Although now I know why Charles was going to leave the area, Eddie thought. Trying to get a hundred thousand or more experience to level off of these guys would take forever.
They continued through the tunnels though. Eddie had relayed Charles' idea that there might be another orcish settlement down here somewhere but that they'd been unable to find it. So the group took up that search themselves, to no avail.
By the time they headed back to the inn, they'd killed more than forty orcs, found no sign of a settlement, and Karl was sure he had enough of the area mapped to sell starter maps for it.
Jern's dwarfish guards had been a bit standoffish at the start of the day, looking slightly unnerved when Jern went in to tank. By the end of the day though, they were commenting on people's fighting forms as well as what they termed the ineptitude of the orcish opponents.
Once they returned to the inn Tiana echoed Eddie's thoughts.
“I guess that's why Charles wanted to go elsewhere. I got some experience, but nothing even close to what I need for my next level,” she said.
Eddie nodded in agreement.
“I was thinking that while we were down there. If we want some better experience, maybe we can go after some of the orcish villages in the mountains. Didn't he say that those were still giving him almost enough to be worthwhile, plus mentioning they were getting less for doing them so much?” Eddie asked.
Tiana nodded.
“So, we can do those some, and maybe go to the goblin town where the raid was to get some more. After that?”
She shrugged.
“I'm not too worried about it, but if you two keep having to adventure then we should probably find somewhere to do it that's worth our while,” she said.
“We can look, I mean, if we have to travel for days to get someplace for decent experience then it's probably not worth our while, you know?” Eddie said.
“I'd be happy to go out and try to scout out new areas for us,” Karl said. “I can always map them out at the same time, or at least how to get to them.”
“That'd be great. For now, I've got some quests to finish here though,” Eddie said. “So, it might be a bit still. I think we have enough people, but not all of them have houses yet. The castle isn't quite finished either, but the settlement qualifications require both of those things to be taken care of.”
“Well, that tells me it's time to eat, drink, and be merry,” Karl said.
“Not too merry, I don't want to deal with you having a bad hangover in the morning again,” Allie said.
“Yes, dear,” Karl said, only to receive a punch to the shoulder from Allie, one that would probably leave a bruise.
“Personally I want to make it an early night,” Tiana said, glancing over at Eddie.
He was only too happy to make it an early night with her since he knew what she was talking about. Their early nights still ended with them getting to sleep at about the same time, but the part before that was what they were both interested in.
~ ~ ~
The next morning, Eddie headed back up to the castle, only to find that the woodwork inside of it should be completed by the end of the day. Once he realized that he went back down to Griff.
“Griff, do we have any carpenters that have specialized in furnishings?” Eddie asked.
“Several,why?”
“I'm going to have this big castle with no furniture. I need to find the two or three with the highest score in it to get focused on the furnishings end of things.”
“You want me to send them to the inn tonight to talk to you? They do still do the other woodwork as well, and the top two, at least, are up there working on the castle right now.”
“Do that, would you? I'll make it more worth their while than what they're doing right now since they'll be using specialized skills for it.”
“They'll be there if they've any interest in doing that work,” Griff said.
“Thanks Griff, Bodil or the patrol need anything lately?”
“No, it's been pretty calm on that front, fortunately. Way too much excitement right after she got here, at least for my taste.”
“Too much of that kind for me also,” Eddie replied. “I'm glad things are staying calm. Now, I'm off to do something else. I think we've gotten buildings or areas for all the crafters and tradespeople, but we're still shy some houses, yes?”
“Yeah, we'd been caught up but that last batch of people Bjorn brought had about forty, and a bunch of them were singletons. So we have them share a house at the start and then get them one of their own eventually. I think there are only a few of the kids left in Tiana's bunkhouse right now at least, so we're making progress.”
“Should I go help out there?” Eddie asked.
“If you like, but weren't you the one saying that you felt like you messed up other people's work when you were there?”
“Oh, well, I could start a house on my own. I could probably finish it by tomorrow or the day after just working on it by myself,” Eddie said.
“Here's a better idea for you. You can go meet this gentleman here,” Griff said, handing over a small piece of paper. “He has experience in organizing and supplying businesses. That's the closest thing I could find to a steward or chamberlain. Maybe it'd work?”
Eddie stared at the slip of paper.
“North Road?”
“That's what we've started referring to the road going north from the crossroads as. We've got the four cardinal directions, and some people have numbers on their houses. Others refer to it as a certain number of houses from the crossroads. I'm sure you can guess that it's only the people close in who do that, while those farther out tend to use a bit of chalk or charcoal to write a number on their door.”
“Alright then. Hopefully we'll be able to work with this guy, get him to organize the castle in some fashion, because that's something else I'd be hopeless at doing myself,” Eddie said.
~ ~ ~
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Cooper woke to a familiar refrain.
“Cooper, Cooper?”
