The shop continues...
May. 25th, 2008 08:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avevale_intelligencerThe next day it rained, and the usual warnings were on the radio--keep covered up while outside, wash any exposed skin immediately with a pH-neutral cleanser, and so on. For me, keeping covered up while cycling meant wearing a heavy gabardine rain cape which turned a fairly pleasant ride into a clammy sweaty hell--there used to be plastic ones, but they tended to start to melt--so I elected, just five minutes too late, to take the bus, which made me thirty-eight minutes late at the other end.
Fortunately, I'm not the only one with a key to the shutter, but Zoltan-hound-of-Dracula still growled at me and tapped his wrist as I whizzed past, and Liliana was already installed at the computer.
"Did you forget soap?" she said over her shoulder, and I'd almost sniffed my armpit before I realised what she meant. I had been in a hurry, but it seemed a rather personal comment.
"Sorry, I was concentrating on the weavers."
"We need to promote again. There's another attack coming." With two decisive clicks she planted two soap makers at opposite ends of the village and added two more hunters in a territory that she'd just claimed, which also had a largish iron deposit.
"And Sir Wotsisface wants soap."
"He likes a clean village."
"A clean village is a happy village," I intoned in a cod American accent, and got a smile, which was something. Then I headed out to the shop. Zoltan-hound-of-Dracula was quite firm on the point; one player, no kibitzers. I suppose I had been hogging the game for a while.
There was no sign of him out there, which meant I'd missed my chance to check his feet. It was still hard to think about that, to acknowledge the fact that wanting to check his feet meant I was accepting the possibility that a character from a video game was walking about in our world. Of course, my workplace was selling things made in a video game in our world, but this seemed different. More personal. And assuming that all the other shops were managed by game people as well, it almost amounted to an invasion.
How had they managed it? Did they have outside help? Was it a trick with computers, or did the power come from inside the game somehow? Part of me wanted to find out, wanted it very badly. Another part wanted to stop thinking about it before I broke the spell or whatever.
The twilight staff had performed their usual miracle of reorganisation, and on one set of shelves lay a pile of neatly folded shirts. I don't know what I was expecting--maybe some sort of Harris tweed--but what I felt wasn't like any woven wool fabric I'd ever encountered, more like a very soft denim. It felt great. I looked at the price and decided that even with my discount I could wait a day or two. Besides, they probably wouldn't have it in my--oh look, they did.
When I popped back into the office to put my shirt on my shelf, Liliana was in the middle of a pitched battle, and Zoltan-hound-of-Dracula was watching over her shoulder. Hordes of red troops were overrunning the territory with the iron in it, and our knight was doing his best, but the outpost she had put up was already in flames, and unless she had a whole lot more troops on the way--
Nope. The knight retreated to the castle, the last of our soldiers ascended to the top of the screen, and the territory was shrouded once more in fog. Zoltan-hound-of-Dracula bowed his head and put his hand on Liliana's shoulder, and then went into his office and closed the door.
The dressing-down that followed was completely deserved. Playing the game is a plate-spinning act. You have to keep them all spinning at the same speed all the time. I had not done so. I'd been so proud of getting the wool and shirt production going I'd neglected the military side, which meant that when the attack came Liliana was undermanned to deal with it. If it had been me on there today I'd have had the same problem.
I wanted to say that it wasn't my fault. I wanted to point out that there would be other chances to get that territory back. The mission was still ongoing. It wasn't the end of the world.
But of course, if you were a character from the game, and you'd just watched your countrymen dying because some idiot in our world had made a stupid mistake...
I apologised. Whole-heartedly. I promised it wouldn't happen again, and swore to myself that I'd make damn sure it wouldn't. I think Liliana believed me.
When I went home that night, the shirt was still on my shelf. I couldn't wear it. I had to earn it first.
Fortunately, I'm not the only one with a key to the shutter, but Zoltan-hound-of-Dracula still growled at me and tapped his wrist as I whizzed past, and Liliana was already installed at the computer.
