Nothing seemed to happen after he placed his points into the option. At least, it didn't seem like it, not in the slightest. He didn't exactly feel any different, and the X person that contacted him upon rolling the dice had made no contact after dumping his points. There didn't seem like any option to revert his change, and the option he had chosen was now listed as a 23 amongst the rest of his stats.

Creativity: 30
Willpower: 25
Planning Capacity: 23
Fearmongering: 22
Strength: 18
Motivation: 15
Sociability: 10

James had questions, like any person would do, and so he closed off the app and moved to the messaging app, where he began typing in a question to the mysterious X. He went to press send, but as he clicked, the messaging app crashed and forced him back to the dice app. For some reason, his phone wouldn't let him text the omniscient being watching his every move. So, he typed it again, this time sort of hoping that the X person could see the text, and would respond.

Whatever you are, I can tell you are probably omniscient to some degree. If so, I have a couple of questions I'd like to ask.

For starters, you've specified that I can acquire a varying amount of dice for completing one of my quests, but now that I've increased one of my skills, I have likely increased my chances of completing the quest with the maximum amount I can receive. Don't you think that, in some degree, that is a tad game breaking?

Secondly, my creativity is massively high. If, I say, raise certain stats past a certain level, is there a way to, I don't know, "transcend" human levels of comprehension with it? Lets say I manage to raise my creativity past 50, or 70, my imagination would become so... powerful, that coupled with a high intelligence, could tear away the fabric of knowledge we cling to, and exceed human understanding. What happens then?

Lastly, and this seems a bit farfetched, but if I discover who you are through this program of yours, what then? Do you vaporise me and keep yourself a secret, or do I become the next level of existence, or something similar. You appear both direct and cryptic, which confuses me slightly, but what would happen when I find you. And what happens if I choose to kill you. What would you do?

So it could hear what I was saying with the phone's speaker and receiver smothered against the floor. Mark's eyes darted around his room. His window was closed. He didn't see anything that looked like it had been tampered with to install a camera or hidden microphone. It says it's not a god, but there's definitely some supernatural crap going on for it to be near-omniscient like this.

He stood up, still holding his phone, and began to pace again.

"For the sake of being productive and not frozen with paranoia, I'll assume you're not outright lying to me." he began. "But you've also confirmed that I'm not the only one with this app. And that there's apparently no background check to keep someone who's "crazy" from getting their hands on these dice that can probably be used to make themselves superhuman. I'm guessing you don't really care if somebody decides to go on a crime spree with the power you've handed out seemingly at random."

He scrolled through the list of quests. He could knock out some of these pretty quickly, just for the sake of grabbing a few points that he might need if he came into contact with another Player.

"More and more this seems to be a Ring of Gygas scenario, in which case I've already failed it." He sighed and sat down at his computer, placing the phone face up on the desk before his fingers began to fly across the keyboard. "But if other people have these abilities, and I don't know anything about them, then--ignoring all the philosophical and logical conclusions I could probably come to about the safety and nature of this situation if I thought about it long enough--I should focus on grinding the shit out of these quests in order to power myself up and get a little security in case something happens."

He had opened up his email, and now was preparing a group message. He added his mother and father's addresses, then his brother's, then his elder sister, the one who lived out of state. She had always been the one he felt understood him the most, as up until he had been born she had been the one under the burden of his parents' perfectionist tyranny. He stopped for a moment when he considered his other older sister--the younger of the two. He didn't really like her. Hated her, really. Her and her bratty kids and her stupid boyfriend. But, what the hell, it was for the sake of a quest. He also included his grandmother--his grandpa didn't have one, and neither of them really used a computer that often, but it couldn't hurt.

"This is the manuscript I've been writing for my novel. I haven't hit the hundred page mark yet, but tell me what you think." He attached the document with his rough draft in it to the email, and hit send. He didn't actually have much hope for the responses--they probably would respond, but he'd stopped asking for their input a long time ago because none of it was ever helpful, save for his oldest sister's.

Then he picked up his phone, found his karate teacher's number, and hit the call button. After three rings it picked up.

"Hello?"

"Master Williams, it's Mark. Are you busy at the moment?"

