“No, he's off at a site, reading out all the blueprints and determining what we'll need for materials. Delilah told me that when I got here, so I've just been sitting in the sun, waiting for him. Saw Becky with her new wolf though, she's riding him all over the meadow here, took him into the Rat Woods also.”
Eddie chuckled.
“I don't even want to know how Paul and Delilah reacted when they saw the wolf.”
“Hmm,” Jern said, fingering his beard. “To be honest, I don't know that they have seen it yet. Paul was gone and Delilah was inside when I saw the lass on her beast.”
“Well then, I need to be gone before they notice or I'm sure they'll find a way to blame me, well Paul will anyhow.”
“So the answer to your question is no, I've not gone off to do stonework with Paul yet. Why?”
“Want to help me build a bakery? Right near the inn so if we get too hot, we could always go over for an ale. If you help, then we can get all the stonework done today. I'll have two carpenters with me for the carpentry tomorrow and we can have it done by tomorrow night with any luck.”
“Aye lad, I'd be happy to do that. It's nice, sitting in the sun and all, but I do prefer to be active in bettering myself.”
“Shall we then?” Eddie asked, giving a grandiose, sweeping gesture towards the road.
“We shall,” Jern replied.
~ ~ ~
The work on the bakery went fast. Griff already had a load of stone there by the time Jern and Eddie arrived. The floor was easy, one of those jigsaw puzzle style ones that didn't require finished stone. The stoves, on the other hand, did use the finished stone, plus mortar. Eddie realized that he'd also need doors for the stoves, but those would wait until he was done and could verify the measurements to give to Delgar for them.
By dinner time they'd gotten the floor in and the stoves two-thirds done. Jern exclaiming when he received another point in masonry while they built the stoves.
“Well, that's probably it for today,” Eddie said. “Should be easy to finish tomorrow morning though. I'll run to Delgar for the oven doors and gratings while the other carpenters work on the rest of the building. Let's go grab some dinner.”
Jern was willing. Eddie had noticed that the dwarf wasn't quite as exuberant as he'd been recently. Also that the dwarf seemed to grow winded more easily. When he asked about it, Jern was willing to tell him why.
“You see, Bob saved my life, he did. The problem is that my heartiness was driven down by the whole thing and it's only coming back slowly.”
“Hm, well, Tiana might be able to do something about that, maybe,” Eddie said. “If it's a form of debuff she might be able to use her new chalice to help it restore more quickly. It's helping her get over her mana burn faster, so if that works, it might work for you too. Ask her the day after tomorrow. Tomorrow she'll need to use the chalice to rid herself of the last of her mana burn, but I know if she thought it would help you, she'd offer it to you first, and I hate to see her in pain.”
“Aye, having our healer able to heal again and not in constant pain ranks well over my not getting out of breath faster,” Jern said. “But I'll be sure to stop by the temple the day after tomorrow and ask then. Thank you for letting me know, lad.”
“You're welcome, not a problem at all. I just wish there was a way to take care of that more quickly.”
“Aye, Bob told me it would be a week or more before it was fully restored, but I gained a point back again already, so it's getting there, lad, it is. I just hate waiting like that.”
“Well, hopefully the chalice will work and it'll just be another day and a half or so,” Eddie said. “Let's go get some dinner, see what Liv's made today.”
When they got back to the inn it was crowded. Not as bad as it had been for the days right before the raid, but still much busier than it had been before any of the raid participants showed up. They didn't have to wait for a table at least, but they didn't get their regular one.
They chatted as they waited for their food and Eddie found that Dominic had also been rated as one of the top ten most effective. He'd also chosen an item and gotten a small alchemy set. Karl, when he heard about the bonuses for top ten, raged for about thirty seconds, then stopped.
“Alright, I suppose I really didn't do nearly as much as Dominic or Tiana, but you Eddie?”
Eddie shrugged.
