A bus ride

There was only one person in the entirety of Ashcroft who would throw their weight around like that. Doing his best to turn the wince into what he hoped was a friendly smile in the hopes of not having to dodge another pummeling, John looked around at the newcomer. “Good morning, Frank,” he said, sincerely hoping that this was just another one of the bully’s little games and not the prelude to anything more serious.

Frank Dickinson, the general bane of John’s existence and all-round asshole, leaned his weight a little harder on the hand still resting on John’s shoulder. “Morning, John. Got a favor to ask you,” the muscle-bound jock said, grinning in a way that made it abundantly clear that ‘favor’ right now meant something that John could either agree to do immediately or deal with the consequences later. Not that a word like consequences was one Frank would manage; the man’s thoughts were occupied with precisely two things: football and… Yup, there she was, standing behind him looking at her nails with a bored expression on her face.

“Vanessa here managed to forget her purse this morning, so she hasn’t got any money for lunch. And seeing as we’re good friends, you’ll be happy to lend us some, won’t you?” Frank continued, his grip tightening a little further as he said it, causing John to grit his teeth. There was no way Vanessa had no money; she came from one of the richest families at Ashcroft, that was just stupid. And it wasn’t as if Frank was short on cash either, with a sports career lining up in front of him and parents well off enough to pay for him to study without worrying about their finances unlike John’s family.

No, all this talk was little more than a thin cover for their real objective - taking John’s ability to have lunch. Again. This time, however, he really hoped things would be different. With his free hand, he opened his bag and showed Frank the contents - nothing but textbooks. “Not got any lunch” he said, before tugging his wallet out of his pocket and pulling it open - thankfully he’d not returned it to his Inventory after getting on the bus. “And no cash, look. Blew it all on a video game yesterday, and was running late so didn’t have time to grab anything. Gonna be hungry myself today. Sorry, Frank.”

The meat-head pulled a face as he double checked John’s wallet and bag. Before the bully could ask, John had also turned out his pockets to show that he really didn’t have any money. As Frank’s face started to tint red with anger and John got the distinct feeling he was about to get yet another kicking, Vanessa finally spoke, “C’mon, Frank. This pervert probably blew all his money on virtual girlfriends cos he can’t get a real one. Stop wasting our time with the loser and let’s go. I want to talk with the girls anyway. We’ll get cash from some other nerd that’s actually worth something.”

John breathed a sigh of relief as the pair walked off. Despite Frank’s parting order to make sure he had some cash next week or there would be trouble, he had successfully dodged both beating and starvation thanks to the weirdness that had invaded his life. Moreover, he had one hundred percent put the bills his mother had given him in his wallet. If they weren’t there when Frank looked… he pulled up his Status and grinned. $22.54 floated at the bottom of the screen. This had to all be real, then.

The ride wasn’t as bumpy as he’d expected as they wove through town traffic, largely because the number of vehicles on the road prevented the driver from any particularly dangerous maneuvers. Feeling safe for the time being, John allowed his thoughts to drift back to the idea of Classes and Levels. If this was real, maybe he’d be able to get an actual Class with time. Certainly, if his speculation about the whole “The Gamer” thing was accurate, that should be an option. That’d be fun - he could turn into a brawler, and block Frank’s fist with his palm before knocking the bully flying like a cartoon villain.

John frowned and shook his head at that thought. No, that wouldn’t work. To do that he’d require Strength and Endurance, two of his three lowest Stats. If this did work like a game, with infrequent Quests, it might take him years to get his Strength up to the point it’d be useful against someone like Frank. The bully probably had a good eighty percent of his Stats in muscle, anyhow. John should play to his own strengths - or at least, not his weaknesses. Intellect, Agility, maybe Wisdom. Libido was technically a strong Stat too, but he was pretty sure there wasn’t a Class that’d rely on pure lust outside of some wild hentai games; even then, they’d probably rely on Charisma as well, and that was clearly his dump Stat.

