Keeper

by Tom Larcombe

  As he drew closer to the lake, he saw a solitary figure sitting at the edge of it, staring out over the water. Several ducks swam very close to the figure and when he saw another duck right beside it, getting petted, he was pretty sure he knew who it was.

  Am I calm enough to talk to her yet? he wondered. I still don't even know what she thought she was doing by charming Lucky over and over. Maybe I'll talk to her after I get the grain, then if I'm in a bad mood again after talking to her, I won't take it out on the person who will hopefully be providing me with supplies.

  He continued walking. According to Karl's map the grain mill was about another mile down the road, near the stream that came out of the lake. When he saw it, he wasn't very impressed. The building was run down and not currently in use, but the latter didn't surprise him since Liv had said there was a surplus of flour and grains in the area.

  This might be a problem, he thought. I didn't think to ask Liv what a good price for the grain was and I'm sure it varies by type too. Well crap, do I just assume he'll try to skin me and negotiate based on that?

  He shook his head, marveling at the fact that he still hadn't learned to prepare properly, even when he knew what he was about to do.

  A knock on the door left him standing there for several minutes until a haggard-looking man opened the door.

  “Help ya?” the man said.

  “Yes, I'm looking to buy some flour.”

  The haggard look on the man's face eased a bit as he broke into a tentative smile.

  “Come in then,” he said.

  I've got an idea, Eddie thought.

  “Liv sent me here, told me you wouldn't try to skin me on prices. I know there's a bit of a surplus of grains in the area right now, so I'll expect a lower price to start. But...”

  Eddie paused a moment to collect his thoughts before continuing. He didn't want to make any rash promises, but he was also pretty sure he'd get a better deal if the miller knew he'd be wanting flour long term.

  “But,” Eddie repeated. “I just opened my inn, a few miles up the road, and it's doing okay so I'll most likely be a long term customer. What can you do for me?”

  The miller had smiled for a moment before, but when Eddie mentioned Liv, the man's face took on a disappointed look, briefly. The smile returned when Eddie said that he'd be a long term customer.

  So he was going to try to skin me until I mentioned Liv, Eddie thought. He's happy enough about the potential for a long term customer though, so he won't gouge me horribly. Between mentioning Liv and being a long term customer I think I won't get skinned too terribly.

  Eddie spent the next half hour haggling with the miller. He knew how much he was going to need, or at least how much Liv and the baker thought he was going to need so that wasn't an issue. Finally after they'd settled on a tentative price Eddie had asked about delivery and the man had sighed.

  “No ox any more, I can't deliver to you. You'll need to pick it up.”

  Eddie got him to knock a little more off the price for having to pick it up himself, then they finalized the deal. All told it took him about an hour to negotiate for the flour and he was told that the first load could be picked up the following morning.

  Eddie left with a handshake and a promise that payment would be made as soon as he picked up the first load the following day.

  ~ ~ ~

  “I know you're there,” Becky said. “My friends told me.”

  Eddie had come back up the road and turned off to speak with her. He'd thought he was over being angry with her, but found out that that wasn't quite so.

  “Your friends for real?” he asked. “Or did you charm them too?”

  He wished he could bite back the words as soon as he'd said them, but it was too late. Becky didn't even turn around, but when she spoke again she sounded tired.

  “Of course I charmed them. Do you think a bunch of ducks would be this close to a person otherwise?”

  “Why'd you do it Becky? Lucky already liked you, but now she's scared of you. Why'd you keep trying to charm her and take her away from where she wanted to be?”

  “I don't know, because I could? Because she did like me and I wanted someone around who liked me? It's not as though mom and dad do, dad's always out building and mom's started doing all sorts of weird stuff around the house.”

  “Becky, how old are you? Paul told me you hadn't moved out of the house because you couldn't find work. Do you think that means that they want to take care of you forever?”

  “Take care of me?” she spat. “Since we've gotten into this game world, they let me do even less than I did in the real world. I had to sneak off with Lucky just to get one stupid level, and Lucky's the only reason I managed to do that.”

  “I'll ask again, how old are you?”

  “Twenty,” she said sullenly.

  “Then why are you acting like a fourteen year old instead of an adult. Why do you ask permission to do things if you're an adult and not a kid.”

  “Because they'll kick me out of the house if I don't,” she replied.

  “Even if they did, would that be so bad? It's not like you can't easily support yourself here. Yeah, maybe we're lacking on luxuries, but food, drink, shelter? You're a druid, I'd almost guarantee that you can provide those for yourself easily. If they wouldn't stop taking care of your pod and access fees, then you've got nothing to worry about.”

  “Huh, someone notices I have a class and it has to be the person that's pissed off at me. No-one else has noticed.”

  “When have they had a chance to? Do you think adventurers are going to brazenly walk up to you in the inn to Evaluate you? Especially when you're obviously with family?”

  “Dad forbade me from going to talk to the adventurers. Said he heard rumors that some of them were the type that would happily do bad things, just for shits and giggles.”

  Eddie snorted.

  “Paul said shits and giggles? I can't exactly picture that.”

