Chapter 6

Grind

With supplies in hand, first thing I did when I got back home is I got to cleaning the place. I mean I wasn’t a cleanliness freak by any means but the situation was so dire that most people wouldn’t feel comfortable living in these kind of conditions. Taking stock, I could tell that the amount of grime that had built up, meant that most of my work was gonna be scrubbing and mopping. After I was done with an initial tidying up and sweeping I got a bizarre notification.

HOUSEKEEPING SKILL UNLOCKED

“Huh?” I exclaimed in surprise, feeling the familiar touch of the skill-up. “What a bizarre skill.” It wasn’t much, mostly muscle memory for various cleaning actions as well as some basic knowledge on how to counter various types of stains on different materials.

I was pretty sure this wasn’t a skill that was included in the original game. Although Shadowrun had a reputation for having a pretty complex rules set so I guess anything goes. Being really curious, I pulled up the menu.

Housekeeping [ BODY | LOGIC ] Rank: 1 / 12 Experience required for next rank: 1000

Cleanliness is next to godliness. If it has to do with taking care of a household, this skill does it. Housekeeping governs a large range of activities from cleaning and finances, to even organizing the workers and functioning of a large estate.

“A dual attribute skill, huh?” I mused. “I wonder how that works.”

Other than the cleaning skill, I had one more notification waiting.

*New Journal Entry Added*

I opened up my Journal to see what was up.

Clean up your house Reward: 1 Karma

“What the hell is Karma?” I mused out loud. I guess I had to complete the task to find out.

I promptly resumed cleaning all the while thinking about my next course of action. While it was scary facing the fact that my whole life was turned upside down, I had to do my best cause this was the kind of world that would have me gone in no time. If I had to be honest, despite my previous background in accounting, no company would ever employ some bum based on his word. Besides, I don’t think my knowledge of business and tax law would be applicable in 2071.

My choices were either begging for menial work or hoping that Orion would be able to help me out. Which raises a pretty reasonable question. What did other me used to do for a living? If I he was doing honest work, someone would have contacted me by now to see why I was missing work. That leads me to believe that other me and Orion were involved in the shadier types of work. And if my assumption was true, the low life wouldn’t let me go that easily.

One thing that brought me hope, was the system that seemingly provided me with knowledge and abilities out of nothing. That meant that with some effort I could eventually become an immensely sought after tradesman or even a hacking savant. Which reinforced what I was already thinking of doing. I resolved to unlock as many skills as possible and level them up as much as possible until I could leverage them towards a better life. In the meanwhile I had to make enough to survive and make rent. At least food seemed to be very inexpensive, even though everything seemed to be made out of soy.

Before I even knew it, an hour and a half had passed and I had finished with cleaning. Wiping the sweat off my brow, I looked at the notifications that had piled up.

Housekeeping has gained 700 XP Body has gained 150 XP Logic has gained 50 XP For completing a goal you have gained 1 Karma

I navigated to my character sheet and saw that now there was a Karma tracker there. I clicked on the word, hoping to get more information and lo and behold, a window opened up.

Karma Karma is a measure of your effect on the world. Karma is gained as a reward for completing tasks and objectives. Karma can be spent to purchase Attribute and Skill Ranks as well as Qualities.

Damn, this stuff is even more complex than I thought. I opened clicked on multiple attributes and skills and from what I could tell it would cost a Karma of 5 times the new rank to level up. That means that with my Body of 2 it would cost 15 Karma to raise it to rank 3, from rank 3 it would take 20 Karma to get to rank 4 and so on. My measly 1 Karma wasn’t enough to do anything.

Next, I noticed a plus symbol next to my Qualities but clicking on that opened an empty list.

“Guess it’s not enough to unlock anything.”

I closed the character sheet and having already worked up a sweat from cleaning, I decided to work out for a bit. Since I had no weights or equipment, decided to do a simple body workout. My body was pretty weak from other me’s poor living so my workout wasn’t something to write home about. I did a measly 3 sets of 5 push ups, 3 sets of 10 squats and 3 sets of 2 minute planks. After that workout I was panting like a dog and could barely stand up, but I was rewarded by a notification.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Body has gained 300 XP

“Nice!” I exclaimed. Although I was feeling exhausted, seeing all those numbers going was addicting enough to almost make me feel like going again. Not wanting to overdo it, helped to talk myself into a break. Feeling ravenous hunger also played its role.

I crushed two rice balls and a protein bar for lunch and feeling content, I moved on to the next part of the plan.

Time to train skills, I though giddily. I had a few ideas to try but overall, I couldn’t know what the system would consider a skill and what it wouldn’t. Unlocking a skill like housekeeping gave me hope as to the variety of skills that would be available. As for the conditions for unlock, it appeared that the moment I attempted a very basic use of the skill, I was awarded the first level.

“Let’s give this a go!” I muttered excitedly.

First, I did a test to see what the threshold for training a skill would be. I put on my shoulder holster and set up a few trash as targets on my windowsill. Making sure that my gun was unloaded and with the safety off, I proceed to unholster the pistol, take position, aim and press the trigger, hearing the click of the empty gun.

