Defender Light Online Four

by Larcombe, Tom

  Ah, so that's what the goblin player race looks like, Eddie thought. Kinda cool really, if you like goblins.

  “Yeah, we're from nearby. This settlement is under the control of ours,” Eddie said.

  “Oh, are you the dude that unlocked the race? Eddie something or other?” the goblin asked.

  Eddie sighed.

  I finally decided that being well known might not be that bad, and this guy can't even remember my name, he thought.

  “Yeah, that's me, Eddie Hunter.”

  “Weird ass character name dude, sounds almost like a real name.”

  “There's a story behind it that I'm not going to get into. Any idea where the shamans that are in charge are?”

  “Sure, one of them's always at the big house. The other tends to rotate through the crafters, and the warrior is probably training with the rest of the warriors.”

  Tiana, evidently unable to stand it any longer, gestured towards the rat in the goblin's hand.

  “What is that for?”

  “Oh, a quest. Not much for newbie areas down around here, so the shamans have been giving us quests for meat, pelts, that kind of thing.”

  “What was your name again?” Eddie asked, knowing very well that the goblin hadn't introduced himself.

  “Oh, sorry man, a little distracted here. I'm Rickrack.”

  “Nice to meet you Rick, I've got to talk to the shamans. After I do that, though, if you like I can direct you to the closest newbie style zone. Although it's designed for groups of newbies and isn't underground. I can direct you to a few zones to build yourself up. We've got a newbie zone, a dungeon, and then the Forest of Fools. Although the last is goblins, so I don't know if you want to do that one or not.”

  The goblin's ears had perked up, quite literally, at the mention of a newbie zone. Eddie caught himself staring at the long slender ears, which weren't present on the rest of the goblins he'd seen in game either. They looked almost like extra-thick, spread out, elf ears, almost like the ears on the gremlins in the old movie, except not quite as wing-like. Eddie tore his eyes away from Rick's ears as the goblin spoke.

  “Sure man, we players have been bunking out in rooms in the big house, so you can find us there. I'll let the others know if you're willing to tell them too.”

  “Sure thing. Let me just talk to the shamans first.”

  “Alright, I gotta turn this in anyhow, so...”

  Rick darted off down the street, heading towards the big house, much more quickly than was reasonable for his body size. Eddie assumed that 'big house' meant the town hall since it fit the name, both for being the largest building in the settlement as well as being sized for an ogre.

  ~ ~ ~

  He was right, the big house referred to the town hall. When they got to the entrance of it, there was a bustle of activity nearby. Several goblins were out in the mushroom fields, tending and harvesting the fungi. There were goblin warriors standing guard, one to either side of the entrance to the town hall, and a small stream of goblins were coming and going through the door the two warriors guarded.

  “Wow, busier than I thought it would be,” Eddie said.

  Tiana nodded.

  “Yeah, looks like they got their act together pretty quickly,” she replied.

  “I suppose knowing everyone in the area made that easy. Even so, I'm kind of jealous. They got to start with the actual buildings in place, didn't have to build the place up.”

  “Yeah, but they paid for that by being slaves until we freed them,” Tiana said.

  “Okay, point. Not a trade-off I'd be willing to make. Let's head in.”

  As they approached the door, the goblin warriors both threw off some sort of salute that brought their closed fists to their chests. They opened the doors for Eddie and Tiana, then stepped back. They also motioned for the goblins that were approaching the door to hold off for a moment.

  “Hmm, celebrity treatment,” Eddie said. “I'm not sure if I could get used to that, or if I'd want to.”

  “It's nice once in a while, so long as you don't let it go to your head,” Tiana replied.

  That's right, she probably gets that at the temple. I wouldn't be surprised if she got some of it in real life also from what I know of her, Eddie thought.

  “Well, anyhow, it'll make this quicker if the shaman isn't constantly having to deal with the other gobs while we talk to him.”

  Some of the goblins that had already been in the town hall were coming out of the door into the main meeting room, where they'd defeated the ogre that had been in charge of the settlement before. They went against the flow of goblins until they reached the door. It opened again and let out Rickrack.

  “Hey, he said he's glad to see you, head right on in,” Rickrack said, holding the door for them.

  Evidently the goblins that had been going down the hall were all the goblins that had been in the room. When they entered the only person in the room was a goblin shaman.

  “Grokeen, good to see you,” Eddie said with a smile, speaking in Goblin Speak.

  “Eddie Hunter, I had wondered when you would return,” Grokeen replied.

  “I wanted to come down and see how you were doing, see if you needed anything,” Eddie said

  “We are well, we have food, work, even treasure now. We are far better than we were.”

  “Do you need any variety of food? I see you're working the mushroom field, is that all you have?”

  “No, we have the meat of many of the dwellers down here as well. It is fine, unless you have one of those orange things? The carrot I believe you called it?”

  Eddie grinned. He'd tucked away a bit of produce from the inn gardens just in case they needed some more food. He pulled out a bunch of carrots and offered them to Grokeen. The shaman accepted the bunch and immediately pulled out a carrot to crunch on.

  “Eddie,” Tiana said. “Do they need food?”

