The entrance to the building at Park Avenue 87 lay in a courtyard that was connected to the street by a narrow passage that was squeezed under and between some multistory buildings. Graffiti covered outside facades that must hide a number of overpriced city apartments that hosted young professionals, students with rich parents and people rich only in the number of jobs they took. Sasha could see the building door on the other side of the courtyard, emanating cold light from bulbs that flickered and buzzed with old age and technological out-datedness. The view was cut up by the bars of the metal gate that protected the courtyard.

On the wall next to the gate hang a shiny plate with a number of doorbells. The light of Sashas phone illuminated some yellowed plastic covers containing the names of the inhabitants. Some of them were close to unreadable, but for Sasha it was just a simple trick. She crunched data and documents for a living. She screened the signs for the right apartment and rang the bell. She held the bag of strawberries in her left hand with a tight grip. Maybe she could just leave the bag here. She had practically delivered it. Maybe that would be enough. But enough for what? If she kept waiting, however, the door at the other end of the yard would soon open. The figure at the end would be indiscernible, it would come closer to the gate, open it. And then?

Then a voice said, “You’re going in or what?”

Sasha jumped.

“You alright?” asked the man disinterestedly.

“Yeah, yes, you just scared me.” Sasha pressed the words out of her throat, cleared it and continued, “ I just rang the bell, I was just waiting.”

“Come in then, no need to let you wait outside.”

Sasha stepped aside. The man opened the gate. Wordlessly they walked through the courtyard.

“Which house you want into?”

“87, apartment eight.”

"87, what? There’s a, b, c and d. Take your pick.”

“I am …,” She hesitated. “Not sure to be honest. I have a delivery to make.”

“Got ya, I’m also working weekends. Sucks when everyone’s out and about and your straw’s to do the off-days for some extra.”

“Eh, yeah.” Sasha said, “But there’s only one doorbell for apartment eight.”

“And there’s only 24 doorbells out there for what must be more than a hundred flats. You must be at least 20 years late to ring it. I gotta go hit the bed now, good luck.”

Sasha cursed inwardly as she watched the man disappear into one of the buildings. Of course the quest description was incomplete. As if she wasn’t nervous enough already. And now she would have to ring random doorbells and find out if somebody would like some late-night strawberries. Or she could just walk back home. She could do that. Through the courtyard. Open the gate. Only that she really could not. She walked back and the gate had no door handle. There was only an empty keyhole.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Sasha cursed.

How had this even passed fire safety regulations? Maybe she should call the emergency hotline right now? Or she could just give whoever ordered her here a good head washing. Her heart was beating hard, but she couldn’t feel herself sweating anymore. Her nervousness had been replaced by annoyance. Or anger. Or determination. Sasha walked over to the nearest entrance. There were the doorbells. No intercom. Great. Whoever was on the inside had to come out here. She pressed the button for apartment eight and could hear a faint ring. Her heart beat louder. The rhythm carried her to the next door. Another ring. Sasha took one deep breath before the fourth entrance. On the exhale she pressed the last button. She heard the faint ring again and took a few steps back, where she could see all the entries at once. She put the bag of strawberries on the ground.

Suddenly the courtyard lit up. Light shone through glass facades. Sasha could see the staircases on the inside. A figure appeared in each of the staircases and began descending towards the respective door. Sasha began taking in the courtyard. The light from the buildings was dim, but her senses heightened. She could see the symmetry in the design. A perfect fibonacci spiral in the pavement just where lines drawn straight from the different entries would intersect.

The figures were halfway to the ground. Sasha could see that they were in perfect sync. Each step, each swing of a limb they came closer as if they were a single person. Sashas heartbeat synchronized with their steps. She pictured the moment the doors opened. The geometry of four people coming out of four entrances facing her.

She was ready for them. The doors creaked open, Sasha tapped into the symmetry before her and the ground burst open.

“Stop!” cried a voice behind her.

The gap in the earth rippled forward and tore the four figures apart. Sasha swiveled around. Four figures were running at her.

"Remember! Remember what you are here for! You are not here to destroy anything!”

