Keeper

by Tom Larcombe

  “Well, maybe I can do something about that eventually. I don't think it'll be soon though.”

  Liv gave a short, curt nod.

  “Good, I'm glad you aren't trying to do everything at once, even if you are trying to do everything yourself.”

  “What? I hired you so I wouldn't have to cook for part of the day. Doesn't that count as not trying to do everything myself?”

  “And what have you been doing while I cook? More tasks from what I hear you and your friends talk about. Plus you still cook at night. You're burning the candle at both ends, Eddie, and you'll pay for it when the wicks meet.”

  He shook his head.

  Even the NPCs are after me, saying I try to do too much. This game is far too realistic in some ways, he thought.

  “Okay, so the apprentice is here and the Collier will be here in... what, two days?”

  “About that long,” Liv said. “Might be a day later. The man is moving his whole family. Baker will be here tomorrow, so you'll need to get that flour soon as you can.”

  Eddie groaned.

  “Alright then. I need to go tell Opron,” he said.

  Bouncing back out to the common room in flight from Liv, Eddie found Opron still at the table, nursing a mug of ale.

  “Okay, your apprentice is here already, the Collier should be here in a couple of days and hopefully will get to work shortly after that.”

  He turned to Karl.

  “Have you rented out those houses yet Karl?”

  “Not yet, why? I wanted to get a spring or well of some sort over there first. Otherwise they'll just come over and use yours, and that's just rude.”

  “I need to rent one of them if you're willing, until I can get them their own place. Evidently the Collier also lost his house to a goblin attack. He and his family need a place to stay if he's going to be working for me.”

  Opron was now staring at Eddie.

  “Another goblin attack? I don't remember seeing anything about that before coming in-game,” he said.

  Eddie glanced around.

  “Ssh,” he said softly, not wanting to attract attention by whispering. “This would be one of those 'give yourself away' moments.”

  “Oh,” Opron said. “No biggie, I just read up about the Meadowlands before I made this character in the new race. Didn't see anything about random goblin attacks.”

  “Well, Liv said it happens to the NPCs that insist on building right near the borders. Something about them making a big profit for a while, then normally getting attacked.”

  “Hmm,” Opron said. “I'm going to make a note of that. Check it after my thirty days are up.”

  “Good, you do that. But for now, I need to provide housing for the guy, so how about it Karl?”

  “Sure, I probably can't charge as much to them as I would players, but whatever.”

  “No, tell me how much you were going to charge the players and I'll take care of it,” Eddie replied. “You shouldn't have to make less due to my obligations.”

  “Okay,” Karl said, stretching the word out. “Are you sure you're alright? I mean, I thought you were trying to make money here.”

  Eddie leaned over and whispered some figures into Karl's ear. Karl quickly sat straight up, staring at him.

  “That much already?” he asked.

  Eddie put a finger to his lips, shushing him.

  “Yeah, but I do have to turn around and put a lot of that back into the inn if I want to keep it running, probably more than half of it.”

  “Even so,” Karl said.

  Eddie nodded.

  “Yup, even so I'm making a better profit than I'd hoped for. Just need to get more alcohol so I don't run out. I keep thinking I ought to ask Liv about a brewer, but it's like with each new request she feels more and more entitled to do things like nag me about doing too much.”

  Tiana burst out laughing.

  “You mean like I've been doing for a while now?” she said. “Although I finally gave up and asked you to help me instead. I figured it would keep you out of trouble for a while. Instead, it just made it possible for you to make even more trouble for yourself.”

  Eddie shrugged.

  “Can't help it, I suppose. I keep thinking of new opportunities and don't want to miss out on them.”

  “Yeah, well, you could pass along a few of those opportunities to your friends, right? I bet they'd be willing to take advantage of them so the opportunities weren't missed and you didn't work your fingers to the bone.”

  “Um...”

  Eddie stopped and thought, then felt almost ashamed of himself. He'd never even thought of sharing his ideas with anyone except Tiana. And she'd immediately jumped in to help him with something that would be mutually beneficial for both of them once he had.

  “Well, Paul's kind of busy. Karl's got his shop, I don't know if Allie would be interested or not. Dominic I just don't know all that well yet.”

  “Sit down with him tonight, talk with him. I think you might be surprised at how interested he might be in your current needs. If I remember a few things he said correctly at least,” Tiana said. “Although he stopped talking about things like that when Sombra and Terrod got on his case and mocked him about it.”

  “What was it he was interested in?” Eddie asked.

  “Just talk with him, tell him about what you're trying to do here, what your inn needs, and all that. I bet you get an unexpected bit of help if you do,” Tiana said. “Trust me on this. If you open up to him, he might be willing to open up to you about this.”

  “Alright. If he's still around once I'm done cooking, I'll come out a have a few drinks with him once I'm done.”

  Opron cleared his throat.

  “I'm calm enough now. Thanks Eddie, the second anvil will actually be helpful, but it's better than the one I made, damn it! I hate being shown up.”

  “Then you'll just have to make a third. Room for three smiths in the smithy, right? So make a third anvil that's even better still.”