"Hey, buddy! Uh, not really...what's up?"

There was the sound of paper shuffling and something made a distinct thumping noise. More than likely his teacher had probably been taking care of some of his usual business--outside the Karate school, his primary form of income was personal training. But as long as he wasn't directly involved with a client at the moment, their relationship had been good enough that he would probably make time for Mark. Mark's own social ineptitude had prompted him to send a text message, after the dojo had closed down, but he hadn't received a response for a whole day. Honestly, he felt too much like he was bothering the man, but with the prospect of finishing the quest spurring him on, he was able to swallow a little bit of his anxiety.

"Well, I wanted to know if you would be available for a private lesson any time soon? I know it's kind of short notice, since the school just shut down, but I sent you a text yesterday and--"

"Yeah, I'm sorry, I just got busy yesterday and forgot to respond. Anyway, this weekend's too hectic for me, but I should have some time next week. Would you mind if I called you back later when I know what my schedule's going to look like?"

"That's fine, sir. I'd just...really like to be able to at least finish up my third dan under you, sir..." He wanted to stress how important this was. He knew his teacher didn't really mean anything by it, but the guy had tendencies in the past to say he was going to do something and then get distracted by something else.

"Don't worry man, we'll work something out. I'll call you back later, all right?"

"Hai, sensei. Thank you very much."

As they both hung up, he heaved a deep sigh. He hadn't noticed how tense he was...talking to other people was always so stressful when he didn't have a computer screen to hide behind, or something to talk about that didn't make him feel like a loser. But he swallowed it down, and opened up the app again.

"Alright, X, how much of that counts towards my first two quests?"

@Vocab

Guess what happened with James's phone? No, really. Guess.

"Uuuuuuugh, just say it out loud. You have no idea how exasperating it is to wait for you to tyyyypppppe ヽ(　￣д￣)ノ"

"On your first question, no. For varying reward quests, I grade you based on your abilities and how you apply them. If you have a 9999 in Planning but you end up making a plan that someone with 500 could do, then you'll be lucky to get one die."

"For the second, you uh, you need a reality check, pal. 70 Creativity? Congrats, you're like, three times more creative than the average twat. Well, not even because stats aren't linear like that. Besides, no matter how high your stats get, you'll still be conceptually human. You can't understand things that don't function in the conceptual universe your mind's posited in; boosting stats can't change that. If you plan on becoming something beyond humanity, then do quests and get as many dice as you can, 'cause you'll sure as hell need them."

"Hm? Find me? Kill me? You're asking what happens if you manage to do that?"

"LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL"

-X

---

@Zeroth

Almost immediately after Mark had hung up the phone, a small, not blinding but still present, flash of light momentarily occupied a patch of air in front of him. When it faded, four blue dice fell from that space, clattering against the ground. It seemed that they materialized from the light, or something of that nature.

"As expected of the current top candidate! Well, to be fair, I might have made those quests a bit too easy, but your specs are pretty up there in terms of how the dice like you, so it's whatever. That's how the quests work, after all."

"They're both cleared, but I hope you don't just leave it be like that! Following up is important."

"Anyway, your quest log is updated. Enjoy the new gifts~!"

-X

James looked at the phone in his hands, watching as the text he had written vanished into nothing, being instead replaced with a new text, from X. The answers were all pretty decisive, including the last, rather cocky point. So, it thought it was unkillable? If it had stats, the same as him, then it could be killed. Even if it had max stats, and could regenerate wounds a million times faster than the speed of light, and rip a hole clean through him that would tear through time back to the dinosaurs and further, the X character would still be kill able. Which left only one clear option; win the game. Whatever it's win criteria was, it could be met.

It only dawned upon James in the second he thought of winning that, for the past 5 minutes, he had been pacing his room and twirling a knife he had picked up in the left hand. He had a couple scattered around the house, in case he needed them, but he didn't remember picking one up in the time he spent thinking. On his next turn, he spun on an axis and threw the knife, it sticking into a board covered in paper on the other side of the room. Then, he stepped to his desk, switching on the laptops and speedily typing in his password. The weren't many people he knew that could match his speed of typing, and even if they could they wouldn't be able to match his precision. He clicked a small icon on his task bar at the bottom, and it loaded up a Microsoft word document, fresh for writing on. And write was exactly what he did.




