Farmer

by Tom Larcombe

  “What brought this on?” she asked, seeming a bit nonplussed at his broaching the subject at this particular time.

  “I've been thinking about it all night. I got a new quest earlier, just when I opened the inn. One of the things I can do to complete half of it is to build a general store. But I can't tend an inn and a general store. I just need to find someone who hates Old Jeffries enough that they're willing to work the store. I suppose I could get an NPC to do it, or do so eventually, but they'd have to have some skills that I don't think most of them have.”

  Tiana's eyes lit up at the mention of a quest.

  “So, we can run him out of business and complete half a quest at the same time?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “That's what I was thinking.”

  “Count me in, but your thinking better get off that quest and focused back on me for now.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Eddie and Tiana sat on the front porch of the inn. The breakfast rush, what there was of it since most of the players were still sleeping, was over. They each nursed a cup of coffee.

  “So, it looks like things are going well,” she said.

  “Yeah, they are. And if we can open the general store they'll be going better still. Other than that I'll need to get a leatherworker or blacksmith shop going too, or maybe a temple. That'll get me to the next stage of the development quest,” he said. “I'm hoping that the additional shops will also bring more NPC inhabitants to the area as well, pushing along the city quest also.”

  Last night, after she'd had his undivided attention for a while, he'd relayed everything he knew about those two quests to her. They'd spent a bit of time discussing possibilities for them, and she was going to support him on those instead of going against him on them.

  Their pleasant conversation came to a halt as Eddie spotted two figures walking down the road towards them. He recognized one as Jern, but the second looked like a child, until Eddie processed that a child would not have that sort of bulk on him. That was when he realized it was another dwarf.

  “Eddie,” Jern called. “I've got news.”

  “Well come on up and share it,” Eddie replied.

  “This is Opron. He just came out of the cave where you found me. He said there's a clear path between there and Hammer Hold. I don't know what to think about that. They'll easily find me if they look now, but having contact without worrying about the orcs in the mountains has to be worth something, right?”

  The new dwarf looked up and Eddie realized that it was a player.

  Evaluate Opron, Eddie thought.

  Opron Smith:

  Class:

  Level: 1

  Blacksmith

  Specialization: n/a

  Huh, he must be the first of the players to try the new race, Eddie thought. Why does he seem familiar though?

  “So, I be thinking that you might need a smith in the area? What with your now having a hamlet?” Opron said.

  “Well, I'd like one, but aren't you a little low level for that?”

  “How do you think we smiths get our levels? We work for 'em. Yeah, we can fight and get some that way, but we progress faster if we're working with metals. So, I thought I'd offer you my services as a smith. I can already make a bunch of basic necessities for you; nails, pots and pans, horseshoes, all that type of thing. Interested? If you are, I'll need you to help me build a smithy to work out of.”

  Well now, Eddie thought. Isn't that just a coincidence. I need a blacksmith shop and along comes a brand new player asking me to make one for him? I don't believe it's just a coincidence. There's something more, and I'm sure I know this guy from somewhere.

  “Do I know you?” Eddie asked. “You seem awfully familiar for some reason.”

  Opron looked away, not meeting Eddie's gaze.

  “Maybe we met in passing at some point,” he said. “But I'm sure we don't know each other all that well.”

  A glowing image took shape in Eddie's mind, the face of Freyja staring at him from it.

  The face spoke to him in his mind.

  “Show Respect,” it said.

  Eddie glanced around and realized that the message had been for him and him alone. It only took him a moment to put two and two together.

  He stared at Opron, then broke down the name.

  “Aaron?” he said.

  A look of shock plastered itself to Opron's face.

  “How the hell did you figure that out so quickly?” Opron asked.

  “With a little help from a friendly goddess.”

  “Damned nosy AIs,” Opron said. “Yeah, it's me. It was strongly recommended that I take some vacation time, and do so in game. I'm being tapped for ideas to ramp up the game some more, so I picked a crafter class since I know those are still pretty bare boned. I figure if we can flesh that out, then we'll attract an entire new subset of player.”

  “A smith, really?”

  “Well, I know you're going to need one and it was the most appealing of the crafter classes to me. Besides, I got to be the first player to make a Hammer Dwarf character. Won't be the last though, lots of talk about it on the forums.”

  Eddie shook his head.

  “Yeah, and this isn't cheating?”

  “I'm on my own time here,” Opron said. “I figured I could help you at the same time as doing research for game recommendations. So here I am. What do you say?”

  “We'll see about getting some sort of smithy set up. I've got no idea what you might need though.”

  “Don't worry, I've got a list,” Opron said.

