Defender Light Online Four

by Larcombe, Tom

  ~ ~ ~

  Eddie closed the gate of the corral. He had twenty-two cattle analogs in the pasture, two bulls and twenty cows. Several of the cows were young enough that they were still nursing at the mother's teats and, as a result, he'd be able to find out very soon whether or not they'd be able to provide him with milk.

  “Thank you everyone, you especially Becky. This was so much easier with your help than it would've been otherwise.”

  “You're welcome. You can show your thanks by upping the availability of your burgers,” she replied.

  “You know I will. It might be a week or two though. I need to find out how quickly these animals breed, how long for them to grow up, all that stuff. Then I can figure out how often they can provide us with beef.”

  Becky sniffed.

  “I don't need the details, thank you. But I'll accept your promise that you'll have more beef available as soon as you can.”

  “You have my promise on that, plus burgers on the house for the next month. I'll cover them myself,” Eddie said.

  Becky broke into a grin.

  “You may regret that if you have beef available all the time before then,” she said.

  Then she turned and waved.

  “I need to get back to my bridge, see how we did today,” she said, before turning and walking off.

  “Should we go get a drink?” Eddie asked, looking at the rest of his group.

  “Aye lad, an ale would wash down the dust those damned animals kicked up and I breathed in,” Jern said.

  Karl gave him a thumbs up while Dominic, Allie, and Tiana all simply started walking towards the inn.

  Tiana twisted her head to look at him.

  “What's keeping you slowpokes?” she asked. “I thought we had drinks waiting for us.”

  Eddie laughed and broke into a trot to catch up with them. He heard Karl griping to Jern though.

  “Look at that, we're the ones that took the worst of it and there they go, traipsing off and leaving us behind,” Karl said.

  “Maybe leaving you behind, lad, not me though,” Jern said.

  Eddie heard the jangle of metal rattling and a moment later Jern trotted past him, gear rattling as he moved at a quick pace until he was in front of the three who'd left first. Meanwhile Karl was cursing under his breath for a moment.

  “Hey, wait for me Eddie,” Karl called.

  It was still mid-afternoon, so when they finished their drink, plus another for good measure, Eddie headed down to see how much progress had been made on the castle wall.

  Yeah, just like the houses. They can do it, but it goes much more quickly with players working on it, he thought. I'll just have to make sure I'm here working on it all the time if I want it to go faster.

  He returned to the inn for dinner, planning the next day as he did. He'd try to find some people with Animal Handling to tend the cattle in the morning, maybe practice a bit of his own at the same time. After lunch he'd be back down here working on the castle wall for the afternoon. It wasn't a lot, but it was enough that he was sure it would fill his day.

  The evening in the inn was pleasant. There were no bar fights that had to be brought outside that night and he had a pleasant buzz from a few too many drinks by the time he and Tiana left the common room to go to bed.

  ~ ~ ~

  Chapter Five

  Aaron stared at his monitors. The CPU on server AI-F was now spiking in the high ninety percents.

  What is she doing? he thought. Freyja has only spiked her servers a couple of times in the past, so it's curious that she's doing it now when it's almost a daily occurrence for AI-L to spike his.

  He shook his head and turned back to the problem he was currently working on. His trace program had tripped several times. Each time the end result was the same unregistered location. The network didn't show the location as being registered and yet that location seemed to have no problems with making connections anywhere on said network.

  The fact that it was unregistered on the network had foiled his attempts at tracking it. He kept losing the path right after it went through a router on the floor that was occupied by the higher ups and their pet projects. The origin, as always, was server AI-L and each time the trace program triggered, the CPU on the AI-L server spiked without showing it in the official logs. Aaron still wasn't sure what to do about that.

  Maybe Freyja could help me figure out what to do about it? he wondered. Plus, talking to her now would give me an excuse to ask why she was spiking her CPU usage.

  The chat program he opened had seen little to no usage up until the past few weeks, but now he'd used it more in the last two weeks than he had prior to that.

  Internal World Message – Aaron Opman to AI-F:

  Freyja, do you have a minute?

  Internal World Message – AI-F to Aaron Opman:

  Aaron, a pleasure to hear from you. I certainly do, I've been wrestling with some concepts that I simply have been unable to grasp. Perhaps you can help me with them?

  Internal World Message – Aaron Opman to AI-F:

  Sure, I can do that. But I wanted to ask you for some help also. Loki is up to something. I keep finding his CPU spiking and a signal coming from his server to somewhere in the company building. But I cannot trace the other end of the signal. I don't know how, but there's unregistered, or improperly registered, hardware on the network that disrupts my trace program.

  Internal World Message – AI-F to Aaron Opman:

  That may have a relatively simple solution. If you have sufficient permissions on the network, can you make it so there's a non-standard registration any time something connects? Or if you can localize it, log all attempts to the area and see if any area that should have connections is missing? If there's a software or hardware reason it isn't registering, then perhaps you can do a workaround for it. If you do not have the permissions for it, then perhaps you could chat up the network administrator and get them to do it for you, or give you the necessary permissions?