There was power to be drawn here. Power wanted to be used. Sasha extended her hand at the fourfold things coming at her and pulled at the lines. Again, the ground was ripped open by force. But suddenly one of the figures disappeared. Sasha felt the space around her shift as suddenly the four lines of force veered off-track and crashed into a tree, a bench, the dumpsters and a bike rack.

Whoever was running at her came closer. Now three, now clearly identical figures. Sasha concentrated again but just when she wanted to launch another forceline the figures flickered. They appeared and disappeared before her. Now one, now two, now three, now four. She couldn’t get a grip on the scene. Each time she could feel the lines of power they disappeared again. The figures, now three again, came closer and closer when they merged into one and jumped her.

The now single hooded figure crashed into Sasha. They both tumbled to the ground. Sasha’s hip and shoulders flared up. Somebody shook her by the collar.

“What are you here for?”

Sasha wanted to defend herself. But the world around her was too confusing, the figure kept shaking her. Sasha tried to hit with her fists and feet but to no effect.

“What are you here for?” the figure stopped shaking her and Sasha felt the power surge, when again she was violently shaken.

The figure continued to shake and ask her. And Sasha tried to focus on the courtyard around her. Tried to abstract from the shaking. Tried to feel the forcelines. She saw the torn earth, split trees. She tried to picture them in her mind. Calm and steady.

“What are you here for?” she was shouted at again.

She felt the power in the spiral where she had stood when the doors had opened.

“Oh no, oh no, don’t do that!” the figure said and hit her in the face. “What are you here for?”

Sasha opened her eyes again. Her vision was blurry, but she could still see the package lying in the spiral.

“Strawberries,” she gasped, “Quest.”

The figure let go of her and sighed.

“Now please take the strawberries and go to entrance a,” it said as it got up.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Sasha tried to get up. The first two times she fell. She was dizzy.

“Go and get the package. Calmly and quietly.”

Sasha stumbled towards the package of strawberries, picked it up and stumbled towards one of the buildings.

“Go on, it’s right at the back of the corridor, no stairs.”

Sasha stumbled over the threshold, swaying along, steadying herself on the wall.

“The door is open, go on in.”

Sasha stepped into the apartment.

Quest complete

Reward: 10k exp granted

Sasha’s head was throbbing. Her whole body hurt. She tried to turn around towards the figure. The world around her spun faster than anything she could muster. Finally, she collapsed in the hallway just beyond the door.

When she woke up, she lay on a mattress in an otherwise empty room. The light that fell through the window and filled the space around her seemed unreasonably bright and piercing. She squinted and saw dust dancing in the hair. When she turned her head, somebody was sitting besides her, cross legged. It was a man, looking young enough to be called a boy, really, in a green hoodie.

Sasha tried to ask where she was, the sound she actually produced was unrecognizable. The man sighed.

“Hello, I hope you don’t feel too bad.”

“Mh, hm.”

“I take that as an affirmative. You look fine to me. Even where I punched you.”

Sasha gathered herself and felt her face, “You punched me.”

“We had a little, ah, boss fight?”

“What’s a boss fight?” Sasha closed her eyes again.

“I’ll tell you later. Everything I can tell you, which is not much, I fear.”

Later was with a cup of tea in a narrow kitchen with two plastic chairs and a fold-out table that was attached to the wall.

“First off all, hi, I’m Xavier,” the man introduced himself.

“I’m Sasha. What happened? Why do I hurt so much?”

“I already told you we were fighting. And you probably also strained yourself a little too much.”

Sasha ran her hands over her face.

“That boss-fight thing.”

“Yeah, I call it that.”

“Only you?”

Xavier shrugged, “I guess.”

“So you’re the boss or I’m the boss?”

“None of us.”

“So then it’s not really a boss fight?”

“Technically, that is true. But you wrecked some serious havoc out there.”

They both looked out of the window and Sasha saw the chaos in the courtyard.

“How, what? I did that?”

Sasha vaguely remembered some feelings of power, anger, fear, but she couldn’t completely recall what had happened.

“Looks a bit overkill, considering you only wanted to deliver some strawberries. Don’t worry though, happened to me too.”

“Oh yes, the strawberries?”

