Organization: To a Mother, nothing is as important as Organization. How else can they get everything done as fast as they do? Organization is how Mothers achieve the efficiency necessary to manage a family, house, and a spouse all at once. Toys, schedules, children, clothes, nothing is immune to Organization.

A place for everything, and everything in its place. Or everyone. Everywhere. Everyday.

Adam was looking up the skill he was convinced would help him plan out his future advancements. Reading over the skill description again, he realized that most people might believe he was wrong. However, in spite of his poor education, lack of training, and lifetime of disappointment, Adam had learned something very important about the System.

It’s all about the subtext.

The combined mentioning of schedules and “nothing is immune to Organization” told him all he needed to know. It might not be the perfect skill for planning out a useful Specialization, but it had two things that other skill didn’t have. One, it was available to him when he needed it. Two, Organization worked on more than just planning a Spec. His plan was to pick it up and make use of it to plan his Spec, then use it to help him deal with the duke’s brats. When he Distilled his class he’d dump it if that was a possibility. He figured there was also the chance, however miniscule, that he might actually find the skill useful as well.

Without further ado, he spent one of his two skill points to buy Organization. He’d already been floating lotus like in the midst of his mindscape, so he took no time at all to relax into meditation, ready for his new skill to awaken.

Or so he thought.

Organization was nothing like he had expected. Nor was it like anything before it. The closest parallel would have been Mother’s Love, but only in that it started as an entirely internal pressure. After that, the comparison went out the window.

Adam’s new skill did exactly as it advertised, it organized everything. Starting with his mind.

It was as though his perception of the internal workings of his own mind had received the ability to visually focus on things. His thoughts and ideas, normally rather vague suggestions floating around his mind, were suddenly sharply defined. If that wasn’t enough, they were also dragged kicking and screaming into boxes specifying some aspect of them. A massive web of lines sprung up from each of the boxes, tying ideas with similar concepts, directions, or targets together. Codependence, correlations, similarities, any hint of interaction between two ideas was connected by a line that was then tied to any others that also fit that same interaction.

Lists, labels, boxes, timers, schedules, comparative analysis sheets. The list of things that suddenly sprung up in his mind was staggering. If Adam could see his body at that moment, he wouldn’t be at all surprised by the blood leaking from his eyes, ears, and nose. His mind had kicked into overdrive and for the first time since he had originally entered his mindscape, it wasn’t a place of calm comfort.

He tried to follow every movement of his thoughts as they were gutted, diced, and taste tested before being put back together along with accompanying identifiers, but it was too much for him. In an attempt to find some form of Zen moment, he looked for Szellem. When he found the odd man he was astonished to see the preternatural speed, skill, and grace with which the man dodged through the organizational war being waged in his mindscape. There almost seemed to be a directed attacked focused on the man, yet he evaded every attempt at classifying him. Whether it was the hands made of boxed half-formed ideas on how to use Multitask, the web of knowledge gained from Mother Knows Best, or the razor whip created from the lines that led to Mama Bear, Szellem slipped through them all.

Over time the mass exodus of his thoughts slowed as each and every one was stored into a drawer. One entire side of his mindscape had become a massive wall of drawers, towering into the sky until they were just a haze, the same as they did to the sides. As he was staring, agape at the wild and unanticipated change to his mindscape, Szellem settled into standing by his side. Eventually the old man’s laughter drew his attention.

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“What’s so funny?” he asked.

“This is exactly how I’ve always envisioned my own mother’s mind to look on the inside. That woman was the epitome of organizational skills. All you are missing is a massive desk where you can revie… Huh. Look at that.” He pointed slightly to the side where a huge desk was rising from the floor. It was perfectly placed to overlook both The Great Wall of Drawers, and the Sky Tome. It even had a good view of the little table Adam had remembered back when he first talked to Szellem.