  “I need to file down my original one first, that's going to take a couple of days,” Opron replied.

  Eddie chuckled. He had an answer for that.

  “No you don't. Even an apprentice ought to be able to handle a file, right?”

  Opron's eyes lit up.

  “Hadn't even given any thought to what I was going to do with the apprentice yet. Was still kind of pissy that you'd saddled me with one as a condition for the smithy, but he can do a lot of the rough finish work, drudgery that I won't have to do that way.”

  Eddie grimaced, but he knew that historically that was exactly what apprentices had been used for so he wasn't going to argue the point.

  “Just so long as you teach him as well. When you leave I want to have an NPC smith so if Delgar doesn't want to do something, or leaves himself, we still have a smith.”

  “Done,” Opron said. “But that means... Hmm, you figured out that a manager of a business could also generate a quest?”

  Eddie nodded.

  “At least Ross did when I was first in game.”

  “In that case...”

  Opron eyes went distant for a moment, then he stood on the chair and cleared his throat loudly, several times, until the inn had gone quiet.

  System Generated Quest:

  Fill the Smithy!

  Opron the Smith wishes to create another anvil to fill out his smithy's capacity. In order to do so he will need large quantities of sand and clay. Bring bags of sand and/or clay to the smithy over the next three days (daylight hours only) to receive a reward.

  Reward: Coins, amount determined by quantity of materials provided.

  Alternate reward: An item crafted by Opron, value determined by quantity of materials provided.

  In the silence that held for several seconds after Opron's quest was generated, Eddie clearly heard someone hissing to a friend.

  “I hate when they do that. I'm tempted to open a business myself just so I can make quests.”

  Go for i
t, Eddie thought. The more the merrier and that'll help build up the Meadowlands too.

  He stood and headed back for the kitchen to start cooking dinner.

  ~ ~ ~

  After he'd finished cooking and the dinner rush was over, he came back out to the common room. Allie, Karl, and Tiana were sitting at the table with Dominic. Eddie slid into a seat, then stretched.

  “I do love the cooking, especially when I manage a buff, but I need to start taking stretching breaks while I do it,” he said, stretching his back and hearing it pop in several places.

  “Hey, I wonder if you could stack one of your buffs with the the effects of your Conjunction,” Dominic mused.

  “God, don't give him any ideas. Half the time he uses it, it lays him out,” Tiana said.

  “I gave that some thought. It's only the first time for any combination that does that. I think the multiplier drops after the first successful attempt,” Eddie said. “It's like mana times eight or something the first time, then it drops to times four or five instead. I do have to wonder if it will drop further as I increase my Conjunction skill.”

  “It's already an OP skill. Okay, maybe not yet, but it will be eventually,” Dominic said.

  “Only if I pick skills carefully so I can actually use them with the spells I have.”

  “Or other skills, don't forget that,” Dominic replied.

  Karl and Allie looked at each other, then stood.

  “We're off to bed,” Allie said.

  Tiana glanced up and nodded at them before bidding them good night. Meanwhile Eddie waved at the bartender to bring another round of ales for the three of them that remained.

  “Eddie, sir?” the barman said when he brought the drinks over. “We're going to need another cask of the mid-grade ale. This one's almost out.”

  Eddie shook his head.

  “I've really got to figure out how to put an order in for more alcohol. The adventurers around here seem to be a bunch of alcoholics, at least going by how much booze they go through,” he said.

  He turned to the Bartender.

  “I'll get it for you in a few. Can you hold out a bit with what's left?”

  “Yes, but it won't last the night.”

  Eddie nodded and waved the man off.

  “It really is some half-decent stuff,” Dominic said, sipping at his ale.

  “Well, I got a range. There's some small beer in there that's dirt cheap, but guaranteed to leave you with a hangover, and a few smaller casks of really pricey stuff that I haven't even made available yet,” Eddie said. “Waiting for some sort of special occasion to broach those.”

  “This is decent quality, honestly. About the level I used to make in real life,” Dominic said.

  It took a moment for his words to sink in, but once they did Eddie snapped his attention to Dominic.

  “Wait, you know how to brew ale?”

  “And beer, mead, wine, plus a few other things. I used to do it as a hobby in real life.”

  “I don't suppose you ever tried it in game?” Eddie asked.

  “I looked into it, but you need close to the same equipment to do it here as you would in real life. Don't have anywhere to keep all that, so I just gave up on the idea,” Dominic replied.

  “Would you be interested in doing it?” Eddie asked.

  Dominic stared at him curiously.

  “Why?”

  “Two reasons. One, I'm trying to build up the Meadowlands. If it had its own brewer, that would help. And second, if I can hire you to brew for my inn, I won't have to pay for teleports for booze from Brightport, or hire guards to try to get wagons through to here. I'll get a trade route eventually, but I'll need more booze long before that happens.”

  Eddie paused for a moment, thinking.

  “What would you need to do it?”

  “Ingredients or equipment?” Dominic asked.

  “Both,” Eddie replied, his interest piqued.

  “Well, the ingredients for beers and ales are pretty basic. Malt, hops, yeast, and water are the basics. As for equipment? I could tell you what you need in the real world from memory, but here? They take some shortcuts, so I'd need...”

