by Troy Osgood
“We’ll do better with the next one,” the captain said.
Hall just shook his head.
He’d almost forgotten that there was another Duntin ship, a larger one, to tow back to Breakridge Meadow.
But that was tomorrow’s job.
Night had fallen, and they all needed some rest.
“Let’s go collect Herj and the brother,” Hall said, turning away from the railing, “and then get some sleep.”
Chapter 14
A new sound woke Hall.
He hadn’t been born in a city, though he’d spent most of his life there. He knew what the sound was even though it hadn’t been common where he had lived.
A rooster greeting the morning.
He rolled over, trying to get back to sleep.
Roosters crowed at sunrise. That was too early.
He didn’t need to get up, not today. A rare day off from doing anything.
At least anything to do with the continuing rebuilding of Skara Brae.
Briefly he wondered what they would do when there was nothing to rebuild. There would be furniture for Duncant to make, repairs and all that. The Valedale Gnomes would go back to Greenheight Vale. And the rest? Would they go to the fields? Or would new roles for them need to be found?
He pushed those thoughts aside. That day was coming, but it wasn’t that close yet.
Shifting again, he tried to force himself back to sleep.
It wasn’t coming.
He was awake.
When had he become a morning person, waking with the dawn each day?
He sat up in bed, feeling a chill in his room. The bed next to him was empty. Leigh had stayed in the cave in the Grove. Fall was approaching, Skara Brae chilly in the mornings. How cold would it be in winter, or would the village’s nature, sunken into the ground, provide some insulation?
They’d find out soon enough, and he was not looking forward to having to shovel snow out of the road.
The rooster cawed again.
He stood up, looking around the small room for his clothes.
There wasn’t much. The double bed, an armoire against the wall, a set of drawers, and a night table on either side of the bed. Not the largest room in the Skara Brae inn, but Hall was satisfied with it.
For now.
He should start thinking of moving into one of the finished homes. His excuse was that he wanted everyone else to have a home before he did. It was close to the point where that excuse wouldn’t work anymore.
There was no rush to leave the inn. It wasn’t like they received a lot of visitors. Captain Hart of the Twisted Gale now and then, his employer the Merchant Dyson, and Captain Hrothgrave of the Frozen Blade. Those were the only visitors Skara Brae had, and not very often. And usually just for a single night.
Hall didn’t need to vacate the room, but it was just another thing that he should probably do.
Part of him didn’t want to. That was setting down roots. Even as lord of the village, living out of the inn felt temporary. But claiming a house was finding a home. That was admitting that Hankarth and Sky Realms Online was permanently his home.
He knew it was. He didn’t hold out any real hope that Electronic Storm would be able to bring them back to life, reunite his consciousness with his body. That wasn’t going to happen.
But knowing it and admitting it were two different things.
Pulling on a pair of wool pants, he grabbed a shirt hanging off the end of the bed.
The rooster gave a last crow.
The bird was a new addition to the village. So were his flock of hens. They’d come on the last supply run from Silverpeak Keep. The coop had been built close to the village, not at the edge of the mountains. Foxes and coyotes weren’t as big a concern with the larger animals, but they wanted to keep the chickens closer to discourage the scavengers.
But first they had needed to discourage Pike and Talon. The two dragonhawks had practically drooled upon the arrival of the chickens. It took all of the bond Hall had with Pike to convince the dragonhawk to leave the fowl alone.
It had taken some convincing, but the chickens were safe.
For now.
Grabbing his belt, which held the scabbard for his sword, his potion case, and his inventory pouch, snatching the cloak from where it hung on the door, Hall walked out of his room. He didn’t bother locking it. There was no need. The inn was quiet. Only Jackoby and Roxhard were still staying in the building, but Jackoby had started spending more of his free time out by the barns where the other Firbolgs had started building homes. None of them were sure about living somewhat underground. Roxhard had an excuse, better than Hall’s, for staying in the inn.
Gerdi Battleforge was unrelenting in her pursuit of Roxhard. The girl wanted him, and she was going to get him. The problem was that she didn’t realize that Roxhard was only fifteen years old in the real world. The old world, Hall corrected himself. In the game, he appeared to be as old as she was, even a little older. She treated him that way.
By staying in the inn, he could put off her advances. It wasn’t proper for an unhomed Dwarf to woo another.
Hall doubted that would bother Gerdi, and it wouldn’t be long before she forced Roxhard past that. She could only take being in the same small home with the three brothers for so long. Hall could barely manage being on the same ship with the Battleforge brothers.
They were good Dwarves. Always eager to help. But they were always eager to fight with each other, over anything. And those fights tended to involve a lot of property damage.
He hoped that one of these days he’d learn to tell them apart. Each had different-colored hair, but that didn’t make it any easier. It didn’t help that they always finished each other’s sentences. More than that, they rarely spoke a single sentence on their own. Most times they each spoke part of the same.