It sat off to the side, a silhouette cast by a computer monitor brighter than the surrounding room. The screen was split into multiple sections, each focusing on a single person, there experiences, and everything they did. Sound came through the speakers on either side, but all sounded disjointed; separate, as if all the sounds were coming through separate audio channels, sounding singularly against the rest, coming across completely clear. In the figures hand, a small, translucent blue die sat, being twirled around slightly in an intricate, slightly hypnotic style. The scene continued for a short while, but then the figure stopped spinning the dice, and instead angled its arm to roll it. The die clattered across the desk, shining a slight pale wood colour before fading into complete white, and came to a stop on a 5. In the instant the dice stopped, one part of the monster switched to black, and the feeds rearranged themselves into an even split of five. And in that same instant, all the people on the screen seemed to have something happen to them, all simultaneously and abruptly, they each picked up or were given a blue dice, identical to the one sat on the desk glinting in the blue light of the screen.

James cracked his knuckles and stood from his chair, instead switching over to google for a quick search. In the search bar, he typed Fast acting sleeping pills and hit the enter key. He was immediately granted millions of results, but he just clicked the first that appeared.

"So tell me then, X. If I say, invite them over for a bit, put them to sleep, kill them and hide the bodies, would I get a good amount of dice, or not?

@Eklispe

Unexpectedly, the performer offered her his hand and asked her to join him in the next dance. No one had ever asked her to dance before, and Kim felt a little flattered even though she knew he'd probably chosen her at random. She could take him up on his offer and try her best, or choose the safer option and decline. Kim had taken ballet lessons many years ago, but that was the extent of her abilities - she'd never learned to dance to modern pop songs, let alone something like this. Nonetheless, she felt that she could learn pretty quickly, like he'd said - agility would help with dancing, right? Her gymnastics floor routines had also been pretty similar, albeit with many more flips and acrobatics. The music was already starting and the audience was waiting - she had to make her decision. Kim took his hand with an answering smile and did a half-remembered ballet curtsy. "I'd be honored," she replied. She let him take the lead and sweep her into the long, flowing movements of the foxtrot, doing her best to follow his steps.

As he watched the four dice appear in a bloom of light, Mark shivered. This was...

Amazing? Impossible? Awesome. Terrifying. There was seemingly incredible power at his finger tips. Could he become stronger and faster, more durable, more intelligent, than any other human being? He could...he could finally BE the absolute best. He could finally be perfect, and be worthy of all the praise that had been heaped on him. He could finally satisfy his parents. He could fix every problem life threw at him. If his lack of skill--social or technical--was holding him back from getting a job, he could change it. If his lack of good looks was keeping him from being able to talk to a smoking hot girl, he could change it. Money, power...he never cared much about fame, most celebrities seemed like idiots, but influence, hell yes he cared about influence. Maybe he could finally feel like he was making a difference in the world. Maybe he could somehow use the power of the dice to change things. Could he fix the economy? Could he fix the corrupt government? Could he fix society?

Society is the reflection of the humans who created it. All humans are flawed creatures, even me. But unlike me, most other people don't bother trying to fix their flaws. And there are some people...

There are some people who would be better off wiped from the earth.

"No. Dr. Robert taught me better than that."

All his life, his parents had pushed him to be better than anyone else. He hadn't always met their expectations...but to the average person, even a little bit of competence was often seen as a big deal. In school, teachers had congratulated him for high scores and merits. In karate, his classmates and sensei had praised his skill, his diligence, his passion. And he had begun to see himself as superior. He was smarter than others, even if he wasn't the strongest. He'd told himself that he just wasn't a neanderthal, that he was better than the jocks and the preps. And he could still improve his physical strength through his martial arts. But then he got his first taste of the real world and had learned that he wasn't any better than anyone else. It had almost destroyed him.

His therapist had been one of the three people in his life--his older sister, and then his sensei--that he felt "got" him. And Dr. Robert had opened up entirely new routes of thinking for him. He didn't have to be like that anymore. He didn't HAVE to be the best, and even if he wanted to, he only had to be as good as he WANTED to be.

