Defender Light Online Four

by Larcombe, Tom

After whistling for Lucky, they headed back down the road towards the inn.

  ~ ~ ~

  Allie and Karl were back that evening. They'd been going out for a day or two at a time mapping the Meadowlands more thoroughly. They weren't too worried about Goblin patrols any more since the levels they'd both gained in taking the Orc settlement under the mine had gotten them strong enough that the two could take a medium goblin patrol easily enough.

  “So, that's the situation. The goblins still occasionally launch attacks at the wooden fortress Paul and I built before. There's a couple of groups of adventurers who have been playing around, adding traps where the goblins normally attack, building more protections into some areas and the like. Then they sit back and wait. A couple of times they've had to call for extra help though, when the occasional bigger attack comes through, but they're so close to the inn that it hasn't been an issue yet,” Eddie said. “There are always a few adventurers around here to respond to their call for help.”

  “The NPCs aren't swarming to here any more either,” he added. “Although there's still a small trickle and we expect a larger clump when Bjorn gets back from his latest trading run. We've been catching up on the housing finally, although too many people arriving with Bjorn might set us back a few days on our progress.”

  “So, what is Bjorn trading?” Karl asked. “I know you've got a few things, but not enough to load his wagons up. Are you trading stuff from the mine yet?”

  “Since Dominic has the brewery up and running, we've been sending some of his basic brew. Doesn't need as long to age in game as real life, so it was ready right away. I kept a couple barrels for the inn, but it's mainly in demand by the NPCs. The adventurers want the better stuff. I need to build a tavern as part of the quest, so I'll probably stock that with the cheaper alcohol and keep the more expensive stuff served at the inn, at least whenever we get around to finishing the tavern,” Eddie said. “Plus, yeah, we've smelted some of the iron and silver from the mine into ingots and sent that with Bjorn as well. I need to go check on Rotthorpe soon too, I haven't been down there in a bit.”

  “Well, we've got more detailed maps of about two-thirds of the Meadowlands now,” Allie said. “It looks like the Goblins are present all along the south and east. They've got some sort of lumberyard a few miles into the woods to the east of the Meadowlands. I wonder if that's where the Orcs got the goblins they captured. The forest there leads right up to the base of the foothills.”

  “It looks like the area west of the Meadowlands is mostly clear of enemies. There are no Orcs and no goblins. There's forest there, with an old trail leading into it. The trail is starting to lose the battle with the forest. It looks like the trees there used to be thin, like the ones here, but they're starting to get thicker. One of these days I want to go farther along that path and see where it leads,” Karl said.

  “Well, we've got other things to do first, but sure, we can explore that way. I wanted to go back into the Forest of Fools also,” Eddie replied. “I've heard more than one group talking about the new tier five villages and we haven't even done a tier four yet. I think we've got the levels for it now at least. I'm level fourteen, Tiana and Allie are fifteen. You're what, twelve or thirteen Karl? Jern is level eleven the last time I checked and Dominic is fifteen like Tiana and Allie”

  He turned to Tiana.

  “We might not get lots of experience in there,” he said, gesturing towards Allie, Tiana, and himself, “but Jern and Karl will, plus I kinda want to see what those higher tier villages are like, you know?”

  Tiana nodded while Allie looked thoughtful.

  “Sure, we can do that. You two still have to adventure at least once a week, right? Like with combat and everything?” Allie asked.

  “As far as I know, no-one's told us otherwise,” Eddie replied.

  “Then yeah, that might be a good outing sometime. Maybe next week? Karl and I can probably finish the mapping runs by then.”

  “It's a deal, assuming Dominic and Jern agree,” Eddie said. “We'll take a day off of building houses in the morning sometime soon so we can make it an all day affair.”

  Allie nodded.

  “Yeah, it might not be more than we can handle, but it'll still take time, five villages in a day, when we don't know some of them? Doable, but not if we don't start until late morning.”

