JESSIE : LEVEL 11

DAY 139 : C-DAY, SECONDWEEK, EOS, YEAR 1

CENTRAL 11 : GROCERY CORNER 1 : ADULTING

As one might expect, we’ve finally made it to The Grocery Corner. A section owned by a Valor subsidiary Guild that occupies a huge portion of one of the eight primary corners of Central’s own octagon.

Also here is the entire Primary Color Squad Featuring Darreck.

We all have an open invitation to travel with him, of course. This is ostensibly meant for if we ever feel like we need moral support. And, to be fair, some of us do. Blue does every day. This, despite her having been the first of us to move in.

Hearing Darreck tell the story, there were no two ways about it. She just needed help. Not with anything specific, but in general with life itself. She was apparently so easy to manipulate that she would just kind of float from place to place only to slot in as the whipping boy of any given group before escaping to the next. Having gotten to know her over the past week, I can’t help but believe it. She’s just so timid. Really, that word doesn’t do it justice. If the very concept of Timidity needed a god, she could be its avatar. The very essence of innocent, unobtrusive selflessness.

Some time after Blue, Yellow came along, all bombastic and exuding an air of confidence that Blue could never hope to match. Then the rules-obsessed Green came in, and introverted as she is, it’s honestly hard to blame her for sticking to Yellow like glue. That was also when they started the whole color nickname paradigm. It even got better for Blue after she changed her name to play along.

And then I showed up. The no-bullshit, battle-hardened swordswoman with a monotonous breathing pattern, two katanas, and most importantly, synergistic hair color. It’s now been the better part of a week since I volunteered to reverse that whole pecking order. And frankly, it’s not promising. Technically, I only have to elevate Blue’s bitchiness quotient to above that of Green. But even that might as well be the moon with how much progress I’ve made in that time. It only enhances the metaphor’s aptness that I’m pretty sure the moon doesn’t actually exist.

Yellow was right about how in-the-bag this is for them. She can do, and has done, nothing this whole time, and her puppy’s victory over mine is still all but guaranteed no matter how much work I put in. That doesn’t mean I’m not gonna kick her ass still. Just that it’ll be harder than I thought.

To that effect, I’ve taken to joining Blue in following our mutual button-slave around all week. I haven’t actually been paying attention to anything around us this whole time, in favor of coaching my sponsored bitch-apparent. Darreck even said it was okay. So I took him up on that. And then he invited Yellow and Green along on the lesson he decided to make me attend. Unlike every appointment my mom ever scheduled for me, he had no problem getting me to show up since this is exactly where I was already going. That being wherever he happens to be when my button timer goes off.

Left with no alternative but to participate in some capacity, this is the first person since Yuki that I’ve bothered targeting.

[ CITIZEN TARGETED: 26810348509 ]

Well that’s not helpful. But predictable given the blue skin. Is that a racist assumption when literally all of them are like that? In a several-minute-long flash of inspiration, I realize the obvious move here. “Excuse me, sir? Do you have a name that isn’t a number?”

He looks as though he’d been asked that several times today, and the minor bigotry of the question itself has long given way to complete and utter apathy. “I do not, ma’am. But the number is a lot of syllables, so feel free to address me by the big label on my even bigger nametag.”

Now that I think to notice what he’s wearing, he does indeed seem to have a miniature billboard in the center of his chest, with a single word. But, in my defense, ‘ROLPH’ only ‘nearly’ sounds like the name of a ‘human’. And as it happens, he’s our guide this hour at the Central Adulting Station.

It’s just $5 to get taken on an hours-long wagon-ride along the route of a normal person on a full day of errands.

Rolf makes a show of counting all of us. “Okay, this looks like everyone. So, without further ado, leeets… GO!!!”

At that word, the wagon immediately starts moving at a whole half a dozen miles per hour.

Aaand I’m bored. So bored. Already. Try as I might, I find myself literally unable to retain any of what he’s saying. Oh no, this is like school all over again. Should I track Rolf’s projected emotions? That always used to help me trick myself into listening. But even that idea turns into something I can’t be bothered with once I remember there won’t be a test on any of this. Occasionally, bits and pieces of the lesson do capture my wandering attention like blips on a radar.

“-Liquid Breathing. And another Skill that will unlock hidden System Settings is-”

Already bored again, I experimentally disable the Auto-Translate slider next to the one he was just talking about.

[ AUTO-TRANSLATE: OFF ]

Depressingly more entertained by his lesson now that I can’t understand him, I ogle at the guide now fluidly speaking something along the lines of Arabic. There are a lot of languages that sound like that, and I don’t speak any of them. If I’m looking for reasons that I’m racist, the fact that I can’t tell the difference has to be a strong indication on its own, right? In any event, all it amounts to is a lot of noise with not a lot of meaning, much of it growing gradually more frustrated as Blue continues not to understand any of what he’s now explaining to her directly.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Blue who’s just making a repeated meek, otherwise unintelligible screeching sound. And the fact that nobody’s looking at her like she’s crazy tells me a lot about how common it is to turn this setting off.

