This is simultaneously very nice of it and also very unfair. But she sticks to her course with grim determination. It's easier to keep going on a walk than to start one, anyway.

Quest updated: Treading Water

Objective #1: Don't go back home just yet. Walk around in the evening air, see the sights, let other people see you. Completed! You will receive your rewards upon quest completion.

Just as she turns around a corner and sees a pair of friends walking in her direction. They look up at her and smile before returning to their conversation, and the sidewalk is broad enough that they don't bump into her or get close enough to her or anything.

That's good because if someone bumped into her she might implode.

Okay. Well. That's one entire quest objective down.

She... doesn't... have to do the next one. #1.1. That one. She doesn't have to do it.

But it came with such extremely friendly assurances, and—maybe she can figure out how to let on that she isn't wearing underwear without, um, directly showing anyone her... under-parts? And this will save her from having to RECORD herself having an ORGASM later. It's... potentially valid.

She keeps walking. She can go the rest of the way around the block, and... maybe she will spot someone sufficiently nonthreatening that she can even contemplate terrifying quest objectives, and maybe she will find a way to complete the quest objective that will not give her a heart attack.

There are a scattered few people when she turns around the corner again.

The next corner, however, reveals a mostly empty street. Almost entirely empty, actually, except for sometime sitting on a bench across the street from her at a bus stop. He's slightly chubby, wearing bigger glasses than Daisy's and an honest to gods tweed jacket. He's poking at his phone and doesn't look up when she shows—she probably did not make enough noise to be noticed.

Great. Okay. So. Now she has to... take actions.

(She doesn't have to take actions. She could, instead, not do that. But... maybe it would be okay to take some actions? Maybe...)

Very very nervously, she tries to make slightly louder footsteps, to see if she can get his attention. And, if she can do that... well. First things first. Does he glance up?

He does in fact glance up!

Exerting immense effort to avoid looking as terrified as she feels, she... casually scratches her hip as she walks by, a process which hikes up her skirt to the point where it becomes reasonably obvious that there is nothing under it on the entire stretch of skin from mid-thigh to waist.

...he stares a little.

Then lowers his eyes back to his phone.

Then looks up again surreptitiously and trying to not be very obvious about it.

Quest updated: Treading Water

Objective #1.1: Let someone else notice you are not wearing underwear. Completed! You will receive your rewards upon quest completion.

...she should have thought of this ahead of time but now she is in a position to potentially make an attempt at #1.2 except she has to decide LITERALLY RIGHT NOW WHILE SHE IS STILL WALKING and social interaction is TERRIFYING and what if she goes home and HIDES FROM EVERYTHING FOREVER, WHAT THEN—

Okay. Okay. Okay.

Think. Quickly, because you're still walking, but think.

There is... no chance she's going to cross the street and strike up a conversation, it is flatly not happening. Calling out across the street to him also seems dicey.

He's on his phone. She obviously can't see what he's doing at this distance, but—the game has already made several unlikely things happen through alleged probability manipulation—

She slows her steps a little, gets out her own phone, and opens a certain game she likes to play, which she happens to know has a Find Friends Nearby feature even though she's never used it. It takes her a few seconds to locate and open the feature, but she manages. Is there a Friend Nearby? One who's right across the street, say?

Why, yes! Yes, there does seem to be a Friend Nearby!

Hey, I like your glasses.

The boy, who was still mostly trying to not be noticed looking at her, looks back down at his phone when it vibrates with a message. It's hard to make out from this distance but it looks like he may be blinking several times rapidly as his chin slowly drops. He looks up again—notices Amaryllis is in fact on her phone—then types something into his own phone.

Thanks! I like your skirt.

He felt the urge to say, instead, "Um. Thanks. I, um, like your skirt." Then he remembered that when you're writing text you don't need to add verbal pauses like that.

Implausibly guessing that the boy you may or may not want to have some sort of interaction with is playing a game you like to play that just happens to have a Find Friends Nearby feature has increased your ERO by 1!

A skill has been created by a special action! Finding a discreet means of communication with someone who is not nearby has created the skill Implausible Instant Messaging.

Thanks! I like it too! It goes swish! Though I cannot swish it at the moment, for reasons.

He looks to both sides to make sure no one else's looking then types some more.

I'm sure you look very pretty when you do make your skirt go swish.

That was possibly one of the five most inane messages he's ever sent in his life but whatever he's already pressed the button.

A skill has been created by a special action! Interacting with someone using a means of communication that makes it very difficult to read body language even though the person you're talking to would like you to be able to read their body language and is having many emotions about this has created the skill Tone Is Hard On The Internet.

