Village of Noobtown: A LitRPG Adventure (Mayor of Noobtown Book 2)

by Ryan Rimmel

  “We need to get our trade goods to Narwal and then get back here. Any ideas you might have that would help us navigate through all the bandits would be appreciated. I will have an answer for you tonight. Until then, wait here.”

  Zorlando said nothing, just nodded. He was mentally reviewing his conversation with me, trying to figure out if I should be offended. I wasn’t, but that didn’t stop me from giving him the blankest look I could muster. With that, I turned back toward the Western Gate Fortress. Fenris and Bashara quickly followed behind me.

  Fenris rushed to catch up. “Who is that?” he asked, gesturing to Bashara.

  “Bashara,” I said, living up to the great stupidity of my name. Of course, Fenris could easily tell her name, just by looking at her. For a more informative answer, I added, “She was a Wizard working for the bandits. I’ve captured her, and she’s going to pay blood money to be released. “

  Fenris turned to examine her. He was too calm to actually go for his weapons, but his walk transformed into the gait of a hunter, stalking his prey. Bashara, to her credit, seemed utterly unimpressed with Fenris. I caught the barest edge of a smile from her, as Fenris turned away.

  Odd.

  We got to the fortress gate and walked up to the doorway. As I approached, someone opened the door, and we all stepped in.

  “Is there any reason that the people out there can’t go to the village?” I asked.

  Fenris frowned. “You mean aside from the already extremely tight money supply?”

  “You know about that?” I asked, genuinely curious. I hadn’t given Fenris access to the town interface. There should be no way he would know how dire the town’s straits were.

  “Mar might not be the best person for the job,” he stated. “He’s been blabbing all over the village that if we don’t get some money soon, the town was going to go insolvent. It's not bad yet, but people know that this trade caravan is absolutely required for survival.”

  “They could just not get paid,” I said, under my breath, “at least until the caravan is successful.”

  Fenris blanched, completely tongue-tied. Bashara snorted and responded, “Work for no money? Who does that sort of thing?”

  “The Morale hit would be terrible,” stated Fenris. “The town would begin infighting in a day. They’d depose you as mayor, as soon as the money runs out. “

  I checked the town menu, dreading what I’d find.

  Coffers; 57 gold, 82 silver, 85 copper

  Income: 3 gold, 61 silver, 20 copper per day

  Wages: 12 gold and 10 silver per day in wages

  Total Costs: 8 gold, 48 silver, 80 copper per day,

  That wasn’t great, but it was better than nothing. The blood money that Bashara had offered would buy me two more days. If we could get the gold from the trade mission, then we would be almost all the way to keeping the village solvent.

  I checked the morale tab. It was down from average to poor. The goblin threat, inadequate defenses, and insufficient gold were all listed as primary issues of concern. There was also a note warning of excessive public discord. I assumed that the instigator of that was GowenDoud, but I’d have to go back to town to check. The upshot was that if I could resolve a few problems, we’d go back up to average morale. Maybe, dare I even think it, morale could go to above average.

  I need a spreadsheet.

  Iron bar and food production were both going well. Repairs to the town were moving along nicely. Glancing through the repair list, I determined that I was still 45 days out from an unemployment crisis. Hopefully, by then, I’d be able to start assigning repair people to other jobs.

  Mar had been able to reassign a couple of older people already. The inn was up and running, finally. It, of course, wasn’t busy; the lack of travelers through town didn’t lend itself to a hopping hotel business. Still, having a functional inn granted a cooking bonus. Perhaps, the food was less terrible than when I left. The smithery had been fully repaired, and a second smithy had been discovered and likewise repaired. The Forestry Hut was also being expanded; additional lumberjacks could soon be employed.

  That was the good news. The bad news was that some of the initial repairs had been of poor quality. That meant that we were using poor quality supplies for repairs, causing building issues. Who would have thought that hardware laying in cellars for hundreds of years would weaken it?

  On top of that, the materials needed for a sawmill were unavailable locally. Hopefully, the trade route would resolve that.