"Forget changing the rest of it. I'm going to change me. Like Ghandi said. Be the change you wish to see in the world."

He suddenly remembered he wasn't alone anymore. Boy, his usual habits of thinking out loud were going to get embarrassing. He looked at the phone and saw X's new message.

"The dice like me? You speak as if they're sentient." He rolled all four of the dice. "Anyway...I suppose I should just shower and then go out and about or something. But another question occurs. Every game has rules, right? And given the "Big Brother" vibe you give off, and the potential for misuse of the power of the dice, I'm assuming something bad happens if a Player breaks the rules for this particular game. Does this app come with a manual or something?"

Niel was both pleased and surprised, the girl returned his exaggerated gesture with one of her one. Niel began the dance, competently leading her footsteps with well placed movements of his own. However it quickly became clear the girl had some previous experience with this sort of things, because after a few she seemed to be able to grasp what was coming before it came. Whatever it was it made the dance much easier, he only had to remind her off the next step every so often with gentle nudges. After only a few moments they came to a perfect halt in sync with the music. After a moment of silence the crowd burst into applause and presents showered into his hat.

A few seconds latter the crowd had mostly dispersed, people suddenly remembering duties and responsibilities. "Well that was quite fun, and impressive on your part." That had been the last song in the playlist he'd created and Niel released his dance partner, throwing the music box into his bag, sweeping the goodies in his hat into one of his many pockets, and flashing her another cheery grin. "I'm Niel, street performer extraordinaire. I'm new in town and generally I just wander around, but I'm looking to stay here for while. I was wondering if you could be my first friend?", the question seemed to be equally aimed at her and himself.

Perhaps a bit forward of him. Eh, that was how he'd started things and it seemed to have worked so far. Did normal people make friends like this? Was he being rude or creepy? Too much to think about. Niel was already devoting enough brain power to remembering her appearance. Eyes a sort of red-brown. Glasses. Long black hair. Freckles. The tiny details ran constantly through the back of his mind, ingraining themselves into his memory. He would stop forgetting things. Starting with this girl.

@Eklispe

Kim grinned widely as the crowd applauded around them. That had been the most fun she'd had in a long time. "No, you were the amazing dancer," she said. "I just followed your lead." It was true - he'd done most of the work, and danced smoothly enough that it was easy to keep up with the motions. She thought that he'd be able to go places with those skills someday, if he chose to do so.

His next question was just as forward as his first, which Kim appreciated - she preferred getting to the point, instead of talking in circles around it as some were wont to do. She considered the young man in front of her. He had a short stature, light-colored, shaggy hair, and warm brown eyes. His cheerful smile seemed right at home on his face, as though it was an expression he made often. Although she didn't know much about him, from what she did know, he seemed like he'd be a good friend. "Of course I'll be your friend," Kim replied. "My name is Kimberly Le, but you can just call me Kim. I'm a freshman at Madison University, the college just across town."

However, as she thought back on them, a few of the things he'd said sounded a little odd. If she was his first friend, did that mean that he didn't have any others? Upon closer examination, his street clothes seemed rather worn and patched, and his shaggy hair looked as though it hadn't been washed for a while. There were numerous other signs that might point towards his being a particularly unkempt youth, or perhaps something more unfortunate. "Wait. What do you mean by 'first friend' and 'wander around'?" she asked. "What kind of circumstances led to your being a street performer?" It wasn't unusual to see people performing on the streets, but Niel seemed a bit young to be traveling on his own for no reason. Kim felt a growing suspicion that she should be concerned for his well-being. A small, selfish part of her wanted to mind her own business and go sign up for the gymnastics competition so that she could get more dice, but she shushed it. Kim didn't consider herself a saint, but she wasn't so self-serving as to abandon a new friend just to gain power a few minutes or hours earlier.

"Hm. Interesting that your first example is that someone uses the dice to kill...and that your second discourages the spread of this power." Mark opened the app as the rolled die faded out of existence. It seemed like X probably anticipated that there would be some less-than-savory individuals out there who would use the dice to break laws or get what they wanted by force. Honestly, he should probably expect such from most other people, even if the Players were only a small group. It was a typical Lord of the Flies scenario. When given any form of true freedom or power, most human beings would devolve and give in to their base nature.

