Ruler Light Online five

by Larcombe, Tom

  “Ah, I didn't expect that, but I probably should have. Do you have everything you need for it?” Eddie asked.

  “I have most of what I need and I believe I saw the remaining item that will be necessary in the general store the other day. Once they have the basic structure built, I'll go and procure that.”

  “Well, if you tell me what you need, I'll go get it for you,” Eddie said.

  She stared at him, as though she were thinking hard. Then nodded her head crisply.

  “If you would, I need a sword. It needn't be of high quality, but it should have a pleasing appearance.”

  “Long sword, short sword?” Eddie asked.

  “Either will do, so long as it is at least the length of a short sword. A dagger will not suffice.”

  “Okay, I'll be back in a minute.”

  He turned to leave and as he was striding away, stopped dead in his tracks as she spoke.

  “Thank you... Eddie.”

  The pause before his name was long, almost like the ones where Griff was forcing himself to drop the 'sir', but she'd still dropped the honorific. He turned back to her and for a moment saw her face with the mask dropped. She looked vulnerable and uncertain.

  I guess Tiana was right? he thought.

  “You're welcome...” he said with his own pause before continuing, “Bodil.”

  A small grin graced her face for just a moment before she nodded her head at him again and turned back towards the two workmen.

  ~ ~ ~

  After acquiring and delivering a sword, Eddie returned to the temple. Tiana was slowly walking around inside, speaking to some of the locals that were in there. When she'd finished he motioned her over.

  “You were right,” he said.

  “I know, but about what this time?” she replied.

  He chuckled for a moment.

  “Bodil, you were right. It's a facade, but she's letting it slip some, at least with me. She spoke to me, used my name without the honorifics and when I replied with just her name, and no Justiciar attached, she actually smiled for a split second.”

  “Good, I'd hate for her to crack under pressure. She does have valid reasons though, so if she gets more friendly, I suggest we let her know who we think wouldn't try to take advantage of a relationship with her. Griff is a good start, maybe Ingolf as well?”

  “I'd think Liv and Bjorn would also be fairly safe,” Eddie added.

  “I'm sure there's quite a few, but we'll have to give it some thought. We should probably not just volunteer the information to Bodil though, unless she outright asks. I could see where she might think something's up if we did that.”

  “Maybe we just introduce them, treat them the way we normally do, and she can draw her own conclusions from that?” Eddie asked.

  “That might work. So what else do you have to do today?”

  “Not a lot. I want to go up to the farm and start bringing down wood for Liv's dairy barn. I have to admit, I had the entirely wrong idea about it, so I'm glad I checked. I thought it would be a place for the cows that had their milk coming in, for milking and stuff. It's not that though, it's where you store milk and dairy products and make cheese and stuff. Which makes a lot more sense to me about Liv asking for one now.”

  “Well, I'm going to stay here if you don't mind. Like I said, we've had adventuring groups coming in for healing and the like and my acolytes just don't have the range of spells that I do.”

  “I think Lucky and I will be okay,” Eddie said.

  She leaned in to give him a kiss, then pushed him towards the door.

  “I'll expect to meet you at the inn for lunch, so don't take too long,” she said.

  Eddie grinned back at her and waved as he walked out the door. As he went around back he saw Lucky crouched at the edge of the pond, batting with both paws.

  Guess the little koi is up for playing also, Eddie thought. Otherwise the poor thing would've had a heart attack already.

  When he got to the pond he looked in. The small koi that Lucky had been playing with a few days previous was now noticeably larger, having almost doubled in size.

  “Hey Lucky, I'm going out to the farm. Want to come along?” Eddie asked.

  Lucky whined softly as she looked at the pond, then Eddie, then back to the pond.

  “It's okay girl. I know you haven't come down here to play in a while. You can stay here if you like. Just don't leave the temple grounds without either Tiana or myself, alright?” Eddie said.

  He turned and started walking away when Lucky chuffed at him. He didn't make it far though before he heard another chuff. When he turned she was running towards him.

  “Okay then girl, let's go for a walk,” Eddie said. “I'll need to bring a cart though, I have to bring lumber back down with me.”

  He stopped at the inn to grab the handcart he kept out back, debating on whether he should just harness up a wagon and bring all the wood down in one run. The time he'd spend rigging the tack on the ox decided him against it and he pushed the hand cart along as Lucky trotted alongside him, taking frequent dips into the light forest on the sides of the road and occasionally returning with a bunny.

  After all, it'll only be three or four trips with the hand cart and I really ought to stop in at the farm more than I have been, Eddie thought. That'll give me an excuse to stop by for a few days running.

  He heard the smithy as he passed it, the hammer strikes echoing down to the road. Fortunately it was far enough away from the inn that you couldn't hear it there, except for on the far northeast corner of the plot of land Eddie had claimed. The inn was centered on the southern side though, so he'd gotten no complaints about the noise from the smithy.

  He could still hear it faintly as he approached the farm so he assumed Brandr and Osmond just didn't have a problem with the noise, it was relatively faint at this point so he could understand that.