  I also had prompts for the ThooClicky caravan, as well as another caravan of refugees that had appeared, seemingly from nowhere. They represented another 54 bodies, though only 31 of them were workers. Children and the elderly didn’t count, unless I issued a child labor policy. I wasn’t even considering that, though, until I could open a school of some sort, the children were just more or less sitting around, getting underfoot. Maybe I could organize something when I got back. I could always put the elderly to work minding all the children and teaching them. That might work well, at least until I could set up a proper education system. It could be kind of like a cooperative homeschool, of sorts.

  Finding all the caravans’ petitions, I sighed. I quickly marked them all as being temporary citizens of the village. That was only a short term plan, but it granted them safety while I figured out a long term plan. That was going to piss off just about everyone back in town, but too bad. I wasn’t going to leave these people to starve or succumb to the elements when I had a choice in the matter.

  That job finished, I flipped back to real time.

  Fenris could sense that I had done something. His eyes narrowed at me. “You didn’t.”

  “I did,” I stated. “I let all sorts of refugees into my village, or didn’t you catch that.” Fenris grew quiet, while Bashara looked impressed.

  “You queued that up quickly,” she grinned. “I like my men fast. Where are your prison cells?”

  “This way,” I groaned. Fenris visibly blushed, but he followed me, anyway. The only cells that the Western Gate Fortress had used to hold Wargs, and they still smelled of the beasts. I gestured toward the inside of one, and Bashara frowned.

  “I thought you might have a nice tower cell or something,” she pouted. She walked into the cell petulantly and sniffed. I closed the door and clicked the lock shut. Upon doing so, I got a prompt.

  Bashara, Wizard, has been imprisoned by you. She is a Mercenary and was captured while performing a mission. She can either escape, or you can release her after a time of no less than 22 months. As a Mercenary on a mission, she can also be released after paying her blood debt of 18 gold. If she, or her company, can provide those funds, you are required to release her.

  Bashara grinned impishly and turned away from me. A moment later, she pulled out a fat purse and started handing me coins. I couldn’t see quite how much gold she had, but it was probably more than the village still had in its coffers. She said she was hard up for coins.

  “A bargain,” she finally stated, handing me 9 large silver coins. My menu informed me that they were worth 10 silver, each. She’d also given me a ‘10 Mark’, an overly large golden coin with a square cut in the middle. It was worth 10 gold pieces. Next, Bashara handed me 7 more coins with a triangular hole in the middle. I had expected individual coins but realized that handing out huge piles of small change was probably impractical. I’d never actually seen the town’s coffers; the money seemed to be magically delivered. My own meager supply of money had been in single coins. Recalling some odd looks from merchants at Narwal, I now saw how foolish that belief was. On Earth, I wouldn’t pay a fifty dollar bill with 50 ones.

  “Shart,” I thought, dropping into menu time, again, “I suppose, if I don’t release her, there will be some sort of terrible problem.”

  Shart nodded his head. “Dum Dum, you’d get an oathbreaker status. No Mercenary would ever work with you, again. That’s a bit of a challenge for the mayor of a village that’s about to be attacked, don�
�t you think?”

  That was handy info to know. I hadn’t really been considering keeping her, but she was nice. She had such lovely freckles. Still, if the time ever came where I did need to hire a Mercenary, or if I captured another one, I wouldn’t want my name besmirched by a status

  “Just out of curiosity, Shart, what if she’d been trying to kill me personally, and then I had captured her? Would I still have to let her go once she paid her blood debt?” I asked.

  “That’s an Assassin’s mark. They don’t have rules like that. Mercenaries perform contracts. Assassins perform marks. If you capture an Assassin going after you, you can torture him to death, and the Assassins Guild will thank you for removing an incompetent member from their organization.”

  “Tough crowd,” I replied.

  “They are hired killers,” stated Shart.

