Farmer

by Tom Larcombe

  He stopped dead when he saw movement in the meadow. Nocking an arrow, he stayed still, noticing Lucky crouching down and crawling out into the field. He still didn't see anything where he'd seen the movement, but he drew the arrow and held it, waiting. His arm throbbed from the exertion, but he managed to keep the arrow drawn. A moment later, Lucky sprang out of the grass, racing towards something he couldn't see.

  A pair of bunnies broke out of the tall grass, zigging and zagging to avoid the bobcat, but Lucky pounced, catching one in her jaws. Eddie let the other one take a few more hops before releasing his arrow.

  The strange urge to move an arm just before he fired occurred again, and he let the arm move. He'd decided that was probably the game adjusting for his higher than normal agility and wanted to take advantage of it.

  The bunny was spitted by the arrow, the tip of it digging into the dirt after driving through the bunny. His notifications flashed, so he pulled them up. There were three and the first two were identical.

  Enemy slain: Bunny (level 1)

  You have earned 25 (+3 well-rested, +6 blessing) exp.

  He was happier about the third message.

  You have upgraded the skill Hunting to (2). Shhh, be very quiet, we're hunting rabbits!

  That's weird. I wonder why Karl didn't get any experience? he thought.

  He pulled up the group screen and noticed that Karl was shown in an amber color.

  I wonder if that means he's out of range for sharing experience, maybe for other group things too? We'll have to check that at some point.

  He recovered the kills, netting two meats and a pelt from looting them. He cleaned the rabbit corpses for another two meats and two pelts as well. After offering Lucky the remainder of the rabbits, and letting her eat for a bit, he continued on.

  The hunt went well, netting him another seven bunnies as he moved away from the farm. As he'd expected, Lucky took down the majority of them, but he hadn't realized how close he'd been to leveling so the level gain after the fourth bunny surprised him.

  Success:

  You have obtained enough experience to advance to Level 2

  Do you wish to advance?

  (Y/N)

  Eddied grinned and thought Yes.

  You have advanced to Level 2.

  You have 3 stat points to distribute.

  Your Health has increased.

  Your Mana has increased.

  Your Stamina has increased.

  Three more stat points, he thought. It's a shame you only get the extra skill every third level along with the randomly determined stat point, but hey, I've got three to distribute at least. I'm at least putting one of them in Charisma. I know they say 8-12 is average, but I want it higher if I'm going to be an innkeeper.

  Add one stat point to charisma, he thought.

  Probably I want to bump my intelligence score as well, I'm learning lots of skills, but I'd prefer to keep some slots for skills open in case I decide on particular ones to learn.

  Add one stat point to intelligence, he thought.

  And I have to keep my agility above average. I'm going to have to focus on that more or people focused on agility are going to overtake me. At least they won't be as well balanced on stats though, I hope.

  Add one stat point to agility, he thought.

  I've still got that other skill point to use, I probably ought to assign it somewhere. I'll have to think about what other skills I want to learn. Maybe if we can use those on weapon skills I'll pick up an edged weapon skill, short blades or maybe short swords. Don't want the long swords option, and I'll pass on the great swords also.

  Now let's see what I've got. Character sheet, he thought.

  Edward Hunter

  Human Male

  Level: 2

  Class:Warrior (Ranger)

  Strength:10

  Intelligence: 10

  Agility: 18

  Wisdom: 13

  Heartiness: 11

  Charisma: 9

  Willpower: 12

  Health: 35

  Endurance: 11

  Mana: 39

  Luck: 14 (15)

  Stamina: 84

  Experience:

  2547/5000

  Base Attack: 10

  Base Armor: 10 (31)

  +1 attack melee (str)

  +18 armor (studded leather)

  +4 attack ranged (agility)

  +3 armor (agility)

  Skills:

  General:

  Animal Friendship: 1

  Animal Handling: 1

  Animal Husbandry: 1

  Bowyer/Fletcher: 2 (+1 to checks)

  Carpentry: 1

  Cooking: 5

  Evaluate: 3

  Farming: 2

  Fire Building: 1

  Herbalism: 2

  Hunting: 2

  Tracking: 2

  Weather Sense: 1

  Weaving: 3

  Combat:

  Bows: 1

  Staves: 1

  Magical:

  N/A

  Feels like I'm actually getting somewhere finally, he thought. At least it's a start, and a good one considering how I got thrown into the game.

  He hoped he had enough meat after that since they'd made it to the point where there were more rocks than grass. He turned and they took a slightly different route back towards the farm, surprising another three bunnies on the way.

  He kept an eye on the group screen and Karl's entry in it turned green again when he was about three football fields away from the farm.

  So probably a thousand feet or so on the group effects, he thought.

  When he got into the kitchen, his first stop after he got into the house, he found Karl sitting there looking quite the worse for wear.

  “Karl?” Eddie asked quietly.

  Karl just groaned.

  “Too much to drink last night?” Eddie said.

  Karl nodded his head, then clutched it and groaned louder.

