Carl walked towards the door of the workshop. Whew, what a morning. Can't believe it's barely past noon. Er, twelve. Still no idea if that's noon. Real-noon. There we go. Can't believe it's barely past real-noon.
He thought back over the rest of his hectic morning, during which he'd gained four more ranks in Laborer, two in Peon, six in Drone, three in Load-bearer, four in Employee, one in Chef, and six in Seamstress, the last of which he thought was oddly sexist in the current year.
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Carl frowned. Nah, I don't have time to think about all that again. Wasn't super exciting anyway. Got a bunch of class stuff and more marks, but the important part is that I managed to get some clothes for the doll. And a bigger scarf-y thing for Mina so she doesn't get sunburned. Nearly positive that's gonna be a thing for people who don't have dev mode enabled. Morning was a success all around.
He placed his hand on the door's handle, reconsidering his previous thought and acknowledging that what he'd really meant was that the rest of the morning had been a bit of a failure since he hadn't managed to have any other great ideas or find anyone who seemed like they'd have a worthwhile opinion. He'd need to make some time to set a chair out somewhere in the after-real-noon to continue thinking, since that was the only reason he was still logged in.
He wasn't playing a game, he reminded himself as he pulled the door open. A massive ball of fire rushed towards him, vanishing almost immediately when he felt its heat.
"Master, welcome back!" Phonia squealed, rushing over from the workstation where Mina was seated on her stool. The doll wrapped her arms around him and pressed her head to his chest in what would have been a very comfortable hug if her horns hadn't been poking into him. Also if she was Annie and not an in-game sex doll. "I missed you," she whispered loudly, "especially with how intense you were earlier."
Carl grimaced down at the thing that bore way too much resemblance to his wife, then pivoted his grimace to Mina, who was giving him a one-brow-raised look that meant he definitely had to shut this thing down right now before she got the wrong idea since absolutely nothing had happened earlier, and this freaking X-rated doll was just programmed to be obsessed with sex even though he only wanted something to guard the workshop a bit when he wasn't around to go Dad Mode on anyone who thought they could mess with one of his d—with Mina, with whom he wasn't quite sure what kind of relationship he had, but it was complicated.
"No, I wasn't, and no, you didn't." He pushed the doll away and tossed part of his burden onto her. "I got you clothes."
The doll caught the apparel that had taken him most of the morning to acquire, looked down at the items, then dropped them on the ground and held her arms up with her hands behind her head. "Nope, I'll stay like this," she said, licking her lips as her pink-flecked eyes visibly swept up and down him. "Unless you wanna…" She shifted slightly in place.
Carl's eyes went to the clothes on the ground, stopping to linger at an eye-catching tuft of light purp—
"Nope. Get dressed," he said, stepping around the stupid, distracting doll.
Phonia sighed noisily, but he didn't look back, instead continuing on and presenting his other purchase to Mina. "Saw this and thought you'd like it."
The girl stared up at him for a moment, then took the soft scarf, which was white with blue polka dots, into her hands. A deeply pleased grin formed on her lips over the next few seconds, and she gave him a hug that he would have described as crushing if she were stronger. "Thank you, Carl," she said. "I'll cherish it."
Carl stroked a hand down the back of her head. Her hair was a little silkier than Sammy's or Bobby's, but she squeezed tighter as he rubbed, just like both of them did. Really adorable. "Sleep well?"
Mina hugged him for another few seconds. "Yes, quite," she said, pressing the scarf to her chest. "I was speaking with Phonia in an attempt to determine how best she might assist me, but she's been quite coy with all manner of knowledge which doesn't relate to—"
"All dressed!" Phonia proclaimed, drawing their eyes over.
The sex doll had put on the overalls he'd bought with a very clear understanding of his wife's measurements, but she was very clearly not wearing anything under them. Her hands pulled the suspender straps away from her chest, and she tilted her head slightly. "How do I—"
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"Get dressed normally," Carl clarified. "Wearing all the clothes."
