Waking up

AN: I'm gonna muddle a lot of the numbers because it's not the main focus of the story. All this is gonna be is some set up of the grindy mechanics, but it's gonna devolve into the background and hand-waved off really soon. Either way, I'm checking the rates and stuff a bit with python to let them make some sense at least, but don't expect them to mean anything by half the story

I didn't think i would miss regularity this much. After 2 days of mind-numbing button pressing, i was kind of getting into it."_idle hands are the devil's tools" _and whatnot. I mean, it's taking a lot longer to get to the 10 workers than i thought of - mainly because i miscalculated - thinking that the cost increase was a flat 15%. The rate actually increases by 5% each time i hire a minion. This are all rough estimates, given i don't even have a pencil to work this numbers, but it was close enough. By the 6th worker i was paying 90g a piece, and now by the 9th i had to pay over 400g.Grindy indeed. Luckily, 8 workers meant a lot of wood, and i didn't have to worry about deforestation, because apparently the minions themselves took care to select the trees properly, avoid cutting too much in an area, and where apparently replanting? i tried not to look too much into it. "Out of sight out of mind" as they say. What is it with the sayings today? Is it a sign of onset madness for the lack of company? I really hoped i lasted more than a week before jumping into the ocean with a overgrown beach ball. Could i get somewhere through sea now that i think about it? The entity never mentioned anything, but i suspect we're not in Kansas anymore... so if i wander into sea, i might never get anywhere... or worse, get somewhere.

I never did saw this guys eat or sleep. They did disappear by regular intervals for an hour or two, and once i saw one of them climb a tree... so maybe there was something to it.

After dispatching the last of the wood piles, that now where starting to pile up around the display, a zone i now call "the warehouse", i took a look at my balance. I was now able to hire my two last workers, and have some more money left over.

I'm gonna have to clear up more of the free space around here if i was gonna be taking more jobs. Note: find out how far away does the tablet detect stuff.

I navigate to the "Workers" view, and tap the button happily. The expected column of light flashes twice, and my new less-than-,minimum-wage hires bow down, and get to work. At that moment, a notification shows:

| Quest completed! Go to menu to claim rewards |

Go Back, touch "Quests and Jobs", press claim.

a popup:

Congratulations!

You finished your first quest: "Baby's First Trading Company" As a reward , you get a one time only extra reward of 150g .

rewards: 100g , unlocks a new menu.

| you received 250g! |

| Hero hiring available |

Holy shit, there it is. I got back to the main menu, and there it is, highlighted in gold. "Heroes" I tap furiously, ipad-breaking hard.

Building main user profile . . .

Syncing preferences . . .

rendering sprites . .

Wait hold on.... Is the loading screen is a static asset?? Who programmed this?

As in the other menus, there's another popup welcoming me, but this one's look-and-feel is different, like it was made later in development. This smells fishy.

Heroes

Hireable Heroes are a very powerful mechanic. They start out weak, but you can level them up by advancing their quest tree - plus a small, trivial fee - unlocking their real powers. Let's try it out!

[Try out >]

I press the try out button, it takes me to a list like the others, one element displayed and the rest hidden. It seemed to be a long list

The first hero - or heroine more the like - "Hermione Granger". Holy shit, i hope this is legal.

this time there were no buttons. The tutorial was highlighting the row, while darkening all the surrounding area. _Why isn't this mechanic in the other menues? _My years working in IT had me itching to have a meeting with this devteam. Even the design of the menu looks different, did they outsource all this part?. Shit i was getting distracted. I clicked on the row and it took me to another window, with a 3D model of Hermione Granger. Thank God she doesn't look like a 17 year old witch, more like 25.

Hermione Granger

Summary: One of the heroes of the battle of Hogwarts, after some years working for the Unspeakables, and accident while experimenting with some iffy space-time stuff got her caught in a conscious state, suspended animation limbo. Unlock to free her from her hell on earth.

General information: 24 years old, 150cm tall, weight ?

Kinks: M/s , humiliation , (?)

Powers: Great Intellect, (?)

*(?): advance her quest to unlock more.

Unlock for 1000g

Holy. Fucking. Shit. I breathed out in relief. At least she's not a minor, or even a very young adult. I didn't want to bare with that responsibility. But "suspended animation limbo"? that sounded pretty scary to me, as if i needed anymore inspiration to unlock her. The kinks part worried me some. I'm not sure i like where this is going. "Grindy, survivalist city-builder" was all OK with me, but "Domination Harem dungeon" was very out of my confort zone. For one second, i really thought about where i was getting into.... But i think in that moment, the sheer loneliness i was feeling, i had been feeling for a long time, since i lost her...

I pressed the button, and hoped for the best. Didn't know how out of control things would get. And how _under _control...