Keeper

by Tom Larcombe

Class:Warrior (Ranger)

  Strength:13

  Intelligence: 11

  Agility: 24

  Wisdom: 15

  Heartiness: 14

  Charisma: 11

  Willpower: 13

  Health: 119

  Endurance: 14

  Mana: 120

  Luck: 14 (15)

  Stamina:296 (306)

  Experience:

  56,395/90,000

  Base Attack: 12

  Base Armor: 10 (51)

  +2 attack melee (strength)

  +35 armor (studded leather, helm, boots, bracers, greaves)

  +6 attack ranged (agility)

  +7 armor (agility)

  Skills:

  General:

  Acrobatics: 1

  Animal Friendship: 1

  Animal Handling: 1

  Animal Husbandry: 1

  Bowyer/Fletcher: 2 (+2 to checks)

  Carpentry: 8

  Climbing: 1

  Cooking: 13

  Evaluate: 4

  Farming: 2

  Fire Building: 1

  Fishing: 3

  Herbalism: 2

  Hunting: 3

  Improvisation: 2

  Rope Use: 2

  Tracking: 3

  Weather Sense: 1

  Weaving: 4

  Combat:

  Bows: 5

  Staves: 1

  Small Blades: 1

  Short Swords: 4

  Special:

  Conjunction: 4

  Magical:

  Nature Magic: 3

  Accel Plant Growth: 2

  Arc: 1

  Create Food/Water: 2

  Fox Fire: 2

  Nature's Binding: 1

  Safe Site: 1

  Wall of Thorns: 1

  Create Spring: 1

  ~ ~ ~

  Chapter Twenty-One

  As Specialist Harmon worked on acclimating himself to the body of the Giant Wolf he discovered that he hadn't driven out that spark that was in the wolf before he was. He'd simply caged it, and now he discovered that if he worked with that spark he could control the wolf much better.

  Before long he was walking with no issues. Running was still touch and go, of the three times he'd tried running through the woods near the clearing he'd had problems twice. Once he'd run smack dab into a tree, his head ringing for a moment or two after the impact, a second time he'd stumbled over his own paws, sending himself flying. The last time of the three though he'd managed it, dashing and darting through the trees as though they were an obstacle course back in basic training.

  Now he had a problem though, he had to extricate himself from the wolf. He'd been using his virtual keyboard to get his men in and out, but that wouldn't work here, not with paws instead of hands. He mentally opened his command line option, then laboriously forced the wolf to slowly spell out the command that would place his consciousness back in his own avatar. He'd thought his mental capacity hadn't been diminished, and that may have been true, but for the command to register on his screen he had to force the brain of the wolf to think of the letters, just as he'd had to adapt his own mind to translate the visualizations the wolf brain worked on into something he could understand.

  It worked, but only slowly.

  I can handle slow, he thought. When the end result lets me use this construct it's well worth it. I think I'll order the men to start the attack tomorrow. It will take a couple of days to get all their troops out of the forest and that should give me enough time to finish acclimating to the wolf construct.

  When he finished transferring himself to his normal avatar he used a command to freeze the wolf he'd be going back into after he finished writing the orders for Campbell and Ferring.

  'Start moving your troops towards the tier one villages. I want all their current inhabitants driven out of the villages and harassing the Meadowlands. Let me know where our two little turncoats have been attacking with the troops you gave them so I can plan out where we'll send in our own attack. Give me a rundown on the final condition re: upgrading our green friendlies' equipment and capabilities.

  Harmon.'

  After he sent the orders, Harmon transferred himself back to the Giant Wolf and went sprinting into the woods again, only to catch his paw on a root and go flying. He growled, stood himself up with a touch of concentration, then started running again.

  ~ ~ ~

  When they got back to the inn Karl and Allie were at a table, nursing an ale and waiting for dinner.

  “Hey Karl,” Eddie said.

  “What?”

  “Ding! Level seven!”

  Karl flipped him off, grinning as he did so.

  “Bastard, I'm never going to catch up to you, am I?”

  “Of course not,” Eddie deadpanned. “Because I'm so awesome.”

  Tiana couldn't keep a straight face and he heard a snicker coming from beside him where she was standing.

  “Yeah, well some of us don't have the blessing of a goddess on us,” Karl replied.

  Eddie's grin grew even wider.

  “Are you sure about that?” he asked.

  Karl cocked his head and looked at him, confused.

  “Yeah, my buff list definitely didn't include Freyja's Blessing the last time I checked.”

  “Check it now, oh and you may well want to change your spawn point to the temple we just completed.”

  Karl's eyes went vacant for a moment.

  “Freyja's First Temple? Plus ten percent to defense and healing? What the hell did you do this time?” Karl asked.

  “Not me, or more properly, not us,” he said gesturing to Tiana. “We just finished building the temple. Freyja liked it so much that she gave it a blessing. That includes those two things you just mentioned, for a mile around the temple, plus a few more. Including a respawn time reduction for those whose spawn is set to the temple.”

