[Ding! Quest complete: Remember System's Name!
Reward Granted: 10 XP, 1 Chaos Energy]
"...What? Oh, right, I only had one use of your name left. Guess that means I can go back to calling you System now!! Ha!" Alesha said, feeling a burst of enthusiasm and relief. She didn't have to try so hard to remember that weird combination of letters anymore! No more threat of painful electric shock!
[... I'm a little hurt, Alesha. I call you by your name, isn't it only fair you do the same?]
Alesha snorted. "Liar, you call me 'host' all the time. You call me host, I call you System, we only use each other's names when we feel like it. Sounds normal to me. I don't call my friends only by their names, either, why should I only call you by yours?"
[Fair enough, I suppose,] the System replied, its androgynous voice sounding a little sulky.
Returning to her thoughts, Alesha felt torn. Should she check out the rewards of the quest now, which as she recalled weren't enough to push either the XP or Chaos Energy to the maximum anyways, or should she continue to plan for the quest that was still in progress? It didn't take long for her to decide. If she couldn't get any information about what the rewards were about yet, then it would be dumb to waste the time remaining before her family got home. Trying to wrangle answers out of the System never seemed to work anyways. She could attempt that once her planning was complete.
"Where was I… ah, right, I'm not an object, so I can't steal myself from Dennis and hide myself… such a shame. He really is too fond of me. Hmm… oh, I know!" she exclaimed, back straightening with a jolt. "That little unicorn plush from 'Y'vin's Overlord Days!' He loves that thing, I bet that would work."
[Affirmative. Dennis really does have a bizarre attachment to you and anything you give him.]
"You make it sound like it's wrong for my brother to be so clingy. Sheesh, back off."
[...]
"Ahem, anyways." Her dad's Lucky Chain, one of her sister's beauty tools, and the TinTin unicorn plush she'd given her brother for his 11th birthday. All that was left was her mother.
Her mother… was a little harder. She wasn't particularly attached to objects and things, unlike the rest of her family members (including Alesha herself, who was more materialistic than she would ever admit). Jessica Williams was a fierce momma bear, headstrong and attentive but somehow not overbearing. Alesha smiled fondly as she thought of a particular memory.
One day, back when Alesha was in her early teenage years, she was walking absentmindedly through a park, nose stuffed in a book. Layla was only 6 or 7 and played with a wog (a dog with wings, known for their friendly disposition) nearby. Jessica kept careful watch over both of them. Alesha didn't even remember what book she was reading anymore, but at the time, it was so important to her that when she tripped and fell on a rock, landing in a pile of mud on top of the book and ruining its pages, she was very distraught. Instead of getting up and dusting herself off, she rolled over into the soft blue grass, clutching the book to her chest as she tried to cry as quietly as possible. Jessica had hurried over with a worried look until she saw Alesha wasn't hurt at all. Putting her hands on her pear-shaped hips and smiling sympathetically, Jessica put her hand out for the book and told her it would be alright. Alesha had handed it to her with a sniffle.
Jessica had closed the book gently, waved her hand over it (hiding that with her other hand she'd pressed "reset," thereby restoring the book to its original state), and just like that, the book was fixed! After that, Jessica gave her daughter a big hug and said, "Now don't you worry, my girl, no matter how often you trip and fall and mess up, there's always a solution for everything. Maybe I won't be able to magically fix things like I did with this book, but I'll always be here for you. And no matter what, things can always be made better than they were. Don't you forget that."
Alesha's eyes took on a slightly misty appearance as she remembered her mother's words. On that day, she'd learned an important lesson. Maybe it was silly to get this from simply falling on a book that couldn't be permanently damaged in the first place, but it meant a lot to her all the same; that day, she'd learned that her mother was someone she could trust, and that if she could take a deep breath and think of a solution, nothing she came across would be impossible.
Including this annoying quest. Never in a million years had Alesha ever pictured herself stealing from her family, or even stealing in the first place. But here she was. Planning her own miniature heist, the incredibly strange threat of a craving for raw meat hanging over her head if she failed. She did not want to try and explain that if it happened…
So she refocused her mental efforts on coming up with something that she could steal from her mother. Something physical that was important to her, something that she couldn't afford to lose… and with that, she had an idea. It made her feel like a horrible person for thinking to steal it, but what could she do? It was a choice between hiding it from her mother for about a day or trying to explain a sudden craving for raw meat without seeming like a crazy person.