talk about it.

I don't trust you enough okay?

So that's Ginger.

Is that helpful? Information eight years out of date, who knew who these people were now? Blessing had done time, I'd done girls, Eric stopped smoking, the world was upside down!

Still.

A quest is a quest.

Which of these merry Misfits should I visit first?

Alrighty kids, we're staring the game in earnest now. I'm going to try to end every chapter with a choice. So let's tip the first domino of our adventure, which member of the gang would you like Alice to talk to first?

Eric

Kate

Marshall

Blair

Blessing

Ginger

Also thanks for all the likes and comments, really blown away by the reception to this so far. I hope we can keep it going!