  Returning to regular time, I made a show of fetching the key before unlocking the cell. It took an extra moment, because, despite missing two fingers on my right hand, and being fully ambidextrous, I still thought like someone who was right handed. Fenris inhaled sharply, seeing my mangled hand for the first time.

  They are growing back.

  “By your leave,” Bashara stated, stepping out of the cell that she’d entered just moments ago.

  “I’ve marked you as a friendly,” I stated. “You can enter the village at your discretion. If you want to stay here, feel free.”

  She smiled easily, looking at Fenris with a cocked eyebrow. The man blushed again. Bashara was cute, attractive even, but way too young for Fenris. He was, by all accounts, happily married, to boot. When I’d first talked privately with him, at this very fortress, he had been willing to eat crow to get my help in finding his family. I was confident that, whatever Bashara would offer him, he would turn down. I frowned at the Wizard, so she straightened and walked back into the courtyard.

  “Fenris?” I asked. He was visibly getting over himself, trying to avoid looking at her as she left.

  “Yes, Jim?” he finally coughed out. Seeing my raised eyebrow, he continued. “She just looked so much like my first love. She died nearly a decade ago. It was almost painful to see her.”

  That made total sense, I thought. I knew how Bashara’s features had affected me, the first time I really saw her. Time can sometimes stand still when you are reminded, suddenly and forcefully, of a lost loved one. Of course, my reminder was mainly her freckles, and her smile, and her adorable nose crinkle, and her forehead scrunch when she was deep in thought.

  “Come on,” I stated, hoping to shake Fenris from his past. “We need to figure out how to clear those bandits out of the forest. Do we have 20 archers?”

  “Yes,” stated Fenris. “We can equip them properly this time, with all the iron that’s being brought in. I even have a suit of armor for you. It has gauntlets.”

  “Those would have been handy,” I said, noticing him staring at my hand. “Fecking pumas.”

  “You went through the forest?” asked Fenris. I nodded, and he blanched. “How did you survive? I’ve heard tales of the pumas in that forest.”

  “Fecking pumas,” I corrected.

  “Yes, that does, indeed, make more sense,” stated Fenris. “Legends say that those pumas are among the fiercest in the world. They are supposedly the most cunning, too, acting almost like a well formed gang or army. From what I hear, you are lucky that you only lost fingers.”

  “Something like that,” I stated vaguely. “Don’t worry about my fingers too much. There is a Beast Master talent that lets me share my companion’s healing.”

  “Badgers have Overhealing,” stated Fenris, as he nodded, knowingly. “You were quite astute in picking your companion. “

  “More like I was good at picking mine,” grumbled Badgelor.

  “Yes, isn’t he a good master? What a lucky badger you are,” replied Fenris.

  Badgelor has entered Badger Rage.

  “We need to go.”

  Chapter 45: Housekeeping

  Deciding that we would meet up in an hour, Fenris and I parted. I headed back across the courtyard. Our village’s trading caravan was there, ready to go. Nearly a dozen drivers were waiting to deliver our goods to Narwal. The massive outer gate had opened and the first of the refugees were being let through with their caravans to head toward town. I waved at HaroldBruce as he passed, still looking a bit befuddled.

  In a short period of time, the activity died down and the courtyard was quiet again. Only our trading caravan remained. Of course, they weren’t moving, yet. They couldn’t, until there was a clear path for them to travel through.

  That was going to be a problem, and, at the moment, I didn’t have a ready solution. I walked to the base of the wall and followed it, considering my options. Badgelor, my cute furry Badgelor, had calmed down. He was busily sunning himself on a warm paving stone. Shart sat quietly on my shoulder, contemplating demon things.

  “So, how do I do this?” I thought at the demon.

  “How do you do anything?” replied Shart.

  “One step at a time,” I said, thinking. “The northern route has the bandits and the western route has those fecking pumas.”

  “Yes,” stated Shart, glancing around for a moment. “So, which route is better?”

  While anything was better than the fecking pumas, I did think for a moment. How many of those stupid cats were there? Was there a way that I could even check their population? I brought up my map and looked. I had that Great Explorer talent; it made the map more detailed than I had expected.

