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Α27.2: Carl Shocks The First Morning

A blue status window appeared.

New class acquired:

Laborer now rank 1!

1 unused skill point remaining

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 "What the heck is laborer rank one? And a skill point?" Carl said, struggling to see around the combination of status window and boxes that obstructed his view. "Dismiss."
 "Oh, did you get a class?" Romuliana called back.
 "I guess?"
 "That's all nonsense to me," Romuliana said, directing him to set the boxes down in the small part of the little room that wasn't filled with shelves and tables covered in clay vases, jugs, and other types of pottery. "I think we were better off before the system started handing out all those stupid stats, and skills, and classes."
 "Huh."
 "Okay, now we're gonna put all these into the crates," she said, sweeping her hand to cover the dozens of objects she was referring to. "You're sure this isn't a bother, Weathers?"
 "Nah, it's fine," Carl said, bending down to start loading up a box from a nearby shelf. He grabbed a big vase and set it inside. This is gonna take a while. He picked up another vase and repeated the process, followed by a third vase since everything seemed to be neatly sorted by type, and this series of shelves was all vases.
 "So, uh, you're a potter here?" Carl said, making conversation while his mind oriented itself in preparation to begin thinking deeply while performing a repetitive task.
 "Sure am," said Romuliana with more than a hint of pride, currently stacking a set of bowls into a box. "Always loved it. Something about shaping and molding the clay that feels like victory to me."
 "Well, that's…" He picked up another vase. I guess it's cool that the game can cater to this kind of interest? Probably saves a ton of real money on pottery supplies. Not to mention the space. Never really thought about it that way. She might be sick or something in real life and can't do her pottery anymore. He set the vase into the box.
 Carl picked up another vase and set it into the box. He hefted yet another one, starting a new box since the first one was now full. Sure are a lot of vases.
 "You're new to Onyxfell, Weathers?" Romuliana asked, still going through her bowls.
 "Yup," Carl said, taking another vase from the shelf.
 A blue status window appeared.
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New class acquired:

Peon now rank 1!

1 unused skill point remaining

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 "Ugh," he muttered. "Dismiss." He moved the last vase off the shelf and into a box.
 "Are you enjoying your stay so far?"
 "Yeah, it's nice here." Carl started on the next shelf up, deciding to continue picking up one vase at a time rather than risk damaging them by taking one in each hand.
 "I'm glad. Things may have changed here with the system, but I still wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the empire."
 Another vase went into the crate next to him. "Uh, there's a lot of cities in the empire?"
 "None like Onyxfell. If it's victory you seek, this is where you'll find it, Weathers."
 "What's with all this victory this and that?" he asked, moving another vase, followed by one after that which he had to start a third box for.
 "Do you enjoy winning, Weathers?"
 "Well, sure, as much as anyone, I guess." Carl put another big vase into the box.
 "That's all it is. We in the empire find victory in all things."
 "Huh." That's a reasonable way to look at it. He put two more vases into the box, one after the other. It's just a game, so it's always gonna be more fun if you think about how you're winning.
 Romuliana lapsed into silence, likely as she focused on the task at hand, which reminded Carl of his own task.
 Carl focused. He pulled another vase from the shelf and put it into the box. Willing his mind to pry free the thoughts deep in his subconscious while he occupied his more active thoughts with the moving of another two vases—the first of which necessitated the starting of a fourth box and the second of which required him to start on the third shelf up—he thought.
 A blue status window appeared.
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He boxed another vase. He could feel the thoughts bubbling up.
 Another vase went into a box, followed by another.
 Carl started a fifth box, setting a first vase into it.
 He placed three more vases into that box in succession.
 The third shelf was now depleted, so he started on the fourth shelf, setting a fifth vase into the fourth box.
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Laborer now rank 2!

2 unused skill point remaining

Laborer now rank 3!

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

3 unused skill point remaining

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<div style="max-width: 100%; overflow:auto">

New class acquired:

Arranger now rank 1!

1 unused skill point remaining

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 Carl started another box, the sixth one, with a single vase. Yes, he was closing in on some sort of thought now, that much he was sure of. He moved another vase, followed by a second, then a third, and, at last, a fourth, which was the limit of these boxes that could only hold five of the big vases.
 A seventh box was necessary now, and he commenced its filling with two more vases in steady succession, emptying also the fourth shelf. He felt that he was—
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<div style="max-width: 100%; overflow:auto">

Laborer now rank 2!

2 unused skill point remaining

Arranger now rank 2!

2 unused skill point remaining

</div>
<div style="max-width: 100%; overflow:auto">

Laborer now rank 3!

3 unused skill point remaining

</div>

New class acquired:

Arranger now rank 1!