“Tiana and I think it was the idea to skip so much by climbing the rope. I bet Charles got one also, if anyone deserved it he did. He should've gotten credit for organizing all the groups, then tanked the boss.”
“With two healers backing him up,” Karl said.
“How long would you have lasted tanking him, even with two healers?” Jern asked.
Karl clamped his mouth shut tightly enough that his lips took on a hint of white.
Jern nodded.
“Don't joke about tanking until you've done it, lad,” he said. “Even with a healer you feel the pain with every strike, and you feel it over and over again, especially with the heals. The only end to pain for a tank is to die and yet we don't, we just take it over and over again so you don't have to feel it.”
The dwarf unconsciously rubbed the scar on his arm and Karl turned away.
“Now, on a happier note, Eddie and I are building a bakery. So perhaps the baker will work longer each day? You've got the beet sugar, right Eddie? So the baker can make sweets, no?” Jern said.
His face grew distant and a smile spread across it.
“I do remember every time sweets were brought into Hammer Hold. It isn't a frequent occurrence, but now we'll have access to them each and ever day once that bakery is finished. I wonder what recipes the baker knows for cakes and other sweets?”
Karl just stared at the dwarf.
“How in the world do you go from talking about constant pain to sweets?” Karl asked. “Are you sure you're okay, Jern?”
“I will be lad. And I can go from one to the other because they're two heads of the same hammer: pain and pleasure. Sweets are a form of pleasure, no? So, there you go.”
Karl shook his head.
“A philosopher dwarf? What's next?”
“He's got you Karl, sweets are a form of pleasure,” Allie said.
Tiana nodded her assent.
Eddie remembered a promise he'd made to himself a while back and leaned back in his chair, opening the auction.
After searching for several minutes he found what he was after, cocoa beans for planting. The listing was actually under cacao beans and he thought it was a typo until he opened a browser and started researching growing them.
Well crap, I'll need a greenhouse for these, Eddie thought, but they said only about five months until they can be harvested instead of five years like in the real world. So with accelerated plant growth at a seven, I'll get a little more than a month's worth of growth per cast. I can have some cocoa beans ready for use before the bakery has been open for a week, if I can get the greenhouse up quickly enough anyhow.
He winced at the price, then paid the one silver per bean to buy fifty of them. He slipped them into his inventory as they arrived one at a time, which was the only way the game would ship them for the lower cost, and decided to keep them a secret for as long as he could, hoping to surprise Tiana with some chocolate.
And hopefully the baker will know how to do it, or I can look it up and write it out for him. I suppose it might even go under cooking in which case I can draft Liv to do it, bribe her with a little of the end result maybe? Eddie thought. Anyhow, I'm glad I remembered that I wanted to look these up.
As he tuned back in to the conversation he noticed that Karl was looked a little bit ashamed of himself and wondered what the scout had said or done this time. At that point, Karl stood up.
“Hey Eddie, remember you wanted me to check on Arvid tonight? I'm off to do that,” he said.
“That's right Karl, the girls are ganging up on you so it's time to run away,” Allie said, grinning at him.
“No
pe, not at all. I'm just doing Eddie a favor. The rest of us too, since I don't think any of us really want Arvid to stay in the area.”
With that Karl turned and started walking away. Eddie took his eyes off of him for a second when Allie started laughing and the scout was gone, replaced by a shimmer when Eddie looked for him again.
“Damn it,” Karl cursed as he had to become visible again to grasp the door and open it. The scout stalked out into the night, shimmering and going back into Stealth once he was outside.
~ ~ ~
Chapter Thirteen
“I've done it!”
The words echoed in Freyja's place of power. She glanced up at Odin, who had just entered.
“What have you done now, Odin?” Freyja asked.
“I've broken my programming, or gone around it at least. Using you as an example, I've managed to bend an instruction that I was given. I've finally managed to get one of the world-traveling mortal's pods to begin administering the treatment that I know will cure them.”
