Farmer

by Tom Larcombe

  It took him about an hour to cut down what he'd thought would enough trees. Then he wove the saplings into a sled, which would be the counter top after he got everything where he wanted it, and piled the rest of the wood, including Karl's firewood, on top.

  “Lucky,” he called.

  The bobcat raced over to him, the abandoned Tiana glaring at him again.

  “Lucky, I need to go back to where all those adventurers were. I'll protect you if you come with me, or you can wander the area around here while I'm there and I'll whistle for you when I head back to the farm.”

  Once again Eddie was sure she wouldn't understand him, but when he started dragging the sled back towards the fields, she followed along. Karl and Tiana were bringing up the rear to catch anything that fell off the sled.

  “So Karl,” Eddie said. “Shall we save the Warren Mother and Elder Nubby until we're back at the farm? How many piece of rabbit meat do you have?”

  “I've got twelve still,” Karl said. “You?”

  “Twenty-seven. I figure each one will make three servings so that's a hundred and seventeen. Although probably less. If Lucky is still with us when we set up I'll give her one, plus you and I need to eat also.”

  Tiana cleared her throat.

  “And Tiana too, I suppose,” Eddie added.

  “Works for me, you know Lucky will most likely catch more on the way back too.”

  “Yup, stock for tomorrow,” Eddie said.

  He stopped when he got to the edge of the first field the adventurers were camping in. This one wasn't full, unlike the other one between here and the trading post.

  “Build me a fire Karl?” Eddie asked.

  He pulled out a chunk of rabbit meat and offered it to Lucky, who took it and started worrying at it.

  Eddie grabbed the supports he was going to use from the sled, using the shovel that was still in his inventory to dig holes for them. Once they were in place, he set the sled itself on top of them, using flexible branches to attach it to the supports.

  Karl had the fire going at that point so Eddie built the supports for the spit while it burned. Once he saw enough coals, he moved the burning logs, raking the coals so they were under the spit. He pulled out a rabbit pelt sack he'd filled with herbs so he wouldn't have to go out to the garden every time he cooked, then sliced slits in the rabbit meat, stuffing them with herbs before spitting them, using some of the salt and pepper he'd purchased from Old Jeffries on them, and placing them over the coals.

  You have upgraded the skill Cooking to (2).

  Yes, he thought, My biggest worry is that my cooking skill is still too low for people to want to pay for what I cook. That'll help right there and if I cook all this rabbit meat we have I bet a get a few more increases to its rank also.

  It wasn't long before the savory smell of herb roasted rabbit drifted out over the field and started attracting attention. He spitted the first few slices that came off for himself, Tiana, and Karl. After wolfing down his own food, he turned his attention back to the meat. The next few strips were barely done and spitted before someone cleared his throat behind him.

  “What you up to mate?” the man standing at the counter asked.

  “Selling meat on a stick,” Eddie said. “Herb-roasted rabbit today. Interested?”

  “How much?” the man asked.

  “One silver per spit, which ought to be enough to fill you up.”

  The man rummaged in his inventory and slapped two silver down on the counter.

  “I'll take two,” he said.

  Eddie handed them over, collecting the two silvers with a grin.

  “Tiana, would you do me a favor?” Eddie asked.

  “What?” she asked suspiciously.

  She was still eating her own meat, taking slow bites and obviously savoring them.

  “Nothing big, just walk down towards the trading post while you eat your meat. If anyone asks where you got it, point them our way.”

  “I'll do it if you give me another one of these later on,” she said.

  “Done,” Eddie replied.

  ~ ~ ~

  Three hours later Eddie was ready to call it quits. The sales had tapered off, but before they did he'd sold seventy-eight meat on a sticks. He'd also gained three more points in cooking.

  Tiana had claimed her second meat on a stick a few minutes earlier and left to rejoin her group. She'd told them that they normally adventured during the day, then split up at night to do whatever they liked. Most evenings she just sat in her tent and used the browser to go online. They were planning on an early start in the morning though, so she'd left to go to sleep.

  He took a split piece of firewood that had a fairly smooth split and a piece of charcoal he'd kicked out of the fire earlier to cool. It took him several attempts, but then he had a sign reading:

  'Open again tomorrow – late afternoon'

  He propped the log on the counter, bracing it to stand upright with smaller pieces of wood, then turned to Karl.

  “Shall we head home? I figure tomorrow we can offer fresh vegetables as well.”

  “You're gonna steal the produce from the farm?”

  “Heck, if we don't use it up somehow, it'll probably go bad. I figure if they let bunnies steal it then it'll just rot if we don't use it somehow.”

  “Good point. Sounds like a plan to me.”

  “So, tomorrow morning we hunt, maybe we can offer some different types of meat. I know there's partridge out there, deer too if we can take one down. Then we come back down here after we have, say, a hundred portions of meat. I noticed that all the buildings in that little settlement are made of rough hewn planks. If the person who cut the trees down and made them into planks is there, I'm going to hire them to make me a bunch. Then we can get a proper food stand up, plus start building shelter to rent out as well.”

  “You're really getting into this, aren't you?” Karl asked.

