A blue status window appeared.
Carl continued placing jugs into his fourth box of jugs. He grabbed two to start, then another two, paused briefly to wipe his forehead, which had gotten a little sweaty because of the stupidly realistic game programming that was always way too realistic about the things that could stand to be a lot less realistic, followed by another two pairs of jugs to finish off both the fourth box of jugs and the second shelf of jugs.
Drone now rank 2!
2 unused skill points remaining
Another blue status window appeared.
Drone now rank 3!
3 unused skill points remaining
There was a certain satisfaction in doing this sort of work, Carl felt as he transferred a pair of jugs from the shelf to the fifth box. He hadn't even mowed his own lawn in like, ten freaking years, he realized in the course of getting another pair of jugs from the same shelf into the current box, having hired people to do it before he eventually bought an automated mower that drove around his property once a week to manage the crab grass that—
Drone now rank 2!
2 unused skill points remaining
A third blue status window appeared.
New class acquired:
Drudge now rank 1!
1 unused skill point remaining
—he'd never particularly wanted but felt obligated to grow and maintain so his house wouldn't be the odd one on his block that had one of those weird, overgrown-looking yards which would reflect poorly on him and his family. No, he thought with a certain sense of conflicted superiority while moving another pair of jugs, that ignominy belonged to the Jacksons who lived three houses down and on the other side of the street. He set a final pair of jugs into the box and moved it aside.
Drone now rank 2!
2 unused skill points remaining
Drone now rank 3!
3 unused skill points remaining
A fourth blue status window appeared.
New class acquired:
Grunt now rank 1!
1 unused skill point remaining
New class acquired:
Drudge now rank 1!
1 unused skill point remaining
Ignominy. Now that was a word, Carl mused as he put another two jugs into the sixth box from the middle shelf. There were lots of good words out there that he could be using, though maybe it wouldn't be particularly useful to be throwing out vocab words when he was just doing something nugatory like repositioning another pair of jugs into a wooden box. Legerdemain, for example.
Drone now rank 3!
3 unused skill points remaining
Drone now rank 2!
2 unused skill points remaining
A fifth blue status window appeared.
Grunt now rank 2!
2 unused skill points remaining
New class acquired:
Drudge now rank 1!
1 unused skill point remaining
Yeah, he could be using words like that, though not for what he was doing now with putting another pair of jugs into a crate since it wasn't applicable in that sense, but maybe he could use it to describe that Lawrence guy who'd had a certain adroitness about him—another great word that didn't see much use, he realized as he finished off the box with a fourth pair of jugs.
This really… This was a lot more work than he'd expected when he'd agreed to help an old lady in order to pass some time and get some thinking done, he realized while setting two jugs into the seventh jug-box from the second shelf up from the ground. The thinking was going well—almost too well, really, considering how much progress he'd made in such a short time, being that he'd managed to have an idea that might potentially be workable even if he couldn't imagine Gab settling for some kinda compromise type thing when she seemed like a real Decider—and he was certainly passing time, as the number of vases and jugs he'd already put into boxes attested to, with another pair going into the box he was working on, and—
New class acquired:
Grunt now rank 1!
1 unused skill point remaining
Drone now rank 3!
3 unused skill points remaining
Drone now rank 2!
2 unused skill points remaining
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
A sixth blue status window appeared, blocking out the last remaining part of his vision that he'd been peering through in the hopes that maybe there was some kinda stacking or tiling feature for status windows that'd keep 'em out of the way, but of course there wasn't because everything with this game's system was so freaking annoying, and…
New class acquired:
Dogsbody now rank 1!
1 unused skill point remaining
New class acquired:
Grunt now rank 1!
1 unused skill point remaining
Drone now rank 3!
3 unused skill points remaining
Carl paused and rubbed his beard as he read the newest blue status window. Huh, that's a new one. What the heck's a dogsbody?
Grunt now rank 2!
2 unused skill points remaining
New class acquired:
Drudge now rank 1!
1 unused skill point remaining
Drone now rank 2!
2 unused skill points remaining
Then he realized that the rest of the jugs weren't about to box themselves, so he dismissed all the annoying status windows and put a third pair of jugs into the box, followed quickly by a fourth. A thought occurred to him. He'd been putting the jugs into the boxes like this, but if he instead tried to do it like this…
Carl Weathers was a genius, though he was, of course, very humble about it. By making a small change in the way that he'd been packing jugs into boxes, he made it possible to fit twenty five percent more jugs into each box, which meant…
Well, what it meant was that right now he needed to start adjusting all the jug-boxes he'd already packed. He had one box of ten already, but he had six others which only had eight jugs, meaning that he could get another twelve jugs off the shelves and reduce the total number of boxes he'd end up needing by two. He grabbed a pair of jugs off the shelf and went back to the sixth box, adjusting the pre-packed jugs two by two by two by two and then adding another pair of jugs.
Sure, it might seem tedious or even unnecessary for him to go this far, but Carl was the type of person who believed that any job he took on needed to be done to the best of his abilities. That's why he went through the fifth box after, shifting the positions of this jug, this jug next to it, this other jug, then this jug, also this jug, the jug here, that jug, and then this last jug before depositing another two jugs into the box.
A blue status window appeared.
Yup, that's just the way it was gonna be. He toiled onward, getting faster now as he went through the fourth box, which was the third box that he was adjusting and would be the fourth box in total which had ten jugs right after he fixed up these four here and then the other four here, leaving him with just enough space to squeeze in the two jugs that were missing.
