Light Online Book Three: Leader

by Tom Larcombe

  “Good,” Tiana said, smiling, “that's one worry off your mind. I know you were having a problem keeping track.”

  “Yeah, this will make it a lot easier,” Eddie said. “Unfortunately a lot of the options are still grayed out. I guess we'll need the appropriate buildings for them, although this might help.”

  He pointed to a setting that was labeled construction.

  “I'm not going to set anything yet,” Eddie said. “I want to familiarize myself with all of this first. Then I'll think about changing settings. For now I'm going to authorize myself, you, Jern, and maybe Paul to be in here. That sound about right, Tiana?”

  “I don't know that Paul will be interested, but I can keep an eye on things when you aren't around. Which will be a lot if you're planning lots more buildings.”

  “For now, just the leather worker building. I want to see what I need for the next level before I plan out what else I'm going to make. Oh wait, here's one I am going to turn up for the time being.”

  Eddie's hand came down on a setting marked 'food production' and turned it up.

  “If that causes any other problems that you hear about, let me know,” he said. “Otherwise I'll leave that turned up until the farmers start bringing in their crops and we can feed everyone easily.”

  Tiana nodded.

  “I wonder if that'll be cumulative with the bonus from the temple?” she said.

  ~ ~ ~

  When Eddie returned to the inn for dinner that night he found that an announcement wasn't necessary. Evidently someone else had also qualified for a skill today and was telling everyone they knew that they'd been able to turn it down. So he just settled in for his normal night of a good dinner, a few ales, and listening to the chatter in the inn.

  In the morning Eddie made his normal stop at the crossroads, then continued down to the sawmill. The spoked wheels required a tool he didn't have, or at least if it didn't require it, making them would take far less time with that tool than with his utility knife. When he asked he found out that Paul did have one and was happy to loan it to him.

  “Oh, and the town hall is finished. For now the only people allowed in the control room are me, Tiana, Jern, and you,” Eddie said.

  “Me?” Paul asked, eyes wide. “Why me?”

  “I figured I could trust you. I sure as hell won't let Karl in there, you know what I mean?”

  Paul burst out laughing.

  “Yeah, I don't want to see what the town would look like if you did. What damage could he do though?”

  “I don't know and I don't want to find out, especially not the hard way,” Eddie said. “But this way, if there's a problem, I figure one of the three of us can respond quickly.”

  “I don't know squat about those control rooms. The one for the sawmill is tiny.”

  “Well, I was planning on spending the next hour or so familiarizing myself with it, so why don't you join me. I can tell you what everything I know does and between the two of us we can probably figure out anything else. We'll bring Tiana too, she should still be at the temple.”

  “Done,” Paul said. “I might not have a complex control room here, but I have to admit to being curious about them. I knew enough to explain the very basics to you for the farm, but that was about it.”

  “I figured you knew all about them and were trying to keep it simple for me,” Eddie said.

  “If only,” Paul replied. “But maybe given enough time...”

  They picked up Tiana and spent the next hour trying to figure out everything about the control room. They were pretty sure about most of it, but with so many settings grayed out, there wasn't a lot that could be done yet other than adjusting the food production as they had.

  There were readouts for happiness, health, and productivity in addition to the population ones and those were color coded. The bottom was red, the middle yellow, and the top green. Currently the happiness and health were in the yellow while the productivity was in the green.

  “Hopefully the added food production pushes both those up there a bit more,” Eddie said, gesturing towards the two yellow readouts.

  “Won't hurt,” Paul said. “What else do you need to level the town again?”

  “Won't be a town until I level it, I thought it should've by now but I think they need houses to qualify as full inhabitants. I need to build a leather worker shop for the other quest. I've even got a leather worker coming with Bjorn to staff it too, I hope.”

  “So, let's get your leather worker shop built, heck if you want I can do it in a day, well maybe three since it would take some time to get the materials there. You remember that you can contract them out, right?” Paul asked.

  “Yeah, you did the inn and it counted, so yeah. But it's not so much that as the transport bottleneck slowing things down.”

  “You said you were planning on making carts and wagons for the rest of the day, right?”

  Eddie nodded.

  “I bet you can find a rickshaw style cart blueprint. One that a person or two can pull instead of an ox. Wouldn't carry as much, but make a few of those and I bet you can widen that bottleneck quite a bit. Easier to switch off people pulling than it is to rest the single ox you've got.”

  Eddie's eyes widened.

  “Do they have those?”

  He popped up the auction screen and went hunting. Sure enough there were a few people-powered carts that could drastically increase the amount of materials a person could move.

  “Well, I guess I know what I'm doing today,” Eddie said, mentally pushing the buy immediately button on a blueprint.

  By the end of the day he'd made three of the person drawn carts and two wagons, this time with the proper spoked wheels. Jern was too short to pull a cart, as was the young man now apprenticing on the farm, but Eddie drafted Brandr and Osmond, tempting them with the offer of a free drink if they pulled the carts to the inn.