Xavier pulled out the bag of strawberries from the fridge and offered them to Sasha who took and ate one.

“You did maybe wonder why you would receive 10k exp just to deliver them?” Xavier asked,

“Yes, how do you know?”

He shrugged, “Perks of being me, I guess.”

Sasha was alert, “Can you also tell me why I got this quest?”

“I just know you got a boss quest?”

“Boss quest?”

“Yes, what I can tell you is that there are these special quests. They look different to me. I had only one of them, really, and I also completely freaked out when I did that. I just don’t know what else to call them, even though there’s no bosses around. But I think you felt what I felt back then. These quests make you go mad, your adrenaline spikes, something deep inside does actually expect a fight and suddenly. Boom.”

“Boom?”

Xavier took a sip of tea and looked Sasha into the eyes, “What's your job?”

“I mostly do data analysis. Sometimes some accounting when no other jobs are available.”

“And yet, you did that,” Xavier gestured toward the scene of destruction outside.

“I have no idea what happened.”

“Adrenaline, panic, instincts. I also wasn’t myself yesterday night. It caught me too. That stuff is strong. And you are seriously strong when you are threatened. You must have invested some skill points in your life.”

“In abstract perception, not some magic demolition thing nobody has heard of before.”

“I do not know exactly what you did but you could have easily killed us both and then some.”

“But I do not want to hurt anybody, I have never hurt anybody. How can I do this?”

Xavier thought for a moment. “The way I see it, when we gain experience and invest in our skills we actually gain more than we think. Think about school. You solve a quest, your teacher tells you to invest in a skill and then they give you a harder test to find out you did the investment right. And then they call it botany or crafts or pattern recognition. And then you think you know what that is. But you don’t, not really, you only know a part of it and get so used to it that you take it for the whole thing.”

Sasha nodded, it did make sense.

“But how did you know I would be here?”

“I just know things. I knew that somebody was to come here last night to deliver strawberries. And that this delivery was a boss quest. Something that - as far as I know - only ever happened to me.”

“What are you?” asked Sasha.

“I,” Xavier said, “am a magician.”

Sasha had to laugh. Xavier shushed her. He extended a hand towards her face and pulled a coin from behind her ear?

“Wait? How did you?”

Then he smashed the hand with the coin on the table.

“Which side is up?” he asked Sasha.

“Heads?” she replied hesitantly.

“Now see the magic.” Xavier announced.

He lifted his hand and below it appeared a queen of hearts. The coin was gone.

“How do you know this?”

“My dad encouraged me to learn it, he had learned it too. He was a successful man. Other people in his position always just pump up their charisma and persuasion. He always said that there is more to charm than mere persuasion. He had a lot of different skills. Writing, arts, acting. When his business met government targets and he fulfilled his quests he always put some points into more exotic skills.”

“And you, what else do you do?”

“I am just a magician.”

“There are quests for that?”

“No, not really. I perform for food and happy faces,” Xavier looked down at the table.

“I have a friend who would love that,” Sasha said. Then a thought came to her. “But you can also do more, right?”

Xavier looked at the card and made a gesture above it. The queen on the card looked around and out of the card. She gripped the edges and pulled herself onto the table in three dimensions where she made a curtsy towards Sasha before she disappeared in a sparkle of light.

“Yes. I learned more than just a sleight of hand.”

Sasha looked at him and considered for a while. “Thank you, she said.”

“For what?” asked Xavier.

“For coming here. You didn’t know what to expect and you came and without you, who knows what I would have done.”

“No,” said Xavier, “Without me you might have returned peacefully. But I let you in here.”

“But why?”

“I was curious, and I wanted to understand. And I knew this place would be safe. No one lives here. It’s all mine and I really do not take good care of it.”

“Yours?”

“It was my fathers. Before he died.”

“I’m sorry.” said Sasha, then added, “But I also came here to understand. Not that I really do, now.”

“Can I ask you for something?” Xavier asked, “As far as I know, this is the second time something like this happened. Will you let me know if you learn anything else about it?”

“Only if you return the favor.”

“Deal,” said Xavier.

“Deal,” said Sasha.