Of course, having no clue about the social rules of the game world—or for that matter, the social rules in real life—Emerson didn’t know whether to believe the man or not. He didn’t know how duels happened in the game, but he assumed it was something like those old stories of people slapping each other with gloves or throwing down gauntlets. Either way, it probably wouldn’t go well for him. So for the time being, he was simply Valious. The untitled blandness.
Aravon, who had been staring down at Emerson with a look of consternation twisting his battered face, finally cleared his throat. The man looked decidedly uncomfortable. He glanced over his shoulder and peered at the surroundings before speaking. “You’re right. I did say I had a feeling about you. And it’s the most troubling thing...I can’t lay my mind on any good reason why I should feel that you are important.” He swallowed. “No offense intended, of course.”
“Uh… None taken?” Emerson grimaced a little. He’d been kind of pleased to have been singled out. It would be nice if the guy would have let him live with the illusion that there was something about his warrior spirit that distinguished him from the rat-fighting masses out in the field.
Aravon sighed. “I’ll tell you the truth, but I’m trusting you not to bring my name into this afterward. Technically, you qualify for the choice. Even if you’d reached level 5 by running delivery quests and never leaving the city, you could still choose a combat class. It might be an uneducated, idiotic choice, but you’d be free to make it. The problem here is that your new mentor specifically requested that I refuse you. And when I say requested, I mean he held one of those wicked steel knives of his to my throat. The man is only level 18, but he took me by surprise. I wouldn’t want to bed down inside these walls knowing he had a vendetta against me.”
Emerson stared, his lip twitching in anger. Greel had prohibited him from choosing his combat class? Jerk! Sure, the lawyer had said they needed to “talk about” Emerson’s intent to choose a tank class, but Emerson had figured he was just being his usual difficult self. But actually prohibiting the choice? Without bothering to say anything?
Emerson hadn’t signed a contract yet, so as far as he was concerned, this partnership was done.
Fists clenched, he whirled and stomped across the training grounds, intent on finding his so-called mentor and terminating the arrangement. But as he neared the strip of grass between the makeshift arena and the nearest row of cottages, his messenger icon flashed.
Emerson’s breath leaked out in a sudden and very unmanly squeak—the message was from Devon. Eyes darting to make sure she wasn’t anywhere in sight, he dashed into the shade of an acacia tree and slipped around to the far side of the trunk.
You have gained a skill point: +1 Hide
Commonly used by parties trying to conceal themselves from patrolling guards and dragon flyovers, this skill also works if you’re scared of talking to girls.
With a flick of his eyes, Emerson banished the popup and pulled up Devon’s message.
So, hey. How’s it going? You know, I’m really sorry for having been out of touch. It’s been pretty crazy in Stonehaven, but that’s not a great excuse for why I haven’t dropped a line. So, line dropped. :)
I didn’t write just to ask for help, but while I’m at it… I know you were planning to talk to Bradley about shutting off Zaa. I’m guessing that since I haven’t heard anything on that front, our favorite demon god is still alive and kicking. Anyway, if I’m mistaken, don’t hesitate to tell me!
Anyway, the thing with Zaa is related to why you haven’t heard from me. The truth is I’m trying to get Stonehaven ready for war. Prepare for a siege, find the next relic, the usual Champion stuff. And as if that weren’t enough, Veia has served me up a newbie horde. Thanks for that.
Just kidding. I know it’s not your fault and that you don’t control her in that way. But anyway, now I have to worry about the noobs too. Don’t want a bunch of low-level players getting in the way when the army comes, you know? No offense… I know you will be starting at level 1, too. But I bet you’ll be quicker to catch on than most.
Anyway, yeah. I’m not very good at writing long messages. I hope this doesn’t sound weird. I’d still like to play some together, but it will probably be after I deal with the Zaa issue.
It won’t bug me if you want to write back, though. I’m not that busy. Hope all is well!
PS. Anything from Owen and Cynthia?
