SV Chapter 61 (Patreon)

Tiff didn’t consider herself particularly good or bad at noticing subtle things going on around her. She prided herself as a fairly observant person with decent reasoning and deductive skills, but she also knew, at times, she could be somewhat oblivious. Mostly, she didn't know much about those around her because she either didn’t care or actively didn’t want to know what her peers were up to.

Now, she had a reason to care, and she was very aware of David Grant staring at her before school and during the breaks leading up to lunch. He didn’t make it weird and Tiff didn’t cause a scene, but it was a new, slightly disturbing phenomenon for Tiff because she was used to ignoring everyone else and being ignored. She wondered if this was what popular people felt like all the time and laughed. Definitely not the life for her.

She was almost certain the reason David had his eye tracks on her was exclusively because of the Quest. Whether she was right or not, David didn’t bring it up and held his tongue until lunchtime, when Tiff was unsurprised to find a new addition to her table.

“Can I sit here?”

Tiff looked up from her half-eaten bagel sandwich and raised a single eyebrow.

“I don’t own the table,” she replied, waving the bagel across from her, next to Candice.

“I don’t know,” David rebutted with a wry grin. “It kinda seems that way to me. Everybody already called it the Goth Seat, but I didn’t realize it was the throne of the–.”

And then he stopped.

Candice and Tiff both looked at him curiously. Tiff had a pretty good idea of what he was about to say, and while part of her was glad he didn’t just yell her title casually in the middle of the cafeteria, she was more interested in why he didn’t. Especially since she and Candice had used it before, getting mad at David would be rather hypocritical. David, on the other hand, didn’t look surprised by what he’d done, like he might have if he'd suddenly realized what he was doing and stopped himself in the nick of time.

If anything, he was a touch flummoxed, and Tiff was pretty proud of herself for remembering that word was a thing.

“You know,” he said casually, placing his tray down and taking a seat, “When the System gives a Quest, it’s a pretty serious thing.”

Tiff wasn’t sure she agreed, thinking back on some of the Quests she’d received, but she decided to hear him out.

“It says I can’t talk about you,” he said, pointing his plastic fork directly at Tiff, “Or you–” now pointing at Candice, “–while using your titles. And it freakin’ means it. I can say dark and I can say queen, but when I try to string them together and say–.”

He fell silent, shrugged his shoulders exaggeratedly, and proceeded to eat his entire serving of pudding in a single spoonful.

“Wow,” Candice said, clearly impressed. Tiff didn’t find it all that impressive. Or…rather, she did find it powerful, worrisome, and mildly alarming. She didn’t want to censor people or indirectly cause the System to rob them of their speech. But otherwise, David was free to talk about whatever he wanted…and he immediately turned to sports.

Now, Tiff didn’t have anything in particular against sports, but she did have to wonder…what the heck was this guy doing? Coming to her table, talking about things she had no interest in and immediately stealing all of Candice’s attention? After all, cheerleaders didn’t just cheer for football games. She wasn’t actually upset, merely…amused, she supposed. She nommed her bagel sandwich grumpily and waited for lunch to end.

Halfway through, long after Tiff had finished her food and was sitting at the table, bored but unwilling to leave because it might be rude…David paused. Mid-conversation, halfway through delivering a sweet stat line from a presumably up-and-coming player, he just…stopped talking. He burst into a wide grin, got that unfocused look of staring at a Status screen, and did something.

Tiff immediately got one notification saying the Quest she issued was completed and another informing her of a new member of her Court. Thankfully, most of the cafeteria was empty at this point, because David stood up, stared at his trembling arms…and immediately fell to his knees like the guy on the cover of that old war movie with his head thrown back and his arms raised.

“OH GOD!” He screamed.

Honestly, Tiff couldn’t tell if he was overjoyed or pissed off. He didn’t seem to be in pain, so Tiff instantly cut her losses, grabbed her belongings, and slunk off, abandoning the new weirdo. That evening, Candice told her that David was fine; he was just excited that the System had actually given him a new class. He really didn’t think it was possible. She encouraged him to get himself Re-Assessed…which he did.

Candice was thinking he should make an appointment and go after school in the next couple of days, but he skipped class and went immediately.

​

The next day, Wednesday, Tiff found herself with her [Champion], [Grand Vizier], and [Gladiator] in front of the 24-Heaven.

And Amy. Tiff couldn’t forget Amy; the girl wouldn’t let her and demanded to tag along on any and every mission.

Victoria wisely told her: “No.”

Absolutely not.

