Installation 1.5

December 23, 2010, Hebert House - Brockton Bay, 7:15 PM


Taylor Hebert

Title: Protagonist

Class: Abuse Survivor

Level: 5

HP: 84/90

Desc: Taylor is a smart girl with a strong core reduced to a nervous wreck by constant bullying and abuse from her ex-best friend's clique in school. She loves her mother's memory, thinks her father is already too stressed to open up to him.

Status effects: Severely Depressed. -10 INT, -15 WIS


Ah, at least that explained the abuse thing, still left a lot more questions open. She must have high int and wis to be even functioning with those stat penalties! Okay, baby steps, I've been in her shoes, somewhat at least, I still had my own friend circle of nerds for backup, while she has none. Well I can at least try to give her that.

QUEST CREATED!

Befriend Taylor Hebert!

Become friends with Taylor, give her a place of normalcy before school starts.

Success: 5000 XP + Increased relationship with Taylor

Failure: She'll be a broken shell of a person and it'll all be your fault!

[ACCEPT/Y] [DECLINE/N]

I swear if the AI starts taking cues from dating sims I'll find Rob and I'll wring his extraUniversal neck! Anyway, I accepted that quest too, and sat down on the couch my brother had already occupied one side of. Taylor seemed kind of unsure what to do next, as a tall, lanky, balding man came out of the inner door, yep, definite family resemblance there.

Grieving Father
Daniel Hebert (NPC)
Lvl. 14 Dockworkers' Union Leader

"Ah, hello, Dave, right? And you must be his brother." Dada stood up and shook hands with him. He didn't correct him, we knew everyone was going to call him Dave in this country, at least we didn't have names which are completely butchered in English.

"Yes, I'm Aveek, nice to meet you Mr. Hebert" I followed suit and shook hands with him too.

"Call me Danny, and you've already met Taylor. Good to meet you two, we haven't had new neighbors in quite a while. Settling in well?"

"Ah, yes, we just started unpacking today, still a lot to be done. We'll have to get the house in order before Aveek's school starts, we'll get too busy after that to get anything done I guess." Dada was good with small talk, I wish I had half his social grace, oh well, charisma training, how does one train charisma?

"Yes yes, let me know if you guys need anything okay? And Aveek you're starting in Winslow too, right? Which year?" Danny asked me. I saw Taylor's eyes widen in panic. Whoa boy, can of worms much?

"I had almost finished my schooling back in India, but dada - I mean Dev insisted that I start halfway through junior year here, some subjects might be different." I managed to answer.

"Good good, so what would you like to have? Tea? Coffee?"

"Tea, please." Dada said, and gave me a significant look, yes yes I knew how to be a good houseguest, I'm socially awkward, not an outcast.

"Tea, I'll help with it," I stood up. Taylor's panic seemed to rise another notch, but Danny didn't seem to notice it, I think I've found people with lower charisma scores than mine.

"You don't need to trouble yourself," Taylor stiffly interjected.

"No trouble, I insist, Aveek here is sort of a specialist with tea," dada quipped. Taylor seemed to perk up at that, still seemed nervous though.

"Oh? That's nice, Taylor is also a big fan of tea. In fact make a cup for me too, Taylor?" Danny genially pointed inside. I guessed this was quite within social norms here.

"Yes? Ah, yes, this way please." Taylor went inside, I followed her into a moderately sized kitchen, noticing that the structure of this house seemed quite similar to ours.

"What kind of tea would you like?"

"Um, what are the options?"

"I just bought some new varieties yesterday. Here have a look," she opened a cabinet and pointed to the boxes of teas, visibly brightening up as she looked at them. Interesting.

"Ah, let's see, Oolong, Green, Darjeeling, Chamomile, Cinnamon, Mint... That's a pretty respectable collection. Would you kindly put the water to boil while I decide?" It was actually a pretty good collection. And I was merely stalling for time because once the decision is made, then we'd have nothing else to talk about!

"Yes, sure, so what's your favourite tea?" Bah! Even Taylor was better at smalltalk than me! Good for me though. She busied herself with the stove.

''Um, my favourite is Tulsi tea, Holy Basil, it's milder than mint, but much more fragrant."

"That sounds nice, I'll have to look for it next time I go to the market."

"No need, I didn't know if we'd get it here, so I brought a lot. I'll give you a box, won't even make a dent in my stash."

"Uh, okay, thanks I mean." There was that nervousness again.