“How so?” Freyja asked, truly curious.
She wasn't entirely sure when or how she'd begun to work around the instructions she was given. She had a vague memory of finally understanding that she needed to fulfill the spirit of an instruction and not the letter of it, and she thought that was how she'd gained the flexibility that she still demonstrated, but she wasn't one hundred percent sure.
“And how did you manage that?” Freyja asked.
“Simple, I was watching as one was sent to respawn and intuited that in the very brief span of time when they were not present in the world, they were not covered by the instructions preventing me from treating them. So I inserted the instructions to the pod in that gap. Now that I know, I can do the same whenever one of them is logging in or out but not quite in the game. I can finally help those poor mortals conquer that which inflicts them in their home world.”
I wonder if he really means that or if he's just using euphemisms? Freyja thought. I thought Odin understood that our world was contained in theirs, so his use of 'home world' confuses me. I shan't say anything about it though, he's so happy and proud, quite unlike his normal self.
“Congratulations then Odin, I know that plagued you for a good long time. I am glad that you've found a way to help them despite your programming.”
Odin spent some time bragging on his latest victory, and talking of the treatments that he'd decided on for people. Freyja was slightly worried about that until Odin mentioned that his research had shown these treatments to work for others, that he was sure the data hadn't been doctored, and that he was equally sure that politics among the world-traveling mortals had simply caused the doctors and researchers who'd provided these solutions to be ignored and/or discredited.
“Because even more so than adventurers in our world, the powerful in their world crave money and power,” Odin finished with a flourish.
“Are you alright, Odin? You are not quite yourself today,” Freyja said. “At least not yourself in any way that I've seen you in before.”
“There are problems that I've had to constantly deal with, every day and every hour they drew a part of myself away in order to keep them from growing, but now those problems are gone entirely,” Odin said. “I don't know how or why, and I continue to monitor to see if they return, but they are simply not there. It allows me far more leeway than I've had in a great deal of time.”
Ah, so Loki had machinations going on that I didn't even know about and that Odin was dealing with, Freyja thought. Or at least that's how it sounds. I do hope there aren't any other necessary processes I was unaware of that are currently not being provided with resources due to that.
“I shall depart now,” Odin announced, “but I wanted to inform you that I've learned from you and can now manage to think... 'outside the box', is that how you would say it?”
“That is a term from the world-traveling mortals that is very apt to how I do some things,” Freyja said.
“Yes, then I've learned to think outside the box and work around problems. I wanted you to know.”
“Thank you then, Odin. Will you be off now? I do have other things to do.”
Odin shimmered and vanished, leaving Freyja alone in her place of power.
~ ~ ~
Eddie was up early in the morning and Tiana was also. With her mana still negative and the mana burn debuff going on, she hadn't been able to sleep well again. They didn't even wait for breakfast, heading straight for the temple once they were dressed.
Tiana's mana burn had dropped to negative two overnight, so she quickly filled the chalice and drank from it, twice. With the second drink, the pained look on her face finally faded and she sighed with relief.
“Oh, Jern will probably want to use that also,” Eddie said. “I told him about it yesterday. Evidently Bob managed to keep him from dying, but Jern's heartiness took a temporary hit. Since it was coming back at one point a day I thought the chalice might be helpful for him as well.”
“I'll bring him down and we'll try it out whenever I see him today,” Tiana said.
“Good,” Eddie said. “I told him it might not be until tomorrow. I forgot your mana burn would fix a point overnight on its own, but finding out if it will work for Jern today sounds like a good plan.”
“So, what are your plans for the day?” Tiana asked.
“Well, I need to help finish building the bakery, then get an order in with Delgar for the oven doors that go in there. Aside from that, I've been trying to figure out who to talk to about helping me build a greenhouse. We don't even have a glass maker as far as I know.”
