Every door in the town seemed to open at once as people flooded out. There were almost twenty-five men, women and children, all racing forward to see me. At first, I reached for my dagger, unsure if this was an attack, but I noticed that in the hands of some of the people were flowers, freshly picked.
“The champion is here!” said a stout man, wearing long breeches and a red vest. “The champion has come at last!”
They were all cheering and calling to me as they rushed up to greet me, surrounding me and throwing petals at my feet. Some of the women were sobbing, and the men were clapping me on the back, happy to finally meet their champion.
“Easy, easy,” I said, trying to shake some of the children off who were rather violently pulling at my arms and legs.
“You have come, at long last,” the stout man said. “I am Mayor Hemmings, proud leader and elder of the town of Tine. At least, I was the leader until you arrived.”
They all fell silent, waiting for me to speak, but I had no idea what to tell them. I was not their champion. The goddess had picked me up by accident and the town she had mentioned earlier was certainly not Tine. This meant that there was no champion for these people.
“I uh…listen, I’m very sorry,” I said, “but I’m afraid there has been some kind of mistake. I was not selected to be the champion to this village.”
“But our watcher saw the goddess in the sky. She must have dropped you nearby, to sojourn to us,” Mayor Hemmings insisted.
“She grabbed the wrong man, unfortunately. And dropped me off here because she uh…she couldn’t be bothered to send me back where I come from.”
“So you’re not our champion?” a woman in the crowd asked.
I shook my head. “I’m afraid not. Sorry.”
This was disheartening news, for certain, but I got the feeling that this wasn’t the first time the villagers had heard this. The crowd was quick to disband, grabbing their children and returning back to their village, trudging through the deep, wet grass to get back home. Only Mayor Hemmings remained.
“But you are an outsider, are you not?” he asked.
“I’m not from Liora, if that’s what you mean,” I replied.
“I see…” the man said, rubbing his chin. “Well, come, come. Let’s get you some food. You might not be our champion, but you are our guest.”
I smiled at the mention of food. For not only did I have the body of a much younger me, I also had his fierce appetite.
Chapter 3
The warmth of the fire was welcoming as I sat at the head of a long oak table, eating to my heart’s content. The Mayor’s home was the largest out of the rest of the huts, but it was also the building with the slacking roof. I wondered if the bigger house was compensation for the possibility of being buried alive at any moment.
But for now, I was happy to eat the roasted pork and fresh bread that had been baked this afternoon. There were many seats at the table, but only the Mayor sat with me, staring at his food unhappily. He barely ate anything. For this had been a feast meant for their champion—the hero who would come in and accomplish great feats for them. I was a guest of honor, but not the one they were looking for. But what exactly where they looking for? What made a champion so important?
“May I ask what a champion does?” I said in between bites. It was a little embarrassing to be eating so quickly, but I was famished from the long trip between worlds.
Hemmings looked up at me, his weary face forcing a smile. “Oh yes, of course. There is a custom in Liora, that each village, if favored by the gods, will receive a champion. One who is able to see the Great Picture, one who is able to move in such a way that they bring prosperity to the village.”
Great Picture? I liked the sound of that. “So you’re looking for a business leader?”
“No, not simply a business leader. There are a great many guilds in this world, full of natives who ply their trade and grow their companies. We are looking for those who can see the village from a higher view. It is a mystic sight, one that only champions are able to access. With access to the Great Picture, they are able to watch and control the growth of the village. They see everything at once. And with such vision, they can make decisions on how to expand, what to build, and even manage relationships between other villages and cities.”
“Sounds to me that you’re just waiting for a good leader,” I said, digging into the second round of ham that was placed in front of me by one of the maids. She too looked weary from the disappointment.
“Without the mystic sight, a leader cannot truly grow the village,” the Mayor replied. “For there are many other champions who can see from high above as well. They create mighty kingdoms.”
“So how does a champion gain this mystic sight? Is it a gift from the goddess?”
“The sight itself? No. But the goddess is able to grant other boons, powerful abilities that shape the champions’ skills and give them great power,” the Mayor said, glancing around for a moment before lowering his voice. “But any person from outside of Liora can access the sight, with the right tool.”
“Interesting,” I said, wiping my mouth with my napkin and leaning back in my chair. The look on the Mayor’s face was one I recognized from my many years of business. He was about to ask me a favor.
“Listen, I understand that you are probably itching to get back home,” he said. “And you probably aren’t too thrilled about being kidnapped by a wayward goddess. But I believe that you can still help us. We’ve been waiting for a champion for hundreds of years. My great-grandfather was a devout man, praying each night and performing the rituals to please the goddess of wind, yet she never reciprocated. Even today she slights us by flying overhead, only to drop you off outside. I fear that…that there may never be a champion brought to us.”
“A shameful predicament,” I said, nodding, still waiting for the favor to be asked.