But Amy pestered them enough that they let her come to the convenience store because it seemed harmless, and it was on the way home from school anyway. Now, the Camry, as glorious as it was–  which it wasn’t, by the way –could only hold 4 people. Technically 5, yeah, but the middle belt in the back was a little busted and it was already cramped with 4 girls. Thankfully, he had his own car and met them there.

The girls stared, slightly judgingly, as he got out of a generic-looking, 2-door economy car. Noticing them staring, he faltered, patted himself down (he’d decided to wear an actual suit and tie), and glanced nervously back at his car.

“...What?”

“Aren’t you, like, from Detroit?” Candice asked.

“Yeah?” David replied, somewhat confused. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“I dunno, I thought you’d be driving a muscle car or something.”

“You think I have the money for that?” He scoffed.

“No,” Tiff answered honestly. “I’m surprised you wore a suit.”

He stared at her incredulously while Candice turned her head, stifling a laugh.

“Don’t get me wrong,” she added smoothly. “I don’t own a suit either. Those are expensive.”

“You have the dress,” Amy smirked. “You don’t need a suit.”

“Chicks dig the suit,” David added unhelpfully, puffing up his chest and adjusting his tie.

“Good for you,” Tiff drolly remarked. Clearly, those chicks were unaware of the superiority of rugged doctors. Shaking her head to clear her mind of poorly informed opinions, she turned to face the entrance of the 24-Heaven. Immediately, she was confronted with the age-old problem of loiterers and sighed. No time like the present to outline their responsibilities.

“Allow me to explain the routine,” Tiff declared. “First: you are to avoid the [Stoners]. Do not give them money or enable them to buy cigarettes or booze.”

David started cackling, but as he glanced at Candice, he realized she wasn’t laughing. He looked back at Tiff, saw her dead-serious face, and his smile straightened out.

“Oookay?” He mused. “Noted.”

“Good,” Tiff nodded briefly. “The plan is simple: you are to protect Candice as she handles business. She will wait until there is a gap in customers to avoid disrupting business, introduce herself to the cashier, retrieve any feedback from our performance survey, make note of any questions or concerns they might have for me to look over later, and retrieve our delivery. You are then to buy ice cream and leave. That’s if everything goes to plan; hopefully there’s no deviations. If anyone threatens Candice or in any way makes her uncomfortable, you are to extract her from the situation…peacefully, if possible.”

David looked at her like she’d grown a second head.

“Was I unclear?” Tiff asked.

“You…want me to buy ice cream? Like…that’s part of the job?”

“Yes?” Tiff asked, still confused. She didn’t understand the problem.

“What if I don’t want any ice cream?”

“What kind of idiot doesn’t want ice cream?” Tiff scoffed. “Madness. Besides, it’s already paid for; it comes out of the next delivery.”

Tiff wondered if getting checked by elbows while playing basketball had somehow damaged the poor boy’s brain. And then she thought…basketball.

“Fine,” she begrudgingly admitted. “If– for whatever weird reason –you don’t want ice cream…I suppose you don’t have to. Are you happy?”

“I can’t believe we’re talking somebody out of free ice cream,” Amy moaned. Tiff nodded along in solidarity; today, the sisters were as one.

Tiff decided they’d stalled enough. She nodded to Victoria, who led the charge through the sliding glass doors of 24-Heaven. The lead [Stoner] opened his mouth, looked up at Victoria’s towering frame, and wisely closed it.

Today, strangely, there were actually people inside. Of course, Tiff knew the shop had to have shoppers; that was kind of the whole point. It’d be a kind of bad business model if they didn’t. But this was the first time in recent months, if not years, that Tiff could remember seeing more than 3 shoppers in this place at the same time. She and her party not included, of course.

Tiff and her Court stepped down an aisle so that they wouldn’t get in the way, and eventually Candice got in the back of the line. David, figuring it was time to get to work, followed her. He looked a little nervous, and Tiff really felt for him. Nothing quite like the day-one jitters at a brand-new job.

The younger guy was on shift today, which wasn’t the greatest thing ever, but Tiff didn’t control the staff. As long as he could retrieve their delivery and the survey results, she didn’t mind. He rang up the standard fare of ramen and energy drinks until it was finally Candice’s turn. She pushed her fancy office lady glasses up the bridge of her nose and raised her clipboard. Tiff watched the boy’s face cycle through some very obvious emotions. If Tiff had to place them on a wheel, they started with something close to hey pretty girl before passing the tiny wedge of oh shoot I’m on the clock before eventually landing on comical disbelief. He was clearly looking at David’s suit (and his short stature) and thinking some less-than-charitable thoughts.

Before Candice could launch into her spiel…the boy laughed.