  “Don't get pedantic with me. He sat me down and gave me this long talk about it, I was trying to spare you the details,” she said.

  “Well, thank you for that. I get it, you're lonely. Why don't you come hang out at the inn during the day then? When you're there at night, it's so busy hardly anyone talks to anyone else new. In the morning there are a lot fewer people there and I know all of them. None of them are the type your dad warned you about. I think he'd feel safe with that. Then you could at least meet some people.”

  “Are any of them lower level?” Becky asked.

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to group up. I want to adventure! I want to do something instead of sit around and play with animals. I mean, I like playing with them, but I don't want that to be the only thing I do. How can I take on a dungeon without a group, or when I'm still only level two?”

  “I don't think you have to worry about a dungeon in the Meadowlands,” Eddie said.

  Becky finally stood and turned to look at him.

  “Shows what you know,” she said and turned back to stare out at the lake.

  Eddie finally followed her gaze, seeing the island in the middle of the lake. The island with what looked to be ruins visible from where he stood.

  “No way,” he said.

  “Yes way. That island wasn't here when we got here. I first saw it the day after you got that stupid global announcement about making a Hamlet. Can you see what's on it?” she asked.

  “It looks like ruins,” Eddie said.

  “It is ruins, I went out there, once. In the middle of the ruins is a basement, the building on top collapsed into it at some point. But inside that basement is a door. When I went to open it, the game warned me that it was a dungeon, designed for parties of levels one to ten. I chickened out when it told me that. Then, when I was on the way back to shore, something tried to eat me. So, swimming in the lake is pretty much out too.”

  “How'd you get away from whatever it was.”

  She smirked.

  �
��I am a druid, I have spells, even if they do have stupid names. Rolling Stone, it's called. When you cast it nothing can keep you immobilized, nothing can stick to you. So, yeah, I ran away. I want to go back though, I want to see what's in that dungeon.”

  A rolling stone gathers no moss, he thought. How cliché, but I suppose kind of par for the course in this game.

  “So you were stealing Lucky to help you level?” he asked.

  “I said that already, didn't I?”

  Not in so many words, but good enough for now, Eddie thought.

  “So you could go into that dungeon? You weren't planning to go in on your own, were you?”

  She blushed.

  “Um, I might've had some thoughts that way.”

  “Here's an idea. Ask your dad if you can group up if he approves of the people you group up with. I bet I can pitch making my group overlarge, at least for a dungeon run, and Paul knows all of us. Likes us too, if I'm not mistaken. Maybe we can find you a loophole. There's one condition though, you have to stop charming my cat!”

  “I wasn't doing that any more anyway. The last two times I tried I got a headache bad enough that I couldn't cast for the rest of the day.”

  Last two times? I only saw one of those. I wonder if she's got stealth or something also, Eddie thought.

  “Good, then it's a deal, but I want your promise that you'll stop charming Lucky. She doesn't like it.”

  “She's an animal, how would you know what she likes?” Becky asked.

  “Yes, she's an animal, but she's also my pet. A combat pet, as you were trying to take advantage of. And the game makes pets smarter than normal animals. Trust me when I tell you she doesn't like it. Or just try to get close to her, she's still back near the road since she refused to come any closer to you.”

  Becky's face fell.

  “Damn it, I can't do anything right,” she said.

  Eddie had no idea what to say, so he didn't say anything for a moment. He felt sorry enough for her that he was already mostly over being angry with her, he couldn't imagine what it would be like in game if he didn't have any friends and couldn't do anything else.

  “Ask your dad about grouping with us,” he said. “I'm sure I'll get an earful about it, but maybe it'll help your situation.”

  Eddie turned to leave and when he made it close to the road, Lucky sprang out of the grass, pouncing on him. He turned to look back at the lake and found Becky staring at the two of them.

  “She promised to stop doing that,” he said to Lucky. “But if you don't feel comfortable near her, you don't need to go near her.”

  Lucky rubbed against his ankles, twining between them and nearly tripping him when he tried to start walking again.

  ~ ~ ~

  When he got back to the temple site he guessed it was still quite a while before lunch time, so he settled in to help Tiana for a little bit. When the recovery times for their mana overlapped, he told her about his conversation with Becky.

  “So, she charmed Lucky because she was lonely and wanted someone to help her get experience?” Tiana asked after he was done.

  “She didn't come straight out and say exactly that, but that's what I took away from it. But she had even better news. There's a dungeon out on the lake.”

  “A what?” Tiana asked, bolting upright.

  “A dungeon, that's what she said anyhow. That it was a dungeon rated for a group of level one to ten players. I told her that if she can get Paul to let her group with us, we could do it as an oversized group.”

  “She's only level two though,” Tiana said. “We'll have to carry her.”

  “She is the one that found the dungeon though, so I thought we at least owed that to her. Besides, if she made level two with just Lucky's help, then she might actually not be that much of a drag.”

  “There is that,” Tiana said, sitting back down. “So I'm guessing there's a dungeon run in the near future?”

  “Hopefully. I have to wait and let Paul explode at me for suggesting it first, then try to get him to agree to it.”

  “And if he won't?”

