Chapter 24: Machines and Parents

Arthur poked his shell-shocked friend as Milo stood there. The sparrow’s eyes panned back and forth at the empty space in front of him. “Is it good? The skill?”

“It’s a machinery skill, Arthur. An actual machinery skill.”

“That’s amazing,” Arthur smiled and side-hugged his friend, trying his best to share in the excitement. “I’m happy for you. And it should as always be noted that I have no idea how good that is, or why. But I’m psyched if you are psyched.”

“Oh, right. Your Earthling ultra-ignorance strikes again. Mechanical skills are very good. They aren’t unheard of, and anyone can make something mechanical if they put their mind to it. But most smiths don’t get them, and the next closest thing is clockwork skills that jewelers get. And they could never use clockwork skills to make something like what I just did.”

“Because a machine’s too big?”

“Basically. And it’s more about generating force than precision, which… Let me think of how better to explain this. It’s a specialty skill, and pretty much every specialty skill is a gigantic deal for crafter classes. It’s level zero right now, but…”

“Eventually, you can build automated death armor?”

“Nothing that cool. But, yeah, eventually I can make cool stuff. Which means you need to help me carry this big heavy press to your room so you can make your boba, and I need to get to work playing with this skill so I can figure out how it works.” Milo glanced back down to his screen. “And, dammit, it scales off INT. I guess I need some points there, too.”

“I could have told you that.”

After ten minutes of straining, cursing, and generally bashing their fingers against walls, they had the boba press upstairs. Milo rushed off as soon as he could, saying he wanted to do some leveling on his new machinery skill.

That left Arthur working with the press for the first time, and he found it was excellent. There were a few bugs to work out, like the fact that the food-handling surfaces of the machine worked much better if he oiled them a bit. But overall, it was a wonder. After getting the rough strokes of the machine’s operation mostly worked out, he made a big batch of dough and converted it into hundreds of boba pearls in just a minute or so.

The machine didn’t output perfectly round pearls, but neither did his hands. For now, it was pretty close, and Milo had sized the punches on the machine to produce pearls that almost perfectly matched the width of the straws.

Arthur’s despair about the sheer work it would take to keep up with the supply-side of his job dissipated pretty quickly. Especially when what should have taken him the whole night to do only took half an hour. Which ended up being a very good thing. After a very tiring first day, he was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillows.

—

The next morning’s work was much, much easier for Arthur to come to terms with. A few of his lunchtime customers returned, apparently not having eaten as big of breakfasts with the knowledge that boba was now an option. Some of his adult acquaintances had also got word of the grand opening. Karbo, Eito, and even Itela, the church-based doctor from his first day, stopped by to see how he was getting on and order drinks.

He easily kept ahead of the pace of the orders, dishing out boba quickly and even having time to chat with some of the customers as they drank.

“It seems better today,” the rabbit-lady said. “Chewier. And… something else.”

“It might be levels? I picked up quite a bit from opening day.”

“That will do it. Keep it up. It does get slower from here. But that’s part of the long grind of becoming an adult.”

Overall, the repeat customers said stuff roughly to the effect that he was making better drinks than before. Arthur confirmed it himself as he drank his first glass of his own product in the last day or so. He was slightly better at making boba now, in a way even he could notice. The pearls were chewier and had a nice lingering taste instead of just a plain flour taste.

He had improved. It felt a bit like cheating, since the system was driving most of the change, but it was also a product of his work and effort. He’d accept it.

Soon enough, the morning rush was over. He had picked up a fair amount of coins, more than enough to justify his needs for the day. That morning, he had asked Ella what to do with the excess, and her advice was to hold on to everything he could in anticipation of buying better equipment, more space, and generally completing his loadout with tools that would last him the rest of his life.

It was good advice, but also weird for him. The equipment he was using now was just fine for his purposes. Really, the only thing he needed to improve in the short term were the cups, and those would improve as Rhodia sharpened her craft.

He'd figure it out later.

For better or worse, the costs of tea leaves and dough for the pearls were pretty low. Even if he had to spend double the amount on ingredients, he’d still have enough left over. But unexpected costs were a thing, and he had no idea what the ongoing expenses of the stand would prove to be.

For now, he could save the money to maintain the stand, contribute to the household he lived in, and save some money for a rainy day fund.

Soon enough, he was prepping for the lunch rush. His nerves were already kicking in, remembering the sheer pressure of keeping up with the speed of yesterday. He’d need to clean cups, make tea, serve, fetch water, take payments, and just generally run himself ragged keeping up with things.

And then, like a blessing from the gods, he saw the surly owl-child, prowling the streets like a gift.

“Hey!” Arthur yelled. “You. Want work?”