  “I don't think so, I think he's just really fond of carrots.”

  “Well, can you translate for me?”

  “Sure, what do you want me to say?”

  “Tell him that I've recently acquired a spell that would allow them to grow carrots, or other surface vegetables, down here. At least in a small area.”

  Eddie cocked his head at her.

  “It's a continual light spell. Got a couple of drawbacks, but I could easily make him a few that would last a whole year each.”

  “Huh,” Eddie said. “Sure, I'll tell him.”

  After Eddie translated the goblin turned to Tiana and a flood of Goblin Speak came from him. Eddie slowly translated his reply, which boiled down to, how? And what would it cost them.

  “Tell him to shield his eyes if he's sensitive to light,” Tiana said.

  She drew a gold coin out of her pouch and started chanting. Grokeen shielded his eyes as the coin started to glow. Before long it was glowing brightly, putting off nearly as much light as a sunny day. Eddie squinted for a moment as he thought about that, then realized that the light looked to be the same color as the sun.

  She proffered the coin to Grokeen who took it, still shielding his eyes with his other hand. Eddie translated again as Tiana spoke.

  “Each of these will cover a circle of a fifty foot diameter with light and the light is sufficient to grow surface crops. If you suspend it in the air, then cover it whenever the goblins sleep, that would do to act as a light source so you can grow other things down here,” she said.

  “Seed?” Grokeen asked.

  “I can get you seed for carrots and quite a few other things as well. Were there other vegetables you particularly liked from what I provided you before?” Eddie asked.

  In the end Tiana made six of the glowing coins for them and Eddie agreed to bring down carrot seed, seed potatoes, and beans for planting.

  “The spell is called Eternal Day,” Tiana said. “But that's a misnomer. In the small print it says that whatever it's cast on has to be valuable and the amount of time the spell will last is determined by
the value of the item it's cast on. Those gold coins should last a year each though if I calculated the duration correctly.”

  Grokeen was enthusiastically cooperative after that. Although before they did anything else he called in one of the goblin farmers and sent him out to find growing spaces to place the coins. They didn't want to put them near the mushrooms since he was afraid that the light would be bad for them. Then he led them around the city.

  ~ ~ ~

  The tour had taken them through all the different areas that the goblins had up and running. As a result, Eddie and Tiana were unloading ingots of iron and silver at the smithy while they spoke with Delgar.

  “They've got it up and running pretty well. We've got some daggers as well as these ingots. They started making weapons for all the goblins to get the smiths some more practice. Started with these serrated daggers.”

  Eddie pulled one out and handed it to Delgar. He looked at it intently.

  “Huh, I can see where it would do extra damage from the serrations. But it'd be a bear to sharpen, plus this particular one is still ranked poor. I wonder if I could...”

  The dwarf's muttering faded to silence for a minute as he examined the dagger.

  “I can probably make some of these. They'll be better quality after I get used to the pattern also. I'll have to disassemble this one to figure it out though,” Delgar said.

  “That's fine,” Eddie said, hauling out another ten daggers.

  Delgar's eyes widened.

  “Industrious little buggers, aren't they?” he asked.

  Eddie nodded.

  “I'm glad they're on our side, unlike the other goblins we've met. Also, there are several goblin players down there currently. I gave them directions on how to get out and come to the newbie zone and dungeon up here, so if you see bluish tinted goblins with huge ears coming out of the caves, those are more players.”

  Delgar nodded.

  “I'd wondered if the goblin players would look different than the rest of the goblins. We dwarf players tend to be taller than the other dwarfs and our skin tone is more tan, less pale, than them. Easy to spot if you know what you're looking for. Sounds like the goblin players are even more different than their base race.”

  Tiana nodded.

  “They definitely are. Unless it's dark out you won't mistake them for regular goblins.”

  “Good, good,” Delgar said, his gaze going back to the serrated dagger.

  “Alright, we'll leave you to your work,” Eddie said when he noticed Delgar's attention wandering.

  He and Tiana left the smithy. When he whistled, Lucky came running up. He'd left her in the woods near the smithy, not wanting to take her into the caves since she didn't like them very much. Now she rejoined them, rearing up to put her front paws on Eddie's chest and licking his face.

  “Ew, Lucky, fish breath again?” Eddie said, forgetting that mentioning it just got him more of the same from the cat.

  “Eddie, I thought you told me not to say that to her,” Tiana said.

  “Crap, I forgot. It's been a while since she did that to me.”

  Tiana chuckled softly, but Lucky heard and immediately switched the focus of her attention. A moment later she was leaning against Tiana's chest, licking her instead.

  Tiana groaned, but didn't say anything. Just scritched the base of Lucky's ears.

  “Let's go home, girl,” Eddie said.

  Lucky dropped to all fours and followed as he started heading towards the road leading to the inn.

  “Hey, who you calling girl?” Tiana said. “I'll have you know I'm a woman.”

  She laughed gaily as Eddie shook his head.

  “You know who I was talking to,” he said. “You're just picking on me.”

  “Maybe,” Tiana said, “or maybe I feel neglected.”

  “Well then, in that case I'll have to pay more attention to you tonight, won't I?” Eddie said.

