Defender Light Online Four

by Larcombe, Tom

  “Well, I hired your boy instead. I was going to ask if you'd run into anyone claiming to have Animal Handling, or anyone with Herdsmen skills, when you were asking about people with the fishing skill.”

  “I did, but I can't recall who. I know they're out there though. So, you hired my boy instead to find them?”

  Eddie shrugged.

  “If this works, than we can station him at the temple entrance or at the crossroads. If people are looking for skills, items, or anything else, then they can hire him to go up and down the road calling it out. If he does it a lot, people will start listening more and he might get more business, right?”

  Griff shrugged.

  “I don't know. I've heard of town criers, but never seen one before.”

  “We'll see how this works out. If it does, do you want to try? It might keep him in one place and out of trouble for a good portion of each day.”

  “That would be a relief to Runa, I'll tell you that. He's just a touch too young to be helping me in the fields yet, although he's willing to try. So, he wants to help, to work, but...”

  “If you give him responsibility now, you can teach him how to be responsible when he grows up,” Eddie said.

  Griff nodded.

  “Aye, we'll give it a try then. Worst that happens is it fails and he learns from that too.”

  “That's the spirit Griff. I'll stop by later on if I get any takers on the position, get your boy his bonuses.”

  Griff was still shaking his head and muttering about crazy mayors as Eddie left and headed for the town hall.

  ~ ~ ~

  The control room now had another lit up option, labeled: 'Quarry'.

  Eddie was interested to see that it showed as being manned by ten men, which was the number he'd had cutting the stone. He wondered, for a moment, if they would get some specific class or skill if they kept working there.

  “Doesn't matter,” he said aloud, but to himself. “If they're willing to keep working there I'll keep paying them until all the buildings we need are done. Then maybe we'll have other people building also and we can sell the stone and still keep them employed.”

  The option, when he pressed it, pulled up a detailed list of the quarry and its associated people and equipment. All ten men were listed out, as well as the small outbuilding they'd built, and the equipment.

  Delgar had gotten a lot of blueprints from Opron before Opron left the game. As a result he'd supplied a dozen pickaxes, several sledgehammers, some smaller hammers, and chisels to the quarry. All of that equipment was in the details generated when he selected the quarry option.

  He could also see the quarry's output, and output history. The latter wasn't very long since the quarry was brand new, but the current output seemed to exceed what they'd been doing before it was officially a quarry by perhaps twenty-five percent.

  Huh, I wonder if that's a bonus for doing the work in a site actually designated for it. I'd bet it is, he thought.

  He adjusted the dials to make sure the quarry had a fair amount of the productivity allotted to the town. He had a sneaking suspicion that the adjustment would slow down the crops the new farmers had been pulling in, but their crops had been growing ridiculously fast, so that shouldn't be a major problem.

  Not quite at ludicrous speed, but definitely at ridiculous, he thought with a chuckle.

  He'd come to check the three bars that represented the town's population though: Happiness, Health, and Productivity. A while back the only ranking that was in the green was Productivity, but now Health had edged out of the yellow into the green and Happiness was on the border of yellow and green. With nothing anywhere near the red area at the bottom of the bars, Eddie was satisfied. Optimally, he'd have all three at the top of the green, but he'd count just getting all three into the green at all as a win.

  With a last look at the new settings he tweaked the productivity on the quarry back down by one point, adding that point back to the food production.

  Because if I'm using the cows for food production also, that might also affect the farms if it splits the energy evenly between everything, he thought.

  When he left the Town Hall he was in a good mood, which only increased when he got to the temple grounds and just watched for a while as Lucky raced back and forth around the fountain playing 'Slap the Koi' or, more appropriately, 'Slap at the Koi and miss'. He noticed the presence that came up behind him, but was very familiar with how it felt when Tiana was around so he didn't flinch at all as she came alongside him and leaned into his shoulder, chuckling as she watched Lucky also.

  ~ ~ ~

  While Eddie was eating lunch at the inn, a pair of local residents entered the common room.

  “Mayor Eddie, sir?” one said when he spotted Eddie at his table.

  “That's me, come on over,” Eddie said.

  “Sir, did you have a crier out looking for Herdsmen?” the other man asked.

  “I did, just this morning.”

  “Well, my brother and I are experienced herdsmen. What animals are we talking about?”

  “Cows,” Eddie said, hoping that the game hadn't named them something else.

  The men nodded.

  “We can work with those. How many head do you have?”

  “Twenty-two. Two bulls and twenty cows,” Eddie said. “There might be some heifers mixed in, I haven't looked that close yet.”

  “Good mix, aggression between the bulls at all?” one of the men asked.

  “Not that I saw, but you can talk to my men who are currently watching over them. They're mainly farmers so I didn't want them working with the herd.”

  “Good, good, what are you talking about for pay, sir?”

  Eddie got down into the nitty-gritty with them and ended up paying them about the same as he was paying Osmond and Brandr, with the stipulation that there'd be a copper bonus for each man any time they got a healthy birth in the herd.

  In the end, he got Leif and Magnus, as they'd introduced themselves, headed out along the road to the farm where they'd view the herd. If all was as each side had said during the bargaining they'd start working immediately.

  Eddie heaved a sigh of relief when they were done, then finished his, now cold, lunch.