Once he and Roxhard left, the inn would sit empty except for mealtimes. Currently the inn was where communal meals were taken, but that would soon be ending unless they set up tables in the town hall. There were getting to be too many people to fit comfortably in the inn. Already some were taking their meals in their homes.
Hall walked through the common room, threading through the scattering of round and square tables, exiting the inn. He turned right. Going left would have taken him past the town hall, and if he did that, he would have inevitably entered to talk with Timmin. The administrator would no doubt be wide awake, already hard at work. Undoubtedly there would be something that needed Hall’s attention, but he was going to put it off as long as he could.
Instead he went right, turning right again a house down, taking the stone stairs that led up to the meadow. He felt the now familiar wind as he walked out into the grass. The tall stalks bent. It was comforting in a way, something solid to hold onto. He pulled his cloak tighter. The morning was still cold, and the wind didn’t help.
To the east, he saw a band of red across the top of the breakridge, the high strip of rock that separated the meadow from the plains, giving the area its name. Just above, casting the stone arch in shadow, was the rising sun.
Everything was quiet. There was no other activity that he could see or hear.
As much as he complained about rising with the dawn, this was his favorite part of the day.
He turned to the right, walking through the meadow, letting his hands push against the grass. The roofs of the homes, covered in much shorter grass, rose out of the meadow. Sharp slopes, high peaks and valleys between. The inn’s roof rose higher than the rest, the peak higher, the sides steeper.
Hall scrambled up the side, feet finding purchase, hands grabbing at the grass to help. He crested the top, sitting on the ridge, feet down the side. He looked out over the meadow to the edge of Edin and the still somewhat dark sky beyond. The light spread from behind him, shining across the meadow, driving away the shadows.
His breath clouded the air, but he could already feel the early morning mist being driven away by the rising sun. He hop
ed it would be a good day. There was seldom rain in Hankarth, but when it came, it was a deluge. The sky was clear, no dark clouds in sight, which was a good sign.
They’d all been working hard on Skara Brae, the fields, and the surrounding outbuildings. In the three weeks since they’d taken out the Duntin raiders, the wall closing off the southwestern corner had been completed and more progress made on the watchtower. Duncant had outdone himself with the construction.
He had created two-inch-thick planks, six feet long, running them horizontally, nailed to one-foot diameter posts dug into the hard ground, which had angled braces attached, running from the post to the ground. In some spots, more braces ran between those, with an X brace between each of the vertical posts to help give more strength to the planking. It stood fifteen feet high with an archer’s platform accessed by stairs on the mountain side of the wall. A small door, eight feet high and four wide, had been constructed near the mountain, the only real weak spot. But Duncant had thought about that. There was a locking bar that could slide into brackets around the door and the posts as well as a removable vertical post that ran from the brace above and into a hole dug and capped at the door itself.
Anyone coming up the island’s edge would have a hard time breaching that wall.
With the wall had come the completion of more buildings.
Hall thought it a good time for a celebration. It had taken a couple of days to plan and arrange, with the Ridgerunner making a quick trip to Silverpeak Keep as well as the new postal service in town sending multiple messages, but today was the day. Which was why no one was working, this day and the next.
A couple of days off and a big party the next day and night.
As long as the expected guests arrived.
Even though he wasn’t working today, there was still a lot to do. He wouldn’t need to help out on many of the construction projects, but he’d want to find something to do so he could get out of any party preparations. It might have been his idea, but that didn’t mean he wanted to be involved in setting it up.
He thought about opening up the Settlement Interface to check on the many options related to running the village, but he’d be doing that in the daily meeting with Timmin later. Instead he pulled up his Character Screen.