Phonia pouted in a way that would have been very sexy if she'd been Annie and not a sex doll, but she was a sex doll and so the gesture was not only wasted, it was also annoying. She harrumphed, then slid the suspenders slowly off—
Carl turned back to the workbench, looking at some of the other schematics Mina had drawn. It again wasn't that he was a prude of any sort or that he disliked looking at his wife—and he caught her eyeballing him on occasion as well, so it's not as though this was some kinda one-sided, sexist type of thing instead of two people deeply in love who also appreciated each other in a physical way—whose body the doll had copied, but this wasn't Annie, and Carl had absolutely zero interest in other women.
Annie was the best.
But now, as he examined the newer, more intricate, more detailed drawings in a manner that vaguely reminded him of time spent similarly reviewing Sammy's and Bobby's test scores and report cards, he was thinking that Mina was also maybe the best in a very specific way. Wow, she really thought this through. Got all the attachment points for the harnesses drawn in, breakdowns of the materials by size and probable cost, measurements…
"What do you think of it?" Mina asked in almost exactly the same way Bobby did when she'd written a new script or addon and was worried that he wouldn't think it was well-made.
"Looks good," he said, executing his mid-level Dad Approves skill.
"Okay, now I'm all dressed!"
"Truly?" Mina asked.
Carl nodded to her. "Yeah, nice work. Seems pretty safe to me."
She grinned.
"I can't believe you got me such boring clothes, master," Phonia said, cuddling up to his side.
Carl disentangled himself and then held the doll at a distance by one of her horns while she frowned up at him. "I saw you've got the materials all planned out. Wanna go do some shopping?"
"I do!" called Phonia, having settled for stroking his restraining hand with both of hers.
"May we?" Mina asked, her eyebrows jumping upwards.
"Oh, while I remember," Carl said. Can't believe I almost forgot. "Inventory." He pulled out the small tray of hot breakfast-y biscuits he'd spent a few marks on after sampling a couple. "Got these too since I know how much you like eating. Er, not that eating's a bad thing," he backpedaled, now holding the flimsy stone tray with both hands, "I tried 'em first, obviously, and they're—"
"Carl," Mina wheezed as she erupted into laughter, and it was a few seconds before she could continue. "Please, you needn't defend your intent to carry back a breakfast for me." She held her hand over her mouth as she giggled. "Thank you, truly. It's… Your caring is greatly appreciated."
He relaxed a little and set the tray on the edge of the workbench after waiting for the girl to move her sketches aside. "What else do you have here? Let's see…" He gathered up a few of the sheets of paper that had been torn off the notepad. What the heck.
The first drawing made no sense to him at all. It had a rectangle near each corner with lines connecting them and a jumble of weird magic-y rune-looking things all over with some hastily-scribbled shorthand notes about "earth binding" this and "wind decomposition" that. He frowned and shuffled it to the back of the pile, revealing another paper that…
This supposed to be some kinda steering wheel replacement? Like a… Magic-powered joystick-y thing?
"I was attempting to devise a steering mechanism which could be operated with one hand," Mina said from the side. She took a bite of one of the biscuits—the strawberry jam-glazed one which had been Carl's favorite—and chewed before swallowing. "Mmm, this is quite nice."
Alright, she likes strawberries. Carl added an entry into his Dad Notes. "That's pretty cool, Mina."
"Perhaps," she said after finishing with another bite. "I'm not certain it would be sufficiently robust, and learning the precise range of motion needed to swiftly react would prove quite difficult."
"Wow, that's a lot of fancy drawing," Phonia remarked, having sidled up on his other side. "We going shopping soon? I know exactly what I could get to make you wanna—"
"Stand over there and be quiet," Carl said, pointing firmly to the corner across the workshop next to the door. "You're in time-out now."
The doll stomped over to the corner and stood with her arms crossed. She was now wearing the blue-ish gray overalls over a baggy, long-sleeved white turtleneck, and she sulked with the exact same expression that Annie used when he tried to get out of going somewhere that he didn't really want to go.
"Freaking thing is so annoying," Carl muttered.
Mina laughed abruptly, spraying biscuit crumbs onto his side. She raised her free hand to her mouth with an expression of horror on her face as she stared at the affected spot.
Carl looked down at himself, and he again felt the need to sate a certain urge. "You, uh, got crumb of your biscuit on me."