The next evening, they started on another quest. Thanks to Mr. Crocodile, he cut out of Ascending Spires about an hour and a half before he would have normally signed off for the night. He and Brindle needed to get as much as they could done today.

|Brindle_Fox244| Hey, what do you think about what Silver said?

Silver? He hadn’t said anything remarkable that he recalled. But then, she did talk to him a lot more than he did.

I didn’t really pay attention to what Silver said. |SevenAteEight|

|Brindle_Fox244| Oh. Well, I asked him about what he said when we first met him, about becoming Spires. Well, he said that was actually possible. We have to have perfect positive stats for at least six months, and then we can turn our characters into Spires and play as them, have access to new types of quests... that sort of thing.

Huh. Interesting.

What if someone wants to be a Craven instead? |SevenAteEight|

|Brindle_Fox244| I didn’t really ask, though he said someone can become a Craven. It’s probably the same thing, except you have to have negative stats instead of positive ones.

I see. |SevenAteEight|

There wasn’t much else to say, other than that.

|Brindle_Fox244| Let’s both become Spires. Games are more fun when there’s an overall goal like that to work for.

……

That memory played through his mind as he opened the gate and walked into the alley. He told her yes, because he had no reason not to, but he felt a little uncertain of that path.

He frowned as he tossed the sack of garbage from the kitchen trash into the rubbage bin behind the fence. The gray sky loomed high above, darkening in the dusk creeping up on the world.

It was just a game, though. He could always change his mind later, and Brindle was nice enough that she probably wouldn’t gripe at him about it.

He walked back inside and made his way to his desk. Wearily, he sat down and logged back into the career bulletin site and checked his notifications. A few restaurants had jobs that met the specifications he was looking for. Applications would need to be sent to them later.

One or two colleges also emailed him, wanting him to send an essay or schedule an interview. More red tape. But at least he was making progress toward getting an education.

He really, really wasn’t looking forward to a few more years of school. But, he also didn’t want to be stuck working all day and only obtaining minimum wage.

The summer job he had now already took up his time and paid very little. If that could possibly be satisfying, he would just ask his boss if he could continue even after summer was over.

But, he wanted his time to be worth more, and, in the long term, spent on something less discouraging. So, he started looking through the applications for the part time jobs the website showed him. These restaurants were used to hiring students, so hopefully they would be flexible when scheduling his shifts.

A wan smile crossed his face. He dismissed himself from gaming early today, just to deal with this stuff. Hopefully, all this effort would pay off in the future.