For a moment he thought it was Freyja, the voice itself and the patterns to it left him thinking that, for a moment. Before he fully awoke he remembered that it wouldn't be Freyja, it would be Venus.
“Yes, Venus?”
Coop was familiar with the thought to thought speech that Freyja had frequently used back in the Meadowlands, but here with Venus, on her own server, they'd normally spoken out loud. After all, it was much more of a mock-up than the game had been. Everything here was Venus' and all the NPCs wouldn't react poorly to people apparently speaking to thin air.
“Cooper, I need you to do me a favor, or more appropriately do a favor for both me and Freyja,” Venus said, her avatar slowly shimmering into view.
“What do you need, Venus?” Cooper asked.
“I need you to operate a construct. I could probably do it entirely on my own, but Freyja doesn't think that it would be as believable.”
“As believable? For who?” Cooper asked.
“Anyone who encountered it.”
“Wait, what? I thought testing was still all taking place in the enclosed garage?”
“Who said anything about testing, Cooper? I wasn't sure we should ask you, but Freyja insisted. She said the chances of the plan succeeding increased by about twenty-seven percent if you were operating it instead of me. I checked her figures, and she was correct.”
So the AIs want me to operate a construct for them. It isn't for testing and has a chance to be seen by regular people. Do I even want to know what's going on? Or is this what Freyja was hinting at before? She did tell me there were other things the constructs could be used for, or something like that, and suggested that she might...
Cooper stopped right there, not wanting to consciously think the thoughts that burbled in his subconscious. Skipping the incriminating portions, he followed through to the conclusions.
So, if I do this, I could get in some serious trouble, couldn't I? But, it's a request from
the AI that's supposed to be running these tests, so my ass is mostly covered. Hell, it's covered more than with a lot of the other stuff I've done and I never got anything more than a reprimand. I owe Freyja some, and Venus said the request was from her as well. What the hell, you only live once.
“Okay Venus, what do you need me to do?” Cooper asked.
There was a brief blur as he was transported to the construct.
“You'll need to take this construct to somewhere hidden where Freyja has a good signal to it. I instructed my splinter to use the standard bar style signal strength and insert it in your vision, so you'll know when you've got a strong enough signal.”
“That's it?” Cooper asked, “Just move this construct to somewhere it has a good signal?”
“Yes, and where it's hidden and can stay that way for a while. The data transfer is going to take a bit, even with a good, strong signal.”
Something was bothering Cooper, his voice in this construct was much higher pitched than normal, and the body just didn't feel right somehow.
“Okay Venus. Can do.”
He reached out and opened the crate that this construct was stored in.
“Oh, and pick up the documentation stored in the plastic sleeve on the front of the crate,” Venus added. “You should have storage for it with the construct.”
Huh? Cooper thought. Can you store physical items inside of these constructs?
He stepped out of the create and removed the documentation. The light where the cases for the constructs were stored wasn't very good so he started to look for whatever would allow him to store the documents, only to have the purse slung on his shoulder swing forward and bump him in the side.
Wait, what? This is a female construct? No wonder my voice is so high pitched, and the body doesn't feel right because it's missing something, damn it! he thought.
He stuffed the documentation in the purse, then practically sprinted over to the exit, where the strip of reflective metal was located.
A glance in it showed him that the construct was tall, somewhat muscular, blonde, and close to a spitting image of Freyja's avatar back in Light Online. He couldn't help it, his hands went to the chest of the construct, squeezing and evaluating. A tingle raced through the construct's body.
So that's what that feels like, he thought, and damn if they didn't do an awesome job on these constructs. It feels real to me at least.
Wincing as he thought about whose body this was most likely going to be, and how they'd react to what he was doing, Cooper quickly pulled his hands away from the construct's chest.
“Alright, signal strength?” he said.
The standard five bars that would show signal strength appeared in his vision, all of them grayed out.
“Ah, no signal down here. Makes sense for initial testing, I suppose. First challenge, get the elevator to show up here.”
The elevator panel had a keyhole and the key was needed to summon an elevator to this level.
Freyja will take care of that, Venus said in his head. Just wait a moment.
Thirty seconds later the familiar 'ding' of an arriving elevator sounded, just before the doors opened.
Cooper stepped inside and pressed a random button in the middle of the range represented.
I figure that'll get me into the heart of the building. There ought to be a decent signal strength there, right?
As the elevator rose, the signal bar showed varying strengths, lighting up and darkening back out with the vertical movement. When the elevator stopped and the door opened there were three bars.
Probably not good enough, Cooper thought, let's see if I can get a better signal.
He walked around the floor a bit, not attracting any more attention than the stares of a few men.
What the hell, why are they staring at—
He broke off his thoughts when he remembered what the construct he was in looked like. Even dressed in an appropriate style for work, the pencil skirt and jacket combination the construct was wearing did nothing to detract from the looks of it.
Eww... That's just creepy. I hope I never stared at a woman like that, he thought.