1 unused skill point remaining

</div>
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 —really getting the hang of it as he dismissed all the status windows which had been almost completely blocking his vision while he worked.
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Laborer now rank 2!

2 unused skill point remaining

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 But more than that, as he filled the seventh box with three more vases from the fifth shelf and set that box aside so that he could get started on the eighth box, he had an idea.
 "Romuliana, you mind giving your thoughts on a hypothetical?" he called back, setting the first vase into his newest box.
 "Hyp-what?"
 "Like a made up situation. I'm trying to make a decision about something, but it's a tricky problem."
 Carl had a true watershed moment as he worked, coming to the realization that he could easily just ask other people about the situation—disguising it suitably, of course, since he wasn't about to go broadcasting his own problems to the world—and then see if anyone else had a good idea about it. He put another vase into the box, which, he realized, would actually be the last box of vases.
 A blue status window appeared.
<div style="max-width: 100%; overflow:auto">

New class acquired:

Drone now rank 1!

1 unused skill point remaining

</div>
 "Sure, it's the least I can do for all your help."
 He dismissed the new status window and set a third vase into the last vase-box. "Alright. Suppose I've got a… I've got a boss at my job, right?" He put another vase into the box. "And my boss wants me to do something that I think is a bad idea, but my boss thinks it's a good idea. Now, I've spent a lot of time thinking about the problem, and it seems to me like my boss's way is worse than mine."
 "Worse how?"
 "Mainly safety," Carl said, grabbing the last vase off the fifth shelf, which he put into the eighth box as the fifth vase in that box before setting it aside and turning around to see what more was left.
There was a lot.
He let out a sigh as he realized the enormity of the situation, wiping his forehead a little on his sleeve.
 "Safety's important, I suppose, but maybe your boss sees victory where you don't?"
 "Eh, I kinda looked into that already, and there's not much of a win." Carl decided to start with the jugs next, which were like the vases but smaller and with handles. He edged along the shelf he'd been working at, carrying a bunch of the boxes he'd brought in over a couple quick trips back and forth to the car outside as he slid past the tables containing stacks of dishware that Romuliana was industriously boxing up. He began at the top shelf this time.
 "Well, what if you do both?"
 Carl set a pair of jugs into a box, judging that he could safely move them two at a time using the handles, then turned to face the short old woman. "Both," he murmured, rubbing his beard, having never before seriously considered the option of partially de-segmenting the network. "Yeah, maybe," he said slowly, realizing the idea was impossible because Gab definitely seemed like an all-or-nothing type of person and wasn't going to enable multiple network configurations, which wasn't really the smartest policy anyway given the complexity it would add, though he could maybe just put Engineering and IT on their own networks and leave everyone else subject to the porn-related malware that was almost certainly going to crop up for a thi—fourth time.
 It was worth thinking about, at least, and it was a fresh idea that he might not have come up with on his own. "Thanks, that might've helped," he acknowledged, turning to put another two sets of two vases into the box. He added another pair of vases to bring the box's total vase count to eight, which seemed to be as much as the box could safely hold, and then started another box.
 A blue status window appeared.
<div style="max-width: 100%; overflow:auto">

New class acquired:

Worker now rank 1!

1 unused skill point remaining

</div>
 "I hope you find—"
 "Dismiss."
 "—victory, whichever path you decide to follow, Weathers," said Romuliana.
 "Yeah, uh, thanks," Carl said, working through another four pairs of vases to fill the box and also finishing off the shelf, which was the first of five. He was feeling like this had already been a great use of his time, and it had only been like, fifteen minutes including all the time he'd needed to help bring in the boxes. Sure, there was a lot of work left to be done, and yeah, maybe it wasn't the most exciting thing to be doing, but again, he wasn't trying to do anything exciting because he wasn't here to play games or anything, he was just exploiting the time scaling or whatever the game was doing in order to have more time to effectively consider the best solution to the problem that he had a lunch meeting in thirty minutes of real life time to discuss.
 Carl started on the next shelf down, now taking a moment to inspect a jug. It was a pretty well-made jug, he judged without having a clue whether he was accurately judging it. The handle had a nice little flourish-y thing at the top to keep your hand steady, which he appreciated, and the sides had… Well, the sides didn't have anything, and it was an otherwise plain jug, which was something he could respect. It was a jug, not an art piece, so there wasn't any need to go overboard. People were probably gonna buy it regardless.
 He set the jug into the box, adding a second one so his count wouldn't be off before grabbing another pair of jugs off the shelves. No need to think about this too much, that was for sure. He grabbed a third pair of jugs off the shelf, followed by a fourth, setting his second full box of—No, wait, this was the third full box of jugs that he was setting aside, obviously.
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