The heatwave was a heavy shroud of humidity that had smothered Buckhannon for three straight days. The asphalt on the roads was hot and sticky, the leaves on the trees drooped in wilted surrender.
Chris's sat in his gaming chair, a can of ice-cold Rocket Riot sweating onto his desk, and observed the town's misery through the window of the Upshur County Community Forum.
The forum was a litany of suffering. The usual posts about lost pets and yard sales had been replaced by posts of sweaty, heat-stroked despair.
[Gary L.]: "102 DEGREES IN THE SHADE. MY LAWN IS CRUNCHY. AND THE COMMUNITY POOL IS STILL CLOSED. WHAT ARE MY TAX DOLLARS EVEN PAYING FOR???"
[Brenda G.]: "Oh, the heat is just dreadful. I do hope they get that pool fixed soon. The little ones have nowhere to play. It's a real shame for the community."
[Tim M.]: "Does anyone know what's even wrong with the pool? 'CLOSED FOR MAINTENANCE' isn't an explanation. It's an insult. It's been closed for a week!"
Chris scrolled through the posts, each one an expression of communal frustration. The town's morale was in the gutter. He could almost feel the [Community Approval] stat for his World Quest ticking downward with every angry emoji. The inconveniently closed pool was a critical failure of one of the town's primary summertime morale-buffing locations.
As if summoned by his thoughts, the System, in its infinite and deeply intrusive wisdom, intervened. A new quest notification appeared.
[Quest: Pool Party Pooper]
[Objective: The Buckhannon Community Pool is currently non-operational due to a critical mechanical failure. This has resulted in a significant, ongoing debuff to the town's [Community Approval] stat. Resolve the pool's closure.]
[Reward: 300 XP, +10 Community Approval]
Chris stared at the quest. It was direct. An actionable task with a clear path to boosting a key stat for his main quest. He he was being given a specific, broken thing and being told to fix it. This was a dungeon run.
He let out long sigh. It seemed his new life as a Reality Architect was going to involve a lot more civic maintenance than he had anticipated.
He drove to the community pool and parked. The pool was a sad, lonely sight. The high, chain-link fence that surrounded the property was adorned with a single, faded "CLOSED FOR MAINTENANCE" sign, the lettering peeling at the corners. Beyond the fence, the large, rectangular-shaped pool was a placid, unnervingly still sheet of crystal-clear blue water. It was an inviting oasis that no one was allowed to enter.
The area was deserted. There was no splashing children, no music from the pool radio. There was only the cicadas in the trees and the faint gurgle of the water when it hit the filter intakes.
He didn't need to get inside. He had a better way. He stood outside the chain-link fence, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, and focused on the small, windowless, brick building at the far end of the pool area. The pump house.
He activated his [INSPECT (Tier 2)] ability, pouring his will into a diagnostic scan of the building and its contents. The world shimmered for a second as the System processed his request, the data flowing into his HUD like an x-ray. The scan provided a perfect, microscopic diagnostic, a level of detail the town's maintenance crew, with their wrenches and their flashlights, could never hope to see.
[Object: Pool Pump House (Main Filtration System)]
[Status: Critical Failure (Flow Obstruction)]
[DIAGNOSIS: Primary filter pump intake valve is 98% obstructed by a calcified mass of mineral deposits and a single, well-lodged foreign object.]
[Object ID: LEGO_Minifigure_Spaceman_Classic_1980s_White]
[Sub-Component Status: Faded Chest Logo (85% Loss)]
Chris had to stifle a laugh. The entire town's summer was being held hostage by a tiny, plastic astronaut from the 1980s. Some kid, thirty years ago, had probably lost his favorite toy in the pool, and it had finally, after decades of patient waiting, completed its long journey to the heart of the filtration system, where it had become a tiny plastic clog.
There was the problem. But the solution was tricky. He couldn't get inside the locked pump house to fix it physically. He had to be clever. He had to perform a bit of remote work.
He hadn't really had a chance to explore the [System Functions Library] since he'd gained a level, increase his stats, and chosen a class. He had been so focused on the scripting console that he had forgotten about the vast library of pre-written commands at his disposal. He opened the library tab. The endless, intimidating list appeared, but he now had his [Function Comprehension] skill. The once-incomprehensible text was now clear, each function's purpose and required parameters laid out in helpful, glowing tooltips.
He used the search bar and typed in "integrity." A function appeared, its text a bright, available white.
[Function: Modify_Structural_Integrity(Object, Value)]
[Description: Alters the physical cohesion and durability of a designated target object. Value is a percentage (1-100%). Use with caution.]
He had his tool.