  “Well, I'm not sure. I'd feel bad running it without her since she's the one that found it, but let's just wait and see. We won't mention this to the others until we know Paul's decision.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Did you know that Becky is twenty? And she's still listening to her dad when he forbids her to do things? I suggested that she might want to get out on her own, at least in the game. I'm more worried about how he might react to that if she tells him I was the one to say it than I am about the grouping thing.”

  “Eddie, are you meddling?”

  “She's twenty, come on, she ought to be able to make her own decisions. She's legally an adult.”

  “I'm staying away from that one. I don't want to get into a family argument, especially when it's not even my own family,” Tiana said.

  “Probably I should've done the same, but I have this habit of just speaking whatever I'm thinking. I'm trying to break myself of it, but...”

  “Well, no help for it now. You'll just have to deal with the fallout.”

  Eddie wasn't feeling up to much after lunch, so he went out back and started working on one of his long term projects. He'd planned on putting in some gardens behind the inn, maybe get some other varieties of seed, so he started digging. His farming skill was surprisingly helpful, letting him know that with a plot the size he was planning, double digging would be the best manner to start it.

  He hadn't known it before, but now he knew that digging a trench, piling the dirt to the side, then digging down even farther at the bottom of the trench would give his plants all the root room they needed to do well. So he started digging.

  An hour later he took a break. Settling in beneath one of the trees he'd had Ingolf leave for shade, he pulled up the auction page and started searching. It didn't take him long to find someone selling all different kids of garden seeds, and as Tiana had said, payment for delivery was minuscule for seeds.

  He picked out seeds for broccoli, cabbage, cucumbers, some squash types, and seeds for a number of other plant types which weren't in the garden on the farm. Then he went back to digging.

  Before he had to wash up for dinner, he had a decent sized patch ready to plant, but he wasn't going to do that yet. He wanted to have the entire garden patch he was preparing ready before he planted. There were several other patches he'd planned for behind the inn as well, but he'd plant the first one when he finished getting it set up, then prepare the others as the opportunity presented itself.

  He was in the kitchen when Tiana came in and warned him that Paul had just come in with Becky and Delilah.

  “It's weird, he looks glum, not mad or anything,” she said.

  “Well, if he's going to want to talk to me, I'm not going to make it easy on him. He can wait until I'm done cooking for the dinner rush,” Eddie replied.

  She shrugged.

  “Just figured I'd let you know, especially with him looking the way he does.”

  She went back to helping out at the bar, something she'd told him that she enjoyed a lot.

  When the dinner rush was finished, Eddie fixed himself a plate, grabbed an ale from Tiana, and made his way to an empty table. As he was eating he saw Paul stand and approach the table, mug in hand.

  He couldn't have waited until I was done eating? Eddie thought.

  Although a look at Paul's face showed him what Tiana had meant. He didn't look upset or angry, he looked a little bit sad.

  “May I?” Paul asked, gesturing towards a chair.

  “Go ahead, but I'm going to keep eating. I'm starved, even with snitching a few bites here and there while I cooked.”

  Paul sat down, then leaned forward a bit.

  “Evidently, I haven't been the best of fathers recently,” he said.

  Eddie listened closely, afraid he was going to hear sarcasm and then a scathing comment from Paul about how others apparently thought they could pare
nt his daughter better, but Paul's next words caught him by surprise.

  “I thought Delilah and Becky were just fine here in the game, and I was half-right. Delilah is having the time of her life, but Becky...”

  Paul trailed off.

  “I wasn't thinking when I told her I didn't want her mingling with the adventurers. Because that pretty much puts all the players out of her reach, so she has no-one to hang out with or talk to. She finally told me today that she was very lonely, and bored. She wants to try adventuring and she practically begged me to ask you if she could join your group, for a little while at least, to see if that's what she really wanted to do.”

  Paul cleared his throat and took a deep drink of his ale.

  “So, if you could do me a favor?” Paul said, letting the question hang in the air.

  My god, Eddie thought, she has him wrapped around her little finger, doesn't she? I'm amazed she didn't do something like this before if she's cunning enough to have managed this now.

  “Sure Paul, I'll talk with my group about it at least. I can't make that call on my own.”

  “That's all I'm asking,” Paul said. “At least now she'll know that I do care. I told her she could come down here in the mornings too. She asked about that and said most of the daytime adventurers were here then and that she didn't think they were as bad as some of the others.”

  They aren't, now that Terrod and Sombra are gone, Eddie thought.

  “We've talked with most of them, they're okay, right?” Paul said.

  “I can't guarantee that, but most of them are alright as far as I can tell,” Eddie said.

  “One other thing then, keep an eye on her if she is here in the morning?”

  “When I'm here, but I'm not all the time, so...”

  “That's all I can ask. Thanks, Eddie. I'll tell her you have to talk it over with your group and then you'll get back to her. That okay?”

  “Sure Paul, no problem,” Eddie said.

  As Paul walked off, Eddie realized that not only had she made Paul feel that guilty, but that she'd done it in a single afternoon.

  Probably less, he thought, because Paul was still building when I got back up this way.