by Tom Larcombe
And while that might not be a General Store, it'll still put even more a crimp in Old Jeffries' business. That man is a nuisance. It's almost as though he and his store were designed to make the players want to leave the area, Eddie thought. So maybe we'll just try to turn that around and see if we can't make him want to leave the area.
Eddie grinned at the slightly evil thought and Tiana caught him in the act.
“So, what's the evil grin all about?” she asked.
“Oh, I was just thinking that Old Jeffries is enough to make the players want to leave this area, but maybe between our swap meet hours here at the inn, and the marketplace I want to put up, just maybe we can turn the tables on him and make him be the one that wants to leave.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Still going on about him?”
Eddie's eyes flicked towards the pond, where Lucky was splashing about, a fish in her mouth.
“He buys and sells bobcat pelts. That's all I need to know to want him gone. I'm not going to kill him, but I am going to drive him out of business and let it be known that trade in bobcat pelts is forbidden in the Meadowlands, at least I will if I end up the mayor like that quest said.”
Tiana had a warm smile on her face when she caught his eye.
“I was just teasing you,” she said. “I know all that, we've talked about it. I'm just glad that you're limiting what you want to do about it. Driving him out of business and forbidding trade in bobcat pelts is all well and good. Going further might cause issues, especially if you're getting into politics.”
Eddie shuddered. He'd simply been picturing taking the mayor position as a new job, not as becoming a politician.
Tiana laughed out loud as she watched the emotions race across his face.
“Never thought about it that way, did you?” she asked sweetly. “I'm sure my parents would have a heart attack if they knew that my boyfriend wanted to get into small town politics.”
Eddie groaned. He knew that tone, knew it well. He'd teased her about him having a priestess for a girlfriend just recently, now she was giving it back to him.
“I said I was sorry about that,” he replied.
She smiled sweetly.
“And I told you that it was fine, that I'd get you back for it.”
“Well, now you have,” he said.
“Well, now I've started to, at least.”
Eddie groaned again, but went back to preparing the last garden bed. He wouldn't have much more time since he needed to start harvesting the other three shortly. He still hoped to have the last garden bed going within another week though. Once he did, he'd settled on a crop rotation to run through so the soil didn't get exhausted by growing the same thing over and over.
Who would've thought the AI would include something like that in the game, he thought. I suppose it makes sense if you're going into the skills in fine detail, but I'd swear I could turn around and use what I've learned about gardening in the game to do the same in real life. Well, if I had any land to garden, and a lot more time than it takes in-game, but still, I bet it would work.
When he dropped the shovel he'd been using back into his inventory and turned to go start harvesting the garden beds, he was ambushed. Lucky had been crouching down behind him and instead of leaping onto his chest like she'd been doing recently, this time she interposed her body right behind his feet so when he tried to turn he stumbled over her. He caught his balance quickly and would've been fine, except for the cat then leaping to her feet and going up on her hind legs. Her forelegs came down on his torso, pushing as she lightly leapt off her hind legs.
Eddie was so surprised that he ended up tumbling backwards, landing on the ground a moment later with Lucky atop him. She moved up his body and started licking his face, her breath reeking of the raw fish she'd just eaten.
“Ewww, Lucky,” Eddie started, then stopped himself. He knew if he complained about the fish breath, she'd just keep doing it. But this was new, she'd never pounced on him like this before and he wondered why she'd started now. At least, he wondered until he saw Tiana doubled up with laughter where she was sitting beneath a tree.
“Are you teaching my cat bad manners?” Eddie called out once he broke free of Lucky's tongue.
Tiana tried to answer, but just started laughing even harder.
“Alright you, you want some roughhousing, you got it. Just remember, no teeth or claws,” Eddie said.
Then he wrapped his arms around the bobcat and tried to move her so he was in the dominant position. Lucky was having none of that though, and agilely squirmed her way out of his grip. The two continued to roughhouse and mock wrestle for a few minutes, until they heard the sound of someone clearing their throat.
Eddie looked up and saw that Tiana was over her laughing fit and was now standing over them, staring down.
“Didn't you say you needed to do some harvesting?” she asked, her eyes wide with mock innocence.
“Hey, Lucky? Tiana doesn't get nearly as much playtime with you as I do,” Eddie said. “I've got to work, but I bet she'd be willing to play with you for a while, if you'd like.”
The bobcat eyed Tiana speculatively and the priestess started backing up, both hands held in front of her in a placating gesture. It didn't help. As Eddie got up and moved towards the nearest plants that needed harvesting, Lucky went down into her stalking crouch, her eyes firmly fixed on Tiana.
Eddie turned and started harvesting, although he couldn't keep the smile off of his face when he heard Tiana call out.
“Eww, Lucky, fish breath,” Tiana said.
“Don't encourage her. You tell her that and she just does it even more,” Eddie called back, then returned to harvesting his garden bed.