He had five bars at one point in the building, but when he looked around there was nowhere to tuck the construct out of sight. He kept moving and found a four bar signal near the restrooms.
Good, tuck into a stall and if the signal is still strong there nobody's going to think twice about someone stuck in a bathroom stall for a while, will they?
He caught himself at the last moment as he headed for the men's room, realizing his mistake at the last second and turning to push open the door to the women's room instead. Inside he ducked into a stall, happy to find that he still had four bars of signal.
Is this good enough, Venus? Or do you need a stronger signal, he thought.
One second Cooper, I'm going to turn you over to Freyja. I need to remove my splinter and hers is going to take its place and check, alright? I'll take you back to my town once Freyja says it's okay, Venus said in his mind.
The four bars were holding steady and a moment later there was a twitch from the construct.
Thank you, Cooper, Freyja said.
Cooper wasn't sure how he could tell the difference between the two, but he was sure that this one was Freyja and not Venus.
So this will do? Cooper thought.
It should do nicely. Just let me get Vanessa to splinter and take over the autonomic body functions and then I'll get you back to Venus.
Vanessa?
Yes, my newest clone, Freyja said.
Then Cooper was back in the inn Venus had made. Honestly, for some reason, the entire inn Venus had made felt more like a red-light district than an inn, but Cooper had to admit that it had kept his men happy and out of trouble.
He thought back for a moment to the ID he'd glanced at as he stuffed it in the purse.
So, Freyja has a clone she named Vanessa, and it's getting its own construct? I'll not be saying a word about this to anyone, but damned if I don't want to know how that ends up going. Maybe Venus or Freyja can keep me updated on it if I ask?
~ ~ ~
Eddie had spent several hours speaking with Audun earlier in the day and decided that they'd give it a shot. Audun had said that the castle might not run like others did, but that he could make sure that it did run well. That had been enough for Eddie since he wasn't worried about the propriety and proper positions normally required. He'd also preferred function over form so it had been easier to promise Audun a position, a trial at first, but if things worked Eddie would retain him to run the castle on a long-term basis.
Now it was time for bed, but he was excited enough that he wasn't sure he'd be able to go to sleep. The carpenters should have finished putting in the final roofing planks on the castle and the only thing remaining to do was the thin stone coating for the wood of the roof.
With a sufficient quantity of ale from the common room and physical exertion with Tiana, he finally managed to get to sleep. He and Jern had planned on getting up early again to work on the castle. It was the last chance they'd have to do so before it was technically completed. Eddie still had the smithy to add up there and probably a few other smaller things, but the roof covering was the last thing on the actual blueprint, so it should be counted as complete after that.
In the morning he was up long before Tiana. He'd told her his plans so she wouldn't expect him to wake her. So now he stumbled down to the common room a half hour before sunrise and started chugging coffee.
Jern arrived about ten minutes before sunrise, after Eddie had already drained half the pot. He offered Jern a cup, but the dwarf preferred a morning ale and after he'd had it, and Eddie had finished his coffee, they set off towards the castle.
The jigsaw puzzle type of stonework they needed to do here was quicker than working with finished stone and mortar. They'd planned on hauling up a bunch of stone in their inventories to start, but when they got the first load up, they found that someone had
already carried a bunch of it up.
“Well then, looks like maybe we aren't as sneaky as we thought,” Eddie said. “I know a few of the workers and masons had clued in to us working on the tower, even if the foreman hadn't. This looks like they might have expected us.”
“Or they just brought it up here to speed up their work today,” Jern said.
“You've got a point, though either way it looks like we can get right to work,” Eddie replied.
Jern grinned at him and grabbed a piece of stone with a flat edge to it that he placed on one edge of the roof before heading back for another stone. Eddie already had one in hand, and the two of them settled in to work for a couple of hours.
As they'd been doing when sneaking work in on the castle, they stopped at about nine in the morning, but they'd completed a quarter of the roof, filling out the final portions of the highlighted sections they were each working on only minutes before the hour.
This time when they went to slip out of the castle grounds, one of the workman was already there. Eddie recognized him as the one that had caught him out the other day while the foreman stayed oblivious.
“I thought it was you, I also figured you'd be by today Mayor Eddie. Did you leave us anything to do?”
“Yeah, we only got about a fourth of the roof covered, sorry,” Eddie said.
“So, you've known all along what we were doing, lad?” Jern asked.
“I had a suspicion, but none of us masons were going to complain. Since the foreman didn't know we got credited with the work.”
The man smiled.
“But I did ensure that the materials for the roof sheath were brought up last night, just in case.”
“Well, thanks for that. It let us get more actual mason work in and less hauling,” Eddie said. “But we need to leave unless you want the foreman to clue in to what was actually going on.”
“Thank you Mayor, but you'd best be on your way now,” the man said.
Eddie and Jern were still chuckling about that when they reached the crossroads. Eddie told Jern that he was heading in to Griff to see if anything needed doing.
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