“Were you able to get through to her?” Dad asked on the way home.
“Yeah,” I replied. “She said she’s got to talk to her father and to you.”
Dad gave me a look that I knew spoke of the anxiety he was feeling. Just the mention of the word ‘talk’ was enough.
“About different things,” I clarified. “For you it’d be about the situation and getting me a computer and Internet so I can earn some money.”
“I see.”
“She told me to hold off from doing anything drastic that could make me famous until she talked to Grandpa Joe. It’s probably for the best to listen to her on that.”
Dad grunted in agreement.
“I’m glad it went well.”
“Me too. I’ll probably have to see Mom now and then, so getting some kind of visitation thing worked out would be helpful for everyone involved.”
“True,” Dad said. “We’ve got court in about two weeks where we’re going over stuff like that… I think.”
I chuckled.
“It’s hard for you both to fight over me when you know the full situation. I hope you can be amicable about this rather than taking out your anger on each other through me like you did the first time.”
“I’ll try,” Dad confirmed.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
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By the time I woke Saturday morning, I was sitting at 477 experience. I’d gotten lucky with Friday’s daily experience that gave me 50, while the quests had been doable if mostly average. Today’s quests involved puzzles, which cut out a lot of what I would otherwise have been able to do, but the physical quests added up to 60 that I could achieve.
I spent the morning as I’d grown accustomed to: eating breakfast early with Dad before walking outside to start on my daily quests. I completed the quests by the early afternoon. It was time to go over the choices one last time before I locked it in and spent the experience.
The first option—and the one I was biased towards—was Quests II. Milestones were an alright source of experience, but quests were much better. Since I’d started gaining experience, the amount I’d gained from milestones was around a quarter as much as from quests. Quests II promised to take what Quests I was doing and amplify it.
The second option was Milestones II. It would unlock a whole new set of things to gain experience from. From what I could glean using System Help, there would be a lot more milestones to achieve from this one than from the last—if more nebulous. That could be a quick burst of experience to help grab Quests II more quickly.
It came down to whether I thought the burst of experience in the short-term would be enough to outweigh the medium- and long-term strength of questing in the race to get the other unlocked.
Feature Unlocked: Quests II
Current Exp: 37
In the end, I decided on Quests II simply for the time I had left before I had to go back to school on Monday. A day-and-a-half wasn’t nearly enough for me to explore all that Milestones II had to offer and get the most from the burst it would offer. I took a look at the new quests offered.
A Book A Day
Read 30 books: 0/30
Success: 250 Exp
Failure: N/A
Expires: 7 Day 8 hours 29 minutes 19 seconds
Weekly Questing
Complete 7 quests: 0/7
Success: 50 Exp
Failure: N/A
Expires: 1 Day 8 hours 29 minutes 19 seconds
Weekly Steps
Run 15,000 steps: 0/15,000
Walk 15,000 steps: 0/15,000
Success: 100 Exp
Failure: N/A
Expires: 1 Day 8 hours 29 minutes 19 seconds
Problem Solver
Solve 500 puzzles: 0/500
Solve 500 equations: 0/500
Success: 100 Exp
Failure: N/A
Expires: 1 Day 8 hours 29 minutes 19 seconds
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
It turned out that I absolutely should have picked Milestones II. Even without much time to figure it out, the fact that the weekly quests refreshed at midnight Monday morning and the fact that it was nearly the end of the month really cut back on what I would be able to accomplish quickly. I cursed the blind decisions I was still making. Mom was right. Without Search, I couldn’t see what each unlock did ahead of time, and that was really hurting me.
I accepted the A Book A Day quest. In school there were books to read, and they were short so I figured I might be able to finish it before the end of the month—if those short books counted, of course. It was the only one I considered taking before the week rolled over.
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I awoke Monday to a small bonus of 5 experience. Sunday netted me 64 experience between the daily reward, the quests, and the next rank of sleeping. I looked at the new quests for the week and sighed. It was time to put my nose to the grindstone.
The first change I noticed was that there were only three daily quests instead of four. There were four weekly ones instead. The bad news ended there, however. The weekly quests were rather easy—read a certain amount of words, sleep a certain amount of hours, walk/run/skip a certain amount of steps, and complete seven other quests—so I picked all of them up. The daily quests were also rather easy. They followed the mold of what I’d been doing for the last two weeks. The day’s options were without puzzles, thankfully.
I went through the morning routine of getting dressed and eating a beach before heading off to school in Dad’s truck. The wipers swept back and forth hypnotically as we drove.