Emerson sighed and leaned his head against the tree trunk. He had to tell her before this went on any longer. Taking in a huge breath, he stepped out of the shade of the tree and headed for the town center to find her.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Bonuses: Castle - Basic
- Ranged Accuracy +17%
- Evasion + 39%
- Ranged Damage +25%
- Defensive Weaponry Damage +10%
Devon smiled at the sight of Stonehaven’s new bonuses. The boosts would be huge when the attack came—though whether they would be enough to hold off Zaa’s minions, she had some serious doubts. Before setting out for the Stone Forest—if she could come up with a plan to get through Ishildar anyway—she’d need to talk to Jarleck about the next round of upgrades. Even if they were only partway finished by the time the demons arrived, they’d no doubt be of some use in the battle.
While flipping to another interface, Devon glanced again toward the Shrine to Veia. Still no Tamara. The delay was to be expected, especially with the time compression effect in the game. But Devon hoped that it also meant that Tamara was having fun reimagining herself. Just in case, though, she glanced at her messenger UI.
Nope. No message explaining that the GMs had screwed up and flagged Tamara’s account for a spawn location way off in Frostheim or something.
She moved a few feet closer to the shrine and pulled up the food rations tab.
Rations:
Daily food requirement: 496 basic units/day
Food production: 713 basic units/day
Advanced food production: 17 advanced units/day
Food preservation: 200 basic units/day
Stockpile: 1124 basic units, 53 advanced units (expand for details)
Devon raised an eyebrow. Tom had certainly been busy, but of course the added production and preservation wouldn’t have been possible without Prester’s underlings rushing the additional Kitchen and Smokehouses through. And of course, without the new farm plots, there wouldn’t be enough supply to keep the kitchens busy. Altogether, the resource pipeline was looking solid, and more than that, the settlement’s stores were shaping up nicely. A siege wouldn’t be pleasant—or even survivable for an extended period—but Stonehaven’s citizens wouldn’t start starving the moment an army encamped, either. Plus, the cooks had been able to resume production of advanced food, meals, and snacks made from recipes that were tier 2 and higher. Like Spiced Antelope Jerky and Stonehaven Scramble, the advanced dishes provided buffs. That would definitely come in handy soon.
The only thing she couldn’t tell by looking at the rations screen was whether Stonehaven’s hunters had resumed their search for tastier game than the vermin in the field outside the wall. She’d have to check in with Tom on that…morale would surely take a hit when war came, and it would be nice to tank it up now by feeding the people well.
As she started to flip to another section of the city management interface, a faint glow bloomed near the shrine. Devon’s heart crammed its way into her throat, and she shoved aside the interface so quickly that if she’d been holding a real tablet or a sheaf of papers instead of looking at a digital UI, they would have gone flying.
Over the space of a couple of seconds, an unfamiliar woman materialized in front of the shrine. She came into being on her feet—unlike some people who were disoriented by the transition to the game world and arrived flat on their backs. The woman wore the typical newbie attire, tattered cloth armor that looked somewhere between a set of ragged hospital scrubs and a martial
-arts uniform pulled from a dumpster. She had thick dark hair gathered into a pair of braids, clear hazel eyes, and a faint spray of freckles across her nose.
Also, she was…solid. Muscles everywhere. Tamara wouldn’t receive a Strength score until she picked a class, but if Devon were the one assigning the points, Tamara would score max in that attribute.
At least, she assumed this was Tamara.
Devon stepped closer, leaning to get her head and shoulders into the woman’s vision. “Tamara?”
The woman immediately laughed. “Dev! Oh my gosh…you’re…hot!”
Devon laughed. “Well, that’s one way to say hello.”
“Sorry,” Tamara said, joining in on the laughter. “I just wasn’t prepared, I guess. I’m so used to seeing the real you. I mean, not that you don’t look nice in real life, too. Just without the airbrushing and plastic surgery sort of look.”
