by Tom Larcombe
“Okay, that makes sense. Would it have to have been players who did that though? Would the game raze a town all on its own?”
“It might, I mean there's been all sorts of things we've been surprised by in this game. Why not that too? That isn't all of it even. Bjorn also said that what he told a bunch of the refugees was overheard by others and there are lots of people who actually lived in Brightport and weren't doing well there that want to come here also because they think they'll do better.”
Tiana groaned.
“Now I understand why you're in such a rush to get the houses built. If there are more people coming, they'll need houses too, and you've been footing the bill for all of them so far. So yes, definitely. We'll finish working these two today and be down early tomorrow to get more of them done. Are you going to let up once we get to Player Town though?”
“Yes, and no. I'll still want to be building some of them, but not necessarily five a day. Maybe two a day then, spend mornings working on that and afternoons on whatever else I need to build or do?”
“You got it, Eddie,” Tiana said. “Want me to fetch and carry boards for you? Jern's got the stonework on the last house almost done so I'm not needed for masonry right now.”
“Please?” Eddie said. “And thank you, again.”
By the end of the day they were tired. They did pause at the leather worker on the way back, only to find out that Paul had also arranged for the man to get all the rough pelts and hides from bunnies and deer that had been accumulating. Only the ones that were looted though, the actual butchered ones were still waiting for the tannery.
The leather worker had gotten right to work and was already cutting and stitching the raw hides into useful garments and poor armor. Eddie just watched the man for a few minutes, giving him a thumbs up when the man turned to see him. Then Eddie headed back to the inn, wanting nothing more than a large meal and about five ales before crawling into bed.
In the morning, Eddie was up early again. After a quick breakfast, he headed straight down to the crossroads, leaving Tiana still asleep. Jern, instead of coming back to help Tiana fetch and carry the day before, had gone on to finish the next house's stonework. He'd overheard Eddie and Tiana talking, mentioning on the way back that he agreed it would be better for the town to pay for its own improvements instead of Eddie having to do so.
When Eddie made it to the crossroads, Griff was sitting in front of the temple, waiting for him.
“Morning, Eddie, sir.”
“I thought we settled on just Eddie.”
“That was before our meeting last night.”
“Meeting? Our meeting? I wasn't at a meeting last night.”
“No sir, it was just all the residents around here, and potential residents.”
“So, why'd that tack sir back on my name then?”
“Well, would you prefer I called you Mayor Eddie?”
Eddie stopped in his tracks. He'd been turning to walk north and get to work.
“What?” he said.
“Yeah, we decided that the place is getting big enough to deserve a mayor and we all decided, by a large majority, that it should be you.”
“So, you weren't all in agreement about it?”
“Nope, there were about five holdouts. One of them thought he should be the mayor and the other four supported him.”
Eddie's mind flashed, then he groaned. There were only two people he could think of that would've nominated themselves, and Old Jeffries wouldn't have had anyone supporting him.
“Arvid?” Eddie asked.
Griff nodded.
“Plus one of the prior residents, and three of the refugees. But that's only five out of a whole lot, so the job's yours.”
“What if I don't want it?” Eddie asked.
Griff laughed out loud, holding his belly.
“What, we just pretty much made what you've been doing already official is all, Mayor Eddie.”
Eddie groaned.
“Fine then, I'll get a few people to make a council under me. Let them advise me on the parts I'm sure I know nothing about. Maybe I ought to nominate you for a position on it.”
Griff held up a hand and shook his head.
“Couldn't take it, my wife would hate that. But Tiana's been helping you out right along, so I'm sure she's not going to mind.”
Eddie shook his head.
“Well, be that as it may, it doesn't change what I need to do today. I've got to get to work Griff. Thanks for telling me, thanks a lot,” Eddie said.
Why the hell am I reacting this way? he thought. I knew this would happen, I just didn't know how. I suppose I could turn it down, but if I do will Arvid claim it?
He shuddered at the thought of the greedy old man having any authority in the Meadowlands.
Nope, guess I better get used to hearing Mayor Eddie.
~ ~ ~
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Aaron settled in to work on the coding required for the masterwork addition for the crafter classes in the game. He had three monitors arrayed in front of him, the central one showing his current work while the one to the left showed pertinent information that he'd require for the code he was working on. The original crafting code wasn't pretty, more of a hack that had been added in and judged to work sufficiently well for the original release. Now, in addition to creating his own code for the masterworks, he was also tweaking the old code to make it less of a hack and somewhat more elegant.
The third display, to his right, showed things he was currently monitoring. Most of them were things Freyja had pointed out in her emails. There were certainly a large number of instances where the code had been accessed, and sometimes altered, that weren't traceable to any particular individual, despite each code access supposedly recording that information. He'd suspect hacking if Freyja hadn't told him that she suspected Loki was accessing sections of code he wasn't supposed to have access to any longer.