“Kiddo,” Dad said, “I talked with your mother last night. She said she has something for you from Grandpa Joe, so she’ll come over tonight to drop it off.”
“The laptop?” I asked.
“Maybe? She didn’t say what it was but only that it was important for what’s going on with you. She’s also going to pay for Internet for the house, so a laptop would make some sense.”
“Great!”
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When we arrived at my school, we waited in line behind the other cars dropping off the students. When it was my turn, I exited the truck quickly and dashed for the dry safety of the front door.
I shook the water loose from my coat and followed the stream of children towards my classroom. After a week of classes, I was much more familiar with the layout of the school and so finding my way was easy.
The first few sections of the day proceeded as they had every school day thus far. Each day—right after lunch—was where things deviated. Each of the days had a different special class and Monday’s was a trip to the school library.
After lining up outside the classroom, I followed my classmates to the library. The library was fairly large given that it had to accommodate a variety of reading proficiency levels and have enough books for all of the students. The shelves were stacked high enough that I found it impossible to reach the top shelf without the help of the teacher or the librarian.
As soon as we were all in the library, we scattered like leaves to the wind. I beelined for the simplest books meant for children to read on their own. These books—even when read aloud—would take under five minutes each. When read quietly, I could read each of them in a little over a minute.
The quest wanted me to read 30 books, but there wasn’t enough time in the library to accomplish this entirely. Still, I could get a significant portion completed within that time. I also wanted to test whether reading the same book would count twice—it did not. I was able to complete 15 books and snag another five to bring home. That would leave me with 10 more for the quest—something a trip to the town library would fulfill.
I let Dad know when he picked me up that afternoon. Instead of going directly there, we went home so I could have a snack and pick up the books I’d borrowed to return them. I could tell that Dad was already starting to feel worn from me asking him to bring me places all the time.
“Hey, Dad?” I asked.
“Yes?”
“Do you think I can ride a bike to the library so you don’t have to drive me?”
He shook his head.
“As much as I’d love for you to do that, you’re going to need a few years before it won’t be a problem. You know how people are.”
“Karens,” I agreed.
Dad laughed.
Once in the library, I went to the children’s section and read through the rest of the required books for the monthly quest. I picked up a couple larger books to bring home that were certain to be large enough for the weekly words quest.
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There was a knock on the door while I was helping Dad clean up the plates from dinner. I dropped what I was doing—carefully of course—and raced to open the door. Due to the long driveway, there weren’t any visitors besides ones that were invited. That meant there was only one option for who it could be: Mom.
I opened the door and let her in. She was carrying a large bag that looked like it was heavy. Dad popped his head out from the kitchen. I could see a complicated look on his face.
“Hey, Mom,” I said.
“Eddy!” She exclaimed while grabbing me in an excited embrace.
“Hi,” Dad said politely before ducking back into the kitchen.
“So Dad—uh Grandpa Joe—was able to give you the laptop,” Mom said, handing the heavy bag to me. I struggled to hold it and put it down as gently as I could while she continued. “I explained a bit about what was going on. He didn’t believe me, but threw in a book that he thought would be helpful if it were true.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Thank your grandfather next time you see him.”
“Yes, Mom.”
“Alright, I won’t stay and make things awkward for your father.”
I let Mom outside and just before I closed the door behind her, she turned around.
“Oh, before I forget. It looks like you’ll have to go to college if you want to get out of primary education early. Give it some thought and let me know.”
“Ok.”
I shut the door. Dad—having decided he was done hiding—came out to see what she’d given me. I opened the bag wide enough to get a good look at what was inside.
Sitting on its edge was an old laptop—well, it looked positively ancient to my eyes, but was maybe three or four years old—complete with charging cables and a wireless mouse and mousepad. Taking up the rest of the space—and contributing heavily to the weight of the bag—was a thick book that had an unassuming title on it. I recognized it as something Mom got when Grandpa Joe passed, but I’d never really given it much thought or attention. I wondered if that was on purpose and the book held something more valuable inside.
I showed Dad the contents and he nodded.
“Well, I’ll work on getting the laptop set up for you for tomorrow. The Internet still isn’t paid for but they’re scheduled to come tomorrow before you come home from school.”
“Ok,” I said.
I was looking forward to having some more entertainment options and for a creative outlet. The feeling of accomplishment upon completing quests was starting to wear off and I needed something to hold my attention and keep me focused on the goal of unfucking the world.