The case of Brenda Newman

Walking through the living room to the kitchen, John could immediately see what had happened when he saw his mother sitting in the kitchen: In front of her was an ashtray filled with cigarette butts and next to her were two empty bottles of wine. John knew that his mother used to smoke, but she had stopped that when he was born. His mother was also no stranger to , but these amounts were absurd; one or two glasses were something she drank on some Fridays, but this did not seem like one of those days looking at her... Her hands were visibly shaking, still clutching to a cigarette, her breathing was heavy, and her head was down. This was not the posture of someone that had a good day.

"Mom? Did something happen?" asked John, visibly concerned about his mother. Brenda seemed a bit startled by his question as if she didn't notice him enter the house. "Oh, honey, you're already back from school... Sorry, I had a really bad day today and rather not talk about it now... How was your day, sweetie?" This set off a lot of alarms in the back of his head. There wasn't really a moment before where his mom didn't openly talk with him about something. Now that he also saw her face, he could see that her eyes were red and puffy like someone who had cried recently... what the hell has been going on here? John kneeled down next to her, took the cigarette out of her hands and put his hand on hers. "You know you can always talk with me, Mom. If something happened, I'll always be here for you"

At that, his mother had to smile a bit and pulled him into a hug, smothering his face in her breasts "Oh sweetie, I know you're always here. And thank you for that, but this is something I'll have to deal with myself first before talking about it with you... But that said, I don't feel so well... I think I'm going to go to bed really early today... Would it be okay if you ordered yourself a pizza? You can take the money out of my purse."

"Uh, okay, if you're sure about that... Should I help you upstairs?"

"I think I'm still young enough to do that myself," she answered with a wink, but as soon as she got up from the kitchen table, it was pretty apparent that she would need help to not lose her balance. John reacted immediately and put one of her arms over his shoulders to support her and he instantly thanked himself for the improved Strength, because while his mother was not heavy or anything, she was built well enough that he would have never carried her like this in his state before today.

So, with the combined effort of himself and his mother, he got her up to her bedroom, where she took the arm around John back so she could stand alone. Then she put that hand to his cheek and rubbed it softly, "No matter what you do, John, I'm very proud of the man you've become. Any girl that will get with you will be happy. Even if I'm not really into all the things you are, I can see the dedication to it in you, and that makes me happy. Sorry you had to see me like this tonight, I promise you we'll talk about it tomorrow after school."

And with that, she left him standing in the hallway and closed the door behind her. Being the curious guy that he was, he put his ear to the door and heard her sobbing... He really wanted to help his mom, according to her this was something that she wanted to deal with on her own... he just hoped that she would actually tell him what happened tomorrow.

Going back down into the kitchen, he put the empty bottles away and emptied the ashtray (no package of cigarettes was found anywhere). Finding that he himself wasn't really that hungry right now, he decided that he would just order a pizza for now, and keep that in his inventory, since that seemed to keep things in the state he put them in (as with the panties)... So he pulled out his phone, went to the website of his favorite local pizzeria and ordered himself a big pepperoni pizza that would be with him within half an hour.

After that, he would get to the main activity of the evening: Checking out the Create Barrier thing!

So, what to do with the rest of the time before he would probably go grind? Well, how about planning his future stat points? He was now at level five, and he still needed to get the points to reach the 25 Strength to use that sweet, sweet spear. Now, He could put the next two levels completely into Strength, and then he would be there, but his other stats would suffer from that because he would ignore those... So if he would put 2 points from each level up into Strength, then he would be there with level 10 where he would get the next perk point, which could potentially go to the Deep Pockets perk, depending on new perks he could get at that point.

The two points of Strength per level sounded like a good plan for now. That way he would have three points available to put into anything that needed some patching at that point (probably his Endurance and Charisma though...).

He also still had that money he didn't use yet, should he do something with that? Thinking about that money, he got up from his seat in the kitchen and went to his mother's handbag where her purse probably was. He then put the money he got this morning back into his mother's purse, now that he didn't need that. Funnily enough, he got a pop-up and an achievement:

Act of true character: Edge point gained.
Warning! Edge already full, point lost.

So, moral of the story was that he should be nice, but nice to the right people and not too often? Gaia had some weird morals, but then again, as an immortal deity, you would get bored with being nice most of the time. Also, everything he got from that achievement was nice in some way. The money would be the pay for his pizza tonight (and for the next couple of lunches).

Speaking of pizza, the doorbell rang; when John opened the door he saw a girl standing there, dressed like your typical delivery guy, with one exception: The clothes were at least two sizes too small for her, but in a good way... she was thin around the waist but had some serious meat around her ass and her breasts, if John had to guess, he would have to say that those were some DDs, ready to pop out of that uniform. John had never seen this girl before, even though he and his family had ordered at this place for years now.

"Hiya, am I right here? Did you order some pizza? This is the third house now, please tell me I'm right this time?" the girl asked with an almost look in her eyes...

This seemed like the beginning of some bad porno... and given that she looked at least 18, that wasn't that farfetched...

"Uuuuhhhhh... Oh! Sorry, yeah, that's correct, I did order a pizza. You must be new then?" he asked with a slight smile, trying to desperately hide the growing bulge in his pants.

"Yeah, first day on the job actually, kind of an in-between between different things. They didn't even have a uniform in my size," she sighed, "So, one large pepperoni? That'll be 10 bucks," she told him, already looking relieved that she found the right house now.

Pulling some cash out of his inventory wasn't that easy when you didn't want to draw attention to your erection, so he just put his hand in his back pocket and materialized 15 dollars by simply thinking about the notes and handed them to the girl, "Here you go, a nice tip for your first day."

Her eyes were glowing when she saw that tip "Wow! Thanks a lot, you're a really nice guy. If I'm on duty, you'll be sure to see me a lot more back here if you order," she said with a mixture of a greedy and happy grin. She probably didn't mean it that way, but John sure heard something entirely different in there.

"S-Sure, I'll be sure to order some more," he stumbled, getting a bit of a rosy color on his cheeks

"Great! See you around then!" she said while handing him his pizza and with that, she turned around and got onto a scooter. While leaving John couldn't get his eyes away from her big ass. Out of curiosity, and out of some kind of instinct, John tried to cast Observe on her while she got on her scooter

Observe failed

Level Up! Observe Level 4

That pulled John right out of his trance... Wait... what? Was she someone from the Abyss too? Was the whole town in the Abyss aside from a couple of students and some teachers? This was getting ridiculous! Before he could ask her, however, she had already kickstarted her scooter and drove down the street.

Shit! Did she know he was in the Abyss too because of his Observe? Ah hell, too late now... So he just went back inside, put his pizza in his inventory where it would stay fresh (Could he use that as a healing item? Like his breakfast and lunch?) and went to his room.

He seriously didn't want to go on any kind of adventure in his school uniform!