21st Century Man

John: Are you at the apartment rn?
Jenny: Yeah why what’s up?
John: Abigail has never seen a single movie, television show, or video game, and I don’t think she’s ever heard any music either.
Jenny: No fucking way!! Has she been living under a rock the past 100 years??
John: I think so, yes
John: I was thinking of bringing her to the apartment and having a little movie night
Jenny: You two got close awfully fast
Jenny: Should I be worried? :P

Though she had made it out to be a joke, John knew there was probably some real apprehension there.

John: Jenny, you are the best thing that has EVER happened to me. You are the most beautiful, charming, talented girl I have ever met AND you’re my first girlfriend AND you seduce other girls for me AND you’re awesome
John: You’ve got nothing to worry about

There was a pause in the conversation, and John saw the dots that meant somebody was forming a reply pop-up and go down multiple times. Five minutes later, he got a reply.

Jenny: Well jeez ya didn’t have to get all serious on me
Jenny: Sure bring her over I’ll go to Keith’s and get some gourmet popcorn from Kimberly
John: Sounds great!

“Alright,” John said, looking up from his phone, “I’m going to go over the loot and stuff as we walk back to my apartment, where Jenny and I will show you your first movie. It’s amazing that you’ve never seen a movie. You’ve read books before, right?”

“Obviously! I may have been separated from a lot of stuff like that but I’m not illiterate! Aside from your insulting question, what loot is there? Shouldn’t I get some?” Abigail prodded as John looked to see what he had actually gotten.

“Not unless you want some wood, some leaves, an emerald, a sword, or a cipher” John replied, looking over his drops. Alright, first I’ll spend my points and such, and see what that hidden perk did.

He opened his sheet to see that the Masochist perk apparently made 25% of the self-damage he did heal him instead. With that taken care of, he started to spend his points. First came the stat points from levelling up, which went into Wisdom in the hopes of getting its skill soon. The skill points went into Fist, which had apparently levelled up when he had used it. The perk point was harder, but John decided to put it into Mind Reading, a skill which he predicted to be useful for future diplomacy.

New Skill, Mind Reading, Active, Cost: 10 MP/sec
Create a mental connection between you and a single target, the presence of which is automatically revealed to targets whose Intellect is higher than yours. Currently, it can only give you an impression of their thoughts.

That’s pretty damn useful, John thought, trying it on Abigail on instinct more than anything else. To his surprise, a few words were all that was revealed to him, and they didn’t seem to be changing.

Content, curious

Right now it doesn’t do much more than Advanced Spy but it’ll be really good in the future, John figured, deciding to keep the connection for now. It wasn’t doing either of them any harm anyway. With that out of the way, he moved on to the loot.

Right, there was no cash drop for that boss. I did level up from it though, so I’m not complaining. I got two hundred units of Iron Wood, which according to its information sheet is basically a block of iron retextured to be wood. That must be what the other enemies were giving me. Eighty units of steel leaves, which are much more interesting. Leaves that are as strong as steel but as flexible and light as foliage. So kind of like a piece of chainmail, but with no gaps. Pretty cool, John thought, looking over the basic loot. With that out of the way, it was time to move on to the more complex drops. The information sheet from Advanced Spy was much more interesting for the next four items.

It’s a shame I don’t use bladed weapons; that sword may not be so flashy, but it’s as reliable as they come. The quest reward is good, though finding a place for it will be tricky, John thought, taking the sword out as they reached the edge of the barrier.

“That the sword? Looks like a toy,” Abigail commented, leaning on the edge of the barrier. “I thought about it, and you can keep the stuff from whenever you make barriers for me. A good fight is its own reward.”

“Thank you so much for allowing me to provide you such a valuable service for free,” John sarcastically replied, though there was no malice in it. Having someone so much stronger than him to kill enemies for him and help him along was enough for him.

“Right, uhhh… two movies?” Abigail offered, though she was getting the sweet end of the deal either way.

