by Tom Larcombe
“What wi—”
The man tried to swallow his scream, but was only partially successful. When Tiana finished her movement the leg was straight again, the bone that had been jutting out of it once again inside the flesh.
“Now I'm going to need to make sure the bone is matched up correctly, then I can take care of healing the bone,” she said.
“Aye lass, do what you need to. I've been lying here a day or more, wondering if I'd ever walk again. A little pain's nothing compared to those thoughts.”
Her hand ran along his leg, then her other hand came down to it. With a few gestures, and a grunt of pain from the man, the leg seemed much more normal.
Tiana began to chant and a silver-white glow illuminated the leg for a moment.
“It'll be a few minutes before I can heal you more,” she said. “The bone mending spell is expensive. I rarely have to use it too, so I'm not as good at it as I am my more normal heals.”
“That be fine lass. Me leg is hurting less than it has since I fell into this cursed pit. I almost feel as though I could walk on it right now.”
“Well, don't move yet. It takes thirty minutes for the bone to fully heal. By the time it does, I should be able to heal the rest of your wounds also.”
Finally the man took the meat Eddie had been holding out. The way he tore into it backed his claim of not eating for a while.
“Maybe slow down with that?” Eddie said. “If you haven't eaten for a while, you'll want to take it slow.”
“But it's so good, lad. Tastes better than Mother Granite's best mushroom stew. But don't you ever tell her I said that.”
“Who?” Eddie said.
The man finally took a closer look at him.
“Where's your beard lad? You look a disgrace without it, all scrawny and stretched out like...”
He took a closer look at Tiana.
“You ain't dwarfs, are ya?” he said finally. “I thought I was just delusional, but you're some other race, humans maybe?”
He took another massive bite of the venison and chewed noisily. Tiana was still resting, turned away from the dwarf, but Eddie couldn't watch. He turned around and spotted the shield lying on the ground.
“Yours I assume?” he asked, picking it up.
The dwarf growled furiously.
“Where be that damned orc? He and his group chased me for days. I'd recognize that shield anywhere,” he shouted, shreds of venison flying from his mouth as he spoke.
“I'll take that as a no,” Eddie said. “But I'll look around.”
He moved out to where his light and Tiana's barely touched at the edges, then started to circle. The gouge was much wider here, and the ceiling had risen up out of the light.
“Here he is,” Eddie called. “There's an orc body impaled on a stalagmite over here.”
Eddie had also found another shield. This one also showed signs of having been used in a fight, but was in much better condition. It was rectangular and would probably cover two-thirds of the dwarfs body were he to use it.
Yeah, I can kind of picture him with this. I bet this one's his, Eddie thought.
He carried the shield over to the dwarf.
“This one yours then?” he asked.
The dwarf reached for it greedily, snagging it out of Eddie's hands with a surprising amount of strength.
“Now I just need my hammer and I'm good,” he said.
“No, not until I heal you,” Tiana said, turning back to the dwarf finally. She chanted again, laying her hands on the dwarf. His color and breathing improved dramatically and he shifted position, drawing himself up and looking more alert.
“One more of those and you'll be back to full health,” she said. “But it'll be a few minutes. Eddie, would you look for his hammer? Otherwise I'm guessing he'll start doing it himself and I don't want him to undo the work I've done.”
He nodded and started looking again. It didn't take long to find the hammer. The thing was almost three feet long with a solid looking block of metal on one end and a long pointed spike on the other. He was surprised at how well-balanced it was when he picked it up, but refrained from trying a few practice swings with it as he brought it over to the dwarf.
I'm pretty sure that first, he wouldn't like that and second, he could kick my ass in a heartbeat. So, I'll just give it back to him, Eddie thought.
The dwarfs eyes lit up at the sight of the hammer. He snatched it away from Eddie even more greedily than he'd grabbed his shield. Then he settled back in place.
He'd finished the first piece of venison and appeared to be keeping it down just fine, so Eddie offered him another piece.
“Thank you lad,” the dwarf said, his beard parting as he opened his mouth and shoved the venison in for a bite.
“I'm Eddie and your healer for today is Tiana.”
The dwarf paused his eating and stared at them.
“Jern,” he said.
He paused, watching them closely.
“Of the Ambolt family.”
He relaxed when they didn't react to his words.
When the dwarf was finally mobile again, he stood and stretched.
“Ah, that's better that is. Now, how do we get out of here? I was chased through the tunnels for days by those damned orcs. Lost all sense of direction, got no clue where I be.”
“You're right on the border of the Meadowlands,” Eddie said.
The dwarf cocked his head to the side.
“The what?”
“The Meadowlands? The area just south of the mountains that separates the Forest of Fools from them.”
“I'm much farther away from home than I thought then,” he said.
He walked over to the corpse of the orc and gave it a kick. Eddie had thought it smelled bad earlier, but something from Jern's kick released an even fouler odor.
“You going to loot that body?” he asked, “If not, let's get far away from it.”
