An Actual Plan.

George had some difficulty sleeping, but that time in bed, tossing and turning, had allowed him to plan. This afternoon, he would invite his friend Jordan over to have some takeout and watch a movie, then stereotype her during the movie.

Sure, it was a simple plan, literally just ‘invite my friend over’, but it did have two strong advantages, and it meant he wouldn’t have to go door to door looking for someone to use like he had almost done yesterday.

Firstly, he knew Jordan really well. They were childhood friends, and had even gone to the same university, though he had been a year above her. This meant he should be able to tell if the stereotyping process was actually making any significant changes. And since she would be alone with him at his apartment for a few hours, he would be able to watch for any changes in real time without the distraction other people would bring.

And secondly, Jordan was a lesbian.

Now, how did that help? Well, none of the secondary traits were related to sexual orientation. George hadn’t figured out what caused specific traits to appear, but sexual orientation not being there must mean that stereotyping someone could not change their sexual orientation.

Either that or the subject’s orientation was determined by the main stereotype, which would be a good thing to know if it was true.

Hopefully it’ll be the former, George thought. He didn’t want the temptation of trying to use this app to get laid, and while he doubted he could maintain that attitude forever while being **** to use the app, he did want to try.

As for planning for the rest of the week, well, he’d be in the office and there would be plenty of people there to stereotype. Hopefully one of them would have a good trait to steal for the Robin Hood quest.

In the meantime before Jordan arrived, George decided to check on the Perk Store and get a better picture of what it would allow him to do and what his future options would be. Thankfully the weird feeling of narrative issues had disappeared this morning.

Looking through the store, George found that it was separated into four tabs. The first was for Ability Upgrades. The ones that stood out the most were increases to the number of times an ability could be used per day, and a decrease in how long the cooldown was for using an ability on someone repeatedly. That could likely let me switch Jennifer and Tara back today, George thought, but he quickly discarded that idea. He wouldn’t select anything until he had tried out the rest of the abilities.

The second tab was for Subject Upgrades. That tab had the majority of its options grayed out and hidden with a question mark icon. The only option that was actually available was an increase to the number of additional traits a subject could possess.

The third tab was User/Profile Upgrades, and it had a similar story. The majority of it was grayed out, except for two options, one to increase the storage capacity for traits, and one to increase the number of quests that could be done at once. He definitely wasn’t picking that one, especially with a sword hanging over him if he didn’t finish a quest.

The rest of these are likely locked behind level ups, he thought. Unfortunately they didn’t display the required level.

The final tab was itself locked.

None of these stood out as need to haves, and with only three points, George didn’t want to choose anything yet. Go figure. He checked his EXP, since level ups seemed to be the main way he was currently getting points. It was currently 34/40.

Stereotyping Jordan would only give 5 experience, so it wasn’t quite enough to level up tonight, unless he used another ability as well, since they all seemed to give some experience.

Suddenly, a violent knock shook the door, echoing through the room and startling him. Like a child hearing footsteps while his hand is in the cookie jar, George thought. Hopefully that was just a sign of a guilty conscience and not of something more ominous. He could handle a guilty conscience, especially since he was being **** to do this.

George checked the time. It was almost 5pm, time had passed more quickly than he had expected. Another loud knock came from the door, this time accompanied by muffled shouting. It was probably Jordan. He walked over and answered the door.