She blushes a lot and sends the Happy animation. Her armadillo does a little wiggly dance.

The boy lifts a hand to his mouth entirely involuntarily in what is almost certainly a "Help, that's too cute!" expression. Then he remembers she can actually see him and tries to school his expression—and also does not look up very much because he does not want to come off as a creep.

...he's also not sure what to talk about next, though. This is a very strange thing to have happened.

Oh! He knows! He'll add her as a friend on the app, that's a thing he can do.

She adds him as a friend right back.

Even walking more slowly, she's nearly at the end of the block by now; but she pauses, turns back, and gives him a shy little wave before she turns the corner. And when she does turn the corner, there might be a tiny bit of a swish.

Awww.

...wait.

Would you like to play together sometime?

Uh... he meant... the game... not the lewd thing that occurred to him a second after he hit "send". But she'll get it from context, right? Surely she will.

Quest updated: Treading Water

Objective #1.2: Flirt with someone who is aware you are not wearing underwear. Completed! You will receive your rewards upon quest completion.

Quest available: Aroused Armadillo

Bryan Thomas didn't mean to suggest he wanted to have sex with you sometime when he said "play". That does not mean he wouldn't like it. This is the Erogame, after all.

Have sex with him.

Success: +6,000xp, +1 FUK, Bryan Thomas unlocked as a potential harem member.
Failure: Bryan Thomas unavailable as a potential harem member.
Time Limit: 48 hours from quest acceptance.
Accept: Y/N

48 hours from quest acceptance??? Are you crazy, game??????

Anyway. She sends Bryan another happy armadillo wiggle. And IGNORES the quest window. That time limit is TOO SHORT.

Cool! I'll hit you up sometime. My bus is here now though and I get motion sick playing games in it so I'll go now. It was nice meeting you!

The quest window vanishes but probably she can grab it back again if she didn't actually press the N button.

Nice meeting you too!

The Erogame does not bother her any further.

She goes home and puts on the Fuzziest Bathrobe over her ridiculous outfit and then huddles on her couch and spends a while curled up with her eyes closed not moving and trying not to think.

Then she sits up to check her game status.

Before she can really check anything, there is already a game screen waiting for her:

Quest begun: Aftercare 101

Take a break. Don't worry about the Erogame. Don't worry about anything ero at all, if you don't want to. Rest, watch a nice movie, eat nice food, take a nap, read a book, or do whatever else you want to do. You can take as long as you want or need.

You can interact with the Erogame's features, stat screens, skill descriptions, or anything else you wish, without that counting as you "feeling prepared". All game timers and background processes are paused. New quests will not be assigned and notifications will be minimized by default until you decide to manually check on them. The game will not resume until you actually, really, voluntarily decide to resume it.

Success: You feel well-rested and balanced in your own mind and body.
Failure: This quest cannot fail, and keeps going until you feel ready to be the Erogamer again.

...she sputters slightly. "What—how—why—?!"

On the one hand she feels touched, and on the other hand she feels alarmed, instinctively recoiling from the potential threat of Unexpected Niceness. But... it is pretty nice, actually. She was starting to view the prospect of more magic game nonsense with exhaustion and despair. She has already half-consciously observed, and is now fully considering, the fact that when she was thinking about her current BOD quest she was thinking about how to minimize her interaction with it, do as few objectives as possible because they were all terrifying. She thinks... that is probably not the right way to go about these things. She thinks maybe... she should wait to complete that BOD quest... until she has finished all its (visible) objectives, without putting herself under tons of pressure to do them. Just—try to get herself to a point where they're actually not terrifying, or at least a manageable, reasonable amount of terrifying. Yeah. That seems like a good plan.

(Don't think she hasn't noticed the game displaying the power to start quests without her explicit acceptance, though. That's definitely a thing that just happened.)

Okay.

"Okay."

...time to be nice to herself. She guesses. How does being nice to yourself work?? Reading a book sounds pretty nice... she's heard hot baths are a traditional method of relaxation... probably shouldn't combine the two, though...

After a few minutes of contemplation, she ends up in a hot bath with a cold glass of apple juice and her phone sitting on the counter playing music she's ashamed of liking. It is probably relaxing or something. It's an attempt, anyway. When the water gets cold, she gets out and dries off and armors herself in her Fuzzy Bathrobe of Ero Avoidance and... hmm...

...do quest-related people still exist with the game on pause? They must, right?

She sends Bryan an armadillo message asking if he wants to race. (And while she's waiting for a response, she checks on her stats screen and quest menu and plays clicky clicky with her increasingly long list of Media.)