“Pah!” Jern exclaimed. “Those orcs don't have anything worth bothering with. Inferior weaponry and armor is all they have.”
“You don't mind if I loot him then, do you?” Eddie asked.
Jern shrugged so Eddie bent over, holding his breath, and touched the body to loot it.
He ended up with seven silver coins, five copper coins, a leather helm and boots, as well as a sword. The sword was much longer than he was interested in though. When he noticed the shield still lying on the floor of the gouge he picked that up as well.
“Ya done lad? I'd like to get out of these blasted orcs' territory.”
“This way then,” Eddie said, and headed back towards where they'd left the rope hanging.
He did a quick evaluate on the helm and boots he'd gotten from the orc.
Helm, Leather
Armor (head)
Armor: 5
Hardened Leather
Crit: -5%
Reduces chance of receiving a critical hit.
This helm is made of hardened leather. It will reduce your chance of taking damage, and also reduce the potential for someone to hit you critically.
Boots, Leather
Armor (feet)
Armor: 5
Hardened Leather
Stamina: +10
These boots are made of hardened leather and offer protection for the feet. They are also comfortable enough to slightly increase your stamina.
Then he checked out the shield.
Shield, wooden
Armor (shield)/Weapon
Armor: 10
Dmg: 5-14 (shield bash)
Iron reinforced wood
This shield is made from wooden slats, reinforced with iron around the rim and along the back. The small spike in front makes it suitable to damage an opponent when shield bashing.
Huh, Eddie thought. He might think they're crap, but I'm all over this armor. Don't know about the shield yet, I'll just tuck that away for now.
With a thought Eddie added the helm to his current outfit and swapped his footgear out for the new boots he'd fou
nd. He pulled up the flashing notification icon as well and was happy to find two new skills.
Success:
You have obtained the skill Rope Use. (Help Rope Use for more details)
That should go well with your weaving skill, now shouldn't it?
Success:
You have obtained the skill Climbing. (Help Climbing for more details)
Monkey!
Eddie wasn't sure if he should chuckle or feel offended by the game's snark at this point. He let it pass though, not that he could do anything about it even if he wanted to. The Rope Use skill would help him with knots as well as a few other things, and he couldn't see anything wrong with having the Climbing skill either. The two skills both fit, at least tangentially, with a Ranger build.
When they reached the rope, Eddie held it taut as Tiana climbed up first. He was just wondering if the dwarf could manage the climb when Jern slung his shield and hammer on his back, took hold of the rope with both hands, and hauled himself up it with just his arm strength.
“Damn, my gym teacher would've loved you,” Eddie said, softly enough that Jern wouldn't hear the comment.
The trip back to the farm allowed Eddie to take another couple of bunnies with his bow. When they arrived Jern simply stared.
“So much wood, why would you use such a valuable resource for housing when there is stone nearby?”
“Jern, look around you,” Eddie said. “I'm guessing you come from an underground city? Well, we aren't underground here, look at all the trees.
“Aye, Hammer Hold is underground. The orcs have taken the surface land of the mountains so it isn't safe to go out except in large parties any more.”
“Well, down here in the Meadowlands we've got trees to spare, and not as much easily available stone, so we build with the trees,” Eddie said.
He remembered how the dwarf had torn into the meat earlier on.
“Are you hungry still?” Eddie asked.
The dwarf rubbed his stomach, a rasping buzz coming from the motion of his gauntlet against his scale mail.
“I could eat,” he said.
“Tiana, would you take him inside? Let him wash up at the well first if he wants. I'll get us some food from the garden.”
~ ~ ~
Chapter Twenty-two
The room was finally quiet again. The first four of the men from the pod experiment that Star Suppliers had been performing had been far harder to get out of the game than Aaron had anticipated. He'd been right though, when he offered to let them continue that experiment under Light Online's supervision, they'd almost spit at him.
Finally he'd had security escort them out. They all had tickets back to where they'd come from. He'd made sure those would be supplied when he heard that the company was moving the pods here. Now he just had to go back in and see if Karl and Eddie would be more reasonable about things.
After all, it's just like what they were doing, except under the supervision of the people who actually know how it all works, Aaron thought.
He'd taken off the helmet and gloves while he'd been trying to help wrangle the others out the door, now he put them back on and sat back in his chair, slipping into the game.
~ ~ ~
After getting a good meal into the three of them, Eddie went back out to the garden to get produce for his food selling efforts for the evening. This time, he'd checked the shed out back and found the supply of seeds that had been listed on the inventory. The day before he'd realized that he couldn't keep taking the amount of food from it that he was and expect to be able to keep doing so unless he reseeded the garden crops.
Once done, he cleaned the bunnies he'd gotten earlier in the day, then loaded up the cart.
“Tiana, Jern, time to head out,” he yelled.