He would have to monitor himself closely. He knew he was ambitious, and he knew he was overly judgmental of others. He knew he found it easier to find someone's flaws than their good points. Probably because he had spent more time in realms of idealistic fiction than in reality. But that would be his inspiration, rather than his damnation. After all, one of the most influential phrases in the stories...

"With great power, comes great responsibility."

He decided to put 12 points into Agility, and 1 into Strength. That would be enough for now--at this stage of the game, when he was still figuring things out, it might be better to avoid conflict rather than go looking for it. To do that he'd need to be able to move quickly and get away if he was attacked, or get somewhere safe if the city started tearing itself apart as Players began causing chaos.

After doing this, he made a short trip around the house, making sure all the doors were locked and all the windows closed. It didn't seem like there was any kind of tracking function on the app, so Players probably would not know each others' locations or identities, but best to play it safe. He took his phone with him into the bathroom and put it on the counter--face down again, even though he knew that apparently didn't do anything.

"I'm assuming you're not a weirdo, X, so just for the sake of having the app nearby my phone is probably not going to be out of reach from now on." he said, before disrobing and climbing into the shower. Fifteen minutes later he got out, went about the usual routine, and threw on a pair of blue jeans and a forest green, long sleeved shirt. After tying the laces of his black sneakers, he grabbed his gray zip-hoodie and put his phone in the inside breast pocket; if he completed a quest, he didn't want the dice or the light to appear out of nowhere. Once he zipped up the coat, hopefully no one would be able to see the shine and the dice would spawn right there in the pocket.

Now, where to actually go...He could walk around town and look for job applications again. He hadn't had any luck with the last two dozen he'd tried, but now that he had the dice...

The answer made a lot of sense. If the game was meant to be entertainment, then the host interfering wouldn't make for much fun. As James read through the page of sleeping pills he was looking at, but for some reason it was like he wasn't actually looking at the page.

"X, theres something I need to know. Are there more people like me, who can use the dice in the same way? I know what I've been saying may seem slightly... Sadistic, but if I were to kill another dice user, could I take their dice, and therefore their points?"

He clicked off of the website, and moved to another; a messaging service. He didn't have the number of any of the three guys, but he knew where to find them. All had moved to his school after primary, which meant they were easily available. He searched for one of the guys profiles, opening up a chat window and typing in a message.

"Me, you, Jack and Ben. Meet in half an hour, park by Jack's house. I'll take you all on."

He pressed send, and was almost immediately sent a reply.

Well be there, bastard. Dont shit yourself again.

And that was all it took to set the plan into motion. He stood from the chair and walked over to his pinboard, and pulled the knife out from it. Then he walked to his bookcase, and took another out from behind a couple of the books. Placing them both in his back pockets, and stepped out from his room. He walked down the stairs, past his cats, and out of the house, locking the front door behind him.

Kill two, leave one afraid. Depending on reaction, either chase or fight. Kill either way. Head home, burn both clothes and knives. Dispose of knives, receive dice.

It didn't take long to arrive at the park, only a couple of minutes walk with his pace. There was no one around, and so James sat on the swings, lightly rocking back and forth. Nothing left to do but wait.

Did he say something wrong? Kim's face had suddenly adopted a look of concern. Maybe he'd been using the words wrong, he didn't really talk to people that often except for on extended hitch hikes and even then not that much. "Um, first friend means I don't have any others," He though that'd been pretty clear, weird. Continuing on thoughtfully he said, "And wander around means, uh, that I just go wherever I feel like. Like if I'm bored of somewhere then I'll just walk around or hitch a ride somewhere else. As for why I'm a street performer, well, I'm not much good at anything else you see. I'm getting better but I need to do some stuff before I can get to where I want to be. That answers everything right?" Niel asked cheerily. This was the most he'd talked in a while. It was kind of fun. He added Kim's name to the words repeating over and over mentally. He had to make it a complete idea. This was Kim. Kim was this. Sometimes one of her features slipped out and he looked at her again and added it back in. This was hard, but it was easier then it'd ever been. "Oh right, and my name is Niel." He'd almost forgotten to introduce himself, how embarrassing.

