Chapter 53: Lunch Date

Turning the conversation to other things, Hugh asked Frankie about his ideas for the clinic and which items he intended to use the corporate privileges on.

"It's difficult to decide. I know we'll need stock in common implants, but cosmetic surgery requires so many little things. I'd hate to pick something common like scalpels or suturing kits when we might be able to pay someone to supply those for us. At the same time, those aren't things we can do without. What would you do in my place?"

"Stock up on consumables you can't replace easily," he advised instantly. "If every doctor has their Navigator spawn a scalpel and a suturing kit, you should have enough to go around until your world-based supply line can craft them."

"I forgot about the daily spawns," Frankie replied in relief. "I can use those for the larger equipment. That helps a lot. I'll try to remember that when I'm picking items—ignore anything we can reuse. For now, you have to tell me how you came up with the design for the lobby. Where's this club where you saw the floor panels? It sounds fun."

Hugh regaled Frankie with the tale of his one—and only—visit to a gay night club on Roanoke Colony, then listened as he was given a matching horror story about the last time Frankie tried to go out for a night on the town. They traded stories on various subjects for nearly half an hour until Kanani returned bearing two bowls with skewered grilled fruit laying across the top.

"Here you go, kāhuna," he said, laying one down in front of each of them. "First meals served from the Nexus Lanai. What do you think of the name? Just came up with it myself."

"Won't your brother be upset if you change the name?" Hugh asked.

"Nah, brah. He was saying we'd have to change a few things to fit in and he thought the restaurant's name would have to be the first to go. You can't use a name outsiders won't understand. It's okay on the islands, but wouldn't work in a place like this."

"I don't care what you call your place," Frankie interjected. "This looks amazing. How did you put it together so fast?"

"You call that fast, brah? I spent more time figuring out how to get a pot of water for the rice in the poke bowls than I did putting everything else together. Next time you come back, I'll have it ready in five minutes or less. That's a promise. You two enjoy these for now. I'll have Kamaka bring out some shaved ice for dessert. You both good with mango? I can do banana or pineapple instead. No? Okay. I'll send out some drinks, too. I don't think I have everything I need for bubble tea, so I hope regular old iced tea is good. Or how about a tropical fruit smoothie? You know what—I'll send both, brah."

Once again, Kanini hurried away without waiting for them to actually answer, making them trade amused smirks. Over the course of their meal, the Hawaiian chef returned a dozen different times. The first time, he shyly brought them chopsticks to use and apologized for not thinking of them sooner. Next came the shaved ice and drinks. Then he kept surprising them with samples of the various items he was cooking in the shop's kitchen, from fritters topped in fresh fruit and malasadas and fish tacos with mango salsa.

When he asked if they were interested in trying some sapasui, Hugh had to ask, "How in the world did you get the stuff to make all this?"

"Wasn't hard, brah," he replied. "I figured you wouldn't be here before dawn, so I just followed your directions and used the Genesis pages to stock up my world last night, then used magic to make everything grow real fast. Once the sun came up, I asked everyone to gather up what they could find and stored what I could. For everything else, your tip about bundling worked like a charm. I used one for clothes, one for cookware, one for a vehicle, and one for the ice shaver. The rest I used for some pallets of supplies like rice, cooking oil, flour, soy sauce, and Spam. We piled 'em up and wrapped 'em in seran wrap, then scanned 'em. I'll have to find a supplier for those later today since what I have won't last forever, but everything else I needed for the kitchen—like a stove, ovens, and ice maker—all that came with shop, brah."

"Really?" Frankie asked with sudden intensity. "Where were those at in the Book? Could you show me?"

Hugh watched carefully as Kanani walked Frankie through the shop menu's various sub-menus, pointing out the button Hugh had missed which lead to a library of equipment available to be auto-installed. According to the help text on the page, players were allowed to pick three to start. With every upgrade they bought, they were given one extra choice or the option to upgrade an existing choice.

The same sub-menu in Frankie's book offered a variation of the same menu, except instead of tables and chairs, it offered desks and chairs. Instead of stoves and sinks, it offered vital monitors and sinks. The only things remaining absolutely the same in both menus were the options for cabinetry, patron entertainment, and the free emergency wall cabinet holding a fire response kit.

"I can't tell you how much this is going to help me, Kanani," Frankie exclaimed. "Thank you so much."

"No worries, kahuna," he replied. "Now, about that sapasui?"

"We couldn't eat another bite," Frankie said quickly, before the Hawaiian could run off again. "Oh, but maybe you could make it for our Navigators? They were supposed to meet us, but they must have gotten held up."

"There was probably a line at the Navigators' Union," Hugh suggested to keep the doctor from panicking. "Remember, they have a compass pointing to us, so it's not like they can get lost." Just to make sure, Hugh opened his Book to his map page and bound the compass to one of Dex's open shortcut slots. "There," he said. "Now we know they can find their way around without us."

"Neat trick, brah."

Hugh smiled self-deprecatingly and said, "Not so much a trick as using the Book to its full potential. It helps I used my first few hours of the game going page by page through the first section with my Navigator. He was able to point out a bunch of features you wouldn't guess existed unless you were familiar with gaming—which actually just made me think of something. Since my Navigator isn't here, would you mind if I asked yours a question, Kanani?"

Kanani immediately hurried into his shop and came back out with Kamaka, eager to hear what kind of question Hugh could come up with. He hit the Navigator with it as soon as he was in range.

"Can you macro spells into a chain?"

Kamaka rocked back on his heels, his eyebrows flying up in surprise as he slowly nodded. "That's a sophisticated technique to try to pull off, brah. You can't do it with any spells you haven't leveled up to the point where you can assign triggers like hand-signs or word combos."

"Say I wanted to cast Purify, Heal, Blessings of Gaia, and Colossal on myself. Is there a way to macro that combination once I have them leveled up?"

"Yeah, brah, but those aren't all in the same spell tree, so you'd have to initiate a spell switch between each casting. You can switch entire trees out by saying the four spells in order from left to right instead of just saying something like 'Spell switch Water with Fire.' Instead, you'd say 'Tree switch Fire, Earth, Reflect, Rat."

"Wait—Earth? I'm assuming you mean Manipulate Earth? Does that mean you don't have to use the entire spell name when switching?"

"Not unless there's more than one using the same word in your inventory. It's the same thing with any equipment switching."

"Can switching trees be set to a trigger?"

"Yeah, but you have to level up the whole tree root first, meaning all four spells you want to switch to. That's what makes setting macros such a high class technique, because it means you don't have just one tree leveled up, but more than one. That's when the options open up to set triggers for spell chains by combining the triggers you already set up for the component parts. Your Navigator will be able to walk you through how to do it when the time comes, kahuna."

"I think I understand," he replied. "I level up spells until I can set triggers for them. Once I have four, I can set a trigger for the tree. And once I have more than one tree, I can macro everything into chains. Thank you, Kamaka. That's very helpful."

"Be careful with macros, kahuna," Kamaka advised. "It's real easy to set up a complicated chain and forget every spell costs stamina. I wouldn't ever use a channeling spell in a macro. It's way too easy to forget it's there."

"Death by misadventure? Or would that be suicide?" Hugh asked. "Either way, I'll keep it in mind. Thanks again."

"I don't think I understood half of that," Frankie said, then immediately threw up his hands to stop them from explaining. "No, no. Don't bother trying. I'll stick with the normal way for now. I don't think my patients will mind."

Hugh smirked. "Please, oh, please, remember this moment when you try to explain some kind of high level real world surgery and I don't understand a word. Please?"

Frankie smirked back at him. "I'll consider it."