Adventures in Clothing E-Book

Tao Wong

• Herausgeber: Starlit Publishing
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Some quests require ass-kicking; others require clothing designers.

The System Apocalypse has brought the clothing industry, and just about everything else, to a grinding halt. Now Lana Pearson intends to kickstart the local industry into gear to help Vancouver self-sustain itself. Key to her strategy are special teams of non-combat Classes.

Meg, Hanna, Cassidy and Obrav are Cosplayers, Tailors, Models and more. Not your usual team combination at all. But it’s not your usual Quest they’ve been given. If they’re going to meet Lana’s needs, they’re going to have to think outside the sewing pattern.

Adventures in Clothing is a short story by Tao Wong, set in the bestselling post-apocalyptic universe the System Apocalypse.

Leseprobe

Adventures in Clothing

A System Apocalypse Short Story

By

Tao Wong

License Notes

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite eBook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Adventures in Clothing: A System Apocalypse short story

Copyright © 2020 Tao Wong. All rights reserved.

A Starlit Publishing Book

Published by Starlit Publishing

69 Teslin Rd

Whitehorse, YT

Y1A 3M5

Canada

www.starlitpublishing.com

ISBN: 9781989994443

Adventures in Clothing

Lana shuffled the stacks of System papers before once again sighing. The slightly glassy feel of the papers, rough only at certain intervals to ensure that there was some purchase to grip still felt strange to her, even months after picking up the items from the Shop. While System notifications were useful, they also had certain limitations to their use. Chief among them, the inability of an individual to carry a notification away with them, if it was not linked to themselves.

There were other issues as well, with System notifications as a managerial tool. If you had to pass on notifications to multiple individuals at once, and she was about to, you either had to upgrade your specific managerial Skill or pick the right one at the start. All those Skills came with their own benefits and hindrances, though, and there was never an easy choice. The fact that her own Class was a combat Class and not running a settlement, especially one as large as the free province of British Columbia, was a pain and a half.

The tired redhead ran a hand through her hair, once again cursing John. It had been nearly a year since his disappearance, and the war effort down in the States had stalled. Rather than continue to throw herself into violent, foolhardy situations, Lana had returned to Vancouver, picking up the task of managing his settlement in his stead. She’d still help out – as one of the higher Leveled individuals, she had to. But she would not lose track of the fact that the settlement needed managing. Life was more than war.

For a moment, she considered the man, considered all that she had lost when he left. It still hurt; the death of her pet, the loss of her boyfriend when she needed him the most. She was still reeling, to some extent, from the death of her brother, the only family that she had for so many decades. To lose Anna on top of that had been too much.

For a time, she, Mikito and Ingrid had tried to do what John had done for the United States Army. They drove themselves and their alien enemies to the edge, acting as the spearhead of the group. It was only a close call, one that nearly cost the life of Sam, the Technocrat, and herself, that she realized perhaps those choices weren’t the best.

What was it that Mikito had said? Oh yes, “just because you miss the baka, doesn’t mean you should act like one, too.”

That was the reason she was back up here, in Vancouver. Katherine Ward, the secretary and manager that John had hired, along with the AI, had done well at keeping things running. But neither one had much of a vision, and neither one did more than keep the settlement running.

Today’s initiative was Lana’s first attempt at fixing that gaping hole in the settlement development strategy. She smiled to herself as she leaned back in her comfortable, swivel chair in the office that was in the back of a public library, overlooking the various streets below.

If things went well, today would be the start of her special-teams.

***

The four individuals that stood before her, holding up the sheets of paper before them, were nothing special, at least in terms of their Levels. All Basic Classes, all of them in their mid-20s, and none of them so far had exhibited any particular specialty or gift. They were, in other words, entirely mediocre.

Even worse, none of them were combat Classes by nature. The highest-level member of the group was the Tailor, whose level of 29 came entirely from her work as another underpaid Artisan. The problem for many Artisans in Vancouver and British Columbia was the lack of suitable material. Specifically, for a Tailor like her, they lacked cloth. System generated, System marked cloth or other clothing materials. There were rumors that in China mutated silkworms had been evolved, and over in the north, there was a dungeon filled with mutated spiders that spat silk. But all of that material was out of reach for your average Basic Class Tailor.

As for the other three, there was the Model; tall, tan, very pretty and desperately in need of a pair of hamburgers who flinched at every loud noise or sudden movement. Of the other two, one was a five foot four blonde female, dressed in a Sailor Moon dress, fringed and green, while the other had the unfortunate class of costume designer. The designer had once worked on a few well-known DC tv shows, but was now out of work, having little else to do with her skills as production of entertainment venues were at an all time low.

Lana knew that none of them other than the Tailor would have reached level 20 if not for the training programs that John and herself had put in place. Artisans and noncombat personnel were carried through combat missions by volunteer groups, allowing them to level up as necessary. Items produced by them, when it was possible, were also distributed to groups on the regular, providing for the needy, while giving a minor experience boost.

In truth, there were still ongoing arguments about the carry program. Many pointed out that combat Classes could gain much more experience if they were not constantly babysitting Artisans and noncombat Classes in the dungeons or the outskirts of the city. The counterargument, that all individuals were important, and needed a minimum Level of 20 ensure that they could survive an unfortunate encounter with a roaming monster, were often dismissed and set against the concept of personal responsibility.