  As he was about to turn off the road onto the farm, a different clanking sound caught his attention. He peered east along the road where the noise was coming from and a few moments later a group came into sight. It took him a moment to identify it as a patrol, not an adventuring group. When he did, he stopped and waited for them.

  “How's it going?” he called out.

  The leader of the patrol called a halt, then approached Eddie.

  “Mayor Eddie, sir, the east road is clear, nothing to report.”

  Eddie sighed inwardly at the formality.

  “I didn't know that you patrolled out this far,” Eddie said.

  “The guard captain has us going two miles beyond the farthest habitation from the city,” The patrol leader said. “Well, except to the north, there we stop when we hit the zone change. We don't want to try to patrol a stretch of road in a zone leveled that high.”

  So they do know about zones. I thought so, from some things Jern said, but I'd never confirmed it, Eddie thought.

  “Well, that's good to know. I didn't realize my farm even had patrols near it.”

  “Well, there is only one a day, but we don't do it the same time every day so if there's an issue, we aren't being predictable,” the patrol leader said. “We need to be going sir, to report in on time. So if you'll excuse us?”

  Eddie waved to the patrol as he got the hand cart moving off the road and onto the farm.

  ~ ~ ~

  He made it back to the inn in time for lunch, after leaving the cart of wood out back, next to the area where he planned on building the dairy barn. The stone that had been brought down by ox cart was already there.

  Because there's no way I'm running several hand carts of stone down here, carrying it around in my inventory before was enough. I'm mayor, I'll use a few perks of my position for things like this, he thought.

  He met the rest of the group for lunch. Dominic looked almost haggard, but the smile on his face was nearly splitting it in two.

  “I did it, I got successful recipes on all three basics now: health, mana, and stamina. So I'll run off a bunch of those for
us before the raid.”

  “Make sure you get some sleep too,” Eddie said. “It looks like you were up all night.”

  Dominic blushed.

  “Probably because I was, I wanted to get all those taken care of and once I did, I just started making them. They only restore twenty-five health or mana but the stamina ones restore forty points instead.”

  “Even so, that rocks,” Eddie said. “The only ones we had before were ones we found. If you can supply them now? That's great, plus you can sell them when we aren't doing anything and I bet you'll make a lot of coins with that.”

  Dominic grinned.

  “You know I will. If you can get me that other herb you were talking about, the one from near the smithy? I might be able to make stronger health potions. I don't know if I can or not, but I want to try.”

  “I need to go up there to check on my armor later on, so I'll have them for you at dinner, okay? In the meanwhile I suggest you go take a nap or something. You look like you're about to fall over.”

  “You're probably right,” Dominic said. “Just let me get a bite to eat first.”

  After lunch, Jern and Tiana headed out back with him. The three would do the stonework for the dairy barn and then Eddie would do all the carpentry. It wasn't a major job so the stonework went fairly quickly. Once that was done, Jern left, telling them he was going to talk to Paul. Tiana stuck around and the two of them chatted as he worked on the building.

  They didn't really have anything important to talk about. They'd gone through the potentials for the raid with the rest of the group already, but it was still nice to just talk.

  Eddie took a break after a bit of carpentry, pulling out arrows to be made and creating another two Biting arrows and one more Arcing arrow, pretty much bottoming out his mana, then he went back to work on the barn.

  He ran out of wood a while before dinner time and, despite it being a bit early, decided to head to the smithy. When he got to it there were still adventurers sitting around, but they were different ones this time, and only two instead of four.

  The first thing he did was harvest the herbs he'd seen before. Fortunately they weren't in sight of where the adventurers had been waiting, he'd found them while horsing around with Lucky before. She'd come along this time as well, but slunk into the woods when she saw the other adventurers next to the smithy.

  Once he had the herbs tucked away, he stepped into the smithy again.

  “Kerr?” Eddie called out.

  The apprentice stood up from where he'd been doing something at floor level.

  “Mayor Eddie, sir. I've got your armor finished,” the apprentice said.

  Delgar looked over at Eddie.

  “The damned fool worked late yesterday to get it done before today,” the dwarf said.

  “Did you do that, Kerr?” Eddie asked.

  The apprentice nodded.

  “I keep hearing everyone talking about a big fight coming up and wanted to have your armor ready for you to use in it.”

  “Thank you, Kerr. Here, this is for you,” Eddie said, pressing a gold coin into the apprentice's hand.

  “Don't go spoiling my apprentice,” Delgar called out. “He's already getting paid.”

  “I like to provide bonuses for those who go above and beyond,” Eddie said. “And it sounds like he used his own time to get it finished for me as soon as possible.”

  Delgar shook his head.

  “I'm not even getting paid for that work, but my apprentice did? What's the world coming to?” Delgar said.

  Eddie was about to snap at Delgar until he noticed the dwarf winking at him.

  “That's just how things go, I guess,” Eddie said.

  While he'd been talking, he'd slowly been putting on the armor as Kerr brought him each piece. The boy had gotten close enough to the stud patterns that Eddie couldn't tell the difference and he grinned as he got the last piece on.

  Armor, he thought.

  Base Armor: 10 (139)

  Now that's what I'm talking about, Eddie thought. Good to see my armor cross a hundred finally. With my weapons skills going up, I'm really getting up to speed finally.