He reached for the third box, his hands practically moving at the speed of… Well, they were moving at normal speed since he wasn't about to try and rush things too much and risk breaking this old lady's pottery that she'd worked so hard to make—he imagined she probably lived alone, and one of her few remaining hobbies was making in-game pottery not even really because she wanted to make money from selling it, but just because she really liked making pottery and probably couldn't do it in real life anymore—as he reached in and quickly changed the position of the eight jugs in the box so he could top it up with another two.
New class acquired:
Toiler now rank 1!
1 unused skill point remaining
A second blue status window appeared.
Peon now rank 2!
2 unused skill points remaining
Carl had almost completely adjusted to this whole system thing now, and it wasn't even bothering him that much that he had two status windows open while he fixed the configuration of the jugs in the second box in order to permit the introduction of two extra vases. Wait, no, he meant jugs, obviously, he'd just happened to glance back and see the boxes he'd filled with ju—vases. And now that he thought of it, he'd put five in each of those vase-boxes, but it seemed like he could maybe fit a sixth one into each box, which would free up more boxes, and that would be especially helpful considering how much more pottery there was to move.
Yeah, now that was some smart thinking. Truly Director-level attention to detail once he got to that point. He'd already gone through the first jug-box and switched those jugs around so he could add in the two extra jugs—
New class acquired:
Toiler now rank 1!
1 unused skill point remaining
A third blue status window appeared.
Drone now rank 4!
4 unused skill points remaining
—and was now working on the eighth jug-box, which he filled properly with a normal amount of jugs—now ten. Once the box was all set and stacked up in a very safe way, he started looking at the three status windows that were open—really looking at them, which he hadn't done to this point.
Huh. Wonder what all these "skill points" do. Carl rubbed his beard for a moment, then wiped his forehead again with his sleeve. Why's it so freaking hot here anyway? Isn't this a basement? Gonna have to have a talk with… I think it was… Pretty sure it was Sarah, because this feels like a physics engine thing somehow. Hm, probably be inappropriate to go cross-department like that, so I'll just put it all in a big mail to Roger and let him sort it out. Don't want to be causing any trouble for them with how busy they are.
New class acquired:
Toiler now rank 1!
1 unused skill point remaining
Peon now rank 2!
2 unused skill points remaining
He poked the status window notifying him of the Drone class reaching rank four. This do anything?
The window changed, showing a skill tree-looking thing with a counter for the number of points he had available at the bottom. There were two skills currently available for him to choose from with his four skill points, which were apparently class-specific.
The first skill was called Drone, and there was no description for it.
The second skill was also called Drone, and there were similarly no details available.
Carl grimaced. The heck kinda skill system is this? Drone or Drone? Looks like I need five points in one before the next skill is visible.
"Don't get distracted by any of that skill and class garbage, Weathers," Romuliana called. "It's all just stupid nonsense. Nothing you can't do with hard work, no matter what everyone else seems to think. Nice work on the jugs, by the way, I usually need ten crates. Gonna have to remember that."
Carl hesitated for a moment before he dismissed the status windows without applying any of his skill points. "Thanks," he said. Yeah, she's probably right. Feels like I wasted time even just looking at any of that. Time I could've spent seeing if I can get six vases in—
"I think that about does it," Romuliana said, letting out a terrific sigh.
Carl turned around and saw that in the time he'd spent boxing up all the jugs and vases and uselessly staring at a stupid skill tree, the old woman had, almost as if by magic, gathered the entire rest of her stock into stacks of boxes. "Huh. You're pretty quick."
"You were moving fast yourself," she said, dabbing at her face with a handkerchief. "Usually takes me a while to get all those down off the higher shelves."
He checked the time. Wow, still not even eight? Really felt like longer than that.
"Time to get these up to the car," Romuliana said, hefting one of the boxes and making for the door that she'd propped open.
Well, I've still got a lot of time to kill probably. And I'm sure Mina'd message me if anything came up. He grabbed a box of jugs, then decided he could probably manage two jug-boxes without any risk and started carrying a pair of them to the door. Alright, I'm a little worried. Maybe I should've… Did I really leave a sex doll in charge of guarding the workshop without even seeing if she could do something like that? He frowned as he reached the car and set the boxes on the back of it.
"Weathers, if you're not in a rush, what do you say to helping me set these back up at my shop?" Romuliana asked, standing up on the back of the car and arranging the boxes. "I'll pay you, of course. You'll definitely be able to buy a pair of shoes. Maybe some new clothes, too, since yours look a bit…worn."
Carl looked down at his feet, which were still bare, then back up at the old woman, who was giving him an encouraging smile. "Did you ask me to help because I wasn't wearing shoes?" And I guess this novelty suit has seen better days. Gotta be some kinda repair thing I can get for it. Don't want Bobby's present to… Ah, shoot, I already threw the jacket away, didn't I.
The woman squatted down on the back of her car, revealing, as her bare knees jutted out, that she wasn't wearing a dress, and it was more like one of those divided skirt-type things with long shorts underneath. "Weathers, don't take it too hard," she said, her expression changing to one of sympathy. "Victory doesn't come to everyone on its own. Sometimes you need a little help to find it."
He considered the old woman's words, and a grin spread across his face. "Thanks, Romuliana, that's really nice of you." People here are really nice to noobs too. Game's back to awesome. Shared Worldbuilding Experience really can work when you've got people like this.
The old woman smiled back. "I can see you've got the hunger for some victory, and I could use the help. So how about it?"
"I guess I could," Carl said, considering again the jug-boxes and vase-boxes he'd packed as well as however many other boxes there were in addition to the time it would take to unpack everything. "Mind if we make a quick stop on the way—Er, maybe it's on the way?"