  “You've got to be kidding me,” Karl said.

  “That's the best part for players, but there's more too,” Eddie said. “The temple and its grounds are a non-combat zone. Combat cannot take place there at all. So if we get a big attack from the goblins, we can send all the NPCs to the temple and they can't be killed. Buildings we can repair, but I don't think our NPCs would be so easy to fix if they were killed.”

  Karl's voice went softer.

  “Why, are you close to whatever it is that comes after Hamlet?” he asked.

  “No clue, I know there've been a few new NPC faces around here. I brought in some of them myself, well Liv did it for me anyhow, but I need over fifty NPCs and a lot of them in my employ. Let me double check. I think Player Village is the next level.”

  Help player village, Eddie thought.

  Player Village:

  A player village is a proper village. It is considered a player village when the player either owns the land it is built on or the player employs at least twenty-five percent of the occupants with no other player employing a higher percentage or owning the majority of the land. The occupants of the village will acknowledge the player as their leader and ask him for advice on businesses and building placement.

  Emergency taxes may be levied at this level, up to 5%, and the occupants of the village may volunteer assistance to improvements being built for the village. Any taxation will cause dissatisfaction among the inhabitants, although if it is a one-time tax the dissatisfaction will fade over a period of two weeks.

  A village is a small community of fifty to one hundred occupants. A well-off village will attract more occupants over time, slowly growing. For a Player Hamlet to progress to a Player Village the player in charge of the hamlet must have completed the quest: Developmental Issues I for the village area.

  “Yup, I need to have between fifty and one hundred inhabitants, employ at least twenty-five percent of them or own all the land the place is built on,” Eddie said.

  “But you don't have a count of the NPCs living in the area?” Karl asked.

  Eddie shook his head, then re-read the last
line of the help message.

  “Well now, that's interesting and should slow down any competition. You also need to have completed the Developmental Issues I quest in order to qualify for a Player Village.”

  “That's your building quest for the businesses?” Karl asked.

  Eddie nodded.

  “Yeah, I've already got parts I, II, and III done on that, so we just need the inhabitants and I have to employ them and we're good.”

  “Well, you can at least figure out how many employees you have, right?” Tiana asked. “Then you can tell if you have at least twenty-five percent of the minimum for a village.”

  “Oh, that's a good plan. Let's see, there's Osmond, Brandr, Liv, Helga...” Eddie listed off his employees, coming up with a total of sixteen.

  “Seventeen if the apprentice at the forge counts as my employee,” he said.

  “So, hire ten more people to do things for you and you'll be clear to get to the next level even as soon as there are enough inhabitants,” Tiana said.

  “Hmm, I wonder what else I have that needs doing?” Eddie said.

  “Well, delegate. What projects do you have underway?” Tiana said.

  “You could get some of the locals to dig out your garden patches in the back here, maybe hire some as hunters, or...” Karl got a hungry look in his eyes.

  “You could build yourself a pasture on some of your land,” Karl said. “Then we could go capture some of those cow analogs and you could hire herders for them, maybe a butcher too. Then we could have beef, maybe even cheese. Imagine how good a cheeseburger would taste in this game.”

  Karl was practically drooling when he finished speaking and Eddie understood. He almost started drooling himself when he remembered how good the beef analog had tasted, then imagined how that would taste as a burger.

  “That's a solid plan Karl. Not today though. I'll need to get a blueprint for livestock fencing, build the fence, then we can do it.”

  “You're missing the point Eddie,” Tiana said. “Hire some men to build the fence for you. I've seen some livestock fences around so you can get yourself more employees that way. Once they finish the fence they can be your helpers like Paul has. If they've got carpentry then they can build other things for you as well and if not you can teach it to them. Remember, the idea is to get you more employees, right?”

  Eddie felt like slapping himself in the head. He had already forgotten that that was the idea. He wasn't fond of hiring even more people, since he hadn't even introduced himself to his newest employee, but he had to admit that the idea made sense.

  “I'll think about it,” he said, “but if we aren't close to the cap for a hamlet yet then there might not be enough new people to hire.”

  “And when there are, you hire them, and you'll have it made,” Karl said.

  “Okay, it's a good plan. I'll work on it,” Eddie said. “But for now I need to go talk to Liv. I want her to spread the word about the safe space for the NPCs if there's an attack. Hmmm, while I'm at it I'll ask her if she knows any farmers that might like to move to an area with a guaranteed plus ten percent crop yield. Maybe I could hire them to grow grains for us, both for the inn and for Dominic once I get him set up.”

  Eddie didn't even hear the questions that Karl tossed at him as he wandered towards the kitchen muttering. He was lost in his thoughts.

  ~ ~ ~

  Eddie was planning as he walked into the kitchen. Liv was there, as it seemed she always was lately.

  “Liv, I've got an offer for you,” he said.