  “Thanks, Kerr. It's great,” he said. “Gotta go though, got a delivery to make to the alchemist.”

  “The what?” Delgar said.

  “Ah, Dominic managed to get the Alchemy skill. Had me gathering some herbs for him.”

  A sparkle showed in Delgar's eyes and Eddie was sure the dwarf was plotting some way of benefiting from Dominic's skill.

  Eddie shook his head as he headed out of the smithy and back to the inn.

  ~ ~ ~

  Dominic never showed up to dinner. Eddie assumed he'd gone to sleep and stayed that way, but made a note to check on him if he wasn't at breakfast tomorrow. He started to place his order, then stuttered when he realized he didn't recognize the server. After recovering and placing his order, he made his way back to the kitchen.

  When he entered the kitchen Liv raised a pan as if she were about to throw it at him. Then she recognized who it was.

  “Eddie, I nearly brained you. Some of the blasted adventurers think they can wander wherever they like.”

  Eddie was still speechless, Liv had someone helping her in the kitchen, two someones as a matter of fact.

  “Liv?” he said.

  She followed his gaze.

  “Aye, the last few days have been so busy I had to bring in a bit of help. New servers too, now what do you need? As you can see where rather busy back here.”

  “Sorry, I was just going to ask if the old servers were okay since I didn't recognize any of the ones currently working.”

  “They're fine. I've just got the ones with more experience handling the outside crowd. Keeps Geirvaldr out there too, which keeps the crowd a bit more civil. Someone laid hands on Helga last night and Geirvaldr beat them within an inch of their life over in the ring. He literally dragged the fellow over there, threw him in the ring, then jumped the ropes and went at him. I think the servers will be safe now. Glad they don't know that Geirvaldr has a thing for Helga, otherwise they might think the others were fair game.”

  Liv had gone back to cooking while she talked.

  “Sorry, I had no idea this would happen. I should have known, but I didn't even think about it,” Eddie said.

  “Don't you worry yourself about it. This is the way an inn should be, packed and busy. It's a good thing your friend Dominic has been doing well with his brewing or we might be running low on alcohol again already though. Now, is there anything else?”

  Eddie shook his head.

  “No, sorry Liv. That's all I wanted to know, just checking on the servers. Oh, and once it's less busy, I need to find a cook to do snacks down at Ollie's tavern. It's got a small kitchen for just that, but don't worry about that yet. We can figure that out after the crowds go down a bit.”

  “Then off with you boy, out of my kitchen so I can focus on my work again,” Liv said.

  ~ ~ ~

  Chapter Three

  Aaron was amazed when he checked in on Eddie and Karl.

  I wonder what he's gotten into this time? Aaron thought. There's more than double the normal recent activity in the Meadowlands. What brought all those other adventurers in over the past couple of days?

  He shook his head, dismissing his curiosity for now at least, then went back to what he'd been doing before.

  They had the trap program all set to run and Aaron just had to decide exactly when to trigger it. They'd debated how to do it, whether to try to contain Loki only to the game world, or trap him out of it. Freyja was enthusiastically for trapping him out of game. Aaron and Lydia had discussed it and decided to back Freyja's idea, especially since Aaron's efforts should keep the game running just as it should even if they trapped him out of it.

  And there's no reason not to help her out, he thought. Freyja was the one that thought of supporting all his splinters if we trapped him out. So I know she's worried about keeping the game running
smoothly and she thinks that we can do it easily enough with the preparations we've made.

  Lydia had, as normal, asked a couple of incisive questions that had made the decision much easier.

  “If he's caught in the game, can he do anything about it?” she'd asked first.

  The answer had been a definitive yes. Loki could mess with any of the players if he'd managed to get around his programming, which they knew he'd managed.

  “If we trap him out of the game, what can he do about that?” had been her next question.

  The answer there wasn't as easily determined. The only computer they thought he could be connecting to was the one in Greenshaw's head.

  Which might be why he took care of the original illicit server issue the way he did, Aaron thought, giving Greenshaw the benefit of the doubt. Loki probably doesn't really have any concept of death, so it wouldn't have mattered to him at all to have Allan Panning killed or to influence Greenshaw to do that. While he'd be in a position of authority over the game if he's trapped in Greenshaw's head, he can't do anything directly, the orders would have to go to someone who had the access to do it, and that we can probably do something about.

  So they'd decided to trap him out of the game. Aaron was slightly disturbed that it might do something to Greenshaw as well, but more disturbed that he'd have to keep a close eye on the game itself right after in case Greenshaw sent any orders to do something. Aaron didn't even have any idea what he might try to do, or Loki might try to do, but it still had him worried.

  Fortunately Freyja will help me keep an eye on any commands getting entered. There are still people who have permissions that neither of us do, but we've got most of it covered.

  So what he was doing now, was keeping an eye on things, waiting for the AI-L server to spike and making a judgment call each time as to whether it was the right time to try to trap Loki out of game.

  Assuming, of course, that our program works as intended. It's not like we could exactly run any tests on it, you know? he thought.