“You know Halloween isn’t for another 2 weeks, right?”

David suddenly became self-conscious, but before Tiff could intervene, Candice did it for her.

“We are trying to be professional,” she stated, channeling the [Librarian From On High]. Her frown was so severe that Tiff instantly started wracking her brain to see if she had any overdue books. “Are you going to cooperate or do we need to renegotiate the terms?”

The boy looked like he hadn’t heard a word Candice said, and as he started to tease them again, Victoria made her presence known. She sauntered up, clomping her boots loudly. She leaned forward, taking up the entire space between the cash register and last-second impulse buys, and tapped her finger heavily.

“This is a nice counter you have here,” she said pleasantly. “Be a shame if something were to happen to it.”

The boy went pale and he instantly raised his hands in surrender.

“Hey, hey! You got it! Right! I’ll get the bag, just you wait!”

He disappeared into the back room and Tiff elbowed Victoria in the hip.

“You know that their counter is our counter,” she pouted. “If you destroy it, I’m the one who has to fix it.”

“Exactly,” Victoria grinned, ruffling Tiff’s hair. “Not actually a threat if you think about it.”

He returned almost immediately with a lunch-sized-sack filled with money.

…an Amy-lunch-sized-sack. They’d get a lot more cash if it were Victoria’s or, heaven forbid, Melissa’s.

The boy glanced around, wondering if this was really what he was supposed to do, and pushed it toward Candice. The cheerleader didn’t bat an eye; she opened the sack, and with her super-speed counting, sorted it in a matter of seconds.

“Looks in order,” she said with a smile. She motioned to David, who looked confused for a second before he realized she wanted him to pick it up. He did, reluctantly. Tiff couldn’t blame him; the first time she’d held one of the bags, it was the most money she’d ever seen in one place, let alone had in her possession.

But Candice was already moving onto the next point of interest.

“Have you had a chance to fill out our survey?” She asked. Tiff thought she nailed it perfectly; Candice managed to sound hopeful and expectant, all at the same time. Yet, to her even greater surprise, it seemed they actually had.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” the boy muttered, “But my manager did.”

He rummaged around behind the counter for several moments before pulling out a folded-up stack of papers.

“Uh,” the boy started, shuffling the notes like flash cards before a test. “The ice cream machine is doing great. It’s actually our best piece of equipment.”

David gave Tiff a side-eye, and she returned it with a cheeky grin.

“We still haven’t had any issues with normal damage, like the coolers or the front door. Everything your team has repaired is working like new. Better than new. It’s great.”

“Perfect!” Candice smiled radiantly. “We aim to please. Do you have any requests?”

Tiff figured it would be practically impossible for them to know what she could upgrade, but she’d hear them out and at least look.

“Actually, yeah,” the boy said, scratching his head. He turned one of the notes over in his hand like he was struggling to read it. Whatever he was thinking, he must’ve given up, because he shrugged and continued. “I, uh, don’t know if your construction company or whatever deals with plumbing,” he mumbled. “But my manager wanted to get a quote on some bathroom maintenance. Like, uh, we’ve got a leak that’s bad, but not bad bad, you know? We had to shut down the left stall…and, uh, if you don’t know, there’s only two stalls. So technically, we’ve still got a bathroom, but if it’s too expensive to fix, we were just going to stick an out-of-order tag on the stall and leave it like that.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Tiff said, nodding. The boy glanced at her curiously and shrugged.

“Well!” Candice cheered. “I believe that’s everything! As always, a pleasure doing business with you. Until next time.”

“Ice cream?” Amy prodded.

“Until ice cream and then next time,” Candice amended.

Tiff power-walked swiftly to the back of the shop to beat the others to the soft serve. She allowed herself a modest amount, paid, and immediately took out her tablet to investigate upgrades while the others squabbled over who got access to the soft serve levers first.

Upgrades.

Infrastructure improvements were important, and Tiff was willing to shell out the dough to make sure the bones of her operation were healthy. The body couldn’t stand without a rigid skeleton, and as the old saying went: things worth buying are worth spending money on.

…Or something like that.

It was supposed to be a moral about value, right? But then again, there were also “old sayings” like mo’ money, mo’ problems, and bury me next to two bitches. Tiff needed to seriously consider where she was getting her ancient proverbs.

Regardless, plumbing was infrastructure, and infrastructure mattered, so even if it was expensive, Tiff was going to look into DQ Plumbers Local #5. She brought up the convenience store, hesitated briefly as she realized she’d just pulled up a see-through map of a bathroom, and was intensely relieved to find that it was empty.

