Karine seems a little confused by what she was told the other day about the Senate in Pandemonium. Never did the game mention much about Pandemonian society, other than seven princes, of which two were killed by the players before the game’s closure, ruling over Hell from Pandemonium. I guess unreleased content might have shed some light on that, she appears to be in an urge to ask additional questions about the Senate, its makeup and where it fits in Taladu’s political landscape.
“You once mentioned that the HCP was a bill. How does legislation pass, and where does the Senate fit in the process?” Karine asks.
“Given that the Senate rarely gets along with the judiciary, and judicial review takes place after the first reading passes, but before the second reading, it can make political life hell. However, a bill becomes law after passing the second reading, sometimes with amendments. It’s a miracle the HCP could even pass through the Senate at all!” Billerica answers her.
“Political life being hell is nothing new under the sun to me. Now, I wonder if you recognize any of these names...”
“No thanks, Karine, the next project takes place in the outskirts of a fortress city in the mountains” her boss gives her the starting point of the next project.
“Sometimes I feel like the HCP is also about developing regions”
I really wonder what this location has to offer its residents, Karine sighs, while having missed an opportunity to ask a question that could have ascertained whether Taladu was the native name for MAA’s world, or a region thereof. I was so busy working to get my boss’ debts repaid, and from there, pay my way back home, that I forgot to learn about the world’s geography and history.
But then she tries to picture what kind of demons would even want to get an apartment block-sized homeless refuge built. And yet, she knows that demons vary greatly in how they deal with the damned.
As for the fortress city, its mountainous site makes her feel like each street of the area she is to build the new neighborhood is at different elevations. Much like a canyon. Every home will be longer to build because of excavation into the mountain walls, and I’d rather build these homes on the upper levels.
“Looks like the fortress city’s authorities are facing a rapid influx of what they called… damned?” Yenaleda comments upon reading the fine print of what the requirements are for the neighborhood. “I wonder how you feel about the movie last night…”
“Not very good. It seems like it’s an excuse to show us what makes these little green men serial rapists; you can make good horror movies without having to resort to gratuitous rape!” Karine lets Yenaleda in on her taste in horror movies.
“That, a horror movie? If you call this movie a horror movie, then you may as well call dark romance a subgenre of horror!” Yenaleda screams at Karine about the movie she understood nothing of its dialogue. “I guess Billerica loves his dark romance and horror movies”
“Weather forecast for today, at our new construction site: heavy rains” Billerica warns the two. “Flooding warnings have been issued!”
“I really hope the HCP homes can withstand such heavy rains, as do the bots” Karine sighs, wondering if she should start building the first quadruplex while the storm is brewing in the canyon. “Do molecular 3D printing make it possible to do all-weather construction?”
Then come the other requirements: a business center, for which Yenaleda is busy finding tenants among the so-called “damned”, a fire station and a police station. Other than that, Karine et al have free reign to build the neighborhood however they see fit. Provided there even is a plot available.
However, panicked homeowners in that city decide to sell their homes amid the flood warning, but, as tempting as it might have been to some, Karine wonders if any of these fire sales would be worth anything to her. Ouch. I don’t think it’s a good idea to build on the lowest level since floods can cause costly damage. However, this limits the number of lots I can draw from.
And the panicked residents of the city’s lower levels, regardless of their damnation status, seek refuge in the upper levels, or at least deeper inland. She decides to monitor the neighborhood’s view to determine where to build the police station, making an offer for the first property coming up for sale in a sufficiently high level of the neighborhood.
Which causes her to drain much of her budget for that one lot since the lot contains a duplex, whose demolition she orders to make way for a police station.
“Don’t forget about the repayment schedule! We might have repaid a little over one million talas, the next payment for three million is due in three days!” Billerica scolds the other two. “Even that might not repay our debts in full, and the debts incurred for you are a mere pittance, not to mention junior to the pre-existing debts!”