Pistols has gained 50 XP

Huh. So I can gain XP for a skill even if it’s not in an optimal way. I was willing to bet, that if I went to a range, I would gain loads more XP. For now, though that was out of the question since both money and ammo were dear.

Next, I did the same with my knife. I attached the sheath to my belt and moved to a ready stance with feet apart. I withdrew the knife and did a quick stab forward.

Nothing. No notification popped up. Training an aspect of an unlocked skill seemed to give XP but my hunch was that I needed to complete the intended action for a skill to unlock. I moved forward and proceeded to stab at one of the empty water bottles I had set up. The moment the ceramic knife pierced the plastic, I heard the familiar ding.

BLADES SKILL UNLOCKED

I felt the wave of discomfort as the skill settled itself in my brain. The difference was night and day. The skill didn’t include only the muscle memory of the movements but also an awareness of the blade as an extension of my arm and the different angles of attack. I was aware of the concept of edge alignment without which, the blade would just partially cut or even just simply push against my target instead of performing a proper slice. I gave a few test slices and stabs towards an imaginary enemy and feeling satisfied, decided to move on to the next skill.

I had never taken any boxing or martial arts classes in the past but I had seen a few boxing matches in my life so I had an idea on where to start. I put my fists up in a poor facsimile of a guard and pretended the cut up bottle on the windowsill was an enemy. I moved left to right pretending I was dodging attacks. After a few dodges I stepped forward and delivered a decisive jab, knocking the bottle off the sill. That seemed to do it.

UNARMED COMBAT UNLOCKED

Although this time the discomfort wasn’t overwhelming, I was left feeling a bit jittery like I had too much coffee. The unarmed skill wasn’t too complex although it came with a nice sense of competency. I knew how to block, how to perform jabs, hooks and uppercuts as well as some basic footwork. I wouldn’t win any prizes any time soon but if I had to get into a brawl, I felt confident that I could hold my own.

While I was feeling a bit weird, I still had one more idea I wanted to test for now. I set up my targets again on the window sill and crumpled up a few food wrappers into a rough ball. I took aim and threw the ball at the targets. Needless to say, I missed. Thankfully no one has to know. I tried again a few more times until I was successful in knocking the target over. The moment the target clattered on the ground I got the notification.

THROWING SKILL UNLOCKED

I groaned at the invasive feeling. While this was the weakest skill unlock by far, there seemed to be some cumulative effect going. I was feeling a headache forming as well as a weird sense of vertigo. Since I wasn’t feeling that hot and didn’t want to risk pushing myself too far, I decided to clean up and take a quick nap.

I went to take a shower for the third time today. My utilities bill is gonna suck, I thought in exasperation. After the shower, I set up my new bed sheets and promptly lied down. Before I closed my eyes, I decided to check the new skills.

Blades [AGILITY] Rank: 1 / 12 Experience required for next rank: 1000 Anyone who thinks the pen is mightier than the sword has obviously never been stabbed before. If it cuts then you can use it. The Blades skill governs the use of all handheld slashing and stabbing weapons such as daggers, swords and axes.

Unarmed Combat [AGILITY] Rank: 1 / 12 Experience required for next rank: 1000 Fly like a butterfly, sting like a bee. Unarmed Combat covers the various self-defense and attack moves that employ the body as a primary weapon. This includes a wide array of martial arts along with the use of cybernetic implant weaponry and the fighting styles that spring up around those implants.

Interesting, I thought.

Throwing [AGILITY|BODY] Rank: 1 / 12 Experience required for next rank: 1000 If it can be thrown then it can be a weapon. Throwing is an attack skill that governs the technique, power and effectiveness of tossing handheld objects to targets.

Feeling satisfied with progress I closed my eyes and tried to relax.

I woke up about an hour later feeling refreshed. My headache was gone and I felt relatively normal, although I was beginning to regret all those squats I did as my legs felt sore as hell. I looked at the time and saw it was 7 pm.

I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and proceeded to shoot a message to Orion.

Me: Hey man, when are we meeting up?

After a couple of minutes, I got a reply.

Orion: i got out of work a couple of hours ago omae wanna meet @ paradise @ 9?

Me: Sure thing, see you then!

Orion: cya!

I took a look at the link Orion provided. It pointed to a bar on the south side of Downtown near the docks. It looked like it was gonna take me about 25 minutes if I caught the bus. That left me with at least an hour to kill.

Deciding to take it easy, I just practiced drawing my Beretta from it’s holster, trying to make the movement as smooth as possible. Even though I didn’t end up much faster, I managed to get the movement a lot smoother and you know what they say. “Slow is smooth, and smooth fast”. Hopefully if I was caught by surprise, I wouldn’t fumble.

Before I knew it, an hour had flown by and I had earned 350 XP towards my Pistols skill and 50 XP towards my Agility attribute.

I stretched a bit and started getting ready. I put on all my new gear, even taking the Slap Patches I had purchased with me just in case. I set up my navigation and like that, I was on my way to the bar.