The man was not lying. It had two stalls, and one was out of order. It had a premium handwritten note saying “OUT OF ORDER” and everything. For whatever reason, the toilet itself was covered in a large black trash bag, probably so that if somebody broke into the stall, they wouldn’t use it. Still, anybody who was going to break into an out-of-order bathroom stall was totally going to ignore a plastic bag, and Tiff was suddenly grossed out and totally not thinking about that at all. She hastily selected the toilet and browsed her upgrades.

Tiff never knew how many options toilets had.

Brand. Make and model. Material it was made of.

Porcelain? Stainless steel? Knock down the stall and put in a urinal?

There were so many choices that it stopped being gross and actually became fascinating. As always, Tiff instantly got suckered into looking at all the ways the System could upsell her. From premium tank innards that used weird vacuum technology Tiff didn’t have a hope of understanding, to self-regulating flow lines and long-lasting O-rings. The base model looked like something she could find in a porta-potty, while the higher-end ones…came with a bidet.

Those were fancy, right? They sounded distinctly European, and Europe had some really fancy stuff.

Tiff nearly clicked the button. Her finger was right there. But then the face of an Italian, French-speaking, Waluigi-cosplaying, evil [Tailor] floated in front of her face (saying waughhh). She pulled her hand back to reconsider. Perhaps the world was not ready for convenience store restrooms to come standard with bidets.

Besides, she should probably wait until they got home to finalize her purchases after she restocked the funds. There was enough money in her Core to upgrade the bathroom, but Tiff wanted to do it right. She bookmarked several options so she could easily apply them later, and Tiff was sure the employees would be pleased to find a completely remodeled bathroom. New tile, a new sink, a better mirror with “un-etchable” glass, a fine fake tree for the corner, and several discreet air fresheners.

…The tree might be too much. It wasn’t a huge bathroom.

After everyone got their soft serve, Tiff made sure David had the bag and they all went outside.

The 24-Heaven wasn’t their only stop today; they’d decided to introduce David to their other investments and show him the 5th Street Gang. Or at least their meeting room, which was now Tiff’s meeting room, and the place she would probably end up doing “business” so she didn’t need to take shady people to her own home.

As they got back to their cars, David paused. He still had the money, and everyone was looking at him curiously, wondering what he'd do.

Nobody was actually worried he was going to try to take it…because look. They had Victoria. Short Kings were no match for the Dark Queen’s Champion, Detroit heritage or no. That being said, there was a brief moment where his brain was certainly chugging.

“What are we doing,” he muttered, clearly conflicted. “There’s gotta be a thousand bucks in here.”

“Five thousand,” Candice corrected. “Plus $478.93.”

“You counted the change?” David scoffed.

“I count everything,” Candice said seriously. For some reason, that sounded more ominous than a threat.

“But they just…hand it over?” David asked, handing his bag to Tiff. “I don’t get it. I really don’t.”

“That’s just the way it is,” Tiff shrugged. “We provide a service and they pay us. In fact, some of this money is going to fix that bathroom.”

Tiff paused to consider her companions.

“How do we all feel about bidets?”

​

At that moment, Dark Queen Theophania VanDyne’s Court was split over the radical notion of bidets, so the topic was shelved. All the girls piled into the Camry, which coughed and protested at carrying so many passengers, but in the end, David followed them back to the deli. When they arrived, they were pleased to see several more people eating in for a change, since the few times Tiff had visited before, most people had gotten food to go. While she hadn’t yet worked up the extroverted courage to interrogate customers about how they could improve their shops, Tiff saw their smiles and considered it a win. She made sure to stop off at the counter, talk to the workers, admire all the sausage on display, and even wonder if Melissa might consider buying some bratwurst for dinner sometime.

Granted, it would be somewhere in the realm of…20, maybe 30 brats? She’d need to put in an advance order.

They collected another bag of cash, and Tiff was feeling rather loaded. No matter how awesome Victoria was, there was such a thing as having too much cash on her, and it was making her nervous. As if preempting Tiff’s fears, the System intervened.

“Oh, Tiff,” Candice said as soon as they walked into the back room and noticed the loafing thugs. “I completed a Class Quest. We’ve picked up enough deliveries to create a [Drop Box]. I’ve been wondering where to put it, or how to even use it, because whenever I try, I get an error. The System won’t let me put it down. But as soon as we walked into the break room, the option changed. Looks like I can put it down. Should I?”

“Oh?” Amy asked, jogging up. She was headed toward the air hockey table to have a grudge match against the reigning champ, but a magical piggy bank was more interesting.

“Sure,” Tiff agreed.