“You never told me about how much debt there actually was! The rate at which repayments occur is infernal! Your creditor proposal was poorly done; it feels like the courts just wanted to buy time to bankrupt the company, and not get it back on track!” Karine laments the incompetence of Pandemonian insolvency courts, or that of Taladuan insolvency judges.
I guess, he can’t afford to appeal the repayment schedule, either in time or money. I may as well buy the fire station blueprint, more bots and materials, with the fire station being built before any apartment blocks, Karine then starts the construction of the police station.
Yet it seems like the sudden influx of the so-called damned in the city has somehow caused residents of the next-lowest levels to panic, and sell off buildings. At rock bottom prices for some, but as the level of the river rises, their respective owners attempt to flee the city.
And yet, even though the new police station is open, she is left wondering how the city will staff it. Then the city’s money arrives and she starts buying what she feels is necessary: fire station blueprint, materials and she buys the cheapest property for sale on the third level or above. Or maybe even the second level if it’s clear the second level won’t get flooded.
“What kind of resident would sell off a home in the face of an influx of damned? Do they feel threatened by the damned?” Karine starts questioning the behavior of the local residents. “I might have understood flooding risks if you were talking about the first and second levels, however”
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“Karine, why do you ask questions about such things? Working with you now feels like hell!” Billerica scolds Karine again. “You were hired to run construction projects!”
“Sometimes knowing how a building’s users behave will impact how constructing it will be run! Not necessarily like, say, an architect or a civil engineer, but I might want to have a certain building built based on the market for it”
And it’s then that she buys the apartment block, business center and fire station blueprints, for T450,000 total, leaving her with a little over T1M to buy everything else she needs, such as bots, materials and lots.
But even after the purchase of five additional bots as well as 5,000 tons of materials, she still have T590,000 to buy homes for sale for, even assuming that all the money from the fire station would go towards repaying the debt. Here it seems like the people selling the houses tend to sell more low-end housing, and she even low-balls one of them, buying for only a fraction of the asking price. And yet, somehow, all properties listed were sold in a matter of seconds.
Even by making a low-ball offer, even with the wind of panic causing a lot of people to just put up their houses for sale, it just was more expensive than the previous go.
“Working with you feels like working in Hell!” Billerica vents to her. “You make me feel like there’s more to building real estate projects than just building houses, and it makes my life difficult, in a way that no amount of horror movies can reproduce!”
“Maybe Taladu is hell! Or at least your part of Taladu!” Karine retorts, her face turning red.
“I know you’re smart, and you probably know you are, but is it normal for your kind to be crazy at your level?” Yenaleda asks the human woman.
“I wouldn’t necessarily say that’s normal, but I know that it exists. It might seem ridiculous, but I have the impression that I already had seen a few elements of this world before”
But really just that: a few elements. MAA’s manufacturer made it clear that players didn’t see a whole lot of the game’s world, Karine keeps to herself while the demolition of a multigenerational house proceeds. Here’s my chance to get deeper into the world, to see what kind of world I landed myself into. MAA’s world, an alien horror movie set, both or neither. I can’t shake the feeling of déjà vu; it would calm me down a bit if I could narrow down its source.
Then, as the rubble from the old multigenerational is being cleared, Karine finally asks the questions she wanted to ask at the start of the working day.
“Sorry for this digression, but there was a question I wanted to ask this morning: do you recognize any of the following names? Baal, Mephistopheles, Lucifer, Satan or Asmodeus”
“Drat! They all have a seat in the Senate, I didn’t expect you to know about them! One of these senators is the caliph; take a guess as to who” Yenaleda asks her as the last of the house’s rubble is cleared.
“That, however, I’m not sure, but if I have to guess, either Lucifer or Satan, probably fighting each other for the caliphate. But if my recollections are correct, there are several races of damned under Pandemonian jurisdiction!”