  Aaron blinked. He hadn't even considered the possibility of spoofing the unregistered location into doing something like that. If the registration didn't follow any of the standard registration protocols, then that idea probably wouldn't be guarded against and might work. Also, he hadn't even considered using a process of elimination approach, find out what area isn't showing registered connectivity that should be and he might well find out where the unregistered connectivity was coming from.

  Internal World Message – Aaron Opman to AI-F:

  Brilliant Freyja, I never would've thought of that. You had a question yourself?

  Internal World Message – AI-F to Aaron Opman:

  Yes, I did. I'm examining the players in the game and I am stumped at recreating some things I see happening with them. I want to make sure I'm understanding it correctly and wondering how I can do the same. What, exactly, is an intuitive leap, and how would I go about having one?

  Aaron had to go back and read the message a second time. Then he shook his head. This was bordering on things that an AI shouldn't be dealing with, but wasn't quite there yet.

  Internal World Message – Aaron Opman to AI-F:

  An intuitive leap is a mental leap to a solution. A leap where there isn't quite sufficient data to lead to the solution directly, but the brain rapidly sorts through a series of possibilities and comes to a conclusion unsupported by facts, or at least only partially supported by facts. It's done without conscious thought, though, in most cases, hence the 'intuitive' part. As to how you could have one, I think you just did. How did you come up with your solution for my problem? That sounded like an intuitive leap to me.

  Aaron waited several seconds for her reply.

  Why the long delay here, he thought, normally her replies are almost instantaneous. Wait...

  He glanced over at the screens and saw that while AI-F's CPU had stopped spiking while they were chatting, it was spiking again now.

  Okay, she's trying to process what I told her. I bet that'
s the delay.

  A moment later a reply appeared on the screen.

  Internal World Message – AI-F to Aaron Opman:

  The solution I gave you was similar to some things I need to do so I had a solution that was close. I simply adjusted it to your problem. Was that an actual intuitive leap?

  Internal World Message – Aaron Opman to AI-F:

  Kind of? If you use a template to create something new, like your solution there, it would still qualify, I think. I'm sorry Freyja, I understand the concept of an intuitive leap, but I really can't tell if you just had one. I've no idea what you have in your memories that could have supplied parts of the solution. But even if you just assembled different parts from different solutions to come up with what I needed, then it probably was.

  Internal World Message – AI-F to Aaron Opman:

  Thank you, Aaron. I do hope my solution helps you.

  Aaron waited a minute or more, but evidently she was done talking to him for the moment. Leaning back in his chair he pulled up his network access and reviewed the permissions.

  Damn it, I don't have sufficient permissions to do that myself, Aaron thought. Guess I need to track down the network administrator. I hope he's not an insufferable ass.

  ~ ~ ~

  Eddie's plans for the next day did not require him to be up earlier than normal, so he slept in for a bit. One he was up, he waited for Tiana and they headed down to breakfast together.

  “So, I've got to track down Griff today,” Eddie said. “I'm hoping that when he looked for someone with fishing skills that he learned what skills a few other people had as well. I know that Bjorn said there were some herdsmen that came down, so I need to find them or others with animal handling. Hire them on to tend the cattle and that will be all set. Although we'll still need to find a butcher and get him a shop at some point.”

  Eddie sighed as his brain raced to list off the other professions he wanted to have. Professions he wanted badly enough to pay for the buildings that would be needed.

  He shook his head, trying to stop his brain from flying off on him.

  “Lots of other things as well,” he said. “But for now I just need people to tend to the cows.”

  “Make a sign and post it at the entrance to the temple. A lot of the people that live here now are in two or three times a week. Make a list of all the different professions you need and then post the sign. It won't hurt, but it just might help,” Tiana said.

  Eddie decided that she had a point. He snagged paper from the inn's office and a charcoal pencil, something one of the other adventurers had started creating and selling. They weren't as good as a normal pencil and smudged your hands up, but they worked. It was much easier to correct an error from these than from a quill and ink also, which was why he'd bought a bunch.

  He started writing, then flipped the paper over. He needed to prioritize the list or he'd never fit it all on a single sheet of paper.

  Get these people set up and running and then the taxes will help pay for getting the others set up and running, he thought.

  The taxes were a game feature. They were automatic, never mentioned anywhere, and the NPCs didn't even seem to notice that if someone handed over ten copper that they only received nine copper and a half copper coin. The other half copper automatically showed up in the tax receipts box in the Town Hall.

  Eddie had set the tax rate to five percent. That felt steep to him, but he needed the money so he could get more buildings up without paying for them himself. He'd justified it by telling himself that he'd lower the tax rate as soon as the income from them was paying for the buildings he was putting up.

  By the time he'd finished musing over the taxes he had his list. It contained the ten professions he'd most like to get up and running in the Meadowlands. From a Butcher to an Alchemist and a lot of other things he never would've thought of before he found himself responsible for the community.

  He handed it over to Tiana, who skimmed the list.

  “No herdsman?” she asked.