“What if you were to help us?” he asked, voice hushed. “What if we stopped wasting our time, waiting for a champion who will never come, and took destiny into our own hands?”
“I admire the gusto,” I said.
“Gusto?” he repeated.
“It’s an expression from my world. It means bravado, bravery, going for it, real vigor.”
“I like that word,” the Mayor said, smiling a little. “I know that it is a big thing to ask of you, but it would be a great kindness for you to help us. There is nothing that I could offer you in return for your aid, you must know. But as our prosperity would grow, so would yours. And as leader, you would own all of our resources and buildings. You would be our ruler.”
I looked at his face. It was a desperate act to ask me for help and I could see that he was resigned to receive a no from me. He was ready to hear my rejection and would take it in stride. But I thought long and hard about what was waiting for me back home. A large, empty manor filled with nothing but the cold sound of silence. No ringing phones, no angry businessmen shouting at me because of some policy disagreement. My life had ended when I had that heart attack back on Earth. But in Liora? I was healthy as a horse.
What was the harm in trying this Great Picture thing out? I had time. In fact, I had all the time in the world. No one would miss me back home. Especially not since I had given half my wealth away to the Foundation for Fighting Cancer.
“I can’t promise any kind of results,” I said. “After all, I’m a stranger to this world and, to be honest with you, I’m still not convinced this is all real just yet. But, hey, I’m here, right? Might as well do something productive with my time. I’ll give it a shot.”
“What?” Hemmings gasped, looking up at me, eyes wide. I could see that he was holding back tears. “Are you serious?”
“I am a man of my word. I’ll do what I can to help the village. But I’m not making any guarantees or promises.”
“Of course, of course! Each moment you spend here is a gift, for sure!” Hemmings said. “But…the people
might not like this. They are all still waiting for the champion to come. They might see you as taking what doesn’t belong to you, so be careful. I’m sure once we begin to experience prosperity, they’ll come around.”
I opened my mouth to inform him that I didn’t care about what the community thought, but held my tongue instead. Perhaps he did not know that one of the most important parts of running a business was learning to ignore the naysayers. From the outside, it can look very callous to state how little you are concerned with the opinions and feelings of others, but the truth is: it’s easy to criticize; it’s much harder to actually produce results. So instead, I simply asked. “How do I access this Great Picture?”
“Follow me,” the Mayor said, sliding back in his chair and standing to his feet. He led me through a few rooms, before finally taking me to a large steel door that had no door handle or hinges. The grey door had the symbol of a crow carved into it. “No one but the leader of the town may access this area,” he said, waving his hand in front of the crow. It lit up and let out a caw before the door slid open by itself.
“Very impressive,” I said. It was certainly a neat trick, but we had the same power at home, we called them sliding doors. I was hoping to see some real magic soon.
We entered into a large library, with a few oak chairs and a lectern with a large glowing book chained to the desk. The book had the words Sorva Iskis written upon it.
“Here it is,” Mayor Hemmings said, waving his hand over the chains, causing them to loosen from the book. “The Great Picture itself. As long as you hold it, you will be granted…well, you’ll see. Here.”
He handed the book to me. I was surprised by how light it was, despite having what seemed to be a few thousand pages. It was almost like holding an empty water bottle. “Go ahead,” he said, “open it.”
Curious to find what was hiding within these pages, I casually flipped open the cover to the first page. In an instant, I was no longer in the cozy little library, but was instead thousands of feet in the air, floating above the village. I panicked at first, expecting to drop at any moment, but I realized that while my vision was suspended, my body was nowhere to be found. I could still feel my body on the ground, holding the book. It was like some kind of magical telescope.
I could see the village on the ground. It was impossibly small compared to the rest of the world around us. The words Tine – 1, tinted with blue coloring, hovered above the village. The same blue color was also surrounding the village, like a border of sorts. I could see the people moving about their business, working on various projects, all with small bars above their head. As they worked, these bars began to fill up with green colors and I was able to quickly comprehend that these were progress bars.
All of this reminded me of my nephew’s video games that he would play incessantly. Whenever I had been corralled into a Thanksgiving dinner, all he ever did was sit at the computer and play, hardly interacting with anyone. His parents never tried to drag him into the conversations and festivities either. I usually envied him the most during those frustrating events.
“Are you okay?” I heard the Mayor ask. His voice was right in my ear, despite how far I was above the world. Which meant that, while my perception had shifted, my other senses were still localized to my body. I tried to speak and, sure enough, it worked.
“Yes, I’m fine. This is fascinating. I can see the whole village of Tine working at once.”
“Good, good,” Hemmings said, breathing a little hard. I could tell that he was anxious about what we were doing, perhaps because he was breaking some long-held traditions of his people. Or maybe he was just worried about some terrible side effect he had neglected to mention to me. “Now, turn the page.”
I complied and, as I turned the page, more information began to appear in front of me. This time, it was an overlay with symbols above each building. The townhall showed a +5 gold symbol, a hunter’s shack said +2 meat and the little farm next to the village said +10 wheat.
