[It doesn't really matter what you think. As my new Host, you have to do missions. Think about it… out of billions of candidates in this world, you were picked to hold a System and you don't want it?]
Wren blinked a few times to make sure he was seeing properly and then he let out a slow breath.
"I'm just a bit overwhelmed." He said it quietly, barely moving his lips.
People were walking past on the opposite path and not a single one of them looked his way. 'Is this how they treat visitors or something?'
[I saw the whole thing by the way.] The text appeared immediately. [You were really pathetic last night, tsk tsk… but I assure you Host, it wasn't entirely your fault.]
'It wasn't my fault?' His eye twitched slightly. 'And who types tsk tsk. You're being strange.'
[Well, it was your fault. But then again… is that really the woman you had a crush on? That Charlotte? Come on. You can genuinely do better.]
'What's wrong with her?' He reached into his bag and cracked open a can of Zanta, it was the best soft drink for dealing with heat.
[She ran a faceless Fansly account about two years ago. It's still generating income until this day.]
He choked and had to move the can away from his face. "A Fansly?"
[Which is exactly why I said you can do better… The Leah girl isn't bad honestly. It would be very entertaining to send her boyfriend a video of you—]
'That's enough.' He cut the thought off. 'Genuinely enough degeneracy for one morning, filthy System.'
He just wanted something normal… A cashback system or a discount system. Something reasonable that didn't involve constantly thinking about other men's girlfriends.
'Besides. I'm a virgin.'
[That is genuinely irrelevant, Host.]
Before he could respond to that, something slowed down on the road beside him.
A truck, it was the kind that had clearly lived a full life with dust across the hood and a few scratches along the side that had long stopped bothering anyone. It was also painted completely red and he recognized it in an instant.
A man stepped out from the driver's side, adjusting a cap on his forehead with one hand while holding his phone in the other. There was a small smear of oil along his cheekbone that he either hadn't noticed or had stopped caring about.
He looked at his phone and then he looked at Wren before looking at his phone again.
"Hm." He tilted the screen slightly. "Could you be Wren Langford? You look nothing like the pictures your father sent me."
The voice landed and something clicked in Wren's head. A small smile came over Wren's face before he could help it. "Uncle Ryan?"
The man's eyes went wide and then they were already moving toward each other, the kind of hug that came with back-patting and grunts and no ceremony whatsoever.
"Hoho." Ryan stepped back and held him by both shoulders, looking him over properly from head to toe with the expression of a man genuinely impressed. "My boy. You've shot up taller than me and then some."
He shook his head slowly. "And quite the face on you too. I'm sure you were a proper ladykiller back in college, huh?"
"Quite the opposite."
[Quite the opposite.] Nyx put it up at the exact same moment, the text appearing beside Wren's own words like a footnote.
Wren gritted his teeth quietly. The System was ragebaiting him surely…
"How'd you know to come find me?" He picked up his bag and followed Ryan around to the passenger side.
"Your dad called me last night." Ryan pulled open the door and gestured for him to get in. "He said you'd be coming sometime this week and asked me to keep an eye out and also said he'd be out of the country for a good while." He tapped the side of the truck bed. "Throw your bag in the back."
Wren lifted the luggage and set it in. He noticed it as he did… his arms moved differently and the weight registered differently.
The heavy bag that had felt like a dumbbell on the way out of Bostara now felt like a pillow. He held his arm out for a second after and looked at it.
'I really owe you one.' He thought.
[Of course…. This is a peak seduction build, Host. Town women, city women, it truly doesn't matter where they're from. The foundation of catching a woman's attention is the face and the body. Everything else comes after.]
He didn't respond to that. He got in and Ryan got in as well then he shut the door.
"I can't believe it's already been… like nine years." Ryan said, pulling out onto the road.
"Fourteen, actually. I counted it." Wren looked out the window. "Give or take."
Ryan glanced at him. "That long?"
"You've got white coming in at the sides… That didn't happen in nine years, you were a lot younger when we met."
"I'm not that old boy." Ryan said, and pulled onto a wider street.