Devon snorted. “It’s my Charisma score. And no, I didn’t make my character this way on purpose. I’m stuck with my appearance because the attribute is the major contributor to my mana pool.”
Tamara blinked in confusion, totally lost by Devon’s comment, but then seemed to dismiss her questions for the moment. She held out her hands, looked at them as if struggling to believe they were real. She ran a palm over her opposite forearm, pushing back her shirtsleeve and examining her skin. After a moment, she shook her head in amazement and dropped her hands to her sides.
Tamara took a few deep breaths. Her eyes slid shut, and an expression of profound bliss spread across her face. “It feels so damn good.”
“Breathing?”
The woman nodded. “I almost forgot what it was like.” She opened her eyes and cocked her head. “What’s that on your shoulder, by the way? It’s like a weird little pom-pom or something.”
Devon sighed. “Long story. Its name is Bob, but feel free to ignore it. Otherwise you’ll be subjected to annoying attempts at wit.”
Bob snorted but said nothing.
Silence fell, and Devon watched her friend take in the world for a minute or two. “So what do you want to do first? A tour? Want to check out the view from on top of the cliff? Try some Rat ‘n Snake Glop?”
Tamara gave her a sideways glance. “You’re kidding, right?”
“About the glop? Unfortunately, no. We’ve had some issues with the meat supply lately.”
“Come on, Dev. You should know what I want to do first.”
Devon laughed. “Okay, caught me.” She stepped to the side and parted the grass to grab the top frame bar of the ironwood bike. When she stood the contraption up, Tamara surged forward.
“Oh my gosh, it’s…”
“Primitive?”
“It’s awesome! I mean, there’s no composite frame or auto-annealing nanofiber tires or weight-specific full suspension. But this is incredible.”
As Tamara ran a hand reverently over the leather-padded seat and then grabbed the handlebars—Dorden had fashioned the grips, wrapping them with cord much like he wrapped the hilts of weapons for added friction—Devon stepped back. She was having a hard time swallowing, and she wasn’t sure why. As she watched her friend swing a leg over the machine and test the seat height, Devon abruptly couldn’t see. Her eyes seemed to be swimming with…
What the hell? Was she crying?
Before anyone could see, she whirled and swiped her sleeve across her eye. She took a couple of deep breaths then returned her attention to her friend. Tamara had set her feet on the pedals, was standing over them and holding the handlebar, twisting it back and forth. Only she wasn’t moving, nor was she falling over. What the heck? How did that work?
“Does it not go?” Devon asked. A stupid question seeing as she had ridden the thing the day before. Not very far and not very well, of course. But she knew the bike worked.
Turning her face to Devon, Tamara broke into a wide grin, then somehow managed to jerk up on the handlebars and push on the pedal at the same time. The front wheel came up, and Tamara laughed as she rode the wheelie around in a circle around Devon.
“Works fine,” she said with a wink. Dropping the front wheel back down, she planted a foot and leaned over the handlebars. “Mind if I take it for a spin?”
Devon smiled. “Be my guest.”
As her friend rode off, tearing toward the center of town and sending a startled giant parrot flapping for the top of the wall, Devon caught sight of the new player, Valious, watching from a few yards away. He looked as if he’d come to say something, maybe to repeat his request for some of her time, but the sight of the bike seemed to have snapped him out of it.
That was probably good. Devon hated to turn the poor guy down again, but she had a ton of work to do and a friend to introduce to a whole new world.
Chapter Thirty-Three
“NEVER SEEN ANYTHING like it,” Jarleck said, shaking his head as Tamara tried out the bike on one of the rutted and stony footpaths that crisscrossed the newbie yard. After making a few circuits of Stonehaven, she’d asked if there was any more challenging terrain where she could put the bike through its paces.
Devon had smirked. “There’s enough rocks and cliffs in the Argenthal Mountains to keep you happy for years, I bet.”
“Stumps, too? How about fallen trees and embedded roots?”