The owl approached cautiously, a little less fearful than yesterday, if he was reading her correctly.

“Maybe. What is it?”

“I’m about to have a lot of customers. I can’t keep up by myself. I need someone to clean dishes and fetch water. Maybe some other stuff. Can you make change?”

The owl nodded.

“Good. I can pay you.”

“How much?” The owl’s face was shaded with suspicion again.

“Uh…” Arthur wracked his brain, trying to figure out what would be appropriate. Help was worth for his physical wellbeing, and providing a better experience for customers was a big deal. He was making plenty, from what he could tell.

“Two coins?” he said, drawing them out of his money bin, and pressing them into the owl’s hands. The kid just stared up at him, not saying anything. “It’s not enough? We can… adjust, I guess, based on what you end up doing.”

“Do you not know… normal things?” the owl said. “It’s like you don’t know things that everyone else does.”

“That’s, well, that’s a long story. But close enough, yeah. I don’t know normal things.”

The owl took one of the coins and pressed it back into his hand. “One coin. That’s the standard wage for help from a system-less person.”

“So it’s what you pay kids?”

“Yes. If you pay more, it’s charity. I don’t take charity.”

“Fair enough. Okay, get ready. Here they come.”

The owl was right about being unskilled. She broke the lid of one of the cups and the body of another as she tried to get the hang of dunking the cup in soapy water, cleaning them out, and rinsing them. She made change well, but slowly, and a few times Arthur had to step in, do the mental math, and expedite the process.

Overall, though, this is helping. After the first several minutes of the owl warming up to the job, the extra help lowered the time it took to finish an order to be faster than the rate that customers were coming in. So Arthur wasn’t making his customers wait for other orders to finish before their drink was filled. It made a significant improvement on how well the cart functioned.

—

“Well, that worked out,” Arthur said, handing the kid the last of the lunch-rush boba in a glass of un-pepped tea. It wouldn’t do to stunt her growth with the demon world equivalent of caffeine. “It helped a lot, actually. I don’t know what your schedule is like, but I’d take your help whenever you can give it.”

“That’s… most days,” the child said, thoughtfully. “You want me that often?”

“Sure. It’s worth it what I get out of it.”

Arthur looked down at the girl. The help she gave was fine, and would probably only get better, so he didn’t need to fix much there. She was, however, dirty. So were her clothes, which were also just a bit threadbare in places, fraying around the edges.

Maybe her family is poor? Arthur hadn’t seen a lot of poverty in the city. On the contrary, it seemed to be a place where almost everyone was functionally rich. His own income was high compared to his needs, although he suspected his offworlder status had given him a leg up in that regard. Still, there must be outliers, somewhere.

“Here,” he said, pulling five coins out of the till. It was a good chunk of his profit for the day, but without immediate non-starch expenses to deal with, he thought he could handle it. “Buy some clothes.”

“I don’t want charity.”

She’s poor somehow. That’s the second time the charity thing has come up.

“This isn’t charity. I need the stand to look a certain way. I can’t ask you to buy a uniform with your own money. Buy clean clothes. Clean up. It’s just part of the job.”

The owl glared at him for a few moments before softening slightly and swiping the money from his hands.

“Fine. But I’ll only wear them for work.”

“Your call, but sure. Whatever you think.”

As the owl turned and beat it to parts unknown as Spiky appeared around a corner, watching her leave with an odd expression on his face.

“Oh, hey. I wanted you to know that I’m getting experience from the majicka explanation. An achievement, even. I picked up a whole level from it.”

“Good! I’m glad that your explanation helped more than just me.”

“What was that all about?” Spiky nodded in the direction of the owl. “Selling boba to kids now?”

“Her? I hired her. I need help on this stand, at least until I get better at things.”

“Did it actually help? Hiring her, I mean.”

“Oh, sure. She’d be worth it for dish-washing alone. And I think she’s getting better.”

“Well, good. I’m sure she can use it. Do you know how much to pay her?”

“She said a coin a day.”

“That’s a little high if she doesn’t know what she’s doing, but not too far out of the realm of pay.” Spiky put seven small coins down on the counter. “Pepped, please. Lots of cream.”

“You’ll have to wait a bit. I’m fully out of boba.”

“No problem. Anyway, I’m glad you could get help. And glad it’s her, really. I don’t think anyone knows what to do with that one.”

“Because of the chip on her shoulder? She’s a surly little thing.”

“That, among other things. But you’re doing a good thing there. People will appreciate it.”

“Because I hired a kid? I needed to hire a kid. Is it that odd?”

“Oh, no,” Spiky said. “That’s common. But you don’t actually know about her, do you?”

“No, not beyond a few conversations.”

“Her parents died in a monster wave a while back, Arthur. She’s an orphan.”