  “Yes,” he managed to spit out, his head drooping lower from the effort.

  “Well, I wouldn't normally recommend this, but from the way you look, how about the hair of the dog that bit you as a cure? Maybe something to eat too?”

  Karl turned green and belched, obviously trying not to vomit.

  “No food,” he gasped.

  Eddie nodded and poured Karl a mug of the beer. He handed it over, then walked over to the remains of the bread and cut himself a slice. He kept an eye on Karl as he ate.

  First Karl took a tentative sip of the beer. When his stomach seemed to accept it okay, he took a longer drink. Some color returned to his face after that. He sat up straighter and took his remaining hand away from his head. After he tilted the mug back and drained it, he stood.

  “Don't ever let me do that again,” he said.

  “What, last night?”

  “Yeah, way too much beer.”

  “Feeling up to some food now? Maybe just start with a slice of bread though.”

  Karl's eyes squinted as he considered the offer.

  “Let's give it a shot.”

  Eddie sliced a piece of bread off and handed it over. Much like with the beer, the first nibble was tentative, but after that the slice disappeared quickly.

  Karl sighed in relief.

  “I feel better, not a hundred percent, but better.”

  “Good, I already did hunting today. Hopefully we've got enough meat, but I wanted to ask you. What is it that you want to do? I love having you help me with my plans, but do you have any plans of your own?”

  “I'm more than happy to help you, hell it pays better than the job I signed on for, right?” Karl said, grinning, “but at some point I need to go wandering for a few days. You didn't hear what I asked Aaron for, did you? You had that look on your face that told me you were interacting with the game menus.”

  “No, I didn't. Sorry, I was figuring out my own request.”

  “Which, in my opinion, was a stroke of genius. Gives us a base, you more food to se
ll, and opens up a lot more options.”

  Eddie nodded.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “Anyhow, while you were lost in the menus, this is what I asked for,” Karl said.

  He slipped an ornate case out of his inventory. The cover was tooled leather that looked thick enough to take a beating and still protect whatever was inside. When he opened the case it revealed vials of ink, metal fountain pens of the type that had to be dipped in ink, a stack of thick paper, a directional compass, a drafting compass, and a few more items that Eddie kind of recognized but couldn't put a name to.

  Eddie racked his brain trying to figure out what it was all for, finally a spark of an idea came to him.

  “Cartography?” he asked,

  Karl nodded.

  “It's a high level cartography kit. Hell, the kit alone gives me a bonus to the skill. Hopefully that will help me get the skill and work it up on my own. But one of these days, I want to wander all of the Meadowlands and map it out.”

  Karl started pacing as he continued to talk.

  “If I can get a few points of the skill here in a relatively peaceful zone, then I can do maps of the more aggressive ones a chunk at a time,” he said. “At least I hope I can do some that way. Then I can have my own source of income selling maps to adventurers.”

  Eddie grinned.

  “Sounds like a great plan to me. Plus, it gives more opportunity to adventure than my plan does. Need some help?”

  “Eventually, yes. For those more aggressive zones I was talking about. Probably not when I do the Meadowlands map though, I thought I could do that while you were working on the building you wanted. Does that sound like a good plan?” Karl asked tentatively.

  Crap, Eddie thought. I'd never even given a thought to what he was going to do while I was building. I kind of just assumed he'd be there, but this is better for both of us. Hell, my plans might even benefit from having a complete map of the Meadowlands.

  Eddie mentally slapped his ambitions down.

  “That sounds like a great idea, if it's what you want to do,” he said.

  Karl grinned.

  “Yeah, I like the idea of mapping places. Setting down a representation of the land that others can reference. Makes me feel like I'm doing something useful for lots of different people and getting paid for it too.”

  “Well, I'll warn you, the group abilities only work if you're within a thousand feet or so of each other. But, and I should've done this days ago, this will work, although Paul says using messages this way isn't instantaneous, takes a while to go through.”

  Eddie pulled up his social tab and chose the friends option. Evidently group members were given priority on it since instead of searching for Karl's name, he just had to tap his name where it showed under 'current groupmates'.

  Karl smiled when he received the notification and instantly accepted.

  “Now we can communicate with private messages whenever it is you go out to do your map-making,” Eddie said. “Hey, want to practice it some before you go?”

  “Yeah, I can do that, it even sounds like a good idea. But where?”

  “If you don't mind, I'd love a map of that little hamlet and the surrounding area. If I'm going to be building there, I probably ought to know what areas are available to build in. With a map I can plan the best places to put things. Although I'll admit that I'm leaning towards using the road between the hamlet and the farm here. That way my land holdings will be closer together.”

  “That sounds like a plan. You don't really need my help selling meat on a stick, do you?”

  “No, but the company is nice.”

  “You weren't paying too much attention to it yesterday, but I think that, if you want, you can have some far more pleasant company then me when you do it, at least pleasant on the eyes. I don't know her well enough to know if her personality is more pleasant or not.”

  “Huh?” Eddie asked, confused.