~ ~ ~
Chapter Two
Private Campbell sighed with relief after he sat up and looked around. He was back in his normal avatar, in the clearing that the squad had based itself out of. As he looked around, he saw the unoccupied avatars of all the rest of the squad except for one. Specialist Harmon's avatar was nowhere to be found, not even when Campbell glanced inside the Specialist's tent.
“Well, it's nice enough to just be alone for a bit. That was freaky as all shit. What was that crap with me ending up in Harmon's avatar? And that wolf? Wasn't it supposed to be under Harmon's control?” he said aloud, despite being alone.
He shook his head, more than willing to take a few minutes to clear his thoughts. In the meanwhile, he knew where the supplies were kept and no-one was going to notice if he raided them for a few of his favorites.
An hour later he was sated, stomach full. He was also getting bored again. They'd been used to doing a lot of nothing in this clearing, interspersed with completing the missions that they were given, as odd as some of them were. After they'd been given the construct assignment things had been finally getting interesting again, but now here he was, back at the base, doing nothing.
If I had any idea where that place was in relation to this one I'd head back to help out the guys, but I don't even know if it's on the same landmass as I am here, he thought.
He'd just resigned himself to being bored and alone for a while when another one of the avatars stirred. Olson's body shot up into a sitting position, a look of utter terror on his face. Once the man looked around and saw where he was he gave a sigh of relief and the terror left his face.
“Thank god I ended up back here this time,” Olson said.
“What are you talking about?” Campbell asked.
“Never mind, doesn't matter. What the hell's going on? Where's Harmon?”
“Where's Harmon? Gone off his rocker, that's where. Other than that, I've got no clue.”
Over the next four hours most of the rest of the squad returned to their avatars. There were only two people missing; Specialist Harmon and Private Ferring. When the rest exchanged stories, they were similar. The goblins respected strength, but whether that was individual strength or the strength of a group seemed to vary case by case. Each
member of the squad had been killed when they'd been ganged up on by varying sized groups of goblins, some of them of types that they hadn't seen before. The ones they hadn't seen before had seemed to be in control of the groups, and had shown signs of using rudimentary strategies and tactics.
I'm glad that's not my problem, Campbell thought. The little green pukes already had the numbers, if they're using tactics now? I pity anyone in their way. They were smart enough to wait until my half-breed champion was gone before they attacked anyone else. Even that's smarter than I thought they were.
“Well, I've got no clue what happened to Harmon. There are no orders from higher up, at least not that we can access. And when I checked out Harmon's tent to see if he was in there I noticed he had some kegs of booze. Anyone want to party?” Campbell asked.
~ ~ ~
Over the next few days Eddie kept building houses. He breathed a sigh of relief when Tiana mentioned that there seemed to be far fewer refugees showing up now. Only five had arrived over the past three days and he thought that maybe now he'd be able to start catching up.
He was nearly finished with Dominic's brewhouse. The wood for that was coming from Osmond and Brandr, who were more than happy to continue collecting the extra coin for providing lumber. They'd both become more proficient in their lumberjack skills and were producing more planks and less scrap than they had been before.
The brewhouse was one of the few things he'd kept working on where the materials could've gone towards the new houses. He justified it to himself by saying that Dominic would also produce some beers that could be sold cheaply so the refugees might benefit that way, but he knew that really he was just trying to keep his promise to Dominic and not let the project slip his mind.
Opron had already completed all the smith-made parts that Dominic was going to need. The dwarf had warned Eddie that his month was almost up and that he'd have to leave soon so if there were any more projects for him to do Eddie had to let him know now.
When Eddie finished building houses for the day he relaxed, sitting on the ground and leaning against the front wall of the house he'd just finished. He'd explained to Griff what his plans were, that once someone on the crew was up to a five in carpentry he'd set them in charge of the team since he had other things that needed doing.
Griff had responded in a manner that made Eddie want to slap himself in the face. Griff had pointed out that wanting them to be able to do the blueprints was fine, but Eddie could already do them. When he asked if Eddie could simply set the blueprints, share them with the construction crew, then go off to do whatever it was he needed to do, Eddie practically groaned.
Why is it that I didn't think of that? Eddie wondered. As long as they have the carpentry skill I can share the blueprints with them after I read them. And I bet that their carpentry skills will rise much more quickly without me taking the lead on these projects. I thought I was getting better at not trying to do everything myself, better at delegating projects that could be delegated without any issues. I guess I'm not as far along with that as I'd thought.
With a rueful shake of his head he started off the road down towards the temple. After Griff had made his comment, Eddie had shared the blueprints for the next two houses with the crew before they left for the day. The stone foundations were already finished and he'd had to set those blueprints up earlier so the masons could do their work. Now he'd revise his schedule so each morning he'd read off the next pair of blueprints, share it with the masons and his carpentry crew, see if there was a bottleneck with any of the materials, and if not he could just go about the rest of his day.
When he got to the temple he was surprised to see Becky and Tiana just chatting. He hadn't seen much of Becky the last few days except at the inn around dinner time and it was always so busy there at that time of day that he hadn't spoken to her in almost a week.
“Tiana, Becky, what's up?” Eddie asked.