As the desk continued to rise, growing a platform beneath it, Adam reflected on his not being able to interact with his skills or their impressions from within his mindscape. Somehow, he just knew that wouldn’t be a problem for much longer. The desk itself felt more like one of his impressions than the table he had manifested before. It exuded strict authority, rising up on high to survey all of its subjects.

He realized he was scared of his own skill, and wasn’t sure how to take it. Szellem laughing wasn’t helping at all.

“Well, spoke too soon. Now it’s definitely a carbon copy of my mom’s mind.”

“Shut up,” Adam grumbled. The man just laughed harder.

“What possessed you to grab that skill anyways?”

“You weren’t listening to my thoughts?”

“Well of course I was, but they shouldn’t have led to this.” He gestured to the new additions.

“I needed something to help me plan out my Specialization, and the rest of my skill advancements. Organization seemed perfect,” Adam answered. He was somewhat embarrassed, but wasn’t certain why.

“You have any idea how to work this thing? Because if you can’t figure it out, I’m not sure how to help you. This is way outside of my job description.” Szellem was still staring in mixed awe and fear at the all-consuming wall.

Nodding, Adam said, “I think so?” It would have been more convincing if he hadn’t sounded like he was asking a question.

Deciding to face his fears, and to show the old weirdo that he knew what he was doing, Adam walked to the desk. He was uncomfortable enough to need the familiarity of walking instead of floating to the controlling edifice of Organization like he normally travelled through his mindscape. As he approached, stairs formed on the dais the desk was set upon, and a chair rose from the ground. Peering suspiciously at the chair, it took Adam longer than it should have to realize it was most likely a throne. Obviously he had never seen one, but they had been described to him in stories. As he stepped between the desk and the throne, the overly ornate chair moved forward to help him sit. Despite its ornamentation and color scheme it was surprisingly comfortable.

Szellem hovered nearby, but wouldn’t cross over the edge of the dais. The man wouldn’t admit it, but Adam’s new skill worried him a bit. He liked being strange, taking pride in being free of all labels. Organization was essentially his nemesis, and he refused to give it any free shots. That didn’t mean he’d stop poking fun at the boy though. “So what’s it do, Your Majesty?” The sarcasm was strong with that one.

Adam glared, but the man was right. If he wanted to get anything out of his new skill, he needed to try. There was a slim book placed on the desktop, which he opened. Instantly, his consciousness was awash with information. Somehow he knew everything within the book, but not the drawers. The book was the reference table for all of the information held by the drawers.

Absently paging through the book, he felt the orientation of the information it provided change for each new page. Sometimes it was things that were dependent on others, or things that were connected only through something else. There were myriad ways to view the data he suddenly had available to him, but first he needed to know what exactly he wanted.

“Let’s start with something small,” he mumbled to himself. He saw the Sky Tome in front of him, and tried to focus on how to work with it better. There was a sliding sound in the far distance, followed by a whooshing sound. Szellem yelped and dove to the side as a drawer flew through the space he used to occupy and slammed into the top of the desk.

“You did that on purpose,” the man complained as he picked himself back up.

Shaking his head, Adam said, “As if I have any idea how to make that happen.”

“I wasn’t talking to you.”

Looking over, Adam realized the man was glaring at the desk. Once more ignoring the man, he reached out to put his hand in the drawer. He was intending to reach in and grab one of the innumerable files, but simply rested his hand on the handle instead.

Once more a flood of information entered his mind, but this time it was structured and contained. It didn’t have any extraneous thoughts, no strange tangents that led off to something entirely different. What he was given was exactly what he had asked for, and nothing else.

As he started to process the information contained in the drawer Adam realized that his newest skill was both a success and a failure in regards to the reason he purchased it. By no means did the skill make a plan for him, but it processed, sorted, and presented the information he needed into a workable format that he could use to make a plan of his own. It would take some time to get used to the newest tool in his arsenal, but he believed that, eventually, Organization would help him find the path he needed to take for success.

"That's definitely my mother's desk," he heard Szellem grumble in the background.