This time, Ned's alarm went off at 2:00. He'd set it when he went to bed, and now he quickly changed and grabbed his tablet, padding quietly down the hallway to the dining area.
Sure thing, the light was on and Ida was there just like she said she would be. Just like last night, she was sitting at the table chewing on a sandwich. The glass of juice was there too, along with a few big carrots. This time, though, she wasn't talking to herself and noticed Ned as soon as he walked into the room.
"Nice night, Chicken," she said, putting down her sandwich. "Did you bring your doodles? We can also talk about other skills you have."
"Right." Ned hopped up beside her and put the tablet down, then opened up the drawing app he'd installed yesterday and showed her. Since most of his doodles had been in his high school notes, they'd been lost when he deleted them after graduating. He'd spent a couple hours that day scribbling new ones to show her.
He wasn't sure why he was being so earnest about this. She was a kid, right? But...
Something about the decisive way she spoke gave him hope.
"They're pretty rough. And this app sucks," Ida said, scrutinizing his work. "But I see something here. Polish your skills and they'll shine pretty nicely."
"I kind of rushed with stuff. My doodles all got deleted with my notes from high school."
"Ah. Any experience with 3D modeling?"
"Like on a computer?"
"Yup."
"No. Should I?"
"Not necessarily. I can work with 2D too." Ida swiped through the doodles again.
"I had no idea what to draw, so I just kind of...went for it."
"Okay. Draw me an explorer. A short one with brown hair and a big hat."
Ida pushed the tablet back towards Ned. He stared at her, and she stared back. Finally, he nervously opened up a new drawing and started scribbling. Someone short, huh?
He formed a rough version of a face and body, then started sketching clothing and hair. He made sure to give him a nice tall hat like she'd asked, but when he was halfway through it she stopped him.
"Not a tall hat. Just one with a big brim. Gotta keep the sun outta your face after all."
"Oh. Sorry." Ned erased the weird thing he'd been drawing and corrected it. Several minutes later, he showed Ida the finished product and she clapped. He couldn't tell if the claps were sarcastic or not.
"Not bad, kiddo. You might be able to make something of yourself. At least with this. I didn't quite ask, but is there something else you want to do? Like, would you rather have an office job or something?"
"I..." Ned looked away and put down the tablet.
Ida waited patiently for him to sort his thoughts out.
"I'm not good at much, so I don't know what else I could do."
"You suck at this too," Ida said flatly. "I mean, you have potential, but it's still raw and unpolished. You'd have to work at it to be able to make a living off of it."
"Way to mince words," Ned muttered.
"I'm not asking what you think you can do. I'm asking what you want, Ned Queen."
The use of his full name startled him, but he got over it fairly quickly.
"I always wanted to work in game development. The only thing is, I'm really bad at all the math and stuff, so - "
"Shut it." Ida stuck a long carrot in his mouth before Ned could finish his sentence. She didn't let go of the carrot, keeping it firmly in his mouth, so he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do.
Finally, he just started chewing on it. Food was meant to be eaten after all, and this way she'd have to give up on muting him with it.
"Ned. Everybody starts out being horrible at everything. Nobody is good at something from the get-go. Even prodigies have to hone their skills or they'll fall behind people who have actually put in the work. So don't talk about what you can't do. Decide you'll fight and try. Practice. Get better. And someday you'll look back on yourself and laugh at how pathetic you are right now."
He could probably laugh at how pathetic he was right now at this very second. Seriously, he was being silenced by a kindergartener holding a carrot to his face.
It was a good carrot, though.
"So. You wanna be a game dev? That's a broad range of skills. You wanna be a solo dev? Work in a team? What part? Director? Coder? Artist? Debugger? Writer? And don't you dare say you wanna start as a director. Get some game experience under your belt first. It's one thing if you wanna be a solo dev, but start in a lower position and work your way up if you don't wanna go it alone. Being a director would be a lot of work, and you don't quite have the life experience to hack it."
Ned chewed on the carrot while she ranted, trying to keep up with what she was saying. What part of the development process did he want to start with? Art. That was a no-brainer. Maybe come up with general ideas, but there was no way he could code it all together.
By the time Ida was done talking, he'd gone through enough of the carrot that she could no longer use it as a muter without leaning precariously far out of her chair, so she dropped it in front of him and went back to her sandwich.
"I wanna be an artist," Ned said. "Like, I wanna make art assets and stuff. Draw concept art. Maybe pitch a few ideas. But who would listen to someone like me?"
"Pitch an idea," Ida said coldly, taking another bite out of her sandwich.
"Now?" Ned looked at her, trying to keep up. What was with this kid?
"Now." Ida's eyes said she was serious. Thoughts whirled frantically through Ned's head, and finally he landed on one.
"A game where there are myriad cities like Arx, and you can fly between them with a glider suit. Oh, and of course there would be ancient ruins and stuff to explore too. The planet below would probably be all water, so you couldn't actually make it down there, but flying between floating islands would be cool."
"Elaborate," Ida said, finishing her sandwich and grabbing a carrot of her own.
"Uh...I guess it would be about finding out why the planet died and everything started floating? Probably have some enemies and stuff hanging around the ruins - y'know, like ghosts and stuff. I guess your character would be a ruin diver looking to recover artifacts from the lost civilization. I really admire Bluebird's work, so I guess this sounds like something they'd make, but...I think it would be really fun to design."
"Bluebird, huh?" Ida said, a slightly sour look coming over her face. "Well, whatever. You pass. Make all the ruins on the surface, maybe add some kind of miasma that only goes to a certain height above sea level, forcing everyone to live in floating cities, and I think you've got something cool. That would just be my take on it, though. Start drawing concept art and get back to me when you have a town, three ruin levels and enemies and villagers to fill them. If you like Bluebird so much, you should know just how much effort they put into their NPCs."
"Wait, you know Bluebird?" Ned asked, looking at Ida with wide eyes.
"I know a lot of stuff," Ida said, waving him away as she chewed on her carrot. "Now finish your vegetable and get to work. Once you have the concept art, you can start making environments and stuff."
"But I can't do it all by myself!" Ned said, panicking slightly.
"You won't. I'll talk to Big Brother Odin and figure something out. Odin's got resources and connections."
"Isn't he mostly concerned with killing people?"
"What kind of monster do you - never mind. I don't care. He does not spend all his time dedicated to this stupid Gift thing. Now get out of my hair. And don't leave the Underwing if you can help it. Things seem to be heating up upstairs and the last thing we need is for the little hostage chicken to get hurt."
"Thanks for that," Ned muttered. "I'll see you later then, I guess. Don't be a stranger. You can come by in the daytime too. I promise everyone else isn't scary."
"I'm not scared of them," Ida said, finishing her juice and hopping off her stool. "I just don't feel like dealing with them. Maybe I should get room service instead of coming out here. Then again, I don't wanna risk getting anything slimy on the computers. Darius, dishes please."
"Of course, Ida," the robot replied, gathering up the dishes she'd left behind and heading for the dishwasher.
Ned stared at his tablet, thinking about what Ida had said.
Working towards something would be better than nothing, wouldn't it?