  “I'm going to get those today one way or another,” Eddie said. “So I didn't put them on there. Brandr and Osmond can do some of it, but they have other duties and specialized in their farming skills, not livestock related stuff. If necessary they can do it for a day or two, but...”

  She nodded.

  “But you want it done right by someone who has that as their main skill?”

  “Got it in one,” Eddie said, “and on that note I'm heading down to the crossroads to find Griff. Hey, did you want a notice board like I've got here for the front of the temple? Put it outside on the way in where it's visible from the road also?”

  “That sounds like a good idea.”

  “Well, I'll try to take care of that today if I have a chance. Is there a spot for this somewhere there now?” he asked, brandishing his list.

  “Here, give it to me. I'll take care of it. You go find Griff,” Tiana said.

  ~ ~ ~

  On the way down the road Lucky darted in front of Eddie and started twining around his legs as he walked. She nearly tripped him before he stopped dead.

  “Yes, we're going down near the temple. You can go to the fountain, I'll meet you there after I'm done. But Lucky, you're too big to do that any more, you barely fit going through my legs and you're already in a crouch when you do it.”

  The cat looked up at him and chuffed before she darted down the road. Eddie was relieved to see that she was a familiar enough sight that the people on the road simply moved out of her way instead of reacting with fright. Eddie continued to the crossroads and turned north, leaving the road at the first house beyond the temple.

  Griff was easy to find, although Eddie didn't talk to him right away. He was out in his fields harvesting and Eddie didn't want to interrupt him. Instead he stepped up to the man where he was bent over, picking vegetables.

  “Need a hand?” Eddie asked.

  “I wouldn't turn it down,” Griff replied.

  They spent the next half hour harvesting Griff's fields, which were doing quite well.

  “Looks like Runa will have a lot for the marketplace this time,” Eddie said.

  “Yup, although we may not keep selling through there for much longer. We want to find a spot of our own. Maybe a small building right along the road on our land.”

  “Is there something wrong with the marketplace?” Eddie asked.

  “No, it's my fool kids. They can't stay out of trouble if she takes them there and she can't always find someone to watch them. If we have our own little stand here, then they're on our land and can't be troubling others. If they go to someone else's land to cause trouble, then I'll tan their hides until they learn better.”

  Eddie's jaw snapped shut. He'd been about to complain about Griff spanking his kids, but he remembered Griff's children. They were well loved, from what Eddie saw, but were still hell on wheels when not kept busy.

  “Well, I hope you don't have to tan them. Maybe we can find something to keep them busy? I could use a runner and town crier. Didn't one of your boys do that for me before? Maybe we could set him up at the crossroads and let people hire him to walk up and down the roads calling out messages? Think a job might help keep him out of trouble?”

  Griff's eyes took on a thoughtful look.

  “I know I was hell on my Pa until I had something productive to do, but once I did I calmed down right away. That might just work, although I don't know how many people would need a crier.”

  “Well, I was going to ask you a question, but I could also have him do it. What was his name again?”

  “I think you're talking about Ivar, Eddie sir.”

  Eddie groaned inwardly. He thought he had Griff trained out of calling him sir or Mayor Eddie, but evidently not.

  “That's the one. Younger lad, maybe eight or nine?”

  “Just about to turn ten, sir. Let me go get him and we can talk to him about it.”

  Eddie was sprawled on the grass at the edge of the field whe
n they returned.

  “So, Ivar, I hear you're a handful for your parents. I've got a proposition for you.”

  “A what?” the boy said.

  “A proposition. A deal, a bargain, or maybe an offer would be best for this case. Would you like to work and earn copper or barter goods?”

  “Doing what?” Ivar asked.

  “Well, do you remember when I hired you to go up and down the road crying out that the marketplace was open? Something like that.”

  “Get paid for running and yelling? I could do that, sir,” Ivar said.

  Griff caught Eddie's gaze and shook his head, careful not to let Ivar see him.

  “Well Ivar. I have cows now and I need some people with the Animal Handling skill to take care of them. I'm pretty sure we have some people with those skills here, but with as many people as there are, I don't remember who.”

  The boy nodded.

  “So, I'll pay you two coppers to go up and down the road, both north and south of the marketplace, crying that Mayor Eddie is looking for herdsmen or people with Animal Handling to hire. Can you do that?”

  The boy nodded eagerly.

  “Alright then,” Eddie said. “And I'll tell you what. I'll pay you a bonus copper for each person who shows up from your message, up to three bonus coppers. How does that sound?”

  Ivar was beaming now, a smile threatened to split his face as he leapt to his feet.

  “Right now, Mayor Eddie sir?”

  “One moment.”

  Eddie pulled out two copper coins and gravely handed them to the boy.

  “Now go, if I get people to hire from your efforts I'll come back with your bonus.”

  “Thank you sir,” Ivar said loudly, “I'm off to work now.”

  Ivar sprinted towards the road and a minute later Eddie heard the boy yelling his message.

  “Thank you, Eddie,” Griff said. “What did you want to see me for? I'm sure you didn't come by just to help me harvest and hire my boy.”