Chaotically [Tabbycat]

Hia, Zix here once again bringing you another egg hatched to maturity. I'll cut the self agrandising here. Tabby's funny. I, Zix, Zixingly tell you all to read this branch. You won't regret it. I know I won't.

With breakfast only a short while ago, hunger wasn’t an immediate issue. On the other hand, his mother’s purse was sitting right there on the kitchen side; he might be able to snag some crisps or a drink from a vending machine with what he had - assuming he could figure out how to get it back out of the weird Inventory system he now seemed to have gained - but that would be it, and it would be a long, long time until dinner.

Picking up the purse as he debated what to do, the sound of the door behind him made him jump. “John! You’ll miss the bus if you don’t hurry, I thought you’d left already.” Spinning around without thinking, he faced his mother, her purse still in hand. Brenda shook her head and sighed. “Thank you for finding my purse for me, but you really have got to go. I’ve got…” she glanced up at the kitchen clock and winced, “I’ve got a meeting this morning and there’s no way I can run you to Ashcroft and make it back in time.”

Dropping the purse into his mother’s open hand and feeling somehow grateful that the decision had been taken for him, John moved quickly towards the front door only to skid to a halt as his mother called out for him to wait. “Sorry, I know we’re both in a rush but the things I’ve got on today are probably going to take me a bit longer than usual, and I might not make it home before the shops close. We’re running low on milk and eggs, can you pick some up?” He turned towards her to see that she was holding out a couple of folded notes. “Get yourself something nice for lunch too, while you’re at it. You’re looking a little pale this morning, too much staying up playing games all night.”

The tone was disapproving, but the smile his mother gave him as she handed over the cash was warm and John was suddenly glad that he’d not tried to take any money. With a last minute hug, the pair separated - Brenda heading for the lounge to collect the remainder of her things and John closing the front door behind himself as he stepped out into the brisk morning air.

His mother had been right; it would be a rush to get to the bus stop in time, and it wasn’t exactly as if he was the fittest of people. That said, the one stat he did have above twenty was Intellect; thinking while walking fast - especially when he was late for the bus - was something he’d learned to do years ago. Admittedly, what he had mostly been thinking about on those walks since starting at Ashcroft had been how best to avoid getting noticed by people that were out to make any nerd’s life hell, and especially nerds called John Newman; today, however, the strangeness of the whole ‘Gamer’ business occupied him.

“Assuming I’m not currently losing the plot due to a lack of sleep or as a trauma response, what do I actually know?” John said, only somewhat under his breath. A habit of talking to himself aloud did not help with his confidence on the whole ‘am I sane?’ front, although he had to admit that if everything that seemed to be happening was real, talking to himself would add to the reasons for that Charisma score of five. “If I’ve lost it, no point in worrying,” he decided, which led neatly into the next question, “If this is all real, how does it all work?”

His Stats were the logical starting point. Doing his best to glance at them without tripping or losing his balance as he walked, he reviewed what little information he had on hand. The general outline was standard roleplaying game, although a few things struck him as odd. The addition of Libido made a perverse kind of sense; most RPGs weren’t built to allow for any more intimacy than a fade to black after the bard rolled a natural twenty to seduce a dragon, but this was real life, people were horny, and with a score of nineteen, John was probably hornier than most. Thinking back over his daily habits, that checked out.

The nineteen was interesting, but what was more so was the twenty-five in Intellect. That ruled out the possibility that whatever was going on was working on Dungeons and Dragons rules, average human stats there would be a ten, and while he knew he was smart, he certainly didn’t feel superhumanly so. “Okay, so not D&D,” John muttered to himself as a jogger ran past in the opposite direction. Thankfully, the man had been wearing headphones so didn’t hear his random mutterings, but the man’s presence caused John to realize he’d pretty soon have to watch what he said - the bus stop was approaching and with it people that would use it as an excuse to pick on him. Again.

Doing his best to not think out loud, John continued his reflection, ‘Assumption one, I’m not going mad. Assumption two, this isn’t D&D based so stats are hopefully not fixed and can go up each level. I really hope so, otherwise that Charisma of five is going to stop me ever getting a girlfriend. Hell, at five it’ll do a good job of stopping me getting many friends full stop. So, what have I got at the moment? Low Strength, low Endurance, very low Charisma. No muscles, no stamina, no charm. That’s… uncomfortably fair. High Libido, very high Intellect, average Wisdom and solid Agility. So, horny, smart, not wise but not foolish either and good at dodging. Well, I guess that’s true.’

He closed the menu and sighed as he reached the stop. He’d gone quickly enough that he actually had a few minutes to wait. Normally, he’d drag this trip out as much as was safe, just to stave off running into people, but today he’d been so lost in thought that he’d made it far faster than normal. ‘Alright then. What else do I know? My class is listed as The Gamer, but that feels more like a title than a class; surely, if it was a class, it’d just be Gamer? And Mom had that mother of the Gamer thing when I observed her. Maybe it’s defaulting to my title because I don’t have a class yet? Hopefully I’ll find out more when I level up - but to do that I’m going to need more xp, and the only way I’ve gotten that so far is via a Quest.’

The bus rounded the corner and John stood, fumbling for a moment with his Inventory to retrieve his wallet and more importantly his library card; despite getting the same bus every day, there’d been a few times when one of the other students had put the driver up to not letting him on without proof that he was attending Ashcroft. A moment later he tugged the card free from his wallet, noting as he did so that while the card had been there, both his own cash and the money his mother had given him earlier were still missing. Another thought flashed through his mind as the vehicle pulled up, doors sliding open with a hiss. ‘Got to figure out a better way to get things in and out of my Inventory; pulling stuff out of thin air is going to attract attention I don’t want.’ He smiled and flashed his card at the driver who just scowled and hooked a thumb towards the back of the bus in reply; they were clearly running late, which was going to mean a bumpy ride through the morning traffic.

There was an empty bench about halfway down. John sank into it, relieved that he’d not had to deal with any unwanted attention as he made his way through the aisle. Staring out the window, he let his thoughts drift back into the topic at hand. ‘Just how do I get a Quest? Does one just pop up every morning, or do they trigger if I do something?’ He glanced down at his feet and sighed; the whole situation was exciting, but he lacked the information he needed to plan anything properly. Before he could start to daydream about potential options, however, his morning turned into a nightmare as someone dropped heavily into the seat next to him, one hand landing on his shoulder hard enough to make him wince.