  “Aye, Eddie?”

  “It seems to me that you're doing most of the work around this place as of late. I've always got twenty-seven different things to be doing and I'm hardly here any more.”

  “Aye, twenty-seven though? Always the same?”

  “It's just a figure of speech. It means that you were right and I'm trying to do too much on my own. So I've got an offer for you.”

  She stopped stirring the pot she'd been working on and turned to face him.

  “So, since you've been taking care of the place all the time anyhow, would you like to make that your official job? Manage the inn for me? Keep cooking too, of course.”

  She got a guarded look on her face.

  “What's the pay?” she asked.

  “I thought I'd offer you five percent of the profits the inn makes. So you get more pay when you're doing your best work and keeping the crowds coming in.”

  “How much did it take in this past week?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Well, after accounting for the cost of the food and drink we serve, this is last week's profits.”

  He took out a hefty handful of gold and placed it on one of the prep tables.

  “Now I'm going to have to wash that before I use it again,” Liv complained, but her eyes were locked on the pile of gold.

  “Sorry,” Eddie said, “but let's see...”

  He rapidly counted out the pile, then separated five percent.

  “So, you would've made three gold, give or take a little, if we'd had this deal going last week,” he said finally.

  Her eyes were wide as she reached down and touched the three gold coins sitting in front of her.

  “What other duties will I have?” she asked.

  “Ordering supplies, arranging for their delivery, essentially it will be your responsibility to get anything the inn needs to keep going. Although I'm happy to continue supplying the foodstuffs and I'll get a more varied assortment for you as time goes by. Alcohol is short right now, I was going to try to get a load teleported in soon if I didn't find some other way to get it. Dominic will eventually start supplying the alcohol though, after I get him set up.”

  “A teleport? Aren't those expensive?”

  “Yeah, it would pretty much wipe out any profit I made on the alcohol I already sold, but I don't want to run out and lose customers over it, you know?”

  “Aye, you need to keep them coming in to keep making coins.”

  Liv had a crafty look on her face.

  “Not too worried about where your booze comes from?” she asked.

  Eddie shook his head.

  “I'd prefer to have a range of quality and different types, but right now I'll take what I can get, especially if it means I can avoid paying for a teleport.”

  “Would you let me arrange that for you then? I don't know if I can get you everything you had already, but I can get a lot of it. I'd need the money for the brew itself and then maybe a couple of gold more to convince the person who has it to deliver it here instead of its normal destination.”

  “Wait, are you talking about hijacking someone else's shipment?” Eddie asked.

  “Nay, just perhaps convincing them to mis-deliver one wagonload's worth out of several. Of course, I'd want the man who brought it to stay here after so there were no repercussions for him because of it, but I can give him the job of hauler for the inn if I'll be responsible for getting everything we need all the time.”

  Eddie thought for a moment.

  “I don't like it. I don't want to drive anyone else out of business because they don't have what they ordered,” he said.

  “Not to worry, it's due to go to a brew merchant. Bjorn delivers to him once a month and is about due for that trip again.”

  “Bjorn? Is that the man you want to hire as a hauler?”

  She nodded.

  “What would he think about it?” Eddie asked.

  Liv's face fell.

  “The man's as honest as the day is long. He might not go for it now that you mention it.”

  “This brew merchant though, would Bjorn know how much he normally charges?”

  “Certainly, my man is perceptive enough to have noticed such a thing.”

  “Wait, your man?” Eddie asked.

  Liv flushed, but nodded.

  “Aha, the plot thickens,” Eddie said. “Let's change this idea around a little bit. If Bjorn knows how much the brew merchant charges, then how about he drops i
t off here and I send him with however much the merchant would've charged to sell it instead of the rate he was paying for it. Just, kind of a preemptive sale. I'll give Bjorn some gold as a finder's fee and if he wants to stop his current job and work for me as the hauler for the inn and surrounding area, he can have the job.”

  Liv was smiling now.

  “You're too honest for your own good Eddie. That does sound like a better option. Don't want my Bjorn to get in trouble, but we need that brew.

  “And he's going to Brightport? Does he haul for more than just the brew merchant?”

  “Aye, why?”

  “Do you think he'd be interesting in filling up the room in the wagons he cleared out by selling us the brew with some other merchandise to sell up there?”

  “What do we have to trade? There's nothing here yet, although you're getting us there, slowly, but progressing at least.”

  “That's not quite true,” Eddie said, thinking of the rare crops and herbs that were ready for harvest on his farm.

  ~ ~ ~

  On his way up to the farm so he could have Brandr and Osmond harvest the crops in the main fields and prepare them for transport, he stopped to look at the house he'd been working on for the Collier.

  Tiana or Jern must've come by and finished the stone work portions at some point since they were completed. All it needed was the rest of the wood portions finished and it would be ready. He made a mental note to see how many rough hewn planks Brandr and Osmond had available so he could continue working on this place.