  “Do you realize that we just made almost a hundred and sixty bucks? Eighty each? Four times as much as we would've made just working the farm for a day? Speaking of which, here you go.”

  Eddie looked around to make sure no-one was close before he gave Karl an overflowing handful of silver.

  “Thirty-nine for you, thirty-nine for me,” Eddie said.

  “Really? Fifty-fifty? You did most of the work,” Karl said.

  “Nah, we're grouped, we split fifty-fifty. Don't worry, I'm sure I'll find plenty of work for you to do as well. Besides, like I said, it's already four times what we would've made in a day on the farm. I'm betting tomorrow will be better also.”

  Lucky had been napping in a bush about twenty yards away, but when Eddie whistled, she came racing out.

  “Ready to go home girl?” he asked.

  She purred as he reached down and scratched her between the ears.

  “If you see any bunnies on the way home, go get 'em,” Eddie said.

  Lucky seemed to understand him since she darted into the underbrush three times while they walked back to the farm, each time returning with the corpse of a bunny.

  Just before they got back to the farm Karl stopped Eddie in the road.

  “Hang on, I hear someone nearby, probably on the farm,” he said.

  “Did you get any sort of sneak skill from choosing Scout?” Eddie asked.

  Karl nodded.

  “Be right back,” he said.

  He walked into the undergrowth beside the road and just sort of faded into it as he went farther away from Eddie.

  A few minutes later Eddie heard a rustle in the bushes and Karl stepped back out.

  “There's some older guy wandering around the compound with a confused look on his face.”

  Eddie did the mental math.

  “I bet that's Paul, the builder I told you about. He said he had to be gone for a few days, but he logged out in the farm, so he might've logged back in there as well. Let's go see.”

  “Sure, but don't feel too betrayed if I hang back, just in case.”
<
br />   “It doesn't matter Karl, if it's a player, they can't PK us until level twenty. Even if we were that high a level, I thought player killing was only allowed in zones with a minimum level of twenty?”

  “That doesn't mean they can't rob us,” Karl said.

  “Put all your valuables in your inventory if you're worried about it. You know another player can't access that.”

  “Fine,” Karl grumbled.

  The two men walked into the farm.

  “Paul,” Eddie cried out at the sight of the man.

  “Eddie, what's going on here?” Paul asked. “Where is everyone? And, I don't really know how to ask this, so I'll be blunt. Why is there a dev sleeping in your bunk?”

  ~ ~ ~

  Eddie stared at Aaron, asleep in his bed.

  Why the hell is he sleeping here? I mean, sleeping in game even? He could just as easily have crashed in the real world. I wonder if he's trying to do what we said and spend more time in the game? Whatever the reason is, this is too good a chance to pass up.

  He leaned over until his mouth was about a foot away from Aaron's head, then he called out, in a deep-pitched voice.

  “Who's been sleeping in my bed?” Eddie called out, loudly.

  Paul stared at him as if he'd gone mad. He even took several steps back towards the door when Karl and Eddie started laughing at Aaron. The dev had snapped into a sitting position on the bed, then tried to swing his legs off the bed to stand. They'd gotten tangled in the blanket though and he'd fallen to his knees. He glared at Eddie as he kicked the blanket off and stood.

  “That's not funny,” Aaron said, which set Karl and Eddie to laughing even harder.

  Paul was about to make a break for the door when Aaron sat back down on the edge of the bed.

  “Okay, maybe it was, but it was only a little bit funny,” he said, glaring at them.

  “Come on, look at it from our point of view,” Eddie said. “Besides, why the hell were you sleeping in my bed? There were plenty of unclaimed ones.”

  Aaron blushed.

  “Sorry, I was just so tired. My boss has had me running around both in game and in the real world trying to take care of this mess. I hadn't slept in a day, and not much in the couple of days before that, so I just crashed on the nearest bed when you weren't here.”

  “That's fine, really. I just couldn't pass up the chance,” Eddie said.

  “You're bloody crazy, that's what you are,” Paul said. “The man's a developer, and you're giving him a hard time?”

  “The man is just that,” Eddie said, “a man. Besides, we already knew he had a sense of humor, kind of.”

  Aaron glared at Eddie again, who just chuckled.

  “What do you expect? My charisma is only an eight,” Eddie said, grinning.

  “You're incorrigible,” Aaron said. “But I was looking for the two of you. My boss has a release he wants you both to sign. We're willing to compensate you handsomely if you do. Might make your time stuck in game a little easier depending on what you want.”

  “Handsomely? Like, what are we looking at there?” Karl asked.

  “Well, I already took care of the other four. The idiots are having a massive party. They asked for a bunch of consumables that weren't available in the capital normally, an ever-full cask of beer, and a pouch of gold each. They got it, although the cask will disappear once the problem with the pods has been fixed.”

  “Problem with the pods?” Paul asked.

  “Oh shit, I wasn't supposed to say that where anyone else could hear,” Aaron said.

  “Can I tell him?” Eddie asked, gesturing towards Paul.

  “You'd better, otherwise we'll get that panic I wanted to avoid,” Aaron said.

  “Okay Paul, remember you warned me about Allan Panning?”