Green’s voice sounds deeper than before as she talks in what I’m pretty sure is French.

Yellow is speaking some east-asian language that isn’t Japanese, so I can’t identify it. Wait, does that mean calling her ‘Yellow’ is actually why I’m racist? Better question… Do I care? Yeah, no, fuck her.

But I’m quickly distracted by something I like better. That being everything else in sight as I decide on a whim to just leave the translator off for a while.

To the left is what I can only describe as a mountain of fruit. Every kind I’ve ever even seen photos of. And like twice as many that I’ve definitely never seen before. Sadly, none of them are the right design to give any powers. But most of those would be the equivalents of Rare Passives at best. And besides, it would take away from the fact that these all look delicious. Ripe, too. It makes me think fruit must not rot in Heaven. Which, as I think of it, would surprise me if it didn’t.

After exhausting the dopamine from my curiosity about Fruit Mountain, my eyes settle on, of all things, the people. From my seat in this automated wagon, I just look around and watch the chaotic mess of a utopian metropolis full of people all speaking different languages to each other as we roll past a mountain of meat. And another of baked goods. Seriously? Is that all this place is?

But then we exit the Food Mountain Range and into an area with far more normal shops populated by… Mostly NPCs… Ok, never mind, I was kind of stuck on that with my dreams lately, but now that I see the contrast… I’m not racist. This shit is racist. Nothing but Heroes shopping at store after store staffed with nothing but NPCs. It’s especially undeniable with them all having skin nearly the same shade, sitting somewhere between sky and royal blue.

The weirdest thing is that the NPCs themselves all seem to be speaking the same dialect as everyone else. Just not all at once. Like a twisted amalgamation of every other language where if one word is in Cantonese, the next could be Turkish, Bosnian, English, or any number of others. I can even make out a few individual ‘words’ in whatever language Blue is speaking. They’re rather easy to spot, being a momentary high-pitched screech in the middle of an otherwise normal, if discombobulated sentence.

Despite the language barrier, it’s easy enough to distinguish between who’s buying, who’s selling, and who’s embroiled in what is unmistakably, only the hottest of goss. A few of them, like with Blue’s language, sound like nothing more than incoherent noise. But then every time those noises are made at someone, that someone will make an entirely different type of noise back, with clear understanding and acknowledgement of what the first one said.

It’s only more off-putting when one of them speaks English. I would’ve thought that’d make it less weird than random noises on both sides. But no. Actually understanding only one among a group is definitely weirder. It’s those people that my eyes linger on as they walk in subjective slow-mo through the crowded segregated shopping wonderland.

But then Rolph asks me a question. I can tell by the way he’s making the same sounds over and over again while looking right at me.

I flinch, having forgotten I was supposed to be participating in something. Still am, actually.

[ AUTO-TRANSLATE: ON ]

By the time I finish shaking my head with exaggerated vehemence as though to get rid of whatever supposedly distracted me for a moment, I come up with the perfect cover story. “I’m sorry, there was something in my ear. Gone now, though. What was the question?”

Rolph nods in acknowledgement. “What is the height?”

“Of what?”

“Of what I was just talking about.”

“It was stuck in my ear for a while.”

“Come again?”

“The thing in my ear… Was… Sorry, I wasn’t listening.”

Rolph sighs. “You paid to be here. Far be it from me to dictate your actions when I, in contrast, am the one being paid. Just be aware that what I’m telling you today is rather critical information painstakingly condensed into a short crash course. If you don’t already know everything I’m saying, then not listening will only be to your detriment.”

“Oh… Alrighty then.”

“So… Any questions?”

Even surprised as I am, I reply instantly with a deep analysis of something that’s been bothering me lately. “How come Conan is on TV?”

Rolf flinches back from what he clearly thought would be no question at all. “What’s ‘Conan’?”

“It’s a talk show.”

“There are several hundred talk shows being filmed today in this very city. You’ll have to be more specific.”

“This one was filmed on Earth.”

“Oh. Well, young lady, I assume you thought you’d ‘get’ me with that one. But as it so happens, there’s a simple explanation. People, especially in recent decades, often die with a device on them that just needs a little electricity to access thousands of hours of media. The Archive pays good money for anything new or of better quality than they already have.” Rolf looks around to everyone in the group. “So if any of you have some kind of media storage left over from your Earth things, you may have a sizable payday just sitting there doing nothing for you.”

“What about the wires and different hookups and formats? Or is there a Skill for that?”

The Adulting guide perks up. “There are a few Skills that make the whole thing easier. If you’re interested, the relevant CRAFT Respec is sold locally at the Central System Shop.”

“Oh. No, never mind. I guess that answers my question. Thanks.”

“Wonderful… So do you have any questions about today’s actual lesson?”

“Nope.”

“Great. Thanks for your contribution. I can see why you’re here.”

Noticing that the button I’ve been compulsively pressing this whole time went off at some point, I grin. “Me too.” And I promptly hand it off to Darreck for another nose bleed and another 256 XP in the bag.