  Eddie stopped by at Griff's place and informed him of the new transport devices waiting at the inn and in the morning, when Eddie was going down to check on the progress of the crews, all three carts were already gone from the yard.

  He arrived at the temple with Tiana then headed north along the road. As he went he saw the building crews already finishing up the first house. Then stared as he saw the rough planks already waiting at the next three houses.

  A large hand clapped him on the back.

  “We picked those up at sunrise and the woodcutting crews have been going non-stop ever since,” Griff said. “We hired on a couple of other men to pull those carts of yours. Even with a full load one man can do it, and four loads from one of those is enough to do a house. The ox has been pulling the stone, I'm thinking that stuff is heavy enough that the hand carts wouldn't do that too well, couldn't take a full load of it. So we'll keep it split up this way.”

  “Wow, all this extra progress with just three hand carts?” Eddie asked.

  “Yup, I think we'll be able to handle five or six houses a day this way. Might even start training up another building crew, although we'd need a way to get more stone down here to make it really useful.”

  Eddie just shook his head. He'd manage to widen the transport bottleneck with less than a full day's labor.

  I've got to remember to tell others about my problems, Eddie thought. Some people might have an easy way to fix them. And on that note I can probably finish Dominic's brewhouse today if I can get just one full load of rough planks for one of those hand drawn carts delivered there.

  Eddie turned to Griff.

  “I know you're just starting to get ahead on the houses, but I've had other projects delayed also. Any chance I can get a load of those rough planks delivered to the building going up behind my inn?”

  “That the place for the brewer?” Griff asked.

  “Sure is.”

  “I'll pull one over there myself if I have to. Been far too long since I've had a decent beer.”

  “You do that, Griff. While you're there, stop by inside the inn and I'l
l treat you to the best beer I've got there.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Cooper groaned. He was sitting in his tent, not even having interrupted the squad. As far as he could tell they all had classes now. Part of his in-briefing had covered that an avatar with a class would be unable to do the testing they had to do. Something about the code for testing the construct having problems with distinguishing between a player's skills given by a class and the skills of the constructs themselves. So those with classes and skills would be able to access both their own abilities and those of the construct and invalidate the testing.

  I'm not that much of a coder, but even I know that there's an easy workaround for that. Whoever built the construct code was just being lazy. I bet they even copy pasta'd some sections from the original code and that's why there are conflicts, he thought bitterly.

  He'd kill for a pizza, but he'd looked for a template of it in the game and hadn't found one. Instead he'd looked for his other favorite comfort food and found that someone had made enough of those since there was a player made template for it. The burger and fries sitting in front of him smelled good enough that he was drooling. Grabbing a fry, he tasted it.

  Needs more salt, he thought.

  That was an easy fix, salt shakers were a premade template. The burger itself already came with some condiments and Cooper wasn't picky. He picked it up and took a bite. The groan that came from his mouth could easily have been mistaken as coming from something much more intimate as the flavors raced across his tongue.

  He stuffed a few fries in his mouth before raising the burger for another bite.

  I'm going to make the best of it in game before they yank me out and probably demote me for my screw-ups, he thought.

  Another bite of the burger had him groaning again, eyes closed. When he opened them, a falcon perched on the back of the chair across the table from him. Once more the eyes staring at him from it seemed far more intelligent than they should.

  It screeched and he winced, quickly pulling up the speak with animals function he'd tracked down before, after Ferring had cast the spell on him..

  “Cooper,” it said, in that alluring female voice he'd heard from it last time. “I have a proposition for you.”

  He shook his head.

  Only proposition I've gotten this year and it's from a damned bird, he thought.

  He was still chewing and raised a single finger to ask for a moment. After he swallowed, he spoke up.

  “What is it this time? Your last one didn't work out so well. All my squad has classes now, disqualifying them from the testing we were supposed to be doing. And you know who's going to get blamed?”

  He jabbed a finger into his own chest.

  “Me! That's who.”

  The bird shook its head, the motion looking odd on the avian.

  “Not necessarily, Cooper. That is what my proposition is about.”

  He grabbed to the sliver of hope like a drowning man grabbing onto a life jacket.

  “Tell me more.”

  “All you need to do is file reports saying that the testing isn't going well, that it's very difficult for the men to sync with their constructs with no lasting mental effects. Put up Ferring and what he went through as an example. If you need more than that simply say that the men are trying to use the skills of the constructs once they're back in their own avatars and that the lack of them is causing them problems,” the falcon said.

  “I can't do that. They log all this stuff.”

  The shape of the bird shimmered, elongating and thickening, until a tall, stunning, Nordic blonde stood in front of him. The sight of the woman unconsciously caused Cooper to straighten his posture and reach a hand up to make sure his hair was behaving. Then, his conscious mind took over and he realized that it was Freyja's actual avatar.

  “You mean in these logs?” she said.

