Chapter 2: Emphatic Host

People liked Arthur’s menu and made do with the options he had, but it hadn’t changed much since his days of running a food cart in the city square. There were a few choices of tea in both pepped and unpepped varieties, some crushed-fruit-and-milk options, and several flavored and unflavored variations on his boba. People mixed and matched what they wanted out of those, and there were just enough possible permutations that he’d been able to skate by up until now.

But that’s coming to an end. I need new drinks and new snacks. I need to be good at making the new drinks and snacks, too, if I want to run this shop long-term.

“People aren’t that picky.” Lily argued through a mouth of delicious food. “Great food is great, but good food is still good. People would buy level one cookies. Just not for much.”

“You think?”

“Yes. It means they don’t have to walk to another place. Walking ruins all the sitting. That’s part of why people come here.”

Arthur nodded. Lily was small but not stupid. He had long since learned that she watched everything like an owl, and often saw things he didn’t see. He usually took her advice on things like this.

“Still, I don’t have the skill yet. I’ll have to try other things today.” He looked over at Mizu, who was sitting and enjoying a book of her own, complete with a cabbage-egg dish that was rapidly disappearing from the plate in front of her. “Do you two want to help me experiment on a few things during the evening slow-down?”

Mizu looked up, smiled, and nodded.

“I’ll help too,” Lily said. “But I have a question.”

“Yeah?”

“What happened with that rabbit lady? You looked like you were apologizing for losing one of her kids or something.”

“Oh, that. I got her drink wrong. Really wrong. An entirely different thing. Luckily, it’s Sylva, so she didn’t really care.”

“That’s weird. Not like you.”

“No. Usually, I’m pretty good at that.” Arthur turned towards the windows at the front of the shop where a huge troll-like demon was walking by in the crowd. “He likes sweet cream. Almost doesn’t care about the tea.”

“Yup. I remember him.”

“And the ferret likes pep and strong flavors. No fruit. No milk or cream either.”

“Good. What about her?”

“The wind elemental? That’s a trick question. She’s never been in the shop.”

“Good catch. But what would she get?”

“Hm. Hard call. They seem elegant to me. So I want to say light tea, normal boba, milk.”

“But?”

“She looks stressed. Look how she’s walking. Like it’s been a really hard morning. But she’s not tired, so maybe something sweet?”

“And him?”

With no new customers, the guessing game continued. Arthur’s perception was pretty high, all things considered, and he could pick up on little cues that other people might have missed. The big tough infernal was beyond pretending to be big and tough, and so might order something sweet. The tiny little hummingbird demon was walking like he was trying to break the cobblestones under his feet, and probably wanted something pretty bitter and plain.

And amidst all the guessing, something started to resolve in him. At first, it was just a game. Soon enough, he was more sure about some of the guesses than others, like he was getting a sense that went beyond what he could see. Bringing up his status sheet, he called up the skill that was mostly likely responsible for that change.

Teashop Brewmaster (Boba Specialty)

You make tea to make people happy. This skill helps with that, in various ways. In addition to increasing your ability to cook in general, this skill takes a special interest in helping you select, brew, and serve the drinks that please your guests best and improve their days the most.

At level 13, your existing cooking skills are codified in your mind, making them easier to perform and increasing the consistency of your outputs. In addition, a moderate amount of your passive majicka seeps into the foods you make, bending reality to make the impossible more possible and the possible slightly tastier.

Leveling the skill increases these effects, as do investments in your perception and wisdom stats.

Synergizes with Food Scientist at all times, but especially when using new ingredients, creating new recipes, and developing new preparation methods.

As great as Teashop Brewmaster was, he didn’t think the “select and serve the drinks that please your guests” part was what he was feeling here. That was a real effect, of course, and something that got stronger over time. But it was always a weak, sort of nudging thing, something that made guesses slightly better without any confirmation that the guesses themselves were right.

This is stronger than that. More direct.

As people kept walking by, his brain kicked into overdrive. The beaver probably liked fruit. The stone elemental wanted drinks that were pink because she thought they were pretty. The horse only drank sweet and crunchy drinks. As the numbers of guesses grew, he got more and more sure something was going on until finally something clicked. He opened his status screen, pretty sure what he’d find there.

Empathic Host (Derived Skill)

Some skills are bundles of things. They do a little of this and a little of that, like different colors of paint that resolve into a larger painting. Most class skills are like this, for instance. They carry a few big effects, and a ton of small perks that act as grease and keep the gears turning smoothly.

Other skills are born independent. They do a particular thing, they do it well, and they don’t care to diversify at all. Your Food Scientist skill is this way, for example. It likes to tell you about ingredients. That’s all it does, but it does that one thing to perfection.

This skill is a third type. Your Teashop Brewmaster provided a light buff to your natural ability in understanding what your customers wanted. But your consistent work on the same task coupled with your worry about getting things wrong have grown this skill to a point where it no longer fits in its old home, and is moving out of your class skill to pursue its own potential better.