The two women turned to him, Tiana gracing him with a smile. Becky had an eager, hopeful look on her face and immediately started to speak.
“Just the guy I wanted to see. I've spoken with everyone else already. Can we maybe keep the you-know-what secret for a little longer? I know we all agreed to not mention it until Karl had all his maps drawn up and ready to sell, but I'd like a little longer. I've figured out a way to make a few coins off of it myself if you're willing to wait a bit and help with something else.”
Eddie stopped dead in his tracks. Her request had come out at a speed that still had him picking her words apart. When he finish parsing the end of her statement, he took a deep breath.
“Whoa, slow down. I don't have a problem with that, but I'd like to know what something else you need help with,” he said.
“Well, you remember that quest we got in the middle of the dun— I mean, our adventure? The one about cleaning the lake?”
Eddie nodded.
“I've figured out what I hope is an easy way to take care of it, although I'll want the rest of the group too since it does involve fighting and I'm not too good at that.”
“Go on,” Eddie replied.
Becky looked around to make sure there were no other players nearby. When Eddie realized what she was doing, he stopped her.
“If you don't want anyone to overhear, we probably shouldn't do it right here. The new human players for the Meadowlands spawn about five feet that way,” he said pointing. “Let's go out to Tiana's pond, the trickling water will make it harder to overhear and Lucky's probably out there anyhow.”
A twinge of regret flashed across Becky's face when Eddie mentioned Lucky. The cat had never warmed back up to her after she'd charmed the animal repeatedly. Lucky had always been happy to see her before that, but now whenever Becky was around Lucky kept an eye on her and wouldn't get too close.
“Alright,” Becky said, her mood slightly deflated.
They made their way out to the fountain where, sure enough, they found Lucky. The cat would slap the water on one side of the fountain then dash around the edge and slap the other side. When Eddie got close enough he saw that there was one particular koi in there that Lucky was chasing. She'd slap the water right on top of it and the koi would dart across the pool to the other side. Lucky would race around the edge, trying to beat her there and then slap the water once again when she made it to the other side.
The koi was getting there first every time and, amusingly enough, Eddie was pretty sure that the fish would get there, then wait for Lucky to catch up before leaving again.
“I swear, I think Lucky and the fish in this pond are playing together,” he said. “I thought that the other day, and now I'm sure of it.”
“It kind of makes sense,” Tiana said. “Think of who put the koi in here and how she feels about Lucky.”
Becky just looked confused until Eddie spoke up.
“Freyja. When she put her blessing on the temple, the koi appeared in the pond. Freyja is awfully fond of Lucky also, so yeah it makes sense. Lucky gets to play with her still, kind of, and if what I suspect is right, these koi are sort of an extension of the goddess. So she gets to keep paying attention to Lucky also.”
Tiana nodded.
“Sounds about right to me. I figure that Freyja has part of her presence here, I can kind of feel it any time I come on the temple grounds. I think Lucky can also since she spends so much time here.”
“Anyways,” Becky said. “Here's what I figured out about the zombies in the lake. Remember when we found them in the dungeon? That first spot in the water? At the time, I had rearguard, but I glanced over at the fight a few times. It looked like anytime Jern was bleeding into the water, the zombies focused in on him. So I tried an experiment.”
“And almost got yourself killed,” Tiana said.
Becky blushed, but rushed to defend herself.
“It was in the name of science,” she declared, then laughed at herself. “Or at least in the name of profit. I asked my dad if he could build a bridge out to the island and he
said he could. So I told him that I'd ask him to do that at some point, but that I needed to take care of something first.”
She glanced down at one of her hands.
“So, to see if my theory was right, to see if the zombies had a shark-like reaction to blood in the water, I cut my palm on the beach down there and let the blood drip into the water. Then I healed myself and waited. Sure enough a couple of zombies came swarming towards the blood. They saw me and came out to attack, but Bubbles and I took them down.”
“And you told me it was a close fight,” Tiana said.
Becky glared at her.
“Anyways. I think we can beat that quest if you're willing to help me. All we need to do is work our way around the lake dripping a little blood in the water here and there from the shore. Then do the same on the island. It won't cover the entire lake, but I bet we can lure any others that aren't brought in that way in a similar fashion with us on the raft out in the middle.”
She looked up at Eddie, who was holding his judgment for the moment.
“Once we get them all out of the lake, I can have dad build the bridge for me and then charge adventurers a toll to get out to the island with the dungeon on it. Not a lot, probably only a silver per person, but it should add up.”
“This is all your fault too, Eddie,” Tiana said. “Becky told me that she got the idea from how you were making money providing services people wanted in the game.”
Becky was glaring at Tiana again and refused to meet Eddie's gaze.
“I think it sounds like a great idea, although we might want to modify the hunting part just a little. I don't like the idea of hunting off the raft. Maybe we can get a long length of rope, tie a bloody piece of meat to it, and draw them towards the shore to fight them there instead of using the raft. But it's a good idea overall, it's workable,” Eddie said.
Becky's glare disappeared in a heartbeat as she turned back to Eddie with a smile.