Meaning that even before AI-L was set to a limited authority state it had inserted back doors in the code for its use in the future. Which means forethought it shouldn't have had at that point in time. Are all of our AIs for the game doing things they weren't meant to? Things outside of their programming? It would be really bad if that were the case. I already know for a fact that two are, Loki and Freyja. Odin is as well, I suspect, but that could be traced back to whatever moron set him to in-depth monitoring on some of the experimental pods containing patients with mental issues that we're working on. That is just not what an AI should be doing. They shouldn't have that sort of exposure to the human mind since it has been proven to cause problems for AIs in the past.
His attention was mostly on his coding, with a few musings running through his mind as he worked at it. The flashing light on the display to his right caught his full attention though.
What's that? AI-L is spiking again, but so is another location, one that isn't properly registered but is on the network. What is that other location and why isn't it registered? he thought.
The AI-L spike wasn't registering in the log assigned to it, that just showed normal usage. Aaron had expected that though, Freyja had warned him that Loki was spoofing logs to hide his activities. He sent a trace through the network trying to determine the physical location of the location that wasn't registered with the network. He didn't get it fully traced before the spike from AI-L subsided, leaving no more data to trace. He'd gotten a partial reading at least, unless they were spoofing him.
He found it far more likely that the reading was correct though. It led to the floor which housed the higher ups in the company, as well as the labs for some of their pet research projects.
So either someone high up in the company is messing with AI-L, their researchers are doing that, or Loki has gained access outside of the game. I'm really not sure which of those options would be the worst. But, let me set this so that if AI-L spikes like that again the trace program automatically initiates. If I'd only been a second or two faster I would've had t
he trace done this time.
Aaron had that set up in a couple of minutes then tried to go back to his coding, to no avail. He was too distracted to focus now and he knew better than to try to force his coding. He was as prone to errors as any other coder, but much more so when he forced it. He sat there, scanning the older code and making notes as to what he should change when he got back to actually coding, all the while keeping an eye on the monitoring programs on the other screen
~ ~ ~
Eddie was working on the fourth house of the day when his notification light began to flash at him.
Oh, please tell me that I made it, he thought.
He pulled up the notification and grinned.
Success:
You have created a: Player Town
For being the first player to create a Player Town in the game you are awarded 10000 experience and 500 gold.
You qualified by bringing the permanent population of your village: Meadowlands, to more than 100 inhabitants and employing 38% of the inhabitants.
Global Broadcast:
Congratulations to player Eddie Hunter for being the first to complete the achievement: Player Town
In honor of this achievement, completed in: The Meadowlands, the player race Goblin is now unlocked and players may start characters with this race in the village of Rotthorpe near to The Meadowlands. This race is only recommended for advanced players.
What the hell, thirty-eight percent employed? Eddie thought. I would've thought that percentage would be in the sixties. Oh, wait, I bet they don't count as an employed inhabitant until they have a house and are considered a resident also. Well, I'm glad that lots of my workers have houses already then.
He re-read the message and stopped for a moment, his mouth gaping open.
Goblin as a character race? For advanced players only? What the hell?
Tiana grinned at him as she handed him the next plank.
“So, Mayor Eddie. Looks like you've got yourself a town. But goblins? Really?”
“I didn't have anything to say about it, I'm as surprised as you are,” he replied.
“Well, that'll certainly have some more players moving through this area when they come up out of Rotthorpe, but you might want to craft up some smaller stools, chairs, and tables for them. They aren't nearly the size of humans, somewhere between the size of halflings and humans.”
“Yeah, that's just one more thing to do,” he said. “At least now that we've got to the Town level for the settlement I'll be able to lay off the house building some. I'll still help, because I want them to have houses, but not constantly like the last couple of days. That'll give me time to do things like build smaller furniture. Hey, maybe I can do the pavilion I was thinking about too.”
“Really what you ought to be doing now is checking your control center in the town hall, see if that upgrade opened anything else up,” Tiana said.
“Well, let's get this house finished, then we'll go do just that,” Eddie replied.
A half hour later, Eddie, Tiana, and Jern were heading for the town hall. They caught Erik inside, just as he was about to head out the back door.
“Ah, Mayor Eddie, I was just going out with a patrol. We're going to start familiarizing ourselves with the area so I can decided how many patrols, how large, and when.”
“Thank you Erik, that sounds like a great plan. I'll leave it up to you though since I don't know squat about guards or patrols and how many, where, or when.”
“That's what you're paying us for, sir,” Erik replied.
He threw off something that looked like a salute in Eddie's direction, then headed out the back door.
Eddie shook his head.
“Tell me why I'm doing all this again?” he asked.
“Because you found out that no-one else had?” Tiana replied.
“Oh yeah, that. I was beginning to wonder if it was because I had some closeted masochistic tendencies.”
Jern chuckled under his breath, but headed for the stairs up.
“I believe you had something you wanted to check on, lad. Didn't you?”
“Yeah, I do. Let's head up,” Eddie said.
