Christmas Cake Quest

[x] hide

 

[x] hide

 

You drop. You don't think about it, you just do it. The guy at the counter is looking for you and there are a few other patrons looking at you. You frown and crawl back to your seat and slouch down low. Not that it helps much, what with your bright orange hair. You glance over at the counter. The door is closed now so you can't see much of Anton and the guy at the counter is just eying you with contempt at this point. You flash him a thumbs up. He glares back and flashes you a thumbs down. You wither a little.

You spend the rest of the hour largely looking out for Anton and ducking. The rest of the restaurant spends the rest of the hour largely looking at you and chuckling. Finally, your food arrives at the same time as Matt. The fish looks good. Matt looks good. You look stressed and harried. Matt says as much. You tell him that one of your co-workers apparently works part time in the kitchen and you don't want him to catch you. How long have you been here? An hour. Isn't that a little extreme? Yeah, you guess. Are you normally this awkward? Always. It's okay.

You and Matt talk a bit while he orders his own food. You learn that he's going to school part time not too far from your own home and he's going to graduate in another year. He lives pretty close to this restaurant with 3 other students in a cramped apartment and so on. His life story is actually pretty boring and you start thinking of other topics.

What do you talk about...
[] Hobbies.
[] Work.
[] Weather.

 

[X] Hobbies.

 

[x] Hobbies

 

You manage to steer the conversation in the direction of everything else. That something else was unfortunately the topic of hobbies. You're a person with hobbies and you're proud of being that kind of person. What you're not proud of is what your hobbies are. You spend your time totally legally watching chinese cartoons and playing repetitive stress injury inducing games. You had to go to the doctor for joint pain after playing Gritcorps too much. Just as you try to steer away from the topic he starts. Thank goodness, to have time to bullshit something together.

He talks about how he cannot really say he has a hobby other than clothes. He talks about that for a while. He tells you how he got into it because he liked stage plays growing up, his parents wanted him to be classy or something. All he really took from it was fashion. So a lot of people say his work is costumey and kind of unrealistic. He likes to think that he'll make it work but there's no way to know yet. He smiles and says he tries to stay positive.

Wow, that was all really inspiration and shit. You can't just make up something to beat that. Why is it even a competition for you? You frown for a second before you start digging in your purse. You withdraw a small magic kit, you recently got back into doing card tricks and stuff. You tell him as much and do some sleight of hand with a string and some metal puzzle pieces. You make it solve itself, or you would if you didn't suck you just spin it around in the air clumsily.

He laughs. Not in a mean way, it doesn't seem, just he thinks you're being silly or something. You guess that's fine. Ultimately, you have a nice dinner and manage to avoid Anton even when you pay. Matt says he has to leave a bit early (read 9:30PM) but he says he'd love to hang out again. That's good, right?

You...
[] Go home.
[] Stick around and wait for Anton.
[] Spend all night out.

 

[X] Spend all night out.

 

go home

 

[x] Go home. You've had a long day and have interacted with tons of people. It's 9:30. Go home. XD

 

You yawn and glance at the kitchens and at Matt. You and he part ways outside and you catch a train home. By the time you're home it's almost your bedtime. After tooling around a bit online you end up in Concord again. You drop in on your gaming group and see what's what. They're talking about politics (snore). You check in on your strangers group and see what's what. They're talking about people talking about politics (double snore). You try to change the topic in your gaming group. They start talking about Animal Hats (fucking CGI trash). You try to change the topic in your strangers group. They start talking about sugar cookies (fucking sugary trash). You resignedly play Das Panzerfahren with some randos. After losing horribly you head off to bed.

The following morning you head to work bright and early. You greet Anton as normal with the addition of a whispered apology for yesterday. He jerks his head forward awkwardly and accepts. He also tells you never to do it again or else he will kill you. You nod and salute with comical fervor. You spend the next 6 hours you two work. And then you work. And then you work some more. And finally it's lunchtime. You both try to take a slightly later lunch since you stay later than other workers for those delicious overtimes.