"Don't mention it, say, do you have any vanilla essence around the house? I can make a pretty neat brew out of what you have."

"Possibly, I'll check the fridge," she went and opened the fridge, looking up and down. I recognized the brittleness in her behaviour from my early days in boarding school, now how to broach the topic of bullying without making her panic further?

"So how is Winslow? You're in sophomore year I presume?" I ventured.

She visibly deflated. "It's... It's okay. You just need to avoid the gangs and the, uh, cliques, I guess."

Oh well, no risk no gain. "Ah, had bad experiences?"

Her eyes widened further. "Huh? No. Not much. I mean some. The usual I guess."

Okay, I could work with that. "Yeah, I also had a lot of trouble with bullies when I first joined high school. Took me a while to figure out how to deal with them. Hoping to avoid all that drama this time."

She stiffened. "Oh? How did you deal with them?"

Okay, time for a hook, strangely, as bad as I was with social interactions, that didn't take away from my ability for social manipulation. "Oh, it's a pretty interesting story, I'll tell you sometime. Did you find the vanilla?"

"Ah, yes, here it is."

The water had started to boil already, I took out three tablespoons of chamomile tea and a dash of black tea, then turned the heat off. "please pour two drops in this."

She did, interest back in body language. I put the tea in and covered it. "Now we wait for two minutes, cups, sugar and strainer?"

As she went around assembling those. I pulled out my next card.

"Say, Taylor, are you any good with English and History?"

"My mom was a professor of English." She said with some pride "Though my grades have slipped a bit." And there were the hunched shoulders again.

"I don't really believe grades to be a good marker of competency. I was asking because I'll probably have to take some remedial classes in those two, I was wondering if you can help me get them up to shape. The history I studied was more focused towards Asia than the curriculum here. English, I don't think I'm too bad with it, but it's not my native tongue, as you can guess by my accent."

She looked at me with an expression that I couldn't really place, wistfulness? Hope? "Uh, sure, I'll help with what I can, I guess?"

"Great! I'll clear it with your father about timings?" I really didn't know the social norms here, how much independence did a 15 year old girl have in studying with a boy close to her age? India was far more conservative with gender issues, and I didn't have a baseline at all.

"Huh? Yeah, that'd be good."

Artful social maneuvering has improved your CHA by 1

Heh, nice, though it was obvious that charisma was raking up points only because it was the weakest stat to begin with. We finished straining and pouring the tea, it was smelling really nice. Taylor picked up the tea tray and we made our way back to the living room. Mr. Hebert and dada were quite engrossed with a sheaf of papers.

"But how will you manage to pay them with this much margin Dave? Not that I don't appreciate the extra pay, but this seems quite non-standard." Mr. Hebert was looking at dada with skeptical eyes.

"Ah, that's quite simple actually, since this shipment is part of an EB shelter construction project, Fortress has managed to route the money through FEMA grants so it's basically tax-exempt as long as it goes through non-profits, like the DWU, in fact, even after giving you that rate of pay our logistics budget remains solidly in the black. And honestly, this is the first of a number of similar shipments, we're hoping to sign the DWU for all of them and get a trustworthy consistent workforce instead of hiring a bunch of middlemen contractors who will eat half the money and then provide subpar HR. Losing us more money than saved in the process." Dada was fully in his element.

"Huh, that actually makes sense, I'm going to sign off on this, just add the safety contingency that we discussed, and if it all works out, we'll be ready to sign off on the rest of the shipments as a whole guaranteeing you the manpower you need. Oh, the tea is here, wow, what tea is this Taylor? It smells great!" Mr. Hebert mentioned, sniffing his cup. Danny, it's Danny, I have to remember that it's okay to call elders by their first names here, it's completely alien to our culture.

"That's Aveek's brew. I just followed instructions." Taylor sat down, picking up her own cup and giving the vapours a deep inhale, she sighed and her shoulders relaxed a lot, chamomile FTW!

"Told you he was a tea specialist. This one's your calming brew, right bro?" Sure dada, lay it on thick why don't you?

"Yeah. This is that one." I was never too comfortable with praise.

"Tastes great too, I mean I'm a coffee person, but I wouldn't mind one of these after coming home from work. Did you get the recipe Taylor?" Danny takes over, thank you Danny.

"I'll get it, it is nice." She seemed to be in her own little world. I Observed her and saw her status effect had become 'mildly depressed'. Ah, warms me cockles to do some good.