"Did you forget soap?" she said over her shoulder, and I'd almost sniffed my armpit before I realised what she meant. I had been in a hurry, but it seemed a rather personal comment.
"Sorry, I was concentrating on the weavers."
"We need to promote again. There's another attack coming." With two decisive clicks she planted two soap makers at opposite ends of the village and added two more hunters in a territory that she'd just claimed, which also had a largish iron deposit.
"And Sir Wotsisface wants soap."
"He likes a clean village."
"A clean village is a happy village," I intoned in a cod American accent, and got a smile, which was something. Then I headed out to the shop. Zoltan-hound-of-Dracula was quite firm on the point; one player, no kibitzers. I suppose I had been hogging the game for a while.
There was no sign of him out there, which meant I'd missed my chance to check his feet. It was still hard to think about that, to acknowledge the fact that wanting to check his feet meant I was accepting the possibility that a character from a video game was walking about in our world. Of course, my workplace was selling things made in a video game in our world, but this seemed different. More personal. And assuming that all the other shops were managed by game people as well, it almost amounted to an invasion.
How had they managed it? Did they have outside help? Was it a trick with computers, or did the power come from inside the game somehow? Part of me wanted to find out, wanted it very badly. Another part wanted to stop thinking about it before I broke the spell or whatever.
The twilight staff had performed their usual miracle of reorganisation, and on one set of shelves lay a pile of neatly folded shirts. I don't know what I was expecting--maybe some sort of Harris tweed--but what I felt wasn't like any woven wool fabric I'd ever encountered, more like a very soft denim. It felt great. I looked at the price and decided that even with my discount I could wait a day or two. Besides, they probably wouldn't have it in my--oh look, they did.
When I popped back into the office to put my shirt on my shelf, Liliana was in the middle of a pitched battle, and Zoltan-hound-of-Dracula was watching over her shoulder. Hordes of red troops were overrunning the territory with the iron in it, and our knight was doing his best, but the outpost she had put up was already in flames, and unless she had a whole lot more troops on the way--
Nope. The knight retreated to the castle, the last of our soldiers ascended to the top of the screen, and the territory was shrouded once more in fog. Zoltan-hound-of-Dracula bowed his head and put his hand on Liliana's shoulder, and then went into his office and closed the door.
The dressing-down that followed was completely deserved. Playing the game is a plate-spinning act. You have to keep them all spinning at the same speed all the time. I had not done so. I'd been so proud of getting the wool and shirt production going I'd neglected the military side, which meant that when the attack came Liliana was undermanned to deal with it. If it had been me on there today I'd have had the same problem.
I wanted to say that it wasn't my fault. I wanted to point out that there would be other chances to get that territory back. The mission was still ongoing. It wasn't the end of the world.
But of course, if you were a character from the game, and you'd just watched your countrymen dying because some idiot in our world had made a stupid mistake...
I apologised. Whole-heartedly. I promised it wouldn't happen again, and swore to myself that I'd make damn sure it wouldn't. I think Liliana believed me.
When I went home that night, the shirt was still on my shelf. I couldn't wear it. I had to earn it first.
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no subject
Date: 2008-05-25 12:33 pm (UTC)*taps fingers impatiently*
no subject
Date: 2008-05-26 03:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-27 03:07 pm (UTC)How come the character did not apologize to Zoltan? And why is there the -hound-of-Dracula attached? Is that his real name or something of the main character added on there?
no subject
Date: 2008-05-27 08:27 pm (UTC)And the main character didn't apologise to Zoltan-hound-of-Dracula, and Zoltan-hound-of-Dracula didn't give him the opportunity, because our guy is trying not to acknowledge the possibility that his boss is a character from a computer game, and Zoltan-hound-of-Dracula hasn't realised that anyone suspects yet. He's hoping that brief moment of emotion will pass unnoticed.