Well, now it's time to...
[] Skip lunch and get even more overtimes.
[] Go out to lunch alone.
[] Go out to lunch with Anton.
[] Go out to lunch with someone else.

 

[X] Go out to lunch with Anton.

 

You ask Anton if he's going out to lunch. He is. You ask where. He doesn't know. He asks if you know. You know. You get up and stretch. Anton stares for a second before doing the same. He follows you silently. You two talk a bit sometimes, but most of the time it's like this. There's a lot more to it than it looks. You just get along by being silent and awkward. Because both of you are like that simple things are enough to get the point across. Usually, it's literal pointing. You point at people, you point at cars, you point at signs, etc.

In short order, you walk up to a small place near your building. It's called The Place of Adam. Open only during lunch, only open to those who don't use names while in the place, and open only to serve basic sandwiches and beverages. For how selective it seems to be, it's not like people are crowding to get in, it's too much trouble for most people. But you and Anton have been here before and quite like it. It's quiet.

You and Anton take the most convenient seats and you...
[] Ask for advice on dating.
[] Ask for advice on stalking.
[] Ask for advice on work.
[] Ask for advice on vidyas.

 

[X] Ask for advice on vidyas.

Only true advice.

 

[x] Ask for advice on stalking.

Time to make an amazing impression!

 

[x] ask for advice on dating

 

After what feels like ages of silence you speak up. You want to ask him about Matt, but that would be a little on the nose so you start with something else. First, you ask him about how his Light Ghosts runs are going. He frowns and starts grumbling about "that fucking Frenchman" or something. Soon he transitions into explaining a new movement tech he discovered and named 'reverse hill canceling' which has the potential to cut a total of thirty seconds off his run. He's thinking of sharing it but doesn't want to get one upped. After a few minutes of his tirades he transitions again into telling you that you should improve yourself as a human being by playing more good games. You tell him there's still a lot of things you have to finish and you don't have time to get good. He scoffs at you and asks what better things you have to do.

Perfect, you then move on to ask him about stealth. He asks if you mean like Plastic Cog or like harassment if you get caught. The latter (unfortunately). He nods and closes his eyes. The best way to stalk someone is to look at public information, a lot of people are constantly giving away their position with this so called "social media" and so on. But if you have to find them physically, it's best to have a spotter at a large distance to make sure you don't lose them when they move erratically but still maintain close proximity for eavesdropping. You make mental notes on this and ask if he has experience (tentatively). He does and you may not ask where from.

You nervously change the subject to yesterday. You tell him about what happened yesterday but neglect to mention you saw him. Anton tells you he knows because he saw you. Oh. You ask him why he didn't say anything. It didn't seem important. So what does he think. That you're awkward and terrible. Anything else? No, there's no reason to change yourself in any way. When dealing with people in any capacity you should just ignore other people, if they like you they will reach out first. You stare. Lunch is almost over.

You should...
[] Go back to work.
[] Place a call to ________.
[] Talk to Anton some more.

 

[X] Go back to work.

 

[x] go to work

 

: Before you have much of a chance to really process your last conversation Anton says he's going ahead and picks up his check. You sit there alone for what feels like minutes (but is actually about 30 seconds.) You finally, get up and leave as well. You don't see Anton on the way back to work, he walks fast. Like he should be an Olympic speedwalker, like damn. You frown slightly, Anton may be the only person you trust at work, but you wonder very often if your trust is... misplaced. You know basically nothing about this guy other than is utter contempt for social establishments and "norms".

Back at work, you talk about as much as usual (so not at all.) Work goes by slowly until you get a text message, immediately followed by another text message. One from Matt, one from Jeanne. Oh, and now one from Roommate.

You have time to read all three and reply to one right now, so you should...
[] Reply to Matt.
[] Reply to Jeanne.
[] Reply to Roommate.

 

[X] Reply to Jeanne.