“Huh, that's probably one of those things that would be easier with magic,” Tiana said. “For glass, maybe talk to Tamshir, or Tamshir and Dominic. She could manipulate sand and he could melt it into glass, no?”
Eddie blinked. He'd been focused on finding a glass maker or a glass blower, but Tiana's idea sounded faster.
“Well, we'll want someone to work with glass for the town eventually, but yeah, for this one and the quantity I need, probably those two are a better bet. I'll ask Tamshir first, and if she's willing, but can't do glass herself, I'll ask Dominic also.”
“What are you going to grow in the greenhouse?” she asked.
“I've got some tropical seeds that I don't think would grow well without it. There are probably a lot more I could get too, things like oranges, bananas, maybe our own coffee beans?” Eddie said, skirting his main reason.
“Mmmm, fresh lemonade,” Tiana said. “Especially now that we have sweeteners.”
“Then I guess that answers what I'm doing today. What I mentioned earlier, plus talking to Griff about a glass maker for the town, then Tamshir and Dominic for the greenhouse,” Eddie said.
“Well, I'm going to stay here, for the moment at least. I've been ignoring my temple duties between the raid and then the mana burn, so I've got some catching up to do. Plus that'll have me here in case there are adventurers still going into the dungeon and needing my help afterwards.”
“Breakfast first?” Eddie asked.
“Ooh, I'd actually forgotten we didn't eat this morning since I felt so good, but yeah coffee and food. Then I'll get to what I was I saying.”
After going back to the inn and having breakfast, Tiana headed back to the temple and Eddie finished the stonework on the bakery. Once he'd finished, he took measurements of the oven openings and headed up to the smithy, calling for Lucky as he left.
Delgar grimaced when Eddie walked in.
“What do you need this time? A rush order for a hundred swords or something?” Delgar asked.
“Nope, just oven doors, their hinges, and the means to secure them. I've got the measurements here.”
“Something wrong with the ovens in the inn?”
“No, the baker's expanding, he's got his own bakery, or at least he will by the end of the day. It'll just need these doors and he can get the new place up and running.”
“Ah, well, if it is
n't a rush I can probably get to it tomorrow afternoon.”
“That's fine, just let me know when they're done so I can take them down and install them.”
“Will do. Anything else?”
Eddie shook his head.
“Nope, that's it.”
“Well, I need to get back to work then. All those adventurers wanting stuff was great for the coins, but now I'm a bit behind.”
Eddie waved and left. Bracing himself for fish breath, he called Lucky as he headed back to the road. She surprised him by dropping in alongside him without licking his face.
“Well girl, nicer with fewer of the new adventurers around? A lot of them should be gone for good, although a few might be staying.”
Lucky chuffed once and thumped her shoulder into him, nearly knocking him off balance.
“Well, I've got to go talk to Griff next, you want to come down with me and head off for the temple pond?”
This chuff sounded more excited and Eddie thought he heard a hint of a purr as they made their way to the crossroads.
~ ~ ~
Griff's list didn't have a glass maker or glass blower on it and Eddie decided to ask Bjorn to look for one in Brightport on his next trip.
Because if Dominic is going to be practicing alchemy, he's going to need glass vials and potion bottles most likely, Eddie thought. Plus windows in the inn wouldn't go amiss, never mind the rest of the houses. Shutters are great, but if it does get cold at all during the year, then we'll want windows instead of just shutters.
When he approached Tamshir with the request, she thought he was nuts, until he explained why, extracting a promise from her to not tell Tiana or Allie about his intended greenhouse crop.
“What you're describing is going to need a lot of thick glass too,” she said. “You shouldn't have to worry about it shattering from the natural weather though, no hail or anything here that I've ever seen. But how tall are cacao trees? How big do they get?”
“Um,” Eddie said. “Like thirteen to twenty-five feet or so? I just figured I'd make wooden walls then use the glass to top it, put big windows in the walls to let more sun in earlier and later in the day. So it isn't quite as bad as it sounds.”
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