a capitalist fairytale [c/q]

August yelped as a small patch of mostly melted mush came sliding off one of the nearby rooftops and landed a mere inch away from her foot. The weather had changed here seemingly overnight and August wasn’t sure how she felt about it. Part of her was really starting to miss the bright colors of autumn, even if most of the leaves had fallen off of the trees by now.

She was about to head back to the Town of Beginnings after having a pleasant kitchen adventure with another player. Granted, he hadn’t been very skillful in a kitchen based on his stories, but all August really needed was for someone to hand her items. His tasks didn’t require much besides picking things up and giving them to her.

Heading back to the trail that would take her out of the town, August noticed the quest beacon. Figuring she had some time to kill before sundown, she decided it wouldn’t hurt to embark on one more adventure for the day. Looking around, August attempted to spot her quest partner. There were a few people milling about along with some NPCs. Christmas time was approaching, so she wasn’t surprised that the shopping area of the town was more crowded than usual.

Out of all the people around her, August was able to spot one person who didn’t appear to be engrossed in doing something else. Taking a chance, she approached the girl and offered up a warm smile and a greeting, “hello! I’m August. I accepted a quest and I’m working off a hunch here that you’re on it as well?” She hoped that she wasn’t wrong, otherwise things might get a little awkward.

“Yes!” August agreed as she clapped her hands together, “I need some col to do my own Christmas shopping. It’s a tad bit ironic I’m doing Christmas shopping to fund Christmas shopping though,” she laughed as she scroll down the objectives on her own menu to see the list they were given. It had taken some time, but August was getting more proficient with how the mechanics of the game operated.

It was a seemingly random list of items to her, but August thought hard about what they could be used for. Her face showed it as she scrunched up her nose to think about what wheels, a set of acrylic paints, a block of wood, nails, and paintbrushes could be used for. She played around with the ideas in her until the visual of a wooden car popped into her head. “Oh!” August exclaimed as she snapped her fingers, “Sounds like a toy car, right?”

The shopping area in this town wasn’t terrible large. No town on the first floor really rivaled the Town of Beginnings in terms of size and options, but in their case it made the task easier. “There aren't a lot of shops here, so we should be done in no time,” August explained as she pointed towards one of the shops only a few buildings down from where they were standing.

She had been here a few times before and window-shopped enough to know where most of these supplies were located. “We could probably pick up most of these at the hardware shop right there, and then find some art supply store,” she suggested.

“It’s a shame we aren’t the ones building it. I’d love to test out how well I can assemble and paint one,” August sighed. She wouldn’t consider herself an artist, but August had painted more than her fair share of cakes. She couldn’t draw worth anything, but if someone ever needed flowers painted, August had plenty of practice in her arsenal.

“True,” August nodded. She hadn’t checked if there was an art store or not, but a general store would be just as useful if they didn’t happen to suddenly run into one. She pushed open the door to the hardware shop and held it open for Zero. Just from standing in the doorway, August could already spot a box of nails on the rack by the cashier and several piles of wooden planks poking over the aisles in the back. “See?” she said with a smile, “done in no time!”

“I never really got to do the woodworking stuff. My schools didn’t offer it,” she mused as she picked up the packet of nails, “how about you look for the wheels and I’ll go in the back and grab a small block of wood?” If they divided up the tasks, it would go faster. Plus, August had never really been inside here before and didn’t know the layout of where things were. She wouldn’t be able to point stuff out without searching for it and having two different sets of eyes looking for things meant they were sure to find them twice as fast.

It wasn’t even an elective that was offered for her to take if she wanted to. Although, August wasn’t sure she’d think to use up her elective spot for something like woodworking. There were plenty of different skills and hobbies she had wanted to try over the years; woodworking never really climbed too high in her list of priorities.

“Awesome!” August shouted back as she scanned the mismatched piles of wood for something small enough. She didn’t want to make the store owner cut up a perfectly long piece of wood for her that could have been used to build something else. She was looking for scraps, so August decided to start digging in the bin for any smaller pieces that might have gotten lost in at the bottom.

She also didn’t know how big the wheels Zero found were. If the block was too large, the smaller wheels might look sort of silly on them. The same concept applied if the block was too small and the wheels were huge. She wasn’t sure which looked less ridiculous, so she just settled on grabbing the first wooden piece she found that was roughly the size of her hand.

Turning around, August caught sight of Zero. “How big are the wheels?” she asked as she held out the block of wood she had found. Maybe they could collaborate a little to make sure the toy car didn’t look too weird. Three things already knocked off the list and by the looks of the price tag it wasn’t going to cut too deeply in their pockets. August was sure that the quest was going to reward them with at least the col back, otherwise why would anyone take up this quest?

August hummed softly to herself and rocked back and forth on her heels as she set the wooden block and nails on the counter for the NPC to ring the items up. She was examining the tiny bits of things the NPC had behind the counter on the wall. They looked like more complex tools that she was not familiar with.

As Zero asked her about the general store, August looked over her shoulder at the girl as she thought. Tolbana didn’t have that many stores, so August ran through each of them in her head and whatever she remembered of their inventories. “There might be one,” she mused, “it’s a hobby store. They sell a lot of things from yarn to playing cards.”

She really had have a hard time really naming what kind of a store it was. A general store would have been fitting if the inventory wasn’t so random. It wasn’t really general stock items, more like a hap-hazard and random selection of items people really wouldn’t buy unless they were directly looking for it.

“It’s not that far from here,” August assured Zero as she placed the wooden block and nails into her inventory and walked outside of the hardware store. The store was only around the corner too, so the two of them didn’t have far to walk. “It’s just over there,” August assured as she pointed towards the left turn in the road up ahead of them. “Maybe they have different color sets, then we could pick out a nice palette instead of the generic rainbow palette.” It was probably wishful thinking, but then August could be happily surprised if her thought came true.