  “On the bright side, what we'll be doing in the afternoon should be a lot of fun. We've got enough of the finished stone to start making the walls for the castle.”

  Allie shook her head, groaning.

  “I can't believe you decided that you needed to build a castle, or that you're actually going to go through with it,” she said.

  “Don't listen to her,” Karl said, “I think it's an awesome idea.”

  “I'd say you were trying to compensate for something, but I think Tiana might hit me,” Allie said.

  Eddie glared at her for a moment before breaking into a chuckle.

  “Yeah, I admit it might seem like a bit much right now, but I'm gambling that the next level of that quest will require a completed stronghold or maybe a castle or palace, so I'm just trying to get ahead of the game.”

  “If that's the case, then maybe you're onto something, but still... A freakin' castle?” Allie said.

  After that the conversation went to small talk, along with a few other adventurers stopping by to have a word with one of the people at the table. It was mainly Eddie for town affairs, Tiana for healing or anything to do with the temple, or Karl for his maps. Allie didn't appear upset to be left out of all the additional interactions with the other players, she just sat there looking happy, something Eddie really couldn't remember much of from her before the last week or two.

  As the evening grew late, Eddie and Tiana took their leave and headed up for his room. He'd been exploring a way to add a fireplace into it, and thought he'd found a way. Admittedly they didn't need it right now, but six months from now might be another matter. He still remembered how chilly the bunkhouse had been the first few nights and would prefer an additional heat source for his room, and maybe for some other rooms in the inn, before they got to winter in game.

  He was pacing out distances and trying to find just the right spot for it, when he heard Tiana giggle and a moment later found himself falling as a large bobcat jumped at him from behind.

  “Tiana,” he said, almost whining, “you're teaching Lucky bad manners.”

  Tiana stopped giggling long enough to answer.

  “She looked like she was considering it anyway, I just waved her on and she pounced.”

  Lucky, meanwhile, was once again confusing her ancestry for that of a canine, licking Eddie's face once he'd rolled over onto his back.

  “I spent hours playing with you today Lucky, what's wrong?” Eddie asked.

  She nuzzled his face with her own, then started purring.

  “Oh fine, I can pet you too. Come on over to the bed, your co-conspirator can help,” Eddie said.

  With the bobcat sprawled in the center of the bed, Eddie and Tiana were able to get to all of her favorite spots for pets and scritches. A while later, Lucky purring all through the intervening time, the bobcat made her way to the bed Eddie had built at the foot of his own and fell asleep.

  A bed I'm going to have to remake even larger if she keeps growing, Eddie thought.

  With Lucky having ceded the bed to the two of them, Eddie and Tiana proceeded to make good use of it before going to sleep themselves.

  Chapter Two

  Cooper, despite being almost the lowest level member of his party, was still treated as the leader. Over the past week, he'd caught up to the lowest levels of the party and now only Campbell and Ferring exceeded his level, Campbell by one level and Ferring by three levels. Even so, they gave him less grief now than they had back at the clearing, something about being in action seemed to calm them from their normally rambunctious selves.

  Now they were heading into the dungeon in the Meadowlands, amusingly e
nough called “Ancient Ruins (Meadowlands)”.

  Nothing like some lack of creativity to tone down what's probably a dangerous area, Cooper thought. I wonder how many people underestimated it because of the tame name. Eddie said it's got a lot of undead plus a few other surprises though, so now it's Bob's turn to shine. He's a medic in real life and chose priest when he got his class, so I guess he has a penchant for healing or something.

  “So Bob, you said you had some spells that would target the undead, right?” Campbell asked.

  “Yeah, no good on anything but undead, but it's single target direct damage on them. I've got no idea how much health they have though, so I don't know how effective it'll be. Plus, I'll still need to heal as well.”

  “Yeah, we know. Just trying to figure out the best way to do this. I'm thinking when we see them at a distance, you hit them with your spell repeatedly until they close and then switch to healing. That work for you?”

