by Tom Larcombe
“What?” Karl said.
“I keep my gold in the accounts, my silver and copper on me. I'm not going to worry about a few bucks here and there, but as I told Eddie, I had a rather serious amount of gold. Sold most of it for dollars and now I'm wishing I hadn't.”
Paul cleared his throat and took a drink from his water skin before continuing.
“My wife and daughter are both coming in game and we're going to live here most of the time, hopefully. There's a pod center near our home. They provide upscale pods and accommodations for the one day we need to stay out after being in for thirty days. And with our home nearby, we can always go there if we need to on our days out. If they like the game enough, we'll sell the house. Personally I'm all for that, but they haven't been in the game yet, so...”
He trailed off, obviously lost in thought.
“Have you decided where all of you will live yet?” Eddie asked.
“I figured we'd just live in Brightport. It's a starting city so it sees a lot of traffic.”
“Is it growing?” Eddie asked.
Paul cocked his head.
“What do you mean?”
“You said you wanted to make a living in-game, building for people. Is Brightport growing? Will there be work for you there?” Eddie said.
Paul's face fell.
“I don't know, probably not. But it is a main hub, so I can travel to where I need to do the building easily enough.”
“Bringing your wife and daughter with you?” Eddie asked.
Paul bit his lower lip.
“I don't know, if they don't level up that wouldn't be good. And I don't know if they're planning on that.”
“Well, my suggestion would be to settle somewhere you know will be growing so your skills will be needed. Obviously you couldn't get them to start somewhere like that, but one trip after they log in and then you can settle in and spend time with your family while still being able to work.”
“Yeah, sure, great plan. Just point out a spot like that to me,” Paul said.
Eddie grinned.
“Oh, I think you'll find one. But this is the spot I was thinking of for my inn eventually. I'll put this bunkhouse style boarding house on it too. I need to set my claim stakes first though. Karl, did you want to head off and map now?”
Karl nodded eagerly.
“You bet. I have no idea how long this is going to take me though.”
“Well, you can always do the whole area over a few days if you need to, right?” Eddie asked.
Karl nodded.
“So, if you're going to help me with the food stand, be back in, say...”
Eddie glanced at the sun.
“four hours,” he finished.
Karl gave him a thumbs up, then turned and practically dashed down the road. Paul was just standing there, looking at Eddie.
“So, where are these folks you thought might escort me?” he asked.
“Probably not back just yet. I was told they do most of their adventuring during the day instead of the evening. Something about less players being on then, so their choices for encounters weren't as constricted.”
“Oh, I guess that makes sense.”
“It works for them,” Eddie said. “But for now would you like to show me how these claim stakes work?”
~ ~ ~
A couple of hours later Eddie was walking down the road himself, headed for the houses he'd seen in the area. Paul had gotten engrossed in Eddie's claim and was walking through it, tallying up how much lumber it could provide. The claim was three acres by three acres, one edge of the claim abutting the road. Most of it was filled with trees, but there was also a small pond at the very back and a stream that fed it. Lucky had stayed with Paul, hunting Eddie's new land.
I just realized that the closest thing to an NPC I've dealt with since I've been in game is probably Freyja or Lucky, Eddie thought. I wonder what the human NPCs will be like? I suppose Old Jeffries should count too, but I sure hope he isn't a good example of what they're like.
Eddie found an older man sitting in a rocking chair on the porch of the first house. He approached.
“Hello?” he said tentatively.
“What can I do for you son?”
“I was wondering something. I don't know anyone who lives around here, but I need someone, or maybe more than one person, to take down some trees, a lot of trees actually. I was looking to hire someone to do the job?”
The man rocked back and forth in his chair, the occasional squeak of the wooden chair the only noise. Eddie thought, for a moment, that he'd overloaded the NPC, until he noticed that the man appeared to be lost in thought.
“How soon you be needing it done?” he asked, finally.
“The sooner the better,” Eddie replied.
“What's the pay?”
“I'd be happy to negotiate that with them once I meet them.”
“Now, you are talking real coinage and not barter, right?”
Eddie nodded.
“Yes, yes I am.”
“In that case, I might just know someone, but it'd be a couple of days before they could get here.”
“If they can start tomorrow, I'll throw in a couple of felling axes along with whatever we negotiate for payment,” Eddie said.
The man raised an eyebrow.
“In a hurry are we?”
Eddie sighed.
“It's just... Well, there's something I really want to get done and I can't do it until at least a portion of the lot is cleared. The idea seems so simple to me that I'm worried someone else will get it done before I can.”
“Well then... What was your name again?”
“Eddie, Eddie Hunter.”
“Good to meet you son, I'm Arvid Miller. As I was saying, I can probably get you at least one man to start tomorrow. He's a woodsman even, fells timber and cuts it into rough planks. He'd cost you more than the others though.”
“Sounds like just what I need. Got a ballpark figure for him?” Eddie asked.
Arvid just looked confused.
“A what?”
Crap, I guess they didn't program idioms into the NPCs, Eddie thought.