  “Yeah, the guy's a slimeball.”

  “More than you might think. All the guys he hired to work this farm? He put them in experimental pods. Now we're stuck here, for the moment at least, and Light Online is trying to make it up to us since it's their game we're stuck in. They've also taken physical possession of the pods we're in and are trying to get us back out.”

  “That son of a bitch, he still owes me a teleport back to my starting city. I reset my spawn point to here while I was building the place so I'm stuck. My wife and daughter are planning on joining me as soon as I get to a starting point. Now I'll have to find my way back there on my own.”

  “You said he paid you in gold?” Eddie asked. “Got any left?”

  “Some, I converted a whole bunch to dollars though.”

  “I bet I could find you a group of adventurers to escort you back for a few gold. Maybe...”

  He stopped and stared off into space for a minute or two. Paul was about to say something before Karl held up his hand.

  “The last time he looked like that he had an idea that made us almost eight gold in a long afternoon, with no danger but boredom. Let's wait for it,” Karl said.

  “I wonder if Tiana and her group would be interested in doing some double duty,” Eddie said, “a combined escort job and dropped item sales run. I bet we could buy up a bunch of drops from people that don't want to sell them to Old Jeffries and make a profit by having her and her group sell them in a larger city.”

  “Why would they do that?” Karl asked.

  “Because we'd split the profits with them? Combined with a few gold for the escort job it might tempt them. It can't hurt to ask, right?”

  Aaron was staring at him.

  “You just came up with this on the fly? What did you do to earn the eight gold?”

  “Well, all the adventurers near the trading post were complaining about their rations and stuff, so I just set up a food stand selling meat on a stick.”

  “You set up a business?”

  “Only temporary, so far. But I've got some plans. Speaking of which. Paul, you mentioned land claims. I didn't ask about it at the time, but when I looked for help on it, I didn't find any.”

  “Oh yeah, it's a weird help file name. It's like they didn't want anyone to find it easily. You have to do a help on the phrase 'player land claims'. There's some others like that as well, 'player homestead' is part of 'player land claims', but 'player business' is a different help file. There's probably more of those out there, I'd guess. Unlike most of the other help files, not a one of them has a 'see also' section though.”

  “Really?” Eddie said, “That's very interesting.”

  He turned to stare at Aaron.

  “I guess someone finally read that Meadowlands help file the way it was intended,” Aaron said.

  “Care to enlighten us some?” Eddie asked.

  Aaron shook his head.

  “No can do, but if I were a GM in one of those old table-top RPGs I'd be awarding you and Paul some experience right now. That's all I can say.”

  He cleared his throat.

  “But now, back to business. I need to convince you guys to sign that release. What will it take to get you to do that?”

  “You go ahead Karl,” Eddie said. “I want to check something real quick.”

  Help player land claims, Eddie thought.

  Player Land Claims, Player Homestead:

  A player may claim up to ten acres of unoccupied land per level, each lot at least one acre, at no cost. A player may have as many claims as they have levels plus one, so two claims at first level, eleven at tenth level, etc... Additional land may be purchased as opposed to claimed and does not count towards a player's total acreage of land claimed.

  A player must prove their claim by building a structure on their land within the first three months after they claim it. The structure may be a home, a business, or a combination of the two.

  The player must spend time in residence equal to one day per week, tallied monthly, over the first year after the claim is made or the claim is declared null and void. Friends, followers, or employees in residence are equal to the player being in residence for this purpose.

  Help p
layer business, Eddie thought.

  Player Business:

  A player may establish a business on land that they own. The player must have a residence in the zone the business is to be built in. A player may own any number of businesses provided they are in a zone that also contains a residence of said player.

  The land for the business may be purchased or otherwise obtained, but the player must have clear and undisputed ownership of the land before they begin to build their business.

  Eddie's face split in a massive grin. Aaron was looking at him, so he stopped and glanced at Karl.

  “I'm all done, I've already signed and everything,” Karl said.

  “Cool, Aaron, can I ask a couple of questions before I request something?”

  “Sure. I'll answer if I can.”

  “How much gold did the other four get.”

  “A pouch of a hundred gold each.”

  “We're supposed to get the purchase price of this farm split between the six of us, right?”

  Aaron nodded.

  “How much will it sell for?” Eddie asked.

  “I don't know, this is the Meadowlands, so probably the most you can hope to get is a hundred gold or so split between you.”

  “Even with the crop worth more than that?” Eddie asked.

  Aaron nodded.

  “Yeah, this is great growing land, but it's an inconvenient area to ship to or from. Like you said earlier, you'll need to hire an escort just to get to a starting city. The shippers prefer to work in less dangerous areas than the zones you'd need to pass through for that.”

  “Yeah, I was supposed to get a teleport back to the city,” Paul said. “Allan had a wizard lined up for that and to bulk teleport crops.”

  “Isn't that expensive?”

  “The wizard is an employee of Star Suppliers, he works at that first farm I built, in theory at least. I think he's getting his pod and his monthly fees paid for his efforts. As long as he does the job they hired him for he gets to do whatever he wants the rest of the time.”