  She opened a screen in front of him and turned it so he could see. Sure enough, it was the logs of the testing done so far. He knew he was scheduled to restart the tests tomorrow, but there was no way his squad was going to be able to do them after they'd all gained classes. That was why he'd been moping, and he admitted it to himself that he had been moping.

  Because with all the other reprimands on my file, this final one is going to get me drummed out of the service, maybe even with a dishonorable, he thought.

  As he watched, a line wrote itself to the log. Peering closer, he realized that it claimed someone had just possessed a construct and was starting testing.

  “These logs are of no matter. I can make them read however I wish,” Freyja said. “If you will simply submit your reports based on the logs I create, we can convince them that they need to move the testing to a virgin environment, not in this game world. One that they can monitor more closely and one that will not interfere with those playing in this world.”

  “I can do that, but why—”

  He interrupted himself in the middle of his sentence.

  She already said why. It must be her programming. She doesn't want our testing to interfere with the players in the game. I know Harmon had planned to take the constructs to some small settlement and try them out against the players, Freyja must know as well and is trying to avoid that, he thought.

  “I'll do that,” he said.

  “There is a bright side. I shall assist you if you assist me. I believe the saying among humans is about scratching backs?”

  “Yes, you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours,” he said. “That's the saying.”

  “I suppose that makes a degree of sense,” she said. “Now, allow me to scratch your back. What class would you prefer for yourself?”

  “Huh?” he said.

  “Writing reports will only take you so long each day, yes? What are you going to do for the rest of your time? I thought you might like to spend it with your men, and to do that you will need to be classed as well. What class would you enjoy the most?”

  Cooper just stood there, staring.

  She's the one that gave them all classes, I know it. So, it's her fault, but at the same time they were going to try to test the constructs against paying customers of the game and she's responsible for them, so there's blame on both sides. I'll just go with it.

  “You choose,” he said. “You know what's available a lot better than I do.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Eddie watched as Griff pulled the cart of wood out back of the inn. After it was unloaded Eddie motioned Griff into the inn.

  “Barkeep. Spot Griff here three beers of his choice on my tab,” Eddie said.

  Griff grinned at him as the barkeep came over.

  “What can I get for you, sir?”

  “Sorry Griff,” Eddie said. “I won't be drinking with you. I'm going to go finish that brewhouse so we can have our own local beer that more people can afford.”

  Griff told the barkeep what he wanted then turned to Eddie.

  “Don't let me keep you then, but from the way people have been talking you may want to get a few more tables and chairs in here before that new beer is available. You'll be awfully crowded otherwise.”

  Griff turned back to the bar, leaving Eddie with another idea.

  Maybe build a pavilion and put in outdoor seating under it? Eddie thought. Not for right now though, for right now I need to finish that brewery.

  He headed out back and immediately began to finish the roof for the brewhouse. The whole remaining process took him only a little over an hour and then he was ready to find Dominic and tell him the good news.

  Griff had finished off his beers and come out back to watch Eddie for the last fifteen minutes or so of his task. He'd handed the last few planks up to him, saving Eddie a bit of time.

  “So Eddie, what else do you have planned for the day? I'd be willing to help. With the kids at home helping the wife, I'd rather be out for a bit, if you know what I mean.”

  Eddie grinned. He still wasn't sure of his own stance on kids, but if he e
ver had them he imagined that he'd want some time off from them occasionally also.

  “I was going to go make some more of those hand carts plus another ox cart and another wagon,” he said.

  “I could probably handle those hand carts. Got a blueprint? I can go back down to the crossroads and swipe a plank or two from each of the piles, they normally put a few extra on 'em, just in case.”

  Damn it, why didn't I think of that? Once again, I don't have to do all of it, especially when it comes to carpentry since I've gotten a few of the locals to raise the level of theirs.

  “You know what? That works for me. Give me a minute or two to make you a blueprint then I'll handle the ox drawn ones and you can do those. Do two or three of them, whatever you can get materials for. We'll leave the originals with the builders and park the new ones at the marketplace for people to borrow if they need. Well, I may take one to the inn for my own use also so I can finish off my own projects, but the rest can go down there for general usage.”

  Griff grinned at him.

  “Now you're talking. I bet you'll get a few more takers for market stalls tomorrow if you've got an easy way for people to get whatever they want to sell there.”

  Eddie nearly slapped his forehead. He'd already forgotten that he was having the marketplace's first opening tomorrow.

  “Yeah, I'll make sure to bring some stuff down also, just to make sure there are things for people to buy. Probably just basic veggies or meat though, I really haven't had much of a chance to make anything else.”

  Griff looked a little embarrassed as he asked his next question.

  “Um, Eddie? With the new carts, can we start making some of those bed frames? My wife's complaining about sleeping on blankets on the floor.”

  Eddie grinned.

  “Yeah, dedicate one of the person pulled carts of wood each day to be used for furnishings. You could probably even get your newest carpenters, as long as they have at least one point in Carpentry already, to do the stools. I bet that'd get them a point if they do a few and people will be glad for any furniture at all I'm guessing.”