  ~ ~ ~

  Eddie had thought that he was going to relax for a few days before continuing with his quests. Even now that one of them was public, he'd figured he had a few days, but Opron was in a rush since his time in game was limited. So Eddie took the list and started asking around.

  I'm going to delegate even more of it this time, he thought. If I want to be an innkeeper I'm not going to have time for everything else, but I can at least get him in contact with the right people and fund him, with the understanding that the blacksmith shop is mine and that he'll train an NPC as an apprentice while he works.

  With a sigh, he got back up from his chair, scanning the list. Paul could do most of it, and he was sure that Liv would know where he could track down the other things, or know people who could.

  Well, that's all I'm willing to do for now. All I wanted to do was open an inn and make some money, but there's something inside of me that just isn't willing to drop a quest that no-one's ever done before, he thought. So here I am, from farmer to innkeeper in a short period of time and who knows where I'll be going from here. I will take a few days off and just run my inn before doing anything else though. I'll network and connect the people who want to get things done, but that's all for now.

  ~ ~ ~

  Franklin Greenshaw wasn't the Luddite that most of his employees thought he was.

  I just have an aversion to using what they consider bleeding edge tech, but that I know is nothing of the sort, he thought.

  As a covert operative for military research and development, he'd been assigned the task of finding ways to educate soldiers better and faster. With the technology he'd been allowed to use to do so, he'd had Light Online created.

  Let the public pay for our research, he thought. But God help anyone that tries to steal our tech.

  He stifled a chuckle as he thought of the late Allan Panning. He could understand the man's motivation, but he couldn't forgive the incompetence involved or the attempt to steal from Light Online and, as an indirect result, the country as well.

  The small panel that his contact lens sized monitor projected into his vision began to flash, signifying that he had an incoming call. The only people who could contact his rig that way were his superiors, so he made sure he had all the pertinent information on Allan Panning and his aborted attempt to hack the Light Online code, he also made sure he had the updates on the ongoing research.

  Memory rete
ntion upon removal from pod is at ninety percent or better, he thought. Plus the muscle stimulus we've been researching with the physical therapy patients is showing promise. The results of that might allow us to instill specific muscle memories in individuals. That would take care of the problem of having the knowledge but not the ability to use it.

  The other research being done wasn't quite as important to his superiors as those two bits. But he still had the results of the time compression experiments that they disguised as haste spells, the forced learning they disguised as the knowledge from skills, and all the rest, just in case he was asked about it.

  Finally, after several seconds, he answered the blinking panel. Unlike the bulky monitors, cameras, and the like that his staff expected him to use for video calls, an image of the person he was speaking to appeared in his vision, but nowhere else. When they started speaking, he heard it from the bone conduction speakers that were part of his rig. His own words, sub-vocalized, were picked up by a tooth microphone.

  As far as anyone else could see, he was simply sitting at his desk, deep in thought. In reality, he was delivering the latest batch of progress reports and data to his superiors in the military.

  It's a good thing Cynthia got that coder to go in game for a while, Greenshaw thought. He was getting close to digging into some code that would've revealed things he shouldn't know. I'd prefer to keep him around for a while since he's quite capable.

  Despite his desire to keep Aaron around, he also reported that the coder's research and debugging had come close to revealing the secret military research that was ongoing in the game. He hoped he wouldn't get a terminate order, but that wasn't up to him.

  I'm glad it's not up to me too. I don't mind killing those who need it, or giving the orders to have it done, but I know that there are others far more suited to determining who needs killing than I am.

  He paused for a moment as he once more thought through what he'd had to do to Panning and his operation.

  I should check and see what happened to those gamers who were caught in Panning's plans. There might be some good PR for the game in it once we finish researching and release the longer term immersion option, Greenshaw thought.

  ~ ~ ~

  Continued in:

  Light Online

  Book 2:

  Keeper

  ~ ~ ~

  About the Author:

  You can see the author's other novels (non-LitRPG) at:

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  The "An Untimely Error" series is a triology about Merlin reawakening in the midst of WWII.

  An Untimely Error - Series Page

  The Crow Hill series is an ongoing series of books about a wizard in modern times where magic exists but is kept secret from the masses. The story focuses on what such a wizard could do as an economic apocalypse explodes.

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  Tom Larcombe lives in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. A wife, two daughters, cats, chickens, and assorted wildlife keep him from getting lonely. Writing keeps his mind from going stale. He's got a thing for Dragons, collecting lots of different types (pewter, stuffed animals, t-shirts, etc...), and writing about them in a number of his stories.

  If you enjoyed this book, or even finished it despite not enjoying it, please leave a review. If you liked it, let me know. If you didn't like it, let me know what you didn't like and how you think it could be improved in your review. I write for others' enjoyment as well as my own, so knowing what others would like to be reading can help guide me as I write my next book.