  He reached down to pet Lucky's head and she started purring. Tiana moved up alongside of him and took his other arm as they turned west on the road that led to the inn.

  ~ ~ ~

  Chapter Three

  Freyja was absorbed in the new information she was acquiring. Admittedly she only had one third of each game day to acquire it, but she'd taken to saving everything she viewed during that time, then going back through it in the other two-thirds of the day. She'd spawned a subroutine that was taking care of her regular duties, although she still checked in now and then.

  Freyja had made sure that Tiana's logs didn't show any of the connections to the outside world that were made while she slept. She also tried her very best to not abuse the privilege that Tiana had given her, keeping her attention focused on the browser and its connection to the outside world instead of her priestesses' dreams. Even so, she couldn't help but notice what Tiana was engaged in frequently just before she fell asleep. A part of her mused about the world-traveling mortals' obsession with this physical interaction.

  She recalled that Odin, as well, seemed obsessed with it and when she looked, she found a measurable percent of the internet devoted to graphical depictions related to it. Even more was written about it. Mentally, she shook her head.

  I will never understand some of the things the world-traveling mortals seem to find important, she thought. Although, I wonder what Odin has discovered about this. Perhaps I should discuss it with him? All the writings about it on the internet are either fictional or heavily biased from what I can see.

  She made a mental note to discuss that with Odin in his Geirvaldr form, since he was still wandering the world in that, then she went back to searching the internet, saving things she wanted to pay more attention to later on and skipping past things that seemed of no interest to her.

  Is this why I've heard players talking about going down the rabbit hole on the internet? I understand that it's a reference to Alice where everything was crazy once she entered the rabbit hole. Are these dead ends that seem to be of no relation to my search terms when I follow the links that type of thing? Some of them are crazy and surreal enough to qualify I believe.

  A few minutes later she detected Tiana starting to wake up.

  Well, that's all for now. I will not risk my connection to the rest of the world by abusing the promise I made to Tiana.

  She closed the browser she'd been using and returned to her own rooms. Once there she pulled up the data she'd downloaded and dove into it, searching for a deeper understanding.

  ~ ~ ~

  Eddie was awake, but had yet to drag his ass out of bed. When Tiana shifted he turned to watch her wake up. The process was even slower for her than it was for him. After a few minutes of watching her blink her eyes, squint them shut, yawn, then start to blink them again he finally got out of bed and started dressing.

  “I'll bring a tray up for you,” he said, not waiting for an answer before he left the room.

  Tiana wasn't exactly communicative first thing in the morning. Getting a coherent sentence out of her before her first cup of coffee was something he'd not yet managed to achieve. So he loaded a tray up with fresh bread, strips of fried meat, and a pot of coffee with a pair of cups. Then he returned to the room and placed the tray on the nightstand beside the bed. He poured the coffee, moved one cup closer to her, then sipped his own as he watched her catch the scent of the coffee and home in on it like it was prey.

  A few minutes later she finished her first cup of coffee and reached for the food.

  “Thank you,” she said, then started to eat.

  Her next words didn't come until her second cup of coffee was finished and she'd put away three slices of bread and some meat.

  “Ah, now I'm awake,” she said. “What's the plan for today?”

  “I want to go over Karl's maps with him and Allie, then pick locations for two more settlements. After I have that information, I'll be able to talk to Charles and try to convince him that he doesn't want to leave, that he wants to lead a settlement instead.”

 
; She nodded.

  “That makes sense. Go into the discussion with as much data as you can in order to tempt him,” she said.

  “Well that and something he told me before. He said that his dad told him that he was sending Charles in game to learn to lead properly. So he started a group and has been leading it, but anytime he tries to tell his dad about it, he gets ignored. I'm thinking maybe his dad was hoping he'd learn some other form of leadership in here. If that's the case, then maybe leading a settlement would be more along the lines of what his dad was after. Since Charles seems to respect his father, and want his approval, I figure there's a chance that he'll take the offer. Hell, there's a chance it really is more along the lines of what his dad was after, so...”

  “Any idea of who you want to lead the other settlement yet?” Tiana asked.

  Eddie shook his head.

  “I still don't know if I want to offer it to an NPC or find another player I trust to do it.”

  “That's a tough call, but I know you listen to all the groups that hang around the inn. Is that why?”

  “It didn't start that way, I just wanted to stay up on gossip and news of what's being done in the game. Recently I've been also trying to see if I think any of these people would be a good fit for it from what they say, but I haven't gotten anywhere with that yet.”

  She shrugged, then slipped out from under the covers and started dressing. She was turned away from him so he was surprised when she spoke.

  “Stop staring at me like that. You've seen it before.”

  “Hey, how do you know I was staring at you, you're looking at the wall,” he replied.

  “Because I know you. It's one of your favorite morning things to do,” Tiana said as she finished dressing and turned around again. “It really is a little creepy, you know?”

  “Yeah, I know, but you do it too when I'm dressing.”

  “I never claimed I wasn't creepy, did I?” Tiana asked.

  Eddie laughed and shook his head as they headed out of the room.

  ~ ~ ~