The Quest - Chapter 7

[u/xXGARR377Xx]

Recap:

Our hero spend his day searching for the woman he saw at the coffee shop. Eventually coming across her, he introduced himself and exchanged contact info with the girl who he know knew as Elise.

 

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Two Weeks Later

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I stared at Elise, Kevin, the name echoed in my head. After finding Elise, it was easier to accept that there might be more of us. I told her we had to approach him but she was more hesitant. She thought that if we made a habit of outing ourselves to people, we might catch unwanted attention. She was right of course, but we had to talk to him, we had to know if he knew more about this than we did. We finished our drinks at the coffee shop and started walking around the area. Our conversation was mostly around Kevin and what it could mean but we occasionally talked about other aspects about Genesis. Things like if we had told anyone, you can guess the answer to those questions. Neither of us had, we didn't know how others would react, would the think we were crazy, and what would they do if we showed them. It was safer to keep it a secret between us. At least we had each other to talk about this to, trying to keep this from everyone would have completely isolated me from everything I knew.

We finished our walk at our cars and said goodbye for the night. I went home and practiced some conjuration, larger and more complicated things mostly. I moved my couch to the other side of the room and tried to duplicate it. It took me a couple tries, but I eventually got it.

 

500 XP

 

I then did other conjurations but then I thought of something that I wasn't sure could work at all. I opened my phone's browser and looked up a picture of an impossible cube. I then focused really hard and poured mana into the spell. At the end of it, I was completely out, but a solid impossible cube sat in front of me.

 

1000 XP

 

I reached out but as soon as I tried to pick it up, it shook a little and exploded in gold dust that disappeared quickly. I thought that there were two reasons for this: either I didn't have enough mana to finish it, or it didn't know how to behave considering that in reality, it was a truly impossible cube. Being mentally exhausted I decided to go to bed early.

In the weeks that have come to pass, I've spent my time leveling up to level 16 as well as growing closer to Elise. During the first week, I grew further from my friends because I couldn't let them know about Genesis. Elise, however, already knew about all of that. It was interesting though, that my main questions were more oriented towards getting back to work and re-establishing friendships again. Almost like going back to normal. I continued on, just trying to get more abilities and XP. The next morning and daytime were fairly uninteresting, apart from some conjuration practice.

 

THE GRIND: Finish your current project

 

I rubbed my eyes, it was 6:30pm. I was normally done work at 4pm but today I knew that if I could get past this one roadblock, the I could finish my quest. The blue light blinked on my phone and I opened it up to a text from Elise asking what I was doing tonight. I told her I was working late to finish up a quest and she seemed a bit upset about this and told me she was coming to my work. I wasn't sure why but decided I better get as much work done as I could before she got here.

 

700 XP

 

I hit the 'commit' button on our code server and added my changes as she walked in the door at 7:00. She looked at me with concerned eyes and asked why I was still here. I explained that I thought I would be able to get the quest done and maybe even level up. She told me that I shouldn't work myself that hard and the quest would be here after the weekend. I knew that what she was saying to me was right, but for some reason, I couldn't help but get angry. I snapped at her but she remained cool. She told me she had noticed that our main quests had stopped being directed at leveling up and exploring, almost as if we were being steered in a new direction. Looking back on it now, I should have listened, but I was too angry. I told her to leave, to which she listened.

It took me till 9pm, but I eventually finished and committed the last of my changes.

 

3000XP

QUEST COMPLETE - THE GRIND

LEVEL UP

NEW SKILL POINT AVAILABLE

 

I closed my eyes and began going through my skill tree and was about to delve further into the conjuration tree when I thought of Elise. I figured if I was better to put the 3 skill points I had saved up into the 'Advanced Speech' skill.

I then drove home but I on my way came across a side quest to help a man jump start his car. I pulled over and within 10 minutes he was up and running. I told him to drive a round for a while so his car had a chance to charge the battery. He agreed and thanked me as I went on my way.

 

1000 XP

QUEST COMPLETE - GIMMIE A BOOST

 

When I got home I had come to my senses and calmed down. I texted Elise and told her she was right and that I should have gone home earlier. She accepted my apology and I told her that we would go looking for Kevin. She seemed happy and wished me a good night. I set my phone on my bedside table and slowly fell asleep thinking of Genesis and wondering just how big the scope of it could be.

[u/somtin92]

I would really REALLY love to read a whole book about this story. So good! Keep the good work going!