Candice studied her screen, and after a moment, several lightning bolts arced out of thin air as the System real-ified a reward. Several people yelped, including a nearby thug chastising them with, choo doin’ wit ‘lectricity? ‘S dangerous. But Tiff wasn’t spooked, because she was familiar with Candice’s System Flair, and after another second or two, she was holding what looked like a miniature pirate chest.

It was probably a foot wide, half that deep, and maybe a foot tall, too. The lid was one of those round, half-barrel shapes, and it looked like oak. But it wasn’t, because it was practically invulnerable; no matter how much they jostled, nudged, or otherwise abused it, it never got so much as a scratch. Candice had put it on the table, and almost immediately it got knocked off. Once they realized they hadn’t just broken their shiny new loot box, they tried putting it through various stress tests…though after Victoria punted it across the room and used it as a bench, they figured it was alright.

More importantly, the moment Tiff put her bags of money inside the chest…they disappeared. Again, the people around her were spooked (including Tiff this time, too), and a few thugs eloquently lamented the travesty of disappearing cash and got philosophical on how it was easy to make money, but hard to keep it. One even started pontificating about the importance of diversifying a portfolio, and Tiff wondered if she’d somehow corrupted her thugs. Some of them were getting weird. But most of them were normal, garden-variety thugs with the baggy pants featuring boxers and crude humor.

Tiff checked her Core account and sighed in relief. With the new [Drop Box], she no longer needed to feed money directly into her glowing green diamond. With her TAS tablet up, she also noticed something else.

Misters Bob and Bean were coming to the deli, and Tiff decided it might be nice to catch up.

She watched their dots close in, stop to talk to the employees behind the counter, and hurry into the break room. Tiff’s smile faltered as they laid eyes on her and made a beeline in her direction.

“Ah, Lady Dark Queen,” Mr. Bean said. “We were wondering how to get a hold of you. Something’s come up that I think needs your attention.”

“Is it an emergency?” Tiff asked.

So far, these two men hadn’t exactly endeared themselves to her with how they kept asking her for favors. But on the other hand, as the boss, Tiff had a responsibility to watch over them, and every time they did ask for help, it was warranted. Maybe she would need to get their number…or at the very least, get Candice to get it.

“Ehh,” Mr. Bean waffled. “Hard to say. Strictly speaking, it isn’t right now. But we think it could get ugly real quick if we don’t do anything about it.”

“Fine,” Tiff said. “Why don’t you tell me what it is?”

“Well, here’s the thing,” Mr. Bean started. Both he and Mr. Bob looked nervous, which was never a good sign. That meant they wanted to ask for something they thought Tiff might not give them…or tell her something she might not want to hear. “You’ve got the rules, yeah? The new ones ‘bout drugs ‘n killin’ ‘n stuff?”

“Yes?” Tiff growled. Those rules were non-negotiable. The men quavered and David did a double take, as if seeing Tiff for the first time. Well…he’d have to get used to it.

“Look!” Mr. Bean raised his hands. “We’re trying! We’re working on it, okay? But it ain’t easy! Some of the boys…might need a talking to.”

“They haven’t disobeyed me, have they?” Tiff asked. Her voice was low and threatening.

“No!” Mr. Bean assured her. “At least…none of the core crew. A few members may have defected. They weren’t in the organization long. Fresh, you know? Well…they think we’ve gone soft.”

“So they aren’t under my umbrella anymore,” Tiff mused. Part of her wondered if she needed to do anything at all. If they weren’t hers, did she really need to make an example out of them?

“No, and good riddance,” Mr. Bob cut in. “But that doesn’t mean they ain’t a threat. You see, I’m a warehouse manager. Managing warehouses? Kinda my thing. Only, there’s a lotta rivals in the area that want to make our warehouses their warehouses. And recently…they kinda have. Look, there was one Downy we used to use for, ah, product. We cleared it out! Like you said! But I went to go inspect it the other day, and…it’s coming back. Somebody’s using it, and it ain’t us. Somebody's either stealing from us…or setting us up.”

“They think we’re weak,” Mr. Bean chimed in. “Think they can push us around, think we’ve gone soft.”

“That won’t do,” Tiff muttered quietly. She glanced around and saw everyone looking at her. They were clearly waiting to see how the Dark Queen would respond. Her eyes fell on Amy, and all Tiff could think of was her little sister getting bullied. Beaten, abused, and addicted to drugs without her consent. Amy wouldn't let it happen willingly, but the thought was still there. Tiff turned back to Mr. Bean and nodded.

“It seems like I need to schedule a warehouse inspection.”