@Eklispe

"You don't have any other friends. Or a car, or a permanent residence. That, that is not an acceptable situation," Kim said. Then she shook her head. "I'm sorry, I know it's not any of my business." She really needed to think before she spoke - he might have perceived that as an insult. If he was happy with his life, then she didn't have any right to tell him otherwise. Kim was still a bit worried, though. She asked, "Do you at least have a warm place to stay? Food? Clothes?" She knew that it was wrong for her to walk past homeless people on the street without a second thought, yet be concerned about the welfare of the person she'd just met. It was human nature, though; people cared vastly more about the troubles of the ones they knew than the struggles of anonymous strangers.

One of the things he'd said struck her: he was getting better, but not yet where he wanted to be. Kim had felt that way, a long time ago, before she realized that she would never be where she wanted to be. With the recent changes in her life, she was starting to think that way again, starting to have a place she wanted to be.

When he introduced himself again, she bluntly pointed out, "You already told me your name." On second thought, that had probably also been a rude thing to say - maybe her next dice points should go in Charisma. "Not that I mind," she amended afterwards.

Oh, he'd forgotten. Been too focused on remembering her rather than his own words. Still hard. So many questions. "Let's see, I have clothes." he said gesturing, that one seemed pretty obvious too. Maybe she meant something else? Whatever. "I've got a few snacks tucked away, mostly granola bars and an orange, haven't stocked up yet. Warm place depends. Usually it doesn't get too cold and my clothes are pretty comfortable. Sometimes I can find shelters and stuff and they serve food every now and then as well. They don't like it if I stick around for very long though and usually they're full already." What else had she asked? That was it right? Niel'd introduced himself, her name was Kim, and he'd answered all her questions. This was like a performance only it drained his brain instead of his body. Weird. Was school supposed to be like this? Kim was in collage, he was proud of remembering that, so she was probably really smart. That must be fun. It was strange that she was so concerned though. Normally people just ignored him or told him they wished they could help before moving on. He wasn't sure how what he was doing qualified as unacceptable. Niel was breaking any laws as far as he knew, and he was getting along alright. No problem that he saw.

Beginning at the base of all existence, Malkhut, the root of the World Tree, Patalaloka. Ending at the colorless peak, Keter, the domain of the transcendent Eagle, Satyaloka. A golden spiral staircase comes into being, stretching from the foundation up and down into an infinity that exceeds description.

On the two ends of this staircase, standing at the points of opposite infinity, two beings exist.

One, a lance of light rising from the Kingdom Below. One, a hammer of declaration for the world's end. The time has already been forgotten, as they begin to walk towards one another, towards the center of that staircase in which possibility becomes totality.

One step. Two steps. Three steps. Five steps. Eight steps.

The walk along the staircase stops, a curtain call without cause. The two have not yet crossed.

"...it's been interesting, so far."

"Not yet, not yet."

The walk resumes, and the movement from infinity to zero returns.

---

As one ought to anticipate by this point in time, the ever-responsive faceless entity using the moniker of "X" was quick to reply to those who had addressed it. The contents of its reply were also to be expected.

---

@Zeroth

---

@Vocab

@Eklispe

Essentially, the answer to her questions was no. Niel apparently thought of having clothes as stuff to wear, and food as snacks instead of, say, a fully stocked pantry. He was homeless, and he didn't see anything wrong with it. Kim sighed and rubbed her temple in frustration.

"That's not what- never mind," she said. "If you really are fine right now then that's ok, but if you'd like a more permanent residence, I might be able to help you with that. A lot of the upperclassmen at my college who live off-campus share apartments because it's cheaper to split the rent. I know that two of my male friends have been looking for a roommate; I could introduce you to them if you want. You'd have to pay a third of the rent, but you would also have a room of your own. And you don't have to be a student or anything, it's not owned by the school." If she had a couch, she'd let him crash on it, but she lived in a tiny room in an all-girls dorm building. Her friends were decent people - she thought that Niel could be happy staying with them, and it would be a lot quicker and easier than helping him get his own apartment. It would certainly be better than staying at a crowded shelter, although she'd respect his decision if he preferred his life as it was.