  “Got it, Coop,” Bob replied.

  Campbell had started calling Cooper that nickname a while back and the rest had slowly picked up on it as well. Cooper wasn't too worried about it, it worked for him.

  “Alright guys, everyone in the group has to agree before it lets us enter through this door. You all set?” Cooper asked.

  As the last of the group agreed, the door swung open and they entered the dungeon.

  ~ ~ ~

  Eddie took his time with breakfast. Tiana, across the table from him, was doing the same.

  “So, no houses today?” she asked.

  He shook his head.

  “They should be getting to the ones south of the crossroad at some point today. I think I'm going to let the crews take care of house building for now, unless they start falling behind. I, or we if you're interested, have to go down and check on Rotthorpe today. I haven't been down there in a while, not since I arranged for the ore to get smelted and the ingots they didn't need down there taken up to the forge.”

  “That was what, a week ago?” she asked.

  “More than that, but only just. Anyhow, I need to find out if there's anything else they need. They should be mostly self-sufficient, but I don't want to find out that they aren't the hard way.”

  “Delgar's forging stuff for them, right?”

  “For now. They also have their own forges, but no skilled smiths, just a couple of low level ones. Once they get their skill levels up, he won't have to be forging for them also. He complains about it every time I see him, says he's constantly busy, then brags about the latest skill increases he got because of it, so I think he just likes to complain and doesn't really mean it.”

  Tiana laughed.

  “What did I say?” he asked.

  “Nothing, I was just thinking that he was grinding his skill, then realized that grinding his skills might mean actually grinding stuff to put an edge on it. It struck me as funny.”

  Eddie smirked for a moment.

  “Yeah, a little, but I wouldn't try that one out on him. I don't think he'd find it that funny. Anyhow, he's got some of his dwarfs spending time mining also. They took over that room Tamshir built for the goblins, since it was nice and comfy after they got some straw mattresses for the stone beds.”

  Eddie shook his head.

  “Dwarfs, who can make 'em out,” he said.

  “Okay, sure I'll go with you. Have we gotten any goblin players yet?”

  “That's the other thing I want to check. I haven't heard of any coming up through the Meadowlands, but does that mean that there aren't any, that they're still down there, or what? If there are, I want to let them know what's available up here as well. Nothing like a newbie zone down there and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be welcome in the one at Hammer Hold.”

  She nodded, her face breaking into a smile. Eddie assumed it was from the thought of goblins trying to invade the dwarf's newbie zone, since he found the idea a little amusing himself.

  They finished the rest of their breakfast then stood and made their way towards the smithy, that being where Eddie wanted to stop first before going down to Rotthorpe.

  “Delgar,” Eddie said, when the dwarf paused from pounding the metal in front of him.

  The dwarf, apparently engrossed in his work, was startled by the sound of Eddie's voice.

  “Eddie! Don't do that. You almost gave me a heart attack sneaking up on me like that,” Delgar said.

  “Sneaking up on you? I'm a good ten feet away.”

  “Yeah, but you were so quiet about it.”

  “We knocked first, but you didn't hear it over the pounding of your hammer. Anyhow, that doesn't matter. I was wondering if you knew if they needed anything down in Rotthorpe. We're going to head down there today.”

  “Says you it doesn't matter,” Delgar muttered into his beard. Then he caught Eddie's gaze and spoke louder.

  “As far as I know they don't, but be sure to congratulate me on the elevator after you get back. It was a royal pain in the ass to build, although I did pick up the basic engineering skill from doing it. Got Paul to do all the woodwork, promised him some silver fittings of his choice in return for it.”

  “Alright then, you need anything from down there?”

  “If you want to haul back whatever ingots they've got I wouldn't turn it down. My boys don't mind mining, some of them even like it, but they hate being used as pack mules. Keeps them from mining and earning their share of whatever they get. I've been giving your groups' share to Liv at the inn, like you asked.”