He reached over and turned the radio on and what came out of the speakers was the kind of music that belonged on a ranch somewhere at golden hour with a steel guitar and a man singing about a woman who left and the truck she left him with.
[This man has interesting music choices.]
'Tell me about it.' Wren thought, watching Ryan begin to nod along like this was completely normal behavior.
"I'll drop you at the house but we'll do a small tour first since you've been gone so long." Ryan said. "The town's changed a fair bit and I'm sure you'll be interested."
He turned onto a street that was busier than the rest… There were stalls running along both sides and people moving between them.
There was also the smell of something roasting though he couldn't remember the name.
"This is Main Street!" Ryan spread one hand off the wheel like he was presenting it personally. "This is where everything happens. You need food, clothes, tools, gossip… Main Street's the place to be. See that crowd over there?"
He pointed at a stall with more people around it than the others. "That woman is selling fried cassava bites… You used to eat those every single morning when you came here as a kid. Every morning without fail, you'd be pulling at your dad's hand trying to get him to stop."
Wren looked at the stall... He genuinely didn't remember any of it, however the smell was very familiar.
"She's been doing it for thirty years." Ryan continued. "Her daughter helps her now so the whole family smells like frying oil."
He said it with complete affection.
They moved forward and a woman at the next stall looked up and immediately broke into a wave. Ryan leaned toward the window.
"Afternoon Jean!" He called out, loud enough that people nearby turned to look at the truck. He waved back with his whole arm.
"Who's that?" Wren asked as they passed.
"That's Jean. She moved over here from Caldena last year, opened that stall and just... stayed." He settled back into his seat. "The town likes her… she makes good food and doesn't complain about anything. That's honestly all it takes around here." He tapped the wheel twice. "Oh and the electronics shop is right there."
He nodded at a storefront coming up on the left that had a display window full of phones and tablets.
"Shipments straight from the city, prices are way better than anything online." He glanced sideways at Wren. "Actually, you probably need a phone don't you? Your line wasn't coming through."
Wren looked out the window.
"...I'll take that as a yes." Ryan said.
They came around a bend and the church appeared… it was much larger than anything Wren had stored in memory from last time.
It looked like four connected buildings under one roofline with a golden cross at the top catching the afternoon light.
"That's the Church and it opens on Thursdays and Sundays." Ryan said. "Pastor Eric… he's a good man, talks to you straight and won't put you to sleep unlike those city pastors." He paused. "Actually you kind of have to come at least once. The town's small and people notice these things."
"It's four times the size it was."
"Congregation grew fast once Pastor Aldric took over… we built the first extension, then another one. Now it's basically its own little complex." He said it like he was still proud of it. "Harlow really came together for that one."
They turned down a quieter road and a school building came into view with children visible through the fence in the yard. They were laughing.
"This is the primary school." Ryan said. "There's a high school on the east side and then a branch college that's at the far edge of town. It opened up three years ago."
Wren turned to look at him. "Harlow has a college?"
"Harlow has a college." Ryan repeated with a grin. "I know… even I didn't believe it when they broke ground but there it is."
He reached over without thinking and turned the volume up two notches and his shoulders started moving in the seat, it was slow at first and then with full commitment as his head began to follow.
"Hee-hawwww!" He sang out barely on key and completely invested with one hand still on the wheel.
'I think I might need to get my own car.' Wren thought, the second-hand embarrassment was killing him.
[Agreed]
It was even badder when the psychotic System agreed too…
They turned a corner and the road opened up and Wren saw it before Ryan said anything.
It was a building set back from the main road but it was also bigger than everything around it with two storeys and a sign over the entrance that read Langford Lodge in letters that had once been painted properly and were now just suggestions of what they used to be.
The garden in front had gone over and one of the ground floor shutters was hanging at an awkward angle. The whole thing had the look of something that had been locked up and left to figure it out.
Ryan slowed slightly as they passed it without stopping.
"Langford Lodge." He said. "Your father's property… he hasn't had proper work done on it in years now and it's been ticking over." He paused. "I imagine that's why he called you back."