  “You didn't notice Tiana hanging onto almost every word you said?” Karl asked.

  “No, I didn't. I thought she was just interested in playing with Lucky.”

  Karl shook his head slowly.

  “Pay a little more attention today then, assuming she's there. You didn't exactly give her the cold shoulder yesterday, but you didn't really notice her either.”

  “I was a little upset with her. She walked out of the trading post and announced to the world that I'd given Old Jeffries a taste of his own medicine. I wasn't looking for any attention, I'd prefer to slip under the radar for a while at least.”

  “Well, tell her that and maybe she'll forgive you for ignoring her yesterday,” Karl said, “But yeah, I can put together a map of that area. It won't be much good yet, but it's a start and maybe I can actually get the skill by trying it.”

  “Good, lets grab some vegetables, then I'll cook up the Warren Mother for lunch, or at least some of her, that's way more than we can eat in one meal. After that we'll head down. I'll check the area I was thinking of for the boarding house, and you can wander around and map?”

  Karl nodded.

  “Let's go then, sorry I wasn't in any shape to hunt this morning,” Karl said.

  “Maybe tomorrow. I didn't go after deer today because I wanted that to be both of us, the one I saw before was level three, so...”

  “Mmm, venison,” Karl said as they walked out of the house.

  ~ ~ ~

  Chapter Fifteen

  Aaron woke, stiff as a board. He was used to putting in long hours, but the last few days had been just too much.

  Good, he thought, no messages on my phone. It would've been just like Greenshaw to call me while I was sleeping to berate me for not doing the impossible yet.

  When he checked his email it was a different story. Aside from the inevitable spam there were a few important messages. He skimmed them all then picked the one from his hacker contractor to act on.

  Duluth, huh? Who would've thought Panning would run to Minnesota? Although it is a fairly easy way out of the country if that's what he's trying for.

  He quickly dialed Mr. Greenshaw's number. Although he would've far preferred an email or text to let his boss know what he'd found out, he knew better. Mr. Greenshaw was almost a Luddite in Aaron's opinion, preferring phone or video calls to text communications.

  “What is it?” Mr. Greenshaw answered.

  “Sir, it's Aaron, I've got a general location for the server.”

  “Well, what are you waiting for? Where is it?”

  “It's in Duluth somewhere. I don't have an address yet, but I thought I should let you know.”

  “You sure this isn't one those spoofing things I hear you techies talking about?”

  “No sir, the signal was re-routed multiple times, but our contractor managed to follow it back to its origin. He said the signal was routed using both proxies and—”

  “Don't give me any of that techno-babble,” Mr. Greenshaw said. “If you say it isn't a spoof, I'll believe you. But you'd better be right.”

  Mr. Greenshaw hung up before Aaron could respond.

  Unbelievable, Aaron thought, do the virtually impossible and all he does is threaten. What is wrong with that man?

  ~ ~ ~

  Eddie, Paul, and Karl were walking down the road towards the hamlet. With Paul along the pace was slower than it had been the last few days, but that was fine with Eddie. They'd left with lots of time to spare before he wanted to be set up and the pace made pushing the wheelbarrow filled with produce easier than it would've been otherwise.

  “You know, we've got that livestock back there and two of us have animal handling. I probably ought to work out some sort of cart so neither of us have to push this thing,” Eddie said as the wheelbarrow hit a particularly hard bump that left his arms thrumming for a moment.

  “I can get you a blueprint for that really cheap, maybe five silver,” Paul said.

  “Yeah, but you'll be a long ways away, so that won't help much,” Eddie said.

&
nbsp; “Not so fast. You haven't pulled up the friend messaging system, have you? There are certain types of items that can be sent through it, mainly physical notes. The system counts a blueprint as a note for that purpose,” Paul said. “I know, I tried it already.”

  “Ooh, I wonder if that's a bug?” Karl said.

  “I reported it, but haven't heard of it being changed so I think it's functioning as intended,” Paul said. “So yeah, I can get you a blueprint. I wouldn't worry about the silver, I can certainly cover you on that, but if you're buying larger blueprints that way you can also just send someone else's account a deposit from your own. Either in game currency, or to their linked account from the real world.”

  The phrase 'real world' jarred Eddie when Paul said it.

  Yeah, Eddie thought, there's another world out there, but the real world? I can remember all of it too, but I want to remember it less and less. There I was just another unemployed loser, but here I already own a farm and land. I've got plans to own a lot more than that too and it's all just there for the taking if you know how, and I do.

  “I suppose I ought to register my own bank account then,” Eddie said. “Probably better than keeping my coins on me all the time, but I don't think there's a way to steal them, right? Not from my inventory?”

  “Eh, some of them, sure,” Paul said. “A thief could get you while you've got some out, or if you're killed in PVP part of your coin totals will appear on your corpse if they loot it. I keep just about everything in my accounts, not my inventory. No interest, of course, but a lot safer. Even if does take a couple of minutes to get physical coins in hand that way.”