  Eddie's group had decided that since they spent so much time at the inn, they'd let Liv take care of their shares from the mine until they had a larger amount. In the meanwhile, they could just ask her for some of it when they were there if they needed it. Eddie had been considering building a bank in the Meadowlands, but he just hadn't had the heart to do all the research required and had given up on the idea after mentioning it to a few of the other enterprising groups in the area. He hoped one of them would take the idea and run with it, but hadn't heard anything back from any of them yet.

  “We can do that,” Eddie said. “We'll drop it off on our way back through.”

  “Good, then if you'll excuse me, I told Charles I'd have his sword done the day after tomorrow, so I've got to get back to this.”

  Delgar turned and held the metal he'd been working on in the forge, using a pair of tongs so he didn't grab the metal directly. The dwarf was still staring intently at the metal, muttering “Come on, red hot, red hot.” over and over as they left the smithy.

  There was no-one in the small stone room they'd made for the goblins just off of the safe path between Hammer Hold and the Meadowlands, but it was obvious that was in use since the straw mattresses were on top of the stone beds and there were other items visible in the room.

  As they entered the mine they heard people working in it. The 'ting, ting' of pickaxes echoing around the tunnels.

  “Wow, he wasn't kidding when he said he got it fixed up,” Eddie said as they arrived at the shaft leading down.

  Atop the hole that had held ropes they climbed up and down when they first found Rotthorpe was a much sturdier version of the elevator they'd destroyed in the same location. They hadn't trusted that one, but this one looked much stronger.

  Eddie peered at the cogs and gears that made it work. He vaguely understood what they did, but was glad he hadn't been the one that had to make them.

  I'm glad Delgar told me he got the engineering skill or I wouldn't know if I should trust these now, he thought.

  The elevator looked self-explanatory. Cranks on both sides of the platform had to moved in unison. One person could do it with their arms outstretched, but he was glad that Tiana was with him so they wouldn't have to do it that way.

  “On three?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  He counted off and three counts later they both started cranking. It took very little effort to turn the cranks, but the movement was slightly jerky. He could deal with that though, it still felt sturd
y despite the bumps and jerks.

  “Maybe those are just the gears breaking in?” he asked.

  “I hope so, I think it would wear out quicker if it always jerked like this and I wouldn't want to be on it when one of the teeth on the cogs snapped,” Tiana answered.

  Eddie shrugged and a minute later they were at the bottom of the shaft, stepping off into the tunnel that led to Rotthorpe.

  They paused as they got to the narrow spot in the corridor that Tamshir had created before they attacked Rotthorpe the first time they were here. They looked out over the settlement and the noises of a busy population were audible, the roar of flames from somewhere, the sound of a smith's hammer pounding away, and other noises that indicated that the settlement was busy.

  “Where do you think we'd find Grokeen?” Eddie asked.

  Grokeen was one of the shaman's they'd left in charge. The one that had somehow established himself as the head of the three goblins Eddie had appointed to run the settlement.

  “Maybe the town hall?” Tiana said. “If not, someone there will probably know where he is at least.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” Eddie replied, “at least a better one than walking around and hollering for him.”

  Tiana snickered for a moment and then they set off towards the town hall on the far side of the settlement. Eddie stopped abruptly mid-way down the road that led towards their destination.

  “What is that?” he asked.

  There was a goblin in the road farther down the street. He didn't look like any of the goblins Eddie had seen in the game so far either. The Forest of Fools goblins were beefy and short. The ones they'd found here in Rotthorpe were small and thin. This one looked to be almost the size of a short human, and the skin color was green with a hint of blue highlights, unlike anything he'd seen yet.

  “Hey, excuse me,” Eddie called out.

  The goblin spun, a rat dangling from its hands.

  “Oh, other players,” the goblin said. “I'd wondered. I'd only seen the three other goblin players down here so far.”