Wren looked at the building as it passed.
'This is what he wants me to resurrect.' He thought.
[It's very possible, Host. With the right SP investment we can make Langford Lodge the most sought after destination in the country. People will come to this town specifically for it.]
'By stealing men's wives and girlfriends.'
[Exactly.]
'You do understand that's morally wrong.' Wren looked back out the front window. 'These are decent people in real relationships. Walking in and taking what doesn't belong to you is…'
[Tsk tsk. Stop being such a sissy about it… The feeling cannot be explained. You'll need to experience it yourself before you have any opinion worth listening to.]
Wren let it go… He didn't have the energy for a philosophical argument with a floating screen.
The truck pulled up outside a house not much further down the road. It was slightly larger than the ones beside it with a front garden that someone had clearly been tending to as well as a small porch with two chairs on it.
His father's house… He recognized the bones of it even through the renovation and Ryan put the truck in park.
"I'll let you get settled." He pulled his cap off and set it on the dash. "But listen… come over for dinner tonight if you're up for it. My wife Cara would be happy to have you and my daughter too."
"Oh? I will then. What time should I arrive?" Wren asked as he opened the door and took hold of his luggage.
"Seven o'clock, ask anyone on the street for the Briggs house and they'll point you right."
"I'll be there at 7 then." Wren waved at him and Ryan reversed the truck, he was gone down the road in a few seconds and the sound of his country music faded with him.
Wren stood outside the house for a moment.
"Finally… the smell of oil is gone." He muttered as he walked toward the front porch.
'I wonder when he remarried.'
He hadn't known until last night and it sat wrong with him. When his mother died he had made the old man promise… it would be just the two of them going forward and there would be no replacements.
He'd been young enough to mean it and old enough to remember it… Apparently his father had held it until he didn't.
'Adults always break their promises.' He thought. 'I guess that applies to me now too since I'm one of them.'
He pressed the doorbell and instead of the sharp electronic buzz modern apartments had it was a simple ding dong, the very old fashioned kind.
He didn't hear any footsteps so he pressed it again and this time he heard something.
The door swung open and a black haired young woman stood there, shorter than him by a clear margin, looking at him with a glare that had clearly been there before she even opened the door.
"Stop hitting the doorbell fucker." She said flatly. "It's annoying."
His left eye twitched and she looked down at his luggage then back up at him.
"Oh, so you're the freeloader." She stepped past him without waiting for a response. "Be very respectful to Mom. I'm going out on a girl's outing so I won't be here to watch you."
She walked off down the path without looking back once.
'What the fuck…?' He stood there for a second staring after her… He had never felt the urge to grab someone by the collar so fast in his life.
[That's your stepsister, Host. She's very gay and very rude. I'd advise keeping your distance from the bitch and focusing on the spawn point instead.]
'For once I agree with… spawn point?' He sighed and stepped inside, pulling the door shut behind him.
The house had been completely renovated.
He recognized the layout from childhood visits but everything else was different… there were new floors, new walls, and furniture that actually matched.
He stood in the hallway for a moment.
"Anyone home?" He moved through to the living room.
It was empty… he looked through the kitchen and apart from the food that was being cooked, there wasn't anything there.
He was heading back toward the stairs when he caught a sound from down the short corridor to his left… It was muffled and coming from behind a door.
He went toward it and pushed it open before stopping with his jaw dropped.
… There was a woman stuck in the washing machine.
Her upper body was inside the drum somehow with her arms presumably doing something in there, and the rest of her was very much outside it.
She was wearing a dress and the dress had ridden up significantly… This woman had a figure that could put pornstars to shame with wide motherly hips and a full backside that the fabric of her panties had completely given up on.
The underwear she wore barely covered anything after all and Wren stood in the doorway.
"Z-Zoe, is that you?" The voice came out muffled but it was still clear. "I think he's at the door… hurry up and get me out of here so I can go welcome him properly."
She shifted trying to pull herself free but it did not help, It made things considerably worse in fact.
[Host… What are you waiting for? Go cop a feel of your stepmother's ass.]