When they entered the control room, Eddie's attention was immediately caught by a flashing light on the readouts. He walked over and saw an entirely new line added to it, one whose text caught his attention.
The owner of this control panel also has possession of the control panel of a smaller settlement. Do you wish to place the smaller settlement under the jurisdiction of this one?
(y/n)
“Uh, guys, what do you think of this?” Eddie asked hesitantly.
The other two crowded over near him and read the message on the readouts.
“Any reason not to do it, lad?” Jern asked.
“I think it sounds like a great idea,” Tiana added. “If you do that, maybe you can access the Rotthorpe control panel from here.”
Eddie hadn't thought of that, and he hoped she was right as he thought.
Yes.
The village of: Rotthorpe has been placed under the jurisdiction of the Town: The Meadowlands. Increase the settlement level of: The Meadowlands to Player Capitol and add two more settlements under: The Meadowlands, to form a kingdom.
Eddie stopped dead, re-reading the notification.
“Seriously? A kingdom?” Eddie said.
“What?” Tiana asked.
Eddie realized that the message had popped up only on his own screen, not on the readouts, so he set it to be visible to them and turned it so Tiana and Jern could read it.
“Heh,” Jern said, “King Eddie sounds alright. So, you going to need a palace guard?” he asked, half-teasingly.
Tiana just stared at him.
“You're going to go for it, aren't you?” she asked.
“Umm...” Eddie said, “yeah? Probably anyhow. Gotta be worth something, right?”
Tiana buried her face in her hands and started laughing.
“I knew it, I knew you would as soon as I saw the message. I can't believe this. You complain about what you already have to do, then willingly take on more as soon as the opportunity comes up.”
“I'm not really complaining when I do that, I thought you knew that. It's more like venting, just to get it out so I don't really complain and start to resent what I'm doing,” he said.
“Doesn't sound that way sometimes,” she said.
“Um, sorry? I'll try to do it less if you like.”
“No, that's fine, now that I know what you're actually doing, but don't be surprised if I return the favor.”
Jern, who'd politely turned away for the last few exchanges, turned back.
“So, Eddie, you're going to need to found a couple more settlements. Probably nearby would be best, any ideas about that?”
“Not yet. I'll ask around some, talk to the refugees. If I find any areas that are resource rich for some things, kind of like Rotthorpe with the mine right there, then maybe those would be the best areas?” he asked.
“Sounds like a good plan, lad. For now, though, I think we ought to go get dinner and maybe do some celebrating?”
“Now that sounds like one of the better plans I've heard recently,” Tiana said, tossing a mock glare at Eddie.
“Alright, let's go,” Eddie said.
~ ~ ~
When the three of them entered the inn, Eddie stopped cold and started blushing as the adventurers already in there stood and applauded.
“Way to go Eddie,” someone called out, “but why goblins?”
“It wasn't my choice at all,” Eddie said. “It was just...”
He trailed off and decided to try to explain.
“I think it happened because just recently my group and Charles' discovered an abandoned mine...”
He went on with the story for a while before closing.
“And then we claimed the village. All those goblin ex-slaves that I hired are going to work the mine for us and they needed a place to live. So I claimed it and told them
they could live there.”
He carefully avoided any mention of putting Rotthorpe under the jurisdiction of the Meadowlands, or of the fact that the, now goblin, village of Rotthorpe was part of what he intended as a kingdom.
“So, I think it picked goblin because of that,” Eddie said. “Don't know what we would've gotten otherwise.”
“Damn Eddie, you get the funkiest adventures. Maybe my group ought to start following you around,” the original questioner said.
“Mostly boring stuff,” Eddie replied. “Today I was just building houses so we had enough permanent inhabitants to raise the settlement to town level.”
“Still...” the adventurer said.
Eddie shrugged.
“Your call, but I don't have any big plans for anytime soon.”
“Really, how about long term then?”
“Um... No comment,” Eddie replied.
“See,” the adventurer riposted, smirking.
Eddie quickly found a table and sat down, Jern and Tiana joining him. They chatted for a bit, sipping at ales as they did. It was an hour or so before dinner time for them, so they just nursed ales until then, ordering dinner when that time arrived.
Eddie hadn't even received his food yet when the door slammed open. He glanced over and found Allie standing in the doorway directing a furious glare at him. Karl was behind her and Eddie caught him making an apologetic type of shrug, then staying out of Allie's way as she stormed across the common room.
“Goblins!” she screamed. “You made it so we'd see even more goblins around here. How could you?”
She smacked Eddie across the face, and he felt it, but good. Then she turned and stormed back out of the inn. Silence held sway over the inn after the door shut behind her. Karl shrugged at him again, then followed Allie out.
Out of curiosity Eddie pulled up his combat log. He thought you couldn't damage other players since it was a non-pvp zone, but he sure felt like he'd taken damage.
You have taken 5 points of subdual damage from Allie.