“A general estimate of how much he'll want for pay?”
“Oh, you'd probably get him to work for you for a silver a day. The others would do it for four or five copper a day, but they'd be slower.”
“Can you get me in touch with that first man right away then? I'll hire them as a crew and he can be in charge of it.”
“Aye, I could probably be doing that.”
Eddie waited but Arvid simply kept rocking, a small grin on his face.
Really, tell me they didn't, Eddie thought.
He reached into his bag and pulled out one of his silver pieces. He flashed it at Arvid, whose grin grew.
“This will be for you,” Eddie said. “After I get to talk to the man in question.”
“Well in that case, come with me,” Arvid said.
He hefted himself out of his rocking chair with a grunt. But once he started walking, Eddie thought that the grunt might've been just some added drama. The man seemed to move with no problem at all.
Arvid led Eddie to a small house across the street from the farm. He stopped and knocked at the door.
“Ingolf, you in there you lazy bum?” Arvid called out.
The door opened a minute later.
“Father, why must you always disparage me?” Ingolf said.
“Because it gets you moving better than anything else,” Arvid replied. “I've got work for you if you aren't too lazy to do it. This man here, Eddie, is hiring woodcutters, wants to make you the chief cutter of a crew.”
Ingolf turned to Eddie and examined him for a moment.
“What did you need?” he asked.
“I've got a land claim I just made, got confirmation it's mine. Most of it's wooded though and I need a lot of the trees taken down and turned into rough planks. I was told you can do that.”
“I can. Why though?�
��
“Why?”
“Why are you doing it?” Ingolf asked
Eddie shook his head, wondering why anyone would've programmed NPCs to pass judgment on player actions.
Although, that's how they're always programmed, aren't they? At least the interesting ones? This one's just more open and forward about it.
“You know the horde of adventurers that camp in the fields?” Eddie asked.
Ingolf shook his head.
“Unfortunately.”
“Well, I intend to make coins off of them. I'll make an outdoor kitchen and a shelter for them and charge them for food and shelter. Eventually, when I make enough money off of it, I'm going to build an inn on my lot and part them from even more of their coin.”
Ingolf's eyes lit with interest.
“You're going to build an inn? Here?”
“Well, about a mile down the road anyway,” Eddie replied.
“My services are a silver a day. Alone it would take me four days per acre to clear the lot and half that to turn the logs into rough planks. Who were you planning on for a crew?”
Eddie turned to Arvid.
“Your three cousins. I figure they're not doing so well on their own stead, they might like some work that pays in hard coin to help out some,” Arvid said.
Arvid held out a hand towards Eddie.
Nepotism is alive and well in the game I see, Eddie thought.
He pulled out the silver coin and handed it to Arvid who looked very pleased with himself.
“You charged him for bringing him to me father?” Ingolf asked.
“Nothing in life is free, you know that. You ought to anyhow, I tried to drill it into your thick skull for years,” Arvid said.
“Well Eddie, come on in and we'll talk about the job.”
Eddie stepped into the house and Ingolf firmly closed the door before Arvid could follow. There was some muffled cursing from the other side of the door, but it faded after a few moments.
“My father,” Ingolf said. “I apologize for him.”
Eddie was staring around the cabin. The furniture was much more finely crafted than he'd expected and the walls were hung with various pelts and furs. The floor, where he could see it, was rough planks, just like he'd expected, as were all the exposed surfaces of walls and ceiling that he could see.
“Did you make all this yourself?” Eddie asked.
Ingolf nodded, looking around his small house with evident pride.
“Yes, I love the woods. Hunting, woodcutting, and everything about them. But when I don't need to hunt and don't have trees to fell, I turn my hand to some wood crafting. It's the next best thing. As you can see, I end up doing far too much of it, which has led to me being highly skilled at it. So, tell me about this job?”
“Well, if you like, we can just head over there and I can show you. Like I said, it's only a mile away.”
“Sure, let's just wait a minute until my father is back to his house, otherwise he'll insist on coming with us. Would you care for an ale?”
“Not beer?”
Ingolf shook his head.
“No, it's ale, beer leaves me with a headache the next morning. The ale doesn't.”
“Sure, why not then?”
Ingolf walked over to an area of his house, which only consisted of one room, and grabbed a pair of wooden mugs. Turning to the firkin beside the mugs, he filled each of them and came back over, handing one to Eddie.
“Did you make these,” Eddie asked.
“A brewer I'm not.”
“No, the mugs.”
Eddie was staring at the mug. It seemed to be cut from a solid piece of wood. The outer surface was smooth and slightly shiny, obviously treated with something. It felt good in his hand.
“The mugs? Yes, I do mugs and plates and such as part of my crafting. Brings in a few coppers here and there when I don't have better paying work.”
“You know, you and I might end up with a very good relationship,” Eddie said. “When I get the inn built, I'll need furnishings and tableware. If this is a good sample of your work, then we'll have more business then if you're interested.”
Ingolf smiled.