  Fecking Puma Forest*, (name change under review by local authorities), is a forest East of Narwal. It is notorious for its large number of hunting cats. There are presently over 200 hunting cats in this large forest.

  Northern Forest of Narwal, Contains the Titan’s Crack Bridge, leading to the Great Highway. A small forest most well-known for its Pine and Jerk Trees, this forest was recently overrun by bandits. At least 50 bandits currently make this forest their home, preying on refugees.

  “Well, given the choice between 200 hunting cats and 50 bandits, I’d think that bandits are the easier option,” I said, running the numbers. I didn’t see how my people or Zorlando’s crew would survive against the cats, at any rate. That forest was, by far, the most dangerous place I’d ever encountered.

  “Okay, Dum Dum, how do you defeat the bandits?” asked Shart.

  “If there are 50 bandits, and we have 50 properly equipped men, we might be okay. The bandits are going to be spread out. It’s not like it will be a 50 on 50 fight.” I stated, then frowned. “The only problem might be Durg. He’s tougher than any of us, including me.”

  “If you can take out Durg, you can defeat the bandits,” stated Shart. I nodded. If I brought the Mercenaries, Fenris, and SueLeeta, as well as the village guards, we could probably make short work of the bandits. Assuming that I could defeat Durg.

  Knowing my thoughts, he continued, “Hey, Dum Dum, do you really want to leave Noobtown that woefully undefended?”

  “No.” I thought I could spare the 20 archers that Zorlando was requesting but sending all the village’s guards would be asinine.

  Durg was much tougher than I was. My ability to level up in anything had given me a really broad base, but I hadn’t focused on anything. What I thought had been a massive advantage, had turned into a temporary disadvantage. Now that I was up against someone at a higher level than myself, I was going to need to train quickly.

  Swords, Initiate 22135/50,000 SP. Your next rank is Journeyman. You cannot accidentally cut yourself with your own sword. You attack at 10% faster speeds. You cannot accidentally lose the grip on your own sword.

  I wasn’t sure what the Journeyman ability was. Based on what I’d seen, I knew it was an obvious power tier over the Initiate. That was pretty common in games. You move onto the next area and your power level jumps, rendering the first area not much of a challenge, anymore.

  My Mitigate skill was actually my highest skill. It wa
s almost at Journeyman. It had gained skill points steadily, as the pumas were constantly leaping onto me and biting from all directions. While it was bound to my Defense, it was also capped. I could only mitigate a maximum of 5 points of damage while wearing light armor.

  Speaking of which, Fenris said there was some better equipment for me. I headed in the direction of the armory. An idea was forming in my mind. Shart chuckled and continued his owl like pose on my shoulder. Badgelor grumbled but left his rock and followed me to the living area in the fortress.

  The western wall was really the heart of the fortress. The wall itself was nearly 80 feet tall and very impressive. Inside, there were the living quarters, the armories, the stores, and everything else you needed to call a place a fortress. I stepped in and came up to a small chamber that had been cleared out. The first time I’d been here, it had been full of the detritus of a bunch of goblins and Wargs that all thought that indoors was a good place to poop.

  It had been transformed into a proper guard shack. Two guards were already looking at the stairs as I ascended. It took them only a moment to relax. I nodded in their direction.

  “Mr. Mayor,” greeted TerryElliot. “Your stuff is in the commander’s room.” The other guard nodded at me, as they both settled back into their card game. I wasn’t exactly sure what they were playing. They had what appeared to be a normal deck of cards, but they each also had a small pile of rocks and a stick.

  I continued, up three more flights of stairs. Reaching the room, I saw that it, too, had been cleaned out. It was a welcomed discovery. There was a simple bed and other furnishings that were not covered with feces. I was proud for a moment. My guards had obviously worked very hard to erase the evidence of the goblins’ occupation here. It didn’t take me long to see the box in the corner, stuffed full of armor.