Glancing back at his Status screen, the presence of a Mana bar gave him pause. He’d used his MP to cast Observe a whole bunch that morning; what if the presence of Mana meant he’d be able to cast magic? Dwelling on that idea for a moment, visions of hurling fireballs or summoning armies of minions filled his thoughts. Not the most practical for dealing with bullies, though, unless he wanted the fire brigade, the government or possibly the church replacing Frank in making his life hell.

Shaking his head again, he thought about Agility. That’d lend itself to things like archery or swordsmanship if this were a role-playing game. Being a swordsman could be cool, although it gave him mall-ninja vibes; a sudden vision of him cutting Frank down before tipping a fedora to Vanessa flashed across his brain and he winced. Nope, that was not an option. Archer on the other hand - skulking through the night, sending arrows to rain down on his foes before vanishing. Some kind of hunter? Could be cool… Although he didn’t particularly like how hunters played in Globe of Fightcraft. Would it be different in real life? His current favorite role in that game was healer, but healing wouldn’t do much good against a bully’s fists.

The internal monologue was disturbed by a pop-up appearing across his vision. To his annoyance, unlike the earlier Quest or his Status, this new message didn’t give much in the way of details.

John stared at the pop-up in confusion for a moment, before hastily brushing it closed - stretching as he did so to make it look to anyone watching like he was just uncomfortable where Frank had leaned on him, instead of just madly waving his arms about in empty air. That had been a Quest - but unlike the one earlier, it hadn’t given him any list of things to do, nor any guidance on how exactly he was to find a Class. Still, the mere presence of a Quest meant that they could be activated by meeting conditions! He fought the urge to do a dance in his seat; if he could get Quests at any time, his Level growth wasn’t capped by a daily limit which was amazing.

To try and take his mind away from that revelation, he glanced out of the window. All sorts of opportunities had just opened up - he might be free to choose any path he wanted, he could maybe do something about that terrible Charisma score… As the bus stopped at another set of lights, the speed with which one of the pedestrians was hurrying by struck him as curious, and without thinking he used Observe.

John blinked, rubbed his eyes and double checked the Observe just as the bus started to move again. He hadn’t misread it - the man who looked barely a couple of years older than John was a full nine Levels higher, as much as John and his mother combined. More importantly than that, the man had not only had a Class - whatever Scribe meant - but had also had what looked suspiciously like a Guild tag. Angled brackets surrounding a pompous sounding name? The only thing missing was for the name to be in Latin and it could have been a Globe of Fightcraft guild tag.

Before John could drift into any further thoughts about what the presence of people four times his Level belonging to fancy sounding organizations would mean for both his future prospects and the town in general, a gentle chime announced the arrival of yet another pop-up. Unlike the previous one, this one seemed to be more detailed, and was far closer to what he’d seen that morning.

Well, that was one hell of a Quest! John did a quick recap of his morning; the twenty four things he’d Observed must have been everything he’d looked at since getting up, while the two people would be the Scribe and his mother. Thankfully, his mom being Level nine also meant that he’d ticked off two out of the five needed for one of the optional objectives; with just a little more luck in locating people that were strong, he could net almost three times the xp of the morning’s Quest. It did seem a little odd that neither this Quest nor the previous one had given him the option to refuse - not that he would have in either case. Especially this one, not only would he be getting a chunk of the grind to Level four out of the way if he managed both optional goals, he’d also be getting free Stat points.

Just knowing that Stats could be an optional Quest reward caused him to give up on all restraint and dance in his seat. A few of his peers nearby rolled their eyes, but John didn’t care. Free Stats were free Stats, and on top of that - there was the chance at whatever an ‘item’ was. Loot drops, Experience, Ability Score upgrades - this Quest was almost too good to be true. He stopped dancing at that point, his thoughts jumping about rapidly. Too good to be true was about right. How rare might those powerful people and ‘out of place’ things be? If he wanted to clear this Quest, he needed to start using Observe, and fast.