Empathic host gives you a slight intuitive sense of what customers want and need. This effect is limited to knowledge of a customer’s preferences regarding consumable food objects, and cannot override situations where the customer is trying to conceal information from you.

Empathic Host’s effects grow and scale with your PER stat.

“Well, damn,” Arthur said. “I didn’t expect that. I got a skill, Lily.”

“When you zoned out for two full minutes mid-sentence, I sort of figured. You can bake now?”

“No, something different.” Arthur glanced around the store. For the moment, it was deserted. “Do you think things are going to stay calm for a bit?”

“Probably another hour. Are you headed out?”

“Yes. We’ll have to delay the drink development.” Arthur took off his apron and hung it up. “I think I need to find Eito. Although I have no idea where he’d be.”

“I’ll watch the store. And Eito’s at home.”

“How do you know?”

“I mean, it’s a festival day. If Karbo knew he didn’t have to work today and took him out drinking last night…”

Arthur hit his forehead with his palm. “Then he’s hung over. Of course. Actually, that works well. I can bring him a present.”

--

Arthur walked down the road, just the slightest bit wobbly from pouring all of his excess Majicka into a single drink. It was a pretty good one, as such things went.

Hair of the Dog (Eito Edition)

This tea takes simple pepped leaves, water, and an ample dose of majicka to offer slightly more than moderate relief to a very particular kind of self-inflicted suffering.

Crafted particularly for Eito with ingredients he is confirmed to like, this drink will work slightly better when consumed by its namesake.

“Eito! Open up!”

“No! You want to hurt me with your yelling and your questions.”

“Eito, dammit. Open the door.”

“I categorically refuse to render my professional help today. Leave.”

“I brought tea!”

The door flew open fast enough to startle Arthur. He almost dropped the tea before Eito’s hand shot out, grabbed it, and left him reeling on the steps. By the time Arthur recovered his balance, Eito had consumed fully half of the double-sized drink.

“Good gods, boy, I needed that. How does it work so well?”

“It’s a special edition. Just for you.” Arthur flicked over the details to Eito, who read them with arched eyebrows. “Eito, seriously, how did you do this to yourself again? I thought you said last time was the… well, the last time.”

“Karbo discovered a new kind of alcohol. It’s sweet and easy to drink. I might have lost track of my consumption a little bit.”

Eito waved Arthur into his home, which as always looked a bit like a fantasy version of a hollowed-out tree. Arthur learned a long time ago that this look was the result of Eito’s tree-demon status and the aura that he produced, though it wasn’t necessarily something he wanted or liked.

“Well, as far as I’m concerned, I saved your life. You owe me.”

“Oh, that kind of visit, is it? More offworlder weirdness?”

“Something like that. Take a look at this skill and tell me what you think.”

Arthur flicked over the details of his newest skill. Eito focused in on the words with only minor difficulty, still nursing his curative tea and cradling his forehead.

“Well, that’s something. In some ways, this is very normal for a shopkeeper. We tend to refer to abilities of this sort as sales skills, things that help you relate to your customer better and meet their needs.”

“And in other ways?”

“In other ways it’s less straightforward. Did you happen to see that ‘want and need’ language the system used?”

“Yes. That’s why I’m here. Today, I messed one of my customer’s orders up. Could the drink have had something to do with that? Because I don’t think I want to go through the growing pains if the skill is going to be misfiring and making me make the wrong drinks until it gets leveled.”

Eito slurped up the liquid in his drink, popped the lid off the cup, and started consuming the ice and pieces of stray boba he hadn’t got to yet. Taking that as a hint, Arthur went to his kitchen to make him a pot of tea to keep him through the morning.

“Oh, thanks, Arthur. Let me ask you a question. Had you noticed the skill before the mistake? Had that weird feeling you get when a new skill pops up?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“And messing up the drink bothered you?”

“More than you would think, yeah. It was a good customer and I was embarrassed. To the point where Lily cheered me up by making me guess potential customer’s drinks out the window.”

Eito thought for a moment, wobbling his head a little as he did, until a hangover-wince lit his face as he remembered his under-the-weather status.

“Then I think it’s a little simpler than that. You made a big mistake, by your standards. It bothered you, so you worked on it. That’s just how people get skills, Arthur. It’s the normal way things work.”

It made sense. There was relief in knowing he didn’t have a little unintentional system sabotuer waiting to trip him up, anyway.

“Most system skills aren’t coercive like that, anyway. Especially the ‘gives you guidance’ type. You can choose whether to listen to the skill or not. Even if it was wrong sometimes, you could just double-check with the customers until it’s leveled. And that’s going to be a very easy skill to grow, at least at lower levels.”

“Just by being better at making people what they want?”

“Making people what they want backed by a high-level general production skill, yes. The lower level skill will ride the higher level skill’s coat-tails as it tries to catch up.”

“Easy enough.”

“Yes, but that’s only half of it. If you want this skill to grow well, you need to actively try to stretch the borders of what it can do. And that means more guessing. Take what it tells you, and go one or two steps further. Try to outdo the skill. Make it race with you. That’s also how you tame it. That’s my professional opinion.”