15 Suns

--- Jon ---

While urban tag and hide and seek were staple games of their little family, that didn’t mean his ma didn’t occasionally feel the need to try and mix things up by throwing in some element outside of the norm. In this case his ma had decided to shake things up by giving their game of tag a bit of… range.

Which is why he found himself hiding behind a tree half crouched into the foliage as he listened for even the slightest of sounds in the forest around him, three rubber balls ready to throw in each hand.

There was a rustling to his left, and he dove out from behind the tree, throwing one of his balls and scaring a rabbit out of a shrub. (Oh, sorry Mr. Rabbit!)

A rubber ball hit him in the side, and he returned two as he dove past the now rabbit-less bush.

“One hit, kid!” His ma called out.

“Same.” He called back as he picked up palmed the ball his ma had thrown at him, knowing she’d likely grab both of his before engaging in their next little trade off. (Giving me just enough time to circle around.)

And of course, knowing he’d believed that’s what she’d do, his ma had instead abandoned the ammunition in favor of setting up an ambush in one of the nearby trees.

Scene Consequences

-By playing ranged tag with Ma gained 1XP to Stealth and Throwing.

--Currently: Stealth Lv. 6 (4/14) and Throwing Lv. 3 (1/8)

---

Once more he asked the librarian for books about relationships, and once more he was left wondering how the material he was reading had anything to do with relationships.

Admittedly, the protagonist did have a fair number of friends she got along with, as well as a couple of family members she was close with as they dealt with a death in the family.

His problem however was the fact that (she’s dating someone old enough to be her triple great grandfather?!)

There’d been hints that the boy wasn’t human, and he’d begun to think this was some kind of slow burn horror story where the friends work together to save the girl from the villain.

But then she found out he wasn’t human, but instead an immortal more than thrice her age and rather than realizing she needed to get away from the monster she fell more in love with him! (Why? Just, why?!)

(Even if you ignore the fact that he was a maneater, -which hey, Malcontent and Deadmen are still people, so I can sort of see it- It doesn’t change the fact that no matter how old the man physically looks; he’s still an adult, more than old enough to be her father, who still chose to pursue her and lied about his age to do so! How do they not see anything wrong with this?!)

(I mean it’d be one thing if an adult chose to date someone older than them if the person in question was upfront about their age, but the fact that this guy lied about his age to date a teenager?) He shook his head in disgust. (That is when you intervene.)

After taking a moment to cool down, he realized something. (Do all cautionary tales have the girl die at the end? Because that’s becoming a very disturbing trend.)

Scene Consequences

-For being made aware of more manipulative people, Jon has gained 1XP to Awareness.

--Currently: Lv. 8 (6/18)

---

As much as he wished to just give his baked goods away, he also knew that he needed to bring in a bit of income if he wanted to properly cover up the money he’d earned from De Sade.

Which is how he found himself spending the majority of his afternoon in the apartment lobby, next to a table full of baked goods for anyone who wanted to buy them. A task that -until he was doing it- he hadn’t realized would require him to sit still with idle hands for a very prolonged period of time.

(If this is what retail is like, no wonder everyone hates it.) He couldn’t help but think with a touch of bitterness.

He withdrew a notebook and a pen from his backpack before working on something significantly more understandable and straightforward than the minds of his fellow teens.

When someone thought of Script Craft they probably thought of some vague magic circle and the end effect of whatever magic went into that circle. Very few people thought about the harder and significantly more monotonous portion of said skill. And that is the ability to draw overlapping geometric shapes without messing up the lines.

While working with Miss Edna and picking up the basics of enchanting, he’d learned how to draw circles on paper relatively easily. (You just anchor your hand to a point on the paper and spin the page.) What he was trying to accomplish was a way of drawing those same circles without spinning whatever medium he was drawing on. (Something I won’t always be able to do.)

Unfortunately, drawing circles without an aid was proving to be more difficult than he thought, given the fact that more of his circles turned out to be mere ellipses rather than actually magically viable circles.

Luckily however, while he hated having nothing to do, he actually quite enjoyed simple and repetitive tasks, especially the ones that he could steadily improve upon as he did them.

(Oh, I can’t wait to graduate to drawing squares!)

Scene Consequences

-Gained 2XP to Script Craft

--Currently: Lv. 3 (3/8)

---

(Twenty-four dollars… not the greatest, but not the best either.) Which honestly didn’t matter given how he wasn’t really doing this for the money, so much as for the cover of having an income.

(Either way that leaves me with a fair number of leftovers.) He reminded himself, knowing that unless he sold all of this in the next day or two, they’d start to go bad. (Then again, I don’t actually need to sell them do I?)

Idea forming, he packed up his things and took his remaining baked goods down to a corner store down the street from his apartments.

(Now where are you…) His eyes jumped to a couple of older men sitting in the alley the store liked to throw its things out in.

“Um, excuse me?” He called once he was a bit closer.

One of the men -the one he knew was a vet on the down thanks to his ma- jumped as he got closer.

“L-look kid, we’re not looking for any trouble.” The man (kindly) warned him.

(Though that does make me wonder how many teens are giving these guys problems.) He couldn’t help but consider with some concern. (Then again with all the gangs in this neighborhood even one is too many.)

“Neither am I.” He assured the vet. “It’s just, I was doing this bake sell earlier.”

“We don’t have any money.” The other homeless man told him.

“Oh, my sell is already over. It’s just if I don’t get rid of these then they’ll all go bad in a day or two.” He tried to explain. “So, I figured, I always see you guys around and well…”

He held the basket out to the two homeless men, though neither of them made any move to take it from him instead watching him with some caution, (which it’s a shame that life ‘s beaten them down that much.)

Seeing that they wouldn’t accept it in hand, he instead set the baked goods down at the mouth of the alley way before leaving so they wouldn’t feel pressured to take it.

And if he couldn’t fight the smile that made its way to his face when he caught sight of the two taking the basket in a nearby window reflection, well there was nothing wrong with that.

Scene Consequences

-Sold (3D6 (3+4+5) * 2 = $24) worth of baked goods.