Friday evening descended upon the Woody household. Misty returned home from her job as an accountant at the Upshur County Courthouse looking exhausted. She dropped her purse on the kitchen counter with a heavy thud. She slumped into a chair at the table, running a hand over her face. The very picture of a woman who had been emotionally steamrolled by a long and difficult week.
The ongoing scandal and investigation surrounding Mayor Thompson had turned her once-quiet, orderly workplace into a stressful, whispering hub of gossip and anxiety. Every phone call could be a reporter looking for a leak. Every inter-office memo was scrutinized for hidden meanings. The entire courthouse was walking on eggshells, and Misty was right in the middle of it.
Chris, wandering into the kitchen in search of a snack from the pantry, noticed his mother's mood immediately. He didn't need a System to see the fatigue in her eyes or the slump of her shoulders. But the System, as always, provided a more detailed and quantifiable diagnosis. He instinctively used his [INSPECT] ability.
[Name: Misty Woody]
[LVL 32]
[Status: Stressed, Fatigued]
[Morale: Low (Workplace Drama -15)]
The -15 debuff was a numerical representation of her exhaustion. Okay, Chris thought, his brain analyzing the problem. Mom's health bar is low. She's got a nasty debuff. A cup of tea won't be enough. I need a bigger buff. He felt a pang of empathy. He wanted to help, to do something to cheer her up. But what?
The moment the scan completed, a new quest notification popped into his HUD.
[Quest: Bolster Family Morale]
[Objective: Increase Misty Woody's morale to 'Content' or higher.]
[Reward: 20 XP, +2 Family Standing]
He saw this as an easy, low-risk way to grind some XP and a [Family Standing] stat he was still trying to understand. What does that even do? he wondered. Does it unlock new dialogue options with Pete? Or maybe it contributes to a family-wide buff, like +5% resistance to arguments about the thermostat? It was a simple quest. He could do this.
Just then, Misty's phone buzzed on the table. She looked at it with a weary sigh, then a small reluctant smile touched her lips. She answered it, putting it on speaker.
"Hey, Sharon," she said, her voice tired.
"Misty, girl, where are you?" a cheerful, booming voice crackled from the phone's speaker. "It's Friday! You're not bailing on bingo night, are you?"
"Oh, I don't know, girl, I'm just so tired," Misty sighed. "It's been a week. I think I just want to curl up and watch a movie."
"Nonsense!" Sharon's voice replied. "The jackpot is up to twelve hundred dollars tonight! You can't miss that! It's your lucky week, I can feel it!"
"Twelve hundred dollars?" Misty's voice perked up a little. "Well... I suppose a little fun wouldn't hurt."
It was Misty's friends, successfully convincing her to join them for their weekly tradition: fundraising bingo night at the local Eagles Club. As Misty got ready to leave, a reluctant yet hopeful energy replaced her exhaustion, Chris formulated his plan.
He could have a heartfelt conversation with her. He could sit down, ask her about her day, and offer a shoulder to cry on. But he immediately categorized that option as a high-difficulty social skill check with a high probability of failure and a significant risk of triggering an [Awkward Silence] debuff.
Rigging a bingo game for her from the comfort of his bedroom, however... that was a different story. That was a technical challenge. An easy, low-effort, high-reward application of his unique and wonderful skillset. It was the optimal play.
After Misty left, a new spring in her step and a dab of lipstick on her lips, Chris retreated to his command center. He recalled from previous conversations that one of Misty's friends, a woman named Sharon with a penchant for oversharing on social media, often streamed the big jackpot game on Facebook Live for friends who were sick or couldn't make it.
He found the shaky, loud livestream easily after scrolling through a dozen pictures of Sharon's cat wearing a tiny hat. He settled in to watch, like a modern-day wizard peering into his digital crystal ball. Through the blurry, vertically-oriented phone camera, he had a slightly nauseating, remote view of the bingo announcer, a cheerful man in a red vest, and the large transparent bingo blower console, a whirlwind of numbered balls dancing in a current of air. The audio was a mix of the announcer's booming voice, the clatter of the plastic balls, and the murmur of the bingo hall crowd.
He used [INSPECT] through the blurry livestream on his mother's bingo card. It was a difficult, energy-intensive scan that required him to pause the video at just the right moment when Sharon's shaky hand panned past Misty's table. He identified the five numbers she needed for the big jackpot.
B-12, I-21, N-38, G-54, and O-72.
He had his targets.
As the announcer prepared to begin calling jackpot-winning numbers, Chris got to work. He focused his [Minor Probability Manipulation] skill on the bingo blower itself, a complex, multi-stage Nudge that would require a significant amount of his energy. He had to influence a series of five, consecutive random number generations.
"Okay folks, here we go for the big one!" the announcer's voice boomed from his headphones. "Twelve hundred dollars! First number up is... B... twelve! B-12!"
Chris had nudged it. A small chunk of his EP bar drained away.
"Next up... I... twenty-one! I-21!"
Another nudge. Another chunk of EP.
He continued the process, an invisible puppet master of probability, pulling the strings of fate from his bedroom miles away. N-38. G-54. O-72. With each successful Nudge, his EP bar shrank, the mental effort starting to become a strain.
"Okay, folks, this is it!" the announcer shouted. "One number away for a few of you, I bet! The final number for the jackpot is... G... fifty-four! G-54! Do we have a bingo? Do we have a winner?"
On the livestream, the camera whipped around to Misty, who leaped to her feet, her hand flying to her mouth, her face a picture of shock and joy. She screamed, a satisfying word that was picked up clearly by Sharon's phone microphone.
"BINGO!"
She was immediately mobbed by her cheering, shrieking friends. The twelve-hundred-dollar jackpot win had successfully, and spectacularly, lifted her spirits.
A satisfying ding sounded in Chris's mind.
[Quest Completed! 20 XP Awarded!]
[+2 Family Standing]
He smiled, a proud smile. He had done it. He had used his cosmic, reality-altering power to help his mom win at bingo. It was a good, clever solution. He closed the Facebook livestream, completely satisfied with his work, and turned his attention to a relaxing, well-earned game of Vexlorn.
He had absolutely no idea what was happening just out of the livestream's shaky frame.
=========================================
At the other end of the noisy Eagles Club hall, mayoral candidate Milla Slater was in the middle of a stiff, carefully staged photo-op. Dressed in a navy blue power suit, she was presenting a giant, novelty-sized donation check for five hundred dollars to the Eagles Club president. A reporter and a photographer from the Record Delta were there to capture the moment, a key part of her "grassroots community engagement" campaign strategy.
Okay, smile. Look benevolent. Shake his hand firmly. This will look great on the front page of the lifestyle section. 'Milla Slater Supports Our Veterans.' Perfect.
Just as she was handing the giant check to the club president, a deafening shriek of "BINGO!" erupted from the other side of the room. It was followed by a loud explosion of cheering and screaming.
The reporter and the photographer, who had been dutifully snapping pictures of her bland, corporate generosity, immediately turned their cameras away from her and toward the much more interesting, much more human drama of the bingo celebration.
Milla Slater's professional smile tightened into a grimace of seething rage. Her staged, expensive PR event had been ruined by a random bingo game. She didn't know who the screaming woman was, but in that moment, she hated her with the fire of a thousand suns.