She checked her watch. "My friends are in class right now, but I could introduce you to them later today. Do you want to exchange phone numbers, so I can contact you later? I'd been on my way to the gymnastics center, and I do have to get there eventually." Kim paused. "Oh, but I could stay longer if you want to talk more. Or you could come with me. Or you could leave, if you have something you need to do also." She inwardly groaned at her own awkwardness. She definitely needed to put some points in Charisma.

She seemed honestly frustrated, but he wasn't sure why. He'd said he was looking for a place to stay right? Hm. His phone still had no service and he'd kept it around more for something to fiddle with than anything else. Niel knew phone guy could use it but that didn't mean that other people could. Maybe. "I'd like sharing a room. I can probably pay for a third of rent for a while until I see if that application gets through." assuming it wasn't too pricey. He hadn't checked the his hat money, but from the weight of it he had racked in more than usual. Niel would have to personally check in at the restaurant everyday to see if he'd been considered yet and he should probably apply elsewhere as well. One thing at a time though. "I've got nowhere to be and my phone doesn't work anymore so I guess I'll just follow you around since I don't want to keep you away from your gym thingy. If that's alright." Niel added hurriedly at the end. She had said he could follow her but he didn't want to be a nuisance. Since Kim was apparently a gymnast the explained the underlying grace he'd sense from her, as well as the ease of which she'd followed his moves with.

Once again making sure the house was locked up and he had his spare key in his pocket, Mark set off down the sidewalk, not really knowing what his destination should be. He could try the fast food places--but for one thing that required him to deal with people on a daily basis, and for another thing it was the quintessential "loser" job for anyone who wasn't in high school, and even then. If he absolutely had to have a job to get his parents off his back, he might try it, but he would damn well exhaust every other option.

Graphic Design was certainly not panning out. In this economy people needed the essential services, not luxuries like art. Any company that needed a logo would just get one of their employees' nephews who was "a good drawer" or some shit to doodle up something they could work with for pennies off the buck. Newspapers and magazines would just throw together whatever layout they thought looked nice; who needed a degree to slap some pictures and text on a sheet of paper?

He'd had a free ride to college thanks to his scholarships, but damn it all if he didn't want a refund for that goddamned degree.

Anyway, he would have to try something outside his "field," even though it wasn't really like he had a place in it anyway. He could try one of those plazas with a bunch of little shops in it, maybe a cell phone provider or something. He knew where one of those was--it had a bookstore in it he had frequented a lot while he was in college. He decided to cut through the park and take a shortcut, enjoy the scenery. Who knew, maybe some girls would be jogging or walking their dogs or something and he could work on some of these other quests...

Yeah, like he had that in him. To just talk to some girl he didn't even know, much less outright lie to her just for the sake of supernatural power.

As he stepped onto one of the pathways that meandered around the park, he slowed down so as not to run into a group of three teens who struck him as the troublesome types. He watched them for a moment, as they seemed to have a purpose to their steps. It looked like they were headed for some skinny kid sitting on the swings by himself, and from their expressions Mark figured something was about to go down.

Oh boy, wonder what possible stereotypical situation could play out here. Time to steal some lunch money? No, it's not a school day. Maybe someone's baby-momma got herself a new man. No, you know what, let's be open minded. It could be a lover's quarrel, but now someone's leaked it off the down-low and they have to break it off to keep their homophobic families from disowning them.

@Eklispe

In hindsight, it seemed pretty evident that Niel wouldn't have a cell phone plan. Kim could've kicked herself.

"Of course it's alright. Come on, I'll be quick," she said as she starting walking towards the gym. After a short stroll, she found herself in front of a large, blocky building at the edge of a plaza. Kim entered through the automatic doors and found herself inside one massive room lit by bright overhead lights. The floors were covered with soft padded mats, and there were numerous trampolines, balance beams, and other pieces of equipment scattered throughout the room. Adults and children of varying skill levels practiced their routines, tried various flips, or played on the trampolines within. She spotted a bored-looking woman sitting at a table next to a sign reading "COMPETITION SIGN-UPS HERE", and made a beeline for her.

