Alesha went to grab her phone to check the time before realizing she didn't have one anymore. "Right… it's probably stuck in with a bunch of rubble back in Faxton…" Rolling
off the bed, Alesha wandered into the hallway and peeked at the sleek digital clock on the high-tech oven. 14:26, her siblings wouldn't be home for a couple more hours. Her father had left to return to work and her mother had gone to the animal shelter. Perfect.
"Okay," Alesha said, sitting down on the couch in the living room, slouching as she rested her chin on the fingertips of her pressed-together hands and her elbows on her knees. She separated and reconnected her fingers in a wave pattern as she thought over her next steps.
First things first, she needed to decide how to proceed with the quest. To do so, she would need to decide which objects to temporarily steal from each of her family members, then she would need to pick the optimal time to do so and follow up by actually doing it, then hiding them. At some point she needed to go over her Status Screen as well. Quite frankly, some of the System's (well, Rogork's, she reminded herself, not wanting to slip up with only one name use remaining for the quest) comments concerned her. Rogork had written mostly derisive comments but a couple of them were genuinely concerning. Like the "For now…" next to her species, "Human." If she could, she would very much like to squeeze answers about that out of the headstrong System.
After that, she would decide what to do next. Maybe she could tell her family about what she'd experienced during the attack. Would they have insight as to how to deal with the Seed of Chaos System? Should she even say anything? Though she knew it would make things smoother in the long run, and how much it had infuriated her when she read stories where the characters refused to get help from their loved ones, she was still hesitant.
Alesha was not ignorant of the ways of the Alliance. If her parents decided to take her to a doctor, thinking she was hallucinating, and the doctor discovered she was not in fact just seeing things, she didn't want to think about what could happen. The Alliance despised unknown variables. At best, she might be detained until they discovered all the secrets she had to offer. At worst…? They might simply eliminate her. Human technology had advanced by leaps and bounds ever since the Space Transcention, but from her history classes Alesha had learned that human nature had never changed. Those in power wanted to keep it. Inevitably, those who were a threat to that power, or even a potential threat, were not treated kindly. And Alesha had an inkling that they would see her as such a threat. After all, the very name of her System was "Seed of Chaos." That didn't seem very compatible with a control-oriented Alliance that closely managed the lives of trillions of humans around the galaxy.
If the System had a physical form, it would have been smiling and nodding in approval. This host was smart. Having seen through Alesha's memories many versions of Protagonists with Systems or other supernatural powers, Rogork knew that not all hosts could have come to this conclusion. Or rather, that even if they did, they'd have been wrong. But the System wasn't ignorant of Alesha's overbearing government. Cross-referencing those stories with what Alesha knew of the Alliance (and a few things she didn't know), the System had come to the same conclusion. Under no circumstances could it afford to be discovered. The System's musings, however, remained unknown to Alesha, who continued her contemplations.
So… maybe she wouldn't tell her parents? Agh, she'd think about that later. For now, she needed to focus on completing this quest. There were many things Alesha wanted to avoid doing in her life and eating a bunch of raw meat because of an absurd quest penalty was one of them. Seriously, why the heck was that the penalty in the first place? Where had the System even gotten the idea?
Moving on from that impossible question, she pondered on which objects to steal from each of her family members. Her parents were difficult targets for this quest. The most important object to any member of the Alliance was undoubtedly their Chip, which, having been surgically inserted into the wrist of each person, was incredibly hard to steal. It could be done but she had no desire to conduct spontaneous surgery on her loved ones. Not that she could get away with it, either… as soon as a Chip was removed, not only would the bio-sensitive monitors on it freeze all Chip-dependent functions such as bank accounts, identity confirmation and wireless lock-triggering, but it would send a GPS-ping signal to the nearest police station, which in turn would send a whole team of officers to investigate. All citizens were required to have a Chip implant and removing it was a serious crime.
In other words, Chips were a huge no-go for the quest. But what other objects would be important to fully grown adults…? Ah, she could take her dad's Lucky Chain, an old and worn trinket he claimed was a relic referencing ancient video games. As a software developer for GG-Soft, the leading VR Game Developers on Elantris, video games were his bread and butter. That particular object had been a gift from his favorite professor in college. It was a sword that could hang on a keychain, its handle a very faded royal blue, the crossguard forming a shallow W-like shape with the bottom of the letter pointing toward the hilt. A yellow rhombus was embedded in said crossguard. Alesha didn't remember much else about it, but the little sword was an important memento of her father's mentor, and as such it met the qualifications for the quest. She couldn't steal it until he got home, though, as he carried it with him everywhere.
Alesha's thoughts turned to her mother. What could she take from her…? Not feeling like thinking too hard about that at the moment, she changed her mind and started thinking about her sister, Layla, instead. The fitness-loving, somewhat boy-crazy 17-year-old was quite fond of all things beauty-related. She had many beauty tools that Alesha thought were unnecessary, could one of those work? Hmm, maybe not… they might not be important enough to her to count for the quest. Alesha didn't want to steal something only to discover it didn't count.
[Your sister's beauty tools would count,] the System unexpectedly piped in. [Considering her temperament, quite a lot of her things would fulfill the quest requirement. After all, I'm a System related to Chaos, and Chaos would certainly result if your sister discovered you took her beauty tools without permission. Especially if it was one she wanted to use soon.]
Surprised at the System's sudden helpfulness, Alesha considered what the words implied. It was something she hadn't really considered. The 'Seed of Chaos' System's quests would of course be devoted to and dependent upon creating chaos. At first, she'd only thought about this on a surface level; her family finding that objects important to them had gone missing would create chaos, since all of them trying to find said objects would definitely be a messy process. The more important the object, the bigger mess they'd make in trying to find it. Simple. But to think that the quest took her family members' temperaments into account changed things. For one, maybe her choice of her father's Lucky Chain wouldn't be sufficient… actually, scratch that, it probably still would. It was so important to him that he wouldn't go to work without it. So if it went missing, that would definitely create chaos. Gentle as he was, he would turn the whole apartment upside down to find it, because he was also a stubbornly good worker. Missing work out of the blue just wasn't something he'd do. Yet, he was attached to it enough that he might very well risk doing so.
Rubbing her face with her hands, Alesha turned her thoughts to her brother. Dennis was a 12-year-old troublemaker, surprisingly clingy and incredibly adorable despite his antics… or maybe it was because of them. Like their father, he was a gaming fanatic, and he was particularly fond of world-building/city-growing games. Alesha preferred Fantasy MMORPG's, but she would play city-growing games with him too. (Note: all of these games are VR games, 2-dimensional games have long since phased out of popularity except for on mobile devices)
None of this helped Alesha much with deciding what to steal from him. She couldn't hide a gaming chair--the large, comfortable egg-shaped thrones were far too big for that. Nor could she hide herself. Sure he was clingy and incredibly fond of her but she probably didn't count as an "important object" in the first place.
[Host is correct. You are not an object, even though certain entities might disagree]
"...Wait, 'certain entities'? Which ones?" Alesha asked aloud.
[I will not elaborate. My statement remains.]
"Gahhhhh, Rogork you're really infuriating sometimes, you know that?"
Instead of a reply, Alesha was met with a floating purple screen.
[Ding! Quest complete: Remember System's Name!
Reward Granted: 10 XP, 1 Chaos Energy]