“How dare you call us damned!” Billerica, his skin turning green, screams at Karine, and is about to charge at her, just before the fire station’s construction begins. “It was already bad enough when you merely wanted to become caliph instead of the caliph…”
Feeling targeted, Billerica hits Karine in the right knee, causing her to howl for a few seconds. He promptly returns to negotiating with the city to set up tax remittance on rent for future tenants. At the same time, knee pain seems to slow Karine’s mind down somewhat. She orders bots to build the fire station, but for some reason, her mind just doesn’t work at the same level as it used to.
“Are there any painkillers here?” Karine asks, while holding her right knee.
“No!” Billerica yells at her, while his skin slowly turns back to its original color.
Here it seems like the market has slowed down somewhat, and long-time residents of the city would rather wait out the storm before deciding whether to buy or sell housing. But because she can’t seem to think straight, she just monitors the construction status as well as flooding. While it’s taking a little longer than she would have liked because of the challenge of excavation, it’s acceptable to her.
At the same time, he buys two properties in a different district, but still cliffside. Both have clearly seen better days.
“Karine, you seemed unable to get your job done! I just bought two houses for you to demolish!” Billerica screams at her.
“Fine...” she sighs, while looking at a T300k financial gap.
And yet, she gets her bots to demolish the two houses, one duplex and one bungalow. It still takes her only five bots to demolish both. Once the fire station is complete, as is the demolition of the low-density housing her boss bought, Karine begins construction of two apartment blocks, using seven bots each, and using up 1200 tons of materials apiece, expecting the construction to take all night.
But when the time comes from the trio to eat damned ribs, which is a dish that reminds Karine of spare ribs, Yenaleda chooses another movie to watch, which, unlike previous movies they watched, appears to be lighter-hearted.
“So what is it about damned triggered you to the point you hit my knee?” Karine asks her boss, while the damned ribs are being served.
“To us, calling someone damned means that someone is only good for being eaten” Yenaleda explains to her.
“Dinner time!” Billerica then serves the dish. “Damned ribs!”
“Are damned ribs the actual name of the recipe? That seems a little… hellish for a dish name” Karine comments before sampling it.
“Yes”
Upon eating the first bite of the damned ribs, Karine’s mouth catches fire because of the spice. She frantically searches for drinks, believing water to be insufficient. What did I do to work in hell, and eat spicier food than even the jeyuk bokkeum I ate during the Operation Heathrow RWF? And I thought jeyuk bokkeum was already spicy enough in its own right! If I am, in fact, on MAA’s world, maybe I ought to question them about Heathrow, Perseria or the Gates of Tartarus... Karine, feeling like drinking cold drinks, tries to use her mind to keep her pain under control.
“It’s the spiciest meat I’ve ever eaten in my life!” Karine comments in a whiny voice. “May I have some water please?”
Billerica points her to the bottle of cold water, from which she pours a glass. Karine then gulps down the whole glass of cold water, in hopes of dousing the fire in her mouth.
But after drinking some water, which is demineralized for some reason, her feelings of burns subside enough to take another bite of these damned ribs. Meanwhile, the movie Yenaleda is playing on screen seems to feature… a couch potato elf watching TV as an opening scene.
“Elven TV?” Karine gasps upon watching the opening scene of the movie, while the fires in her mouth regain strength after the second bite of these damned ribs.
But the other two keep quiet while watching the movie, with Karine belatedly realizing she should do the same. Yet, by watching the movie, she buys herself some time between each bite, as the damned ribs cool down and hence get less spicy over time.
Good: this movie isn’t about gratuitous sex. It’s about a couch potato suffering from hikikomori, and looks for jobs requiring telecommuting, as far as I can make out. The juicy part might arrive when the lead interviews or works the job, Karine realizes that movie stands in stark contrast with other Taladuan movies she watched, especially dark romance or horror.
“Tell me how you feel about this movie” Yenaleda asks Karine before going to the WC, once the movie ends.
“At least it doesn’t rush the plot…” Karine then checks on the status of the two apartment blocks’ construction while waiting for the WC.
Which take longer than she would have expected with these supposedly all-weather construction bots, but weather can slow down even all-weather construction bots.