  The two talked for a couple of hours. Dominic slowly getting excited about making beer and ale in game. Especially when Eddie told him how much he'd been paying for his alcohol already and offering Dominic the same amount, minus a small percentage for providing all the starting materials and equipment. Eddie also offered to make him a brew hall, basically a building like the bunkhouses, but entirely bare inside to allow for Dominic to set it up the way he wanted.

  By the time Eddie went to bed, after bringing up the other cask of ale with a bit of help, he and Dominic had worked out an agreement and Eddie had another building he was going to have to build.

  As well as a few pieces of equipment for Opron to build, some for myself to try to make with carpentry, and hopefully we can manage everything between the two of us, Eddie thought.

  “See, I told you to talk to Dominic,” Tiana said. “Terrod and Sombra just shut him down when he said he might be interested in brewing in game. He'd enjoyed it a lot out of game and wanted to see just what he could do with the brewing skill in game, but they shut him down and convinced him to take a practical adventuring skill instead.”

  “I don't get why they'd do that. It's a game, people should enjoy themselves, and it sounds like Dominic really enjoys brewing,” Eddie replied.

  “See Eddie, that's the difference. They wanted everyone to knuckle under and do what they said to become stronger adventurers. You want people to do the things that they enjoy, then offer to finance them, and buy their end product to boot.”

  She shook her head.

  “Just promise me you'll be more careful with your Conjunction. I know it's a game, I know you'll respawn, but I don't want to watch you die, even temporarily,” Tiana said.

  “I can't promise that I won't use it, but I will promise that if it's going to put me in danger, it'll be a last ditch effort type of thing and not a go-to response. Will that work for you?”

  “And you won't lie to me either? Not even when you know you'll upset me,” Tiana murmured. “If so then that will do, and Eddie?”

  Eddie felt himself flushing, remembering his two fibs from earlier in the day and vowing to himself to not do that to Tiana again.

  “Yes?”

  “Don't change. I know what you're striving for in the game, but just stay yourself even if you manage it, okay?”

  “That, I can promise,” he said.

  ~ ~ ~

  Chapter Eleven

  Specialist Harmon was pissed. Olson was finally back, but wouldn't wake up. Harmon had even seen a strange debuff on him, but when he tried to remove it, he found himself unable to do so.

  I need to know what happened to him, Harmon thought. Where was he when he didn't show up back here immediately like he was supposed to?

  As little as he liked doing it, he opened up his browser and the secured email connection he'd been given. A brief message to Greenshaw describing what had happened only took a couple of minutes to type out. He'd rather not send it if he could avoid doing so, but his orders had been to immediately report anything out of the ordinary while they were running these tests and this certainly qualified.

  After he hit send he pulled up the recent reports from Campbell and Ferring.

  “Good,” he said to himself. “Campbell has his smith teaching other goblins while he actually makes the armor and weaponry and Ferring's been passing along some of his magic as well. That means the forces we send after the Meadowlands will all be better equipped than the average goblins and with a higher percentage of casters than would normally be possible.”

  Campbell had, as always, tried to cover his ass with the last line of his message. Harmon chuckled as he read it.

  'I know we're exceeding orders, but if you ain't cheating, you ain't trying. And we're trying our best here Specialist.'

  ~ ~ ~

  Edd
ie woke later than normal. Tiana was still asleep beside him, but starting to stir herself. Knowing that he had a lot to do today, he quickly slipped out of bed and got dressed. A minute later he was headed downstairs for breakfast.

  Once he'd eaten, Liv insisted on introducing him to the baker she'd hired, and told him that they only had about three days worth of flour left. She didn't insist that he go arrange for it immediately, but the insinuation was there.

  He took a tray up to Tiana, who had her eyes open by this point, but was still in bed. After setting it on the nightstand next to the bed, he stepped back.

  “I need to go down to that grain mill today, Liv said we only have three days worth of flour left. I'll stop by the temple on the way and drain my mana on some more wall work, then stop by again on my way back and do the same. I should hopefully be back before lunch time.”

  Tiana yawned, her jaw cracking in the process.

  “Okay, I'll work on waking up. You'll probably see me at the temple on your way back and we can get lunch together,” she said.

  Eddie nodded, then quickly left the room. He didn't want to leave at all, he wanted to stay there with her, watch her get dressed, and just talk for a bit, but he had things to do.

  He whistled for Lucky, then set off at a brisk pace heading west along the road. He hadn't gone this way very much. The only time he'd been beyond the turn that led to Liv's cottage was when he'd gone to see Paul's house, so he was interested in seeing what lay beyond that. Remembering his promise to Tiana, he stopped at the temple though and extended the wall with two more conjoined castings before he continued.

  That wasn't too bad at all. I think the multiplier on that one is down to only three or four times now, he thought.

  About a half mile past the turnoff to Liv's, the ground leveled out again, forming a massive meadow that was full of grass and sparsely dotted with trees. In the distance he saw the light glimmering off the lake and he was pretty sure that the two buildings he saw were Paul's lumber mill and his house.