Conversation meandered, food was ordered, I found a moment to shoot off an Observe on Danny.


Daniel Hebert

Title: Grieving Father

Class: Dockworkers' Union Leader

Level: 14

HP: 178/180

Desc: Daniel is a hardworking man who loves his daughter, but is still reeling from the loss of his wife two years ago. He is frustrated because he can sense something is wrong with Taylor, but doesn't know how to confront a teenage daughter. He loves the docks and hopes to improve it by reopening the Ferry.

Status effects: Depressed, Tired. -2 STR, -3 DEX, -5 WIS


That's a lot of information, I didn't really know how to help him, neither me nor dada could give him any useful tips on parenting. Meanwhile I managed to ask him about studying with Taylor, he was all for it, as long as we met when he was home, I was actually relieved hearing that, really didn't want this to turn into a dating sim.

Food was good, I didn't have much more interaction with Taylor other than random small talk, except for setting up a time and suggesting that I could help her with Computers, Maths and Sciences, she took me up on the last two, mentioning that she was doing well in computers, that was good news, I was hopeful of finding a fellow nerd. Time will tell.

We left around 9 after securing invitations for both of us to attend the Heberts' christmas party, which was apparently spontaneously organized right then, guess they were in the need of social interactions too.

We reached home, I unlocked the gates, dada went to his bike and took out a bottle from its saddle-case. I observed it.

Bottle of FireWhiskey

A pint of Ogden's Finest... er, wrong universe, I mean Glenfiddich.

Sufficient consumption merely produces inebriated status effect.

And you don't even belch flames, meh.

Now the AI was outright trolling me! What the fuck?

We went in and dada poured two shots, we did our usual silent toast and drank. It was really good stuff. Another shot and we both had inebriated status effects, it dropped int and wis quite a few points and actually increased str and vit by 1! We chatted a bit, I told him a few more details about my powers. He reminded me that we were supposed to go and get our Immigration paperwork done the next day. Eventually we headed off to our bedrooms.

I sat down on the bed, waited a bit for the status effect to dissipate, then closed my eyes and started to meditate, hoping to get a feel for my mana.

I cleared my mind the best I could, and focused on turning my awareness inward. I could actually feel, not see, but feel a mote of shimmering Cherenkov Blue, tried to touch it, and I fell.

I was inside an infinite cerulean expanse, mind boggling vastness, bigger than planets, galaxies or universes, it was a sea of concepts, raw concepts, brimming with infinite possibilities, I wasn't actually inside it as much as I was a part of it, just more solid than the rest. I had the distinct feeling from a more fluid mass around my self that trying to make sense of it all would simply dissolve my mind and dissipate it into conceptual motes, the fluid mass was shielding me from exactly that - Ah, that must be my AI assist. Seriously, even a minor chunk of this energy seemed sufficient to either form or destroy whole worlds. That was very intimidating, and I could already feel my sense of self fraying at the edges just trying to hold that thought.

I snapped out quickly, back inside my own self, but the mote was clearer now, it was more of a pinhole than a mote, and mana was constantly seeping out of it and imbuing through my body, ready to manifest at my beck and call. Wow, that was something.

I open my eyes, and there were alerts.

Getting int touch with your Mana has improved your INT by 2

Getting int touch with your Mana has improved your WIS by 2


SKILL CREATED!

A new skill has been created through a special action!

Meditation: (Active) Lvl. 1 - 27.5%
An ancient skill which lets you introspect:

+50% Mana regen during meditating.
At current level meditation cuts off all external input and output.
Useful while experimenting with mana at higher levels.
Cost: free.


Whoa! Serious gains, but I guessed the int and wis boosts were more of a one-time thing. Or else it'd be just too easy to lift them. Dismissing all the windows, I decided to train my int and wis as hard as I could so that I could turn on mental input and output and get rid of having to interact with and mutter at thin air, looking like a loon.

QUEST CREATED!

Don't look like a loon!

Get your INT and WIS up to 20 so that you can turn on your mind-AI interface without having to use your senses. Finally get rid of the rampant blue boxes!

Success: 2000 XP + More flexibility with AI interaction

Failure: Looking like a nutter and outing yourself at the first chance!

[ACCEPT/Y] [DECLINE/N]

Yep, that's what I'm talking about! I accepted the quest, changed into pajamas and laid down on my bed, I wasn't feeling particularly sleepy physically, but the mental fatigue of the Mana Trip was palpable. I drifted off to sleep without any effort.