“What do these numbers mean?” I asked.
“They represent our village’s production.”
“I understand that, but what is the significance of the production numbers? Does meat simply mean a slab of beef?”
“These are raw resources, so they can be converted into different types of refined products. Meat becomes food, wheat can become bread; it’s your decision to set the conversion rates. Turn the page.”
Once again, I flipped the page to discover, with great excitement, that the overlay had changed into somewhat of a spreadsheet. While I could see the village, there was a large black page on the left-hand corner that showed the current village’s needs and the excess resources that they possessed. Alongside with those needs were options on what to do with the resources. I could arrange so that meat could be turned into food or be exported. I could determine what to do with the bread, including storing it for later use. I also was informed of the population level of the village.
Overall, the village had a population of 25. They consumed on a daily basis 5 points worth of food. One point of meat would become 5 food, while 2 points of wheat were required to achieve the same result. But there was a hard cap on the number of these two resources that we could store.
“Why can’t we store more wheat and meat?” I asked.
“Turn the page and look at the building overlay,” the Mayor instructed. I noticed that each time I turned a new page in this book, a symbol would appear in the left-hand corner, bringing up the previous overlays. I didn’t need to turn the pages to access these, I could merely focus on the symbol and it would activate, giving me sight of what I wanted. This was the Great Picture that champions could see. No wonder they were able to lead a village to such great prosperity. With the ability to look at all the data from a top view, you could make exceptionally efficient decisions.
I must admit that, at this point, I was practically salivating at the possibilities. It reminded me of the old days, when I was just starting my own business. It was just me and a notebook to keep track of everything I did. As I scaled up in size, I had been forced to hire people to provide reports and often had to worry about their competence and honesty. By the time I had founded a major corporation, I was so far removed from the data collection part that I couldn’t be sure that the information I had was always correct. But with a book like this? I’d always be able to keep track of everything, without worrying about data loss through a chain of communication.
I turned the next page to see the buildings on the land become highlighted, a green ray of light shining on them. The ground itself had become a sort of grid, with each part of the land divided into boxes. It was a grid! Of course, the buildings occupied squares on the grid, with larger buildings taking up more squares. I noticed that, in addition to the grid, there were also resource symbols floating above certain tiles. The wheat symbol was hovering over the Farm and I realized that these symbols must indicate natural resources. There were many more of these symbols outside of our borders. One in particular that caught my eye was the symbol of what looked to be white stone on top of a hill. I instinctively knew it was salt, perhaps because of the mystic knowledge being conveyed to me.
There was also a collection of structures now visible, each with different gold costs. “I’m assuming that I’ll be able to put in work orders to have different buildings made?” I asked as I reviewed the cost of the mine. It would be nearly 300 gold pieces in order to build. Looking at our coffers, I could see we had a measly 15 gold. This would not do.
“Yes, of course,” the Mayor said. “You might need specialists in order to oversee certain buildings. For example, you could not farm without a farmer present. Nor could you do something like run a barracks without a military leader.”
“And how would I recruit these specialists?” I asked, turning another page. Indeed, there was a more detailed population page that showed up, giving me a better idea of what the people were capable of.
Th
ere were 20 peasants, 1 adviser and 4 farmers. Each farmer had a daily gold cost of 1. There were options to promote individuals to specialists, but there were required buildings as well as either special resources or large amounts of gold to promote the peasants.
“You can train anyone to become a specialist,” Hemmings said. “But you know how it is. Certain people will be better at certain tasks than others. You can see their individual names and statistics on the next page.”
I was already perusing the page he was referring to. “Seems like a lot of information to sort through,” I said, looking at a few of the people’s names. Underneath each name was a list of stats and numbers meant to show what each individual was skilled with. There were a plethora of stats, such as Leadership, Farming, Building, Combat and Magic.
“Well, yes, but you’ll get used to it in time. Finding the right person to promote to the right position is extremely important. First off, it will improve the efficiency of the buildings and production. And second, it will also make the person happy, since their interests are being fulfilled.”
“Happiness and business don’t mix,” I replied curtly. There was a moment of silence from Hemmings, but he cleared his throat and spoke to correct me.
“This isn’t business, sir. These are the lives of actual human beings. They have wants and needs. If you wish to lead us properly, you can’t just look at us as numbers, you have to also see to our morale, to our happiness.”
Interesting. I had not considered this fact. The sheer amount of cold, mechanical information was exciting enough for me to forget, for a moment, that I was indeed managing not a large corporation but a village full of living, breathing beings. I couldn’t forget that, lest I make decisions that might cause them harm. I felt a little embarrassed at coming across as so cold and calculating to the man, but it had been an honest mistake on my part.
“I’m sorry, I’m still getting used to all of this,” I meekly said. “How can I ensure everyone here is happy and healthy?”
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