Name: Hall
Race: Half-Elf
Class: Skirmisher
Level: 7
Experience:
Total:2,735
Next Level: 3,500
Unassigned Stat Points: 0
Health:
Base: 85
Adjusted: 0
Total: 85
Energy:
Base: 102
Adjusted: 0
Total: 102
Vitality:
Base: 26
Adjusted: 0
Total: 26
Attributes
Strength:
Base: 12
Adjusted: 4
Total: 16
Agility:
Base:17
Adjusted: 7
Total: 24
Wellness:
Base: 13
Adjusted: 1
Total: 14
Intelligence:
Base: 13
Adjusted: 0
Total: 13
Willpower:
Base: 12
Adjusted: 0
Total: 12
Charisma:
Base: 13
Adjusted: 0
Total: 13
Attack Power
Base: 1
Adjusted: 4
Total: 5
Attack Speed
Base: -4 seconds
Adjusted: -2 seconds
Total: - 6 seconds
Spell Power:
Base: 1
Adjusted: 0
Total: 1
Spell Resistance:
Base: 1
Adjusted: 0
Total: 1
Protection:
Base: 5
Adjusted: 11
Total: 16
Carrying Capacity:
Base: 30
Adjusted: 10
Total: 40
Elemental Resistances:
Air: 0%
Earth: 0%
Fire: 25%
Water:0%
Racial Ability:
Limited Night Vision
Class Abilities:
Evade (rank one)
Leap (rank two)
Leaping Stab (rank one)
Shared Vision
Sweeping Strike (rank one)
Special Skills:
Double Thrust (rank one)
SKILLS
Combat
Light Armor (Rank 2)17.5
Polearms (Rank 3)26.4
Shields (Rank 1)1
Small Blades (Rank 2)17.6
Thrown (Rank 2)14.1
Activity
Identify (Rank 2)14.9
Strategy (Rank 2)12.2
Triage (Rank 2)10.8
Environment
Camouflage (Rank 1)1.4
Increased Perception (Rank 2)11.7
Stealth (Rank 1)3.3
Survival (Rank 2)13.7
Tracking (Rank 1)3.4
Professions
Cartography (Rank 3)20.1
Herbology (Rank 2)15.8
Skinning (Rank 2)14.5
Reputation (Faction)
Druids of the Grove: 1500 Known and Friendly
Kingdom of Essec: 1600 Known and Friendly
Valedale Gnomes: 1000 Known and Friendly
Brownpaw of Fallen Green: 1000 Known and Friendly
Peak Guard: 750 Known
Door Knockers: 625 Known
Stonefire Clan: 1550 Known and Friendly
Guild of Exploration: 500 Known
Reputation (Alliance)
Guard Captain Henry: 1300 Friendly
Watchman Kelly: 800 Known
Merchant Dyson: 1500 Friendly
Druid Leigh: 6000 Loved
Smol, Gardener of Greenheight Vale: 1200 Friendly
Jackoby of the Brownpaw: 1200 Friendly
Sargeant Brient of the Peakguard: 1200 Friendly
Captain Hart: 1000 Friendly
Sharra of the Jaden Empire: 2500 Friendly
Tulla of the Purple Lotus: 1000 Friendly
Guilds
Breakridge Irregulars
RankLeader
Guild of Exploration
RankSenior
It didn’t feel like that long ago that he’d reached level seven, but now he was close to level eight. Seo had been right. The experience gains had changed. It wasn’t much, five to ten points per enemy level, but it added up quickly. Being able to add in a faction enemy bonus helped a lot, as that doubled what they had been getting. He had been surprised that the Duntin raiders had gotten a dungeon bonus as well. He wasn’t going to complain.
Back in the pre-Glitch days, having spent this much time in game, he’d be max level and through most of the early raids. Being only level seven was odd. He wasn’t used to a game that took that long to level.
With what Electronic Storm was trying to do for the players, at least what they said they were trying to do, it did make sense. If they were going to spend the next decades of their lives here, in some cases maybe hundreds of years, it made sense to slow down the leveling. Getting to max level and having decades still to go, Hall didn’t think it would be that great. And it wasn’t like the enemies they’d faced yet, with some exceptions, were higher level. So far things seemed to be at a relatively equal level. Even things like Ogres that had been higher level before were now in his level range.
His new life was still challenging. Being in the same level range didn’t make it that easy. The fights were quicker, but he had to be on his guard more. Things could go wrong quickly.
But now it seemed Electronic Storm wanted them to level faster. Not that much faster.
He wondered what had prompted the change.
Electronic Storm wasn’t very
talkative. In all the time post-Glitch, there had only been two messages.
After the first message, he had thought there would be more. Daily, at least weekly, updates about progress in getting them out of the game. But nothing.
It just reinforced his opinion that they were never getting out of the game.
He heard a door open down in the village, then another one. Others were starting to wake up. Someone, there was a rotation that all took their turn, would be heading to the inn to start cooking the communal breakfast. He just hoped it wasn’t the Battleforge brothers’ turn. After that, it would be the regular meeting with Timmin. And after that, the time was his.
“That’s it,” Brandif said, pointing the tip of his spear at a cave on the other end of the small valley.
The older Skirmisher led the large group, who were arrayed along the trail leading down into the grass-covered valley. Only about a quarter mile long, a couple of hundred feet wide, the valley was bordered by steep slopes of gray rock on all three sides except the one.
Accessed through a jagged cleft in the mountain, the valley was hidden, the bottom covered in high stalks of grass. No trees. Just a small pond with a thin stream flowing side to side, starting and disappearing in the mountains. Flowers dotted the meadow, blue and yellow, some pinks. Hall was no expert, but it looked to be a couple of different varieties of the same plant. Mostly. There were numerous others growing in clumps. Moss covered the lower sides of the cliffs.
Scarlis, the village’s Alchemist, was already walking down the thin pass to the meadow. She had her normal inventory pouch but had brought along a second, much larger one. The flowers were rare, she had told them. Mountain laurels and meadowstalks. Each color of the laurels could be used in different potions for varied effects. The meadowstalks, when ground down, were useful in poultices.