He stood by the fence, a modern-day wizard preparing his spell. He targeted the specific object ID the System had identified: LEGO_Minifigure_Spaceman_Classic_1980s_White. The function's interface appeared in his vision, a simple form waiting for his input. He left the surrounding pipe's integrity at its default 94%, but for the value applied to the LEGO minifigure, he set its structural integrity to a brittle, fragile 1%.
The EP cost was minimal, an almost imperceptible flicker in his HUD. This was a surgical strike, a low-cost application of immense power.
He hit [EXECUTE].
The air in the distant pump house shimmered for a fraction of a second, a flicker of light no one but him could see. And then, it was done. The tiny plastic astronaut, once a durable hero of childhood imagination, was now as brittle as a dry leaf.
The next day, Chris was back in his room, anxiously waiting for the results of his quest. He obsessively refreshed the community forum, waiting for a sign. Around noon, he found it. A new, celebratory post from a user he recognized as one of the town's maintenance workers.
"GOOD NEWS EVERYONE! The pool pump is FIXED! Gave it one last try this morning, heard a small 'pop' inside the filter, and the whole system roared to life! We're getting the chemical levels balanced now, and the Buckhannon Community Pool will be officially REOPENING this afternoon at 2 PM! See you there!"
Chris broke into a slow, satisfied grin. The "small pop." That was his LEGO spaceman, shattered into pieces by the water pressure, a spaceman's heroic final sacrifice, clearing the way for a summer of fun. The clog was gone.
[Quest Completed! 300 XP Awarded!]
[+10 Community Approval]
As he was enjoying the joyous, relieved comments flooding the post, his phone buzzed. It was a text message. From Jessica.
"OMG they fixed the pool! A bunch of us from my class are going this afternoon, you should totally come hang out!"
Chris stared at the message, his heart giving a sudden lurch. The pool. With other people. With Jessica. And her friends. A high-stakes social event. He felt a cold spike of his old social anxiety, a powerful, multi-stage debuff that had crippled him for years. His mind immediately began to generate a list of excuses. He had to help Pete with something. He had to defrag his hard drive. He had to... rearrange his shoe closet.
But then, another, newer part of his psyche pushed back. It was his higher [Confidence] stat. It wasn't a loud voice. It was a calm, logical counter-argument to his panic. You can do this. You just saved the entire town's summer. You can handle a pool party.
He looked at the blinking cursor in his reply window. He hesitated for a long moment, a fierce internal battle raging within him. Then, with a deep breath that felt like a leap of faith, he typed back.
"Sure, see you there."
The Buckhannon Community Pool smelled of chlorine and sunscreen. The concrete was hot under his bare feet. The sound was a wall of noise—joyful shrieks of splashing children, music from a dozen different phones, the murmur of conversations. It was a mix of splashing children and sunbathing adults.
He felt incredibly awkward. He had found a small, unoccupied corner near the deep end, and put his towel down on the concrete. He wore a pair of old, faded blue swim trunks and a plain gray t-shirt, a feeble attempt to hide his pale physique.
"Chris! Over here!"
He saw Jessica waving at him from the edge of the pool. She was there with a few of her friends, a group of cheerful, confident-looking college students. She wore a stylish blue bikini and a pair of sunglasses perched on her head, and she looked effortlessly at home.
He walked over, his hands shoved awkwardly in the pockets of his swim trunks, feeling like a new player who had just wandered into the main city for the first time.
"Hey, glad you could make it," Jessica said, her smile as bright and welcoming as the sun. She introduced him to her friends, who gave him a series of friendly, but to him, deeply intimidating, nods.
He managed to stammer out a "hey."
Jessica, sensing his awkwardness, steered the conversation to a topic she knew he was comfortable with. "So, I totally aced my Python midterm," she said. "Thanks to you. My professor said my understanding of zero-indexing was 'exemplary.'"
"That's cool," Chris said, a smile touching his lips. He was starting to relax. This wasn't so bad. It was just a conversation.
But as Jessica talked about her IT class, his eyes, with a will of their own, began to drift. An automatic, instinctual [INSPECT] triggered on Jessica. A detailed data window appeared in his vision, a sudden flood of information that was far more personal than a textbook. His face flushed a bright, burning red. He quickly shut the window down, his mind reeling.
He tried to focus on the conversation, on her words, on anything other than the fact that he had just, in essence, read his friend's character sheet with some very personal notes. But his gaze, traitorous and undisciplined, wandered to her again.
A new notification appeared in his HUD.
[WISDOM CHECK: FAILED]
Chris's flush deepened. He was a Level 8 Reality Architect. He was the secret savior of his town's summer. He had the power to rewrite the fundamental properties of matter. But right now, in this moment, he was just an awkward guy at a public pool, completely out of his depth. And the universe, it seemed, was making Attribute checks.