“It’s alright as it is. It’s a quid pro quo. Something for something,” John explained upon seeing her confused look.

“Alright, so what movie are you showing me?” Abigail asked as they exited the barrier, though John hardly knew the answer himself.

“Would it matter if I told you? It’s not like you’ve seen one before,” John answered, buying himself time more than anything else. “How do you even know what a movie is if you’ve never seen one?”

“My older sister went out into the world before I did, and she told me about the things she saw. I guess she didn’t want me to be totally clueless,” Abigail told him as they walked onto a sidewalk at the edge of the city.

“That makes sense, I guess. So, Springfield has barriers spanning it that are larger on the outside than on the inside, created naturally supposedly. People in the know use these barriers to get around town. We can shave fifteen minutes off the walk to my apartment if we go into this one,” John told her, pointing toward a nearby alleyway.

“I was training in the forest for the month leading up to the trials, so I guess I naturally steered us toward the barrier that leads near my apartment, instead of just going back to my apartment. They’re pretty hard to detect on their own, but if you enter them with someone, you’ll be able to sense it from then on,” John said, offering his hand.

“Sounds good to me! You better show me the rest of them as we come across them,” Abigail exclaimed, taking John’s hand as they entered the barrier. “That was weird. I know it’s here now, and I know how big it is… but just a second ago it wasn’t there at all. Makes my head hurt.”

“Yeah, it takes some getting used to.” John nodded. “After the third or fourth one, you’ll barely notice it.”

“Makes sense,” the competitive brawler added, and John noticed that her thoughts switched from “content, curious” to “competitive” a moment too late.

“Bythewayraceyoutotheendofthisbarrier,” Abigail said far too fast for John to properly hear her, breaking into a sprint immediately. He started after her, though both faster and with a head start things looked bleak. He Jumped in front of her, and she slide tackled him to send him to the ground.

“I’ve lost twice, I’m not losing a third time!” Abigail called back, rocketing ahead. By the time John was up, she was at the edge of the barrier, eyebrows raised in a look that told him he wasn’t going to live that one down.

Content, infatuated

Wait, what was that? John thought, using Advanced Spy on her, though nothing had changed. Deactivating and reactivating Mind Reading only showed him what he had previously seen.

Content, curious

Maybe I imagined it, John thought, exiting the barrier with her. From there, it was a short walk to his apartment complex.

Jenny was already on the couch, and leapt up when she saw him. She tackled him into a hug, and Abigail slipped past them to see the interior of their apartment. Not very impressive, all things said. White walls barely illuminated by the soft glow of the large television, a brown couch that took up a lot of the living room, two overstuffed chairs on either side of it. Just to the side of the television was a small desk where John’s PC was set up, though it had been collecting dust since they had gotten here. There were doors just behind the couch on either side, one was open, and a refrigerator was visible through it, the other was closed.

Jenny nuzzled into John’s shoulder, “I missed you,” she said, as he put an arm around her and led her to the sofa, “sleeping alone is hard.”

He gestured for Abigail to join them, and she did, taking off her boots and putting her feet up on the ottoman in front of the couch. “I’ll try and stay here as much as possible,” he replied, and instead of a verbal response, he got a kiss on the cheek.

“Alright, I’m going to go make the popcorn! John’s going to pick out what we watch,” Jenny said, getting to her feet and walking toward the kitchen. The sound of a stove turning on could be heard as John picked up the remote to his Waterstick, pulling up the movie pirating service he had installed.

“I know exactly what we’re going to watch. It’ll be a good way to introduce you to movies. A book that was made into a movie of a man reading a book!” John said, pulling up The Princess’ Groom.

“Hopefully it’s simpler than your explanation.” Abigail joked as John waited for Jenny and the popcorn. She walked back into the living room, giant bowl in hand. She gave it to John before sitting in his lap as he pressed play. On the screen, a CRT television and an old football video game appeared, zooming out to show a sickly child playing.