"Hi. I want to sign up for next week's competition," Kim told the woman.

"Are you with a team?" the lady asked.

Kim shook her head, "No, it's just me."

"Take these and fill them out. When you're done, feel free to practice on the equipment - it's kind of a free-for-all at the moment," the woman instructed, handing Kim a packet of papers and a pen. Kim retreated to one of the folding chairs at the edge and flipped through the papers - there was a registration form asking for her name and address, a release of liability, an informational sheet... She got to work writing and signing. After a few minutes, she returned to the woman's table and handed the papers back to her. The lady glanced over them to see that everything was completed, then put the registration forms in a file folder and handed the informational pamphlets back to Kim.

"You're signed up," the woman said. "Good luck!"

The die came to a stop landing on the number three, its color shifting from blue to red. Evan's suspicions were confirmed. It wasn't an ordinary die he acquired but rather it was a special type. As he wondered how much money he could potentially make off selling it, he felt a vibration in his pocket. Pulling out his cellphone he noticed a notification appear on his lock screen for an app - an app that he didn't remember downloading.

"What the hell is this?"

Before he had a chance to investigate, Evan felt his phone vibrate again and with it a different notification, this time for a text message. Evan swiped his lock screen to access his phone and decided to first read the text message before checking out the strange app. His eyes widened as he skimmed through the message. The sender was unknown and its content was bizarre. Suddenly his dull day had exploded with an intense flare.

Essentially, the text message explained that he had rolled the number three and now had that same amount of points to allocate into various statistics. What kind of statistics? Evan had to go into the Dice app to find out. Since he was intending to that anyway, he switched over to the app and inspected its interface. There were a variety of tabs, most of which were inaccessible except for a few. The most notable were quest and stats - the latter of which he believed to be the one that the text message prompted him to check. Evan selected the option to view his stats and his shocked.

"Charisma 30, sounds about right," Evan whispered, "agility 25, well I was never slow. Wait a second! Strength 15? Motivation 10? Who came up with these ratings?"

Evan had absolutely no problem with his higher rated stats but was a bit irritated by the lower rated ones. Okay so he wasn't a body builder but that didn't mean he was weak. If twenty was the average, then his dexterity, strength, and motivation were poor because they were all beneath that standard. Evan knew that he wasn't the most motivated dude in the world - the fact that he barely attempted his homework while he was in school was a testament to that. However, even he thought he was more than capable of a measly ten.

The top of his stats screen read AVAILABLE POINTS: 3.

Well if I have three points to spend then let me beef up one of those low areas.

Opting to spend his points, Evan pressed the plus sign next to his strength to dispense all three of his points into that respective stat. While a seventeen wasn't quite average he figured that it would at least do him better justice than a fifteen.

But all I got was three points.

If he had just a little more then maybe he could increase his other weak areas too. Wait again, just why was he was so interested in this mysterious app? He had no idea where these ratings came from or if they were even applicable towards him (although they more than likely were). Evan gritted his teeth as he considered the possibility that the app and his being were somehow connected. The text message he received along with the app was cryptic and didn't offer much information. It just told him to spend the points, go on quests, and have fun.

Quests?

Evan turned his attention to the other tab he was able to access within the app. Of course it was labeled QUESTS and upon entering the tab he was greeted with four objectives to complete. First, he could move out for a reward of three dices - the highest offered. Second, he could go back to college for a reward of one die. It was the least rewarding of his present quests but also the easiest. Ordinarily one would think the third quest would be th easiest for all it asked was for Evan to hold a cordial conversation with his parents. Yeah, that wasn't going to happen anytime soon. Neither was quest four which was to obtain some motivation for a reward of more quests.

"Looks like I'm going back to school...for now," Evan decided.

It appeared that if he completed one of the quests then Evan would get more dice. For now, he settled on the quest that would be the least hardest for him to accomplish. He had little to no intention of actually returning to school. It was merely a test to check the legitimacy of this whole ordeal. If he did in fact receive another die after re-enrolling in college then maybe he would continue using the app. It wasn't like he had anything else better to do anyway. Playing this 'game' sure as hell beat going to work.

And with that Evan boarded a bus and made his way towards the local community college campus.