The dwarf had expressed an interest in seeing what they were doing down here, so Eddie had volunteered to take him with them. Karl and Allie would show up whenever, he was used to that, but he was also looking forward to sharing Karl's map once he'd finished exploring the Meadowlands so he wasn't very upset about it either.
As he waited for the other two to show up the air in front of him shimmered, resolving into Aaron's form.
“Eddie, good to see you,” Aaron said.
He wants something, he hasn't acted like this before, Eddie thought.
“What do you want Aaron?”
“Who says I want anything?”
“You aren't acting like you normally do. In my experience it means a person wants something when they change their behavior like that.”
“Hey, I had a good night recently. You ever think that might be the reason?”
“Okay, I'll give you that. Now why are you here?”
Aaron grinned at him.
“Because I want something,” he said.
Eddie smirked at him.
“See?”
“Yeah, but I bet it's something you'll want also. I just want to make you an offer is all,” Aaron said. “You and Karl that is. Where is he?”
“Off mapping, at least that's what he said he was doing.”
“Then I'll ask you first. How would you like to keep doing what you're doing, but getting paid by Light Online for doing it?”
“What, running a food stand and a bunkhouse?”
“No, testing LTI in the game. You'd still be in the same pod because they're really easy to modify, but you'd be in under our supervision, with our code running things. So no more extended dreams or darkness. Plus, I can offer you a hell of a lot more money than they were.”
“For how long?” Eddie asked.
“A minimum of ninety days to start. You stay in that long, at least, unless you start feeling ill effects, or we detect them with our monitoring equipment.”
“My body will be okay with that?”
“Your body's going to be in better shape than ever before. The pods were modified to keep it stimulated as though you were working out daily and we can adjust that too. We'll need to pull you out for a single day before we start, so we can get baseline readings on you to compare to as we run the test.”
A frown twitched the side of Eddie's mouth down.
“A whole day? I'd miss a lot of sales that way.”
“We might be able to do it in less time, I'm just used to pulling people for twenty-four hours. But I'm sure you could hire someone to help, couldn't you? I know you hired some NPCs as loggers.”
“You've been watching me?” Eddie asked.
“Nah, just looking at the logs. You exchanged money and items with NPCs, then rough planks and logs went from their possession to yours, and still are. So obviously you hired them.”
“I did, I need wood to build an inn. I already got a bunkhouse style building I'm renting to players, plus a food stand. I'm clearing a good bit of gold now.”
“Well, you'll want to hire some help anyhow. The other stipulation of you taking this job is that you'll have to do more of the stuff the regular players do. We'll need readings from combat and the like to make sure it's safe for those actions.”
“I was going to do that soon anyhow.”
“Good, then you'll take the position? I do have to let you know that if you don't take it we'll be evicting you from the pod and finding someone else to test it.”
“You said better pay?” Eddie asked.
“Flat rate, a thousand bucks a week before taxes.”
“And this is for at least ninety days?
Aaron nodded.
“Unless, like I said, either side notices ill effects occurring.”
“Deal,” Eddie said. “You'll have to let me know if there are other things I should do. We are planning on hitting the goblins soon so that should give you some decent combat readings.”
“Then we need to get a baseline examination from you before that. Here's the contract.”
A sheet of paper and pen appeared in Aaron's hand and he gave them both to Eddie. This time Eddie read the contract word for word, but it appeared that it was just as Aaron had s
aid. He signed it and handed it back.
“Let's get that baseline on you,” Aaron said.
“Wait. Can you give me a few hours before you pull me out? Let me get the bunkhouse and food sales situated for today. Once I'm back here at the farmhouse, you can pull me out of game and get your readings. I'll have to let the others in my party know what's happening also.”
“That's reasonable, we can do that,” Aaron said.
He shimmered and then faded out. Eddie realized that Tiana and Jern were standing there. The dwarf was staring at him like he'd gone mad.
“Who were ya talking to lad? Are ya touched?” the dwarf said, tapping his temple.
Tiana shook her head.
“He couldn't see Aaron at all. I tried to tell him someone was there, but he just didn't see him.”
Until that moment, Eddie hadn't given any thought to whether Jern was another player or an NPC. The fact that Jern had a distinct personality had Eddie leaning towards player, but now he wondered.
Evaluate, he thought, staring at Jern.
Jern Ambolt:
Class:
Level: 5
Warrior
Hammer Dwarf
NPC
Specialization:
Hammers
You are currently unable to obtain more information about Jern with Evaluate.
You have upgraded the skill Evaluate to (4).
I wonder what an NPC was doing here so close to the Meadowlands. There's got to be some reason for it, doesn't there? Eddie thought.
“No Jern, I'm not touched. There was someone there. You know of the gods, right?”
“Aye, we dwarfs have seen some of them at least.”
“This was kind of like one of them, but this one prefers not to be seen except by those they're directly dealing with. Tiana had seen him before, so I assume that's why she saw him again this time.”
“You shouldn't be messing with the gods Eddie Hunter, that kind of thing never goes well.”