Grind 4.2

January 8, 2011, Highgate Plaza - Brockton Bay, 4:32 PM

So clothes shopping with Lisa and Taylor had turned out to be an amazingly wholesome fun activity - No it didn't. Taylor did her best to put on a brave face and confronted the store attendants and fellow shoppers as Lisa egged her on. There were some fun moments though, like Lisa's reaction when Taylor gained a charisma point. She went all wide eyed and then gave us her best 'you've gotta be kidding me' look. A look she repeated when I started making discerning fashion comments about halfway through their spree.

Of course there were enough books in my multiple libraries' worth of downloads to make a Fashion skill. I'd just copied them on to my phone chip, scanned it and set my parallel meditating mind to absorbing some of them. Meanwhile they continued trying out clothes and asking for my critique. And of course Taylor had absorbed all of them while in the fitting room as soon as she'd noticed them being added. She must have leveled up the skill much higher than me too by trying out so many clothes. After a while Lisa just threw up her hands in the air and started asking Taylor for advice.

The other interesting moment was when Lisa came out of the fitting room in a very risque ensemble and I could sense her lapping up my embarrassment and arousal. Really, she was taking a bit too much pleasure in it. I got back at her by mentally blasting her a whole bunch of libidinous thoughts - while maintaining eye contact and shutting off all other emotional output apart from lust. Worked like a charm as she blushed, then glared at me and ran back into the fitting room. Why and how was this woman asexual again?

Both Lisa and Taylor unanimously decided to eat at this fast food place called Fugly Bob's. I was raised in India, give me the spiciest of foods and I'd consume them with relish. But this much grease was a first for even me. It was amazingly tasty though. Praise our gamer's bodies that could process the food simply to add HP and not clog our arteries.

As Lisa sent Taylor to thank the chef and we had a moment to ourselves, I took the opportunity to talk to Lisa, "Thanks for helping Taylor out, she needed this."

Lisa waved her hand, "Don't mention it, I needed some girl time too. Thanks for putting up with us. So I get that your power makes you gain personability just from social interaction. But apparently you also just gain knowledge from thin air whenever needed?"

I shrugged, "It's a bit more complicated than that. I'll explain the mechanics when you come onboard."

"Oh I'm onboard already. It's just a matter of time now." I got a message telling me that Lisa had become a potential party member, ah, so I couldn't just add anybody.

I nodded, "Indeed, then it is absolute cause for celebration. Would you like to have dinner with me when you're free in the next few days?" I radiated confidence but didn't hide the mild trepidation either.

She smiled, "I'd be delighted to. In fact let's add a movie to it - there's the new Aleph import called Inception, I believe we'd enjoy it."

My relief and glee were both palpable. "It would be my pleasure."

Successfully asking someone out increases your CHA by 1

Heh, we finalised next Wednesday evening for the date. Lisa bade Taylor and Me goodbye as we left Fugly Bob's and headed off. We started towards Lord's Market, time to kit Taylor's inventory up. Danny had wanted to pay for the purchases earlier, but we had refused. We'd need to create cash generation avenues eventually, so I took a proper loan from dada. 50 grands in my account, repayable in 3 EMIs of 20 grands, all apparently white money. No idea how he legitimized it; it was his speciality after all.

Taylor engaged in a bit of juvenile teasing about Lisa and me. I just warned her that I was going to be merciless when she'd be fending off boys with sticks, she relented soon after. She'd already started to notice that she was getting appraising looks. I made her haggle for each and every item of purchase. She already had the Negotiation skill, it just needed the actual experience to level up enough. She collected a few more charisma points in the process. By the time we were finished, one could not recognize her as the girl who left with me in the morning. She raised 6 points in charisma overall, bringing the total up to 14. Her lean features now looked striking, and the only change in her wardrobe was a shawl instead of the hoodie. But the overall visible difference was radical. I thanked my stars that with her I'd already taken up the big brother mentality and there was a different person of the opposite sex in my mind - otherwise it could have become awkward.

We came back to Taylor's place around 6pm to see Danny already home, heating something for dinner. He did a double take when he saw Taylor. He got up and gave her a hug, remarking that she looked like a taller and more intense version of a young Annette. That pleased Taylor a lot. Then he turned to me and said, "Aveek, if any boys bother her, you have my blessing to mess them up completely."

I smiled and shook my head. "That won't be necessary, sir. Tonight's training will be so she can do it herself."

Danny nodded resolutely. "Good, you do that. Do you guys want to eat something?"

Both of us refused, then I told Taylor to go change into her freshly acquired combat clothes. She had already shown me some strips of black widow silk she was planning to make our costumes out of. We'd tested it to be completely knife proof and we could make it fire retardant with a bit of borax treatment.

We had also discussed feeding carbon fibre strands to the widows for enhanced strength. She wanted to make armor plating with insect carapaces but I had suggested millimetre thick flawless diamond plates (Already checked that they counted to my power as non-complex construct material) that she could then weave into double layered spidersilk. If my estimation was right they'd merely shatter on impact with even heavy calibre rounds and absorb the force. Though it'd take me about two days of nonstop construction with my current capacity to produce sufficient diamond plates for one costume with sufficient armor and eye coverage, but it'd be worth it.

All that was for later though, for now she was just changing into the urban camo fatigues and an army surplus light flak vest.

We'd already discussed different ways to make money from the stuff that we could make. I could produce flawless diamond and rare metal jewellery, my construct complexity was already good enough for them. She could sell spidersilk cloth in bulk to law enforcement agencies. And I could also sell extremely pure rare elements to research labs or factories who needed them in low quantity but high purity.

Anyway, I was discussing some of these possibilities with Danny while Taylor arrived. I warned Danny to not freak out when we would disappear with a lightshow. Taylor's level was still 10 because she didn't get quests.

Let's see if combat gave her any XP. I grabbed Taylor, got a fresh scan of her and dropped us into an ID with level 7-10 mooks.


Beta by MaddTitan