[i]So it could hear what I was saying with the phone's speaker and receiver smothered against the floor.[/i] 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. [i]It says it's not a god, but there's definitely some supernatural crap going on for it to be near-omniscient like this.[/i]

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 [i]would[/i] 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 [i]dan[/i] 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?"

"[i]Hai, sensei.[/i] 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?"