“Good, you see at least part of the reason why I was so interested when you mentioned building an inn.”
“Do you do bed frames, also? I was thinking straw tick mattresses on top of rough frames for the rooms in the shelter I'll build first.”
Ingolf's grin widened. As they drank their ale, they also negotiated for his services.
~ ~ ~
Ingolf looked out over the expanse of trees that needed clearing.
“This could take a while,” he said. “Not as long as I'd feared though, the forest here isn't all that thick.”
“How long to clear this area right here?” Eddie asked, pacing off a small section of his claim closest to the hamlet.
“Less than a day.”
“And to turn those logs into rough planks?”
“About the same amount of time as it will take to clear the trees.”
“So if you started now, you could maybe have that all done by the end of tomorrow?”
Ingolf nodded tentatively.
“Most likely,” he said.
“Here, here's your first ten days worth of pay,” Eddie said, pulling out a gold coin and handing it to the woodsman. “You can count today as a full day for your pay if you manage to clear this section and turn the logs on it into rough planks by the end of tomorrow.”
Ingolf's expression brightened.
“In that case, where do you want the planks stacked? I'll go get my ax and get to work.”
Eddie pointed to an area about ten feet in from the back edge of what Ingolf would be clearing.
“There ought to do for the planks, now I have to go see about earning some money of my own.”
He turned and called out to Paul and Lucky. The two had been wandering around the pond, and the stream leading out of it, when he'd shown Ingolf the boundary stakes. They were back to the road in just a few minutes.
“Paul, I'm about to head over to start working on meat on a stick for today. If you want to come with me I'll introduce you to Tiana. I think she'll show up there as soon as she notices I'm open for business today.”
The bobcat sat back on her haunches and brought one of her rear legs up to scratch behind her ear. Once she lowered the leg, she stood up and darted back into the woods she'd just come out of.
“Well, I guess that lets me know what she'd rather do,” Eddie said, chuckling. “Come on Paul.”
He led the other man back to the field where he'd set up his stand the day before. The fire pit was still intact, but the firewood they'd left stacked beside it had gone missing.
“I should've known better,” Eddie said. “I saw how many of these guys had fires going. I'm guessing one of them stole the firewood.”
“At least they didn't take the wood you built your stand out of,” Paul replied.
“Yeah, they could probably tell it was green wood, I needed it a little flexible. The firewood was dried out, fallen deadwood. Looks like I'll need to go grab some more. Sorry for the delay.”
“Not an issue, I just hope the people you were talking about are willing to help me.”
Eddie wandered off, coming back with an armload of wood a few minutes later. After returning with a second armload he was ready to start the fire, then start cooking for the day.
Paul had arranged the fire, using a bit of his dried bird nest for kindling.
“I thought I could probably speed things up a little if I helped out,” he said.
Eddie heard a cry of “Timber” from up the road, then the sound of a tree falling down. He grinned at the sound, knowing that Ingolf had started working.
The fire lit easily with Paul's help and once he had enough coals, he started pulling out portions of meat, spicing them, spitting them, and when he had enough of them on the spit laying them over the coals to roast.
It wasn't long
before the fragrant smell of roasting meat drifted out into the field. Shortly after that, Eddie had a line of customers. He was amazed at how many of them started asking about the produce he had behind his counter in the wheelbarrow.
It makes sense I guess, he thought. Anyone could hunt and cook some of the meat, but unless they have their own garden or someone to buy it from, produce will be even more rare than the meat.
Eddie had planned on offering up full meals, a stick of meat and a serving of the vegetable of their choice, for two silver. Instead he found a fair number of people just wanted the vegetables. Most of those people hadn't arrived until the first few customers went wandering off with their stick of meat and a huge carrot or bundle of greens.
He'd only been open for about a half hour, when he sensed someone behind him. He spun and found Tiana grinning at him.
“Good awareness there,” she said. “I'd just gotten right behind you when you turned. Need a hand?”
“Sure,” he said.
He was still showing her how they were determining a serving of the vegetables when Karl wandered up also.
“I'm sorry, am I late?”
“Nah, I just saw people moving around and decided to open earlier than planned. You want to handle the counter? Tiana can take care of the produce, you can deal with the meat and the money, I'll cook.”
Paul looked edgy so Eddie felt the need to reassure him.
“Don't worry, there should be a break in customers soon. I'll introduce you to Tiana and let her know what you want her group to do then.”
~ ~ ~
Chapter Sixteen
When Aaron went back to his emails, after Mr. Greenshaw hung up on him, the next one he looked at was from the technicians that had been examining the modified pods that Eddie and the other farmers were trapped in. He scanned the email, then went back to the pertinent part, shaking his head.
'I think that we can hack into the interface and stop the incidences of bad dreams/instability of the servers. However I'm reluctant to do that without authorization,' that section read.
No-one wants to take a risk any more, Aaron thought. I suppose the blame would be placed squarely on him if he did that, but still. I thought they were told to try to figure out what was causing the instability and fix it if they could.