Not much of an answer for that

There wasn't much to be said, at least not on John's part after that. His mother, Brenda, had lots to say, to ask John about as he disappeared once more into his room. He didn't spend long getting changed. For the most part, he used the character screen to just slide his school uniform back on.

As soon as he had gotten dressed and gathered his belongings, John was up and out of the house. He didn't give her any explanation, or reasoning behind why he was leaving so soon, he just didn't want to deal with that moment so quickly. His mother, for her part, could do nothing more than tell him to talk to her and to stop, but it had no effect.

"I'll be back after school. Don't tell anyone." The door slammed shut behind him.

School was an agonizing experience that day. Hell, it was agonizing on a normal day, but after the morning he had had it only felt like it got worse for him. It started off with him waiting for a late bus, that took far too long to arrive, and when it finally did, he got an inkling of why it was so late.

"Please... It's not my fault!" A hunched over Frank silently pleaded with Vanessa when John walked by. The bitch queen, even from a glance, seemed resolute in the argument they were having, which lifted John's mood a bit. Perhaps they were about to break up, that would have been a nice change of pace for John... at least until Frank decided to take it out on him to lift his own mood.

"Deal with it." Came the harsh reply from Vanessa.

It took John longer than he would have liked to admit to figure out that they had been talking about whatever it was that John had stolen from Frank the previous day. Reminded now, John used Theft one more time on Vanessa when his mana 'plipped' back up again. Sighing, John set his books down beside him and opened his inventory.

The first thing he noticed, other than the appearance of his phone, wallet, and keys, was the arrival of two out of three very... unique items that appeared in his inventory. The first, one that he had gotten and looked at the previous day, was Vanessa's panties. It wasn't a surprise to John anymore. Actually, the most shocking thing about it had stacked up with other items of clothing in his inventory and that he had forgotten about them. Under normal circumstances, John would have ran home with those and probably spent the whole night sniffing them and jacking off into them. Now it didn't interest him all that much.

The second 'unique' item that John came across, was the image of a weird, plastic, pink toy. Of course, from all the porn John had seen, he recognized the phallic shaped butt plug immediately, and nearly choked when he realized it came from Frank. After all the surprises John had had that morning, it took him mere seconds to decide to discard those two items. His fingers clicked on the inventory screen a couple times and after he found the option, John watched as the plug and the panties popped into existence right outside the bus window next to him and fell to the ground as they drove away.

The third item was different. The third item was a piece of jewelry. A ring that he immediately knew to be Vanessa's since he had seen her wearing it multiple times in the past. At first glance the ring looked to be nothing more than a plain, golden band, and knowing Vanessa it was probably real gold too. Curious to see what he could learn, John cast Observe on the ring.

The Golden Band: Special item

This ring is one of the many family heirloom's of the Hawthorne family. This pure golden band is free of all blemishes and marks save for a strange, single cracked equator that can be found circling around the outside of the item, in the center of the ring. It was given to Vanessa Hawthorne on one of her birthdays when she finally reached puberty.
Can be set each night to give one stat a boost of 5%
Currently set to: Charisma
Bonus is only gained while the ring is worn.

"Holy shit..." John mumbled under his breath as he read through the pop-up. Vanessa had just been given something like that? After a couple moments, John decided that it probably would have been a bad idea to put it on, at least while Vanessa was around. He didn't want to be spotted with it at one point and end up accused of stealing the ring. Granted, he did steal it but he just didn't want to be accused, or face the repercussions that came with being accused.

It wasn't until the bus finally arrived at the academy that the agonizing part really started to happen for John, and like all important things had been introduced over the past few days, the dread came in the form of a pop-up.

New Quest: Humble Beginnings
Your life of adventure has truly begun, but it has started on a faulty step and risks ending before you actually get anywhere. Someone close to you has seen you do something you shouldn't have and it needs to be fixed.

• Stop your mother from telling people about your powers

Rewards:

• 200 XP
• 5 Stat Points

Optional Objectives

• Do not let anyone else spread the word about your powers
• Stop your mother from telling anyone without killing her

Rewards:

• 50 XP
• 1 Random Item

ACCEPT QUEST?
YES | NO

John gawked at the quest that popped up in front of him, his eyes nearly crossing at the words as he read through them.

What even is that quest?! he thought and stopped just inside the entrance of the school, re-reading through it. The good news was, he pretty much had one of the optional objectives in the bag because there was no way in hell he was going to kill his own mother. That idea was just ridiculous!

Sighing, John looked over at the grayed out 'NO' button. Even if he had wanted to, it didn't look like he could turn down this quest which didn't make much sense to him, but still, he accepted it and watched as the pop-up disappeared before him.

41 new messages. 16 missed calls.

John pulled his phone out of his inventory and stared at the screen. That... was a lot more than he had been expecting. The quest had led him to believe that she might have done something like that, but for her to have done it on that kind of level was just ridiculous.

[John Newman you can't just run off like that when I'm talking to you.]

[If you want me to keep my mouth shut about this, young man, then you better start talking to me.]

[I will go down there...]

The messages continued on and on like this for some time. As he read them, John could feel the weight of his mother's stern and angry attitude that each of them bore. He wasn't exactly sure how he was supposed to deal with this. After all, how was anybody to explain that kind of situation to another person. It certainly wasn't something that he wanted to do on the phone. Even if she could have accepted it and not taken the lack of a face to face encounter as rude... he didn't want to leave a paper trail. In the end, he decided that the best thing to do would be to text her back. He couldn't go and talk with her. He had school, he had to keep up appearances, and he had a new job. He also couldn't tell her everything. He just had to calm her down, at least until he got back. After a couple attempts at trying to find the right thing to say to placate her, writing and deleting dissatisfying message after message, John finally came up with this...

{I'm going to talk to you, alright? I am. I will explain everything face to face when I get home later, but for right now I cannot skip out on school or work, and I don't think you would want me to just to talk to you about something that we can talk about later. Please just be patient and don't say anything about this to anyone.}

He stood in place for a couple minute, reading through the text a couple times until he felt happy with it and hit send. He was almost immediately hit with a reply.

[Just talk to me about it now.] John sighed. No matter how he looked at it, it seemed like a bad idea. If he wasn't there with her when he talked to her about it, he couldn't gauge her reactions. He couldn't stop her if she decided to be the one to run off next time.

{It's better if we talk about it face to face.} He hit send.

[If it's that serious then maybe you should skip school for this.] John didn't even flinch at that one. Knowing his mother, the counter argument for that was just too easy.

{You and I both know that you don't actually think I should do that.} And that was where the conversation ended. He didn't get a reply after that. He saw some moments where she went to try to type something in response, but in the end it never came.

"Put your phone away, Mr Newman, or I will have to take it away." John's concentration was cut off suddenly as Mr. Oliveira's voice cut through the chatter of the classroom. Business class. "When you are in here, you are on my time. You are here to learn, not to text your friends." John mumbled out an apology, one that was barely heard in the big open room. If it was heard at all.

At least he got to start the day with business class...right?