But for a Slime

Chapter Ten

After arriving back at the village and passing on some coin to Garnedell, Joe dropped off his combat materials and quickly went to the stream to bathe. He decide to take the luxury of a longer bath before returning to his room at the inn and explore his new opportunities in the status and try to find out where to change his job. There was still quite a bit of time during the day, and he could still explore for a couple hours even after the sun set.

After changing and draping his wet clothes around his room, he went back to his now favorite location on the grassy knoll overlooking the lake where he usually practiced his forms. Having already taken his bath and wanting to focus on his status, he decided to forgo his forms and opened his status, still looking for anything to help with his job change.

Joe went through his various status pages, spending some time on each, exploring as much of each of the pages as possible. He pressed everything he could but nothing new seemed to show up, although he did find an unusual change when he pressed the numbers on his main status change where the numbers changed to show (20 + 0). Twenty, obviously my status I've gained from leveling my job. Maybe the zero would be from some buffs or other outside help?

None of the other tabs seemed to show anything he hadn't already seen, so he returned to the available jobs tab and tried to press everything he could find. His frustration only continued as the available jobs screened refused to do anything but show the ridiculous and meaningless short sentence explanations about each job. He had long since stood up and now wandered the grassy hilltop angrily stabbing at the air in front of him. A little while later, he noticed that Garnedell was standing at the edge of the meadow watching him. Joe stopped his mad stabs at the air and turned to look at Garnedell.

"Hey, maybe you can help me. I can't seem to figure out how to change my job?"

Garnedell looked at him, but said little in return, some confusion on his face. Joe pulled up his status and pointed at his job list trying to explain through mime and visuals. The boy continued to stare at him in confusion, and no matter how Joe explained, the teen seemed utterly lost. The one sided non-conversation continued on for another few minutes and Joe finally gave up as Garnedell seemed no closer than he had been at the beginning. Joe waved to the boy and decided it was about time for supper with the sun hung almost touching the edge of the horizon.

Walking back through town, Joe looked towards the smithy and had an idea. The man had been fairly articulate and seemed able to explain things decently well enough. As he considered the option, he turned towards the smithy but saw the blacksmith come out and began closing the door. Ahh… I don't want to bother him so close to closing time. I'll catch him first thing in the morning. Joe simply waved to the blacksmith instead, receiving friendly greeting in return. They headed on to the inn and their meal. The evening had Joe making some meaningful progress on learning the language. There was a major breakthrough and Joe was able to understand some basic verbs and a very simple structure for the sentence. The spent an extra hour or so in the room going over very simple sentences that the two agreed upon. Or, I hope they're what I think they mean!

Feeling a bit giddy at finally grasping a significant cornerstone to the language, he called their language learning to an end and finally went to their room. Garnedell fell asleep pretty quickly, but Joe stayed up several more hours solidifying the language he'd learned. He went over the sentences several more times, but soon found himself bored and his mind shifted to his main priority; changing his job. He spent about five minutes fiddling with his status windows struggling to find how to change his job. Wait! Maybe the help system?

Joe opened up his help menu, looking at what was available. Again, only the same two commands were available: status and help. But he did remember that he was able to get help when he asked for help on something specific. Huh. Let me try. I need help for changing my job. As expected, a pop up showed and Joe eagerly read over it.