“Sometimes I wonder if you’re actually kind of insane,” Devon had said, laughing. “But there’s a problem. You’re level 1. You probably wouldn’t win a fight against a songbird at this point, not to mention the awakened creatures in the savanna or stray orcs still marauding in the mountains.”
“Wait, I don’t have to fight songbirds, do I? That seems…mean.”
“That was just an illustration of your wimpiness.”
Tamara had sighed, looking down at her super buff arms. “I was kind of hoping these lumberjack guns would give me a leg up.”
“Don’t worry. You’ll grow into your avatar’s appearance.”
“All right, so is there anywhere I can ride without getting smashed by an angry butterfly?”
Which is how they’d ended up just outside the gates with Tamara whizzing through the noob grounds while the level one and two players stared in shock.
“Carry on,” Devon called to a group of three caster types who had bludgeoned a rat nearly to death and were now standing over it absently wiggling their fingers while watching Tamara ride. One of them nodded, then finished her spell, causing a puff of smoke to erupt from the rat’s fur. The mammal squealed and slumped.
“I thought they weren’t supposed to choose a class before level 5,” Devon said. “How’d they get spells?”
The man shrugged. “Same way the others got swords, I would suppose. By asking. Far as I know, the early levels are supposed to allow starborn unfamiliar with our world to experiment and determine where they best fit into Veia’s plan.”
“Ah. Hey, so. Castle, huh?” Devon held up her hand for a high-five.
Jarleck stared at it, blinking, then raised his own. “Castle.”
There was a long pause, and then finally, Devon said, “You’re supposed to slap my hand.”
“Supposed to what?” Jarleck asked, glancing at her palm skeptically. “You remember I’m a level 18 Brawler, right?”
She sighed and dropped her arm. “Never mind. So…what would you recommend for our next step in fortification?” As she asked the question, she pulled up the settlement page with information on fortifications.
Fortifications:
Status: Castle – Basic
Completed:
1 x Main Wall - Stone
1 x Wall-walk
1 x Merlons
1 x Main Gate - Iron-reinforced Timber
5 x Watchtower
1 x Wicket Gate
1 x Outer Gate
1 x Dry Moat
1 x Drawbridge
1 x Dungeon
5 x Wall-mounted trebuchets
15 x Stocked barrels
of pitch or tar
Required for an upgrade to Castle - Advanced
1 x Armory
1 x Inner Portcullis
1 x Large Ballista mounted on Inner Keep
1 x Water-filled Moat
5 x Wall-mounted Ballistae
“Ohh, an armory. I should have thought of that,” Devon said, glancing up at Jarleck. But the man was watching over her shoulder. Devon turned, and through the translucent overlay of the interface saw a massive crowd watching Tamara’s performance. She wondered what it must look like to them, this person-powered, two-wheeled wagon. In what real-world century had people started riding bicycles? The 1800s? She hoped she hadn’t just totally hosed their technological progression. Though thinking about it another way, a little tech superiority wouldn’t be too bad to have when the demons came.
She spotted Prester and Deld, the head stonemason, standing near the edge of the crowd and waved them over. As they nodded greetings, she brushed the fortifications interface away.
“Think you two have some spare workers who could help Jarleck out? It seems Stonehaven needs an armory.”
Deld gave a little salute. “Sure thing. Now that the dungeon is finished and the main wall replaced with stone, my masons are starting to feel idle.”
“Well, in that case”—she consulted her interface really quick—“how about you also set some of them to building an Advanced Forge.”
He nodded. “They’ll be pleased…though something else has come up, Your Glorious—Mayor.”
“Oh?” Devon watched as Tamara rode her bike up to the edge of the dry moat, eyed the drop, then reconsidered. “If you crash like you did in Flagstaff, Hezbek has potions to fix you up. I swear your body won’t have an allergic reaction to them either.”
Vault of the Magi: A LitRPG Adventure (Stonehaven League Book 5) Page 19