  “Alright, time to go work on a castle wall,” he said.

  Tiana and Jern were at the table with him now, Jern having come in while Eddie dealt with his new herdsmen.

  “Alright lad, let's go see how much wall we can put up. I got a masonry point when we were doing it two days ago, I'm hoping for another today.”

  “That would be nice,” Eddie said, slightly jealous because he hadn't gotten a point the other day.

  The three of them headed out towards the castle site, Lucky in tow. When they got there, Eddie stopped to mix up more of the mortar since the workers there had almost run out of the batch they'd made that morning. Once he had, he shucked his armor, dropping it into his inventory, and started laying finished stone in the hot sun.

  Lucky was napping in the shadow of the wall that had been finished a couple of days back. Eddie, Jern, and Tiana had all taken a ten foot section of wall to work on adjoining one another and as the wall slowly grew, Eddie was overjoyed when his notification light started flashing. He quickly pulled it up.

  You have upgraded the skill Masonry to (5). Playing with sticks and stones again, are you? Maybe we can find something a bit more interesting for you to do.

  “Yes!” he called out. “Got a point in Masonry. Now I actually qualify under the rules I wanted for the people working on the wall. Up to a five now.”

  “Lad, I don't know why you required that anyhow, if they've got the skill they know how to do the job.”

  “Because those with the Masonry skill higher have already earned most of the points they can by doing the things the others are doing. This way the people with the higher skill have a chance to earn more points in it,” Eddie said. “Plus this way the wall will go up faster, and be better quality overall.”


  “Ah, I wish you'd said so in the first place instead of just saying you wanted all the people on the wall to have a five or better. I was wondering, you know?” Jern replied.

  “Well, now you know. And we should get back to work, because the wall isn't going to build itself.”

  “Aye, that it won't. For which I'm glad because otherwise how would we raise our skills?” Jern asked.

  Eddie groaned and shook his head, but used his trowel to add some mortar before placing the next finished stone in its spot.

  ~ ~ ~

  Chapter Six

  Aaron's search for the network administrator took him to their office first. Of course, they weren't there. He sent an email asking to speak with them, and got a quick reply saying they were stuck doing some IT support but would be available for questions later in the day.

  Hey, Aaron thought, I wonder what kind of gripes the network admin would have. Surely he'd have a boatload of gripes. With as many people as are on the network here, I'm sure there's a bunch of stupid stuff going on. Maybe I can get them to relax by telling me some of their stories about things people did here and then ask about enhanced permissions? Might increase the chance that I actually get them if I have him in a good mood first.

  He replied asking when they had lunch and if they used the cafeteria, offering to meet up then and talk over lunch instead of disrupting the network admin's day and workload.

  'You don't have a complaint on my work, do you? I'd hate to ruin my lunch,' the reply read.

  'No, just a problem that I can't solve on my own, which involves the network. Not a problem with the network, but I need to use it to solve my problem.'

  'I'm intrigued. Meet me at the table farthest from the food servers at noon. We'll chat.'

  That was only half an hour away, so Aaron closed out his screens and locked his workstation, then headed down to the cafeteria. After grabbing his own food he made his way to the table and sat down. As he ate, he noticed someone heading towards the table. She was short, with a sort of spiky pixie haircut, and appeared to still be in her late teens. She looked like a strong wind would blow her away, but she carried a tray loaded down with food.

  As she approached the table, Aaron stood.

  “I'm sorry, I'm waiting for someone,” he said.

  She laughed, almost scornfully.

  “If it's the network admin you're looking for, then it's me you're waiting for.”

  Aaron stopped dead for a moment, blinking.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, why, you think a woman shouldn't have the job?”

  “No, not at all,” Aaron replied. “You just look young for the position.”

  “Oh, that,” she said dismissively. “I graduated high school at fifteen, finished my dual degree in computer sciences and networking by eighteen, and I've had this job for four years now. So I'm twenty-two. I know I look younger though. Damn metabolism won't let me put on any weight and keeps me looking younger than I am. It's such a pain in the ass to get carded every time I want a beer.”

  Aaron sank back down in his chair, overloaded with the data dump she'd just dropped on him. He just sat there for several moments before realizing that he was being rude. Meanwhile, she'd pulled out a chair and sat down. As she started to shovel food into her mouth, he finally got his bearings back.

  “Sorry?” Aaron said. “I didn't mean to offend you or anything.”

  She swallowed before speaking.

  “Not a problem. I'm just a little touchy. You would not believe how many assholes I've run into in this company who think I can't do my job, tell me all about it, then end up calling and begging me to fix something they screwed up that the regular IT support can't handle. It leaves me a little edgy when I'm at work.”

  A little edgy at work? I mean, I suppose, but from the way she looks I imagine she's a bit edgy out of work also, Aaron thought.

  Her immediately felt bad about judging her that way, but he still had his own problem to work on.

  “Well, I didn't mean to cause you any more stress. I just didn't think that the network admin would be...”

  He trailed off, trying not to put his foot in his mouth.

  “What, didn't think they'd be a woman? Be young?” she said.

  Oh well. Open mouth, insert foot. I don't want her to think I was thinking that way, Aaron thought.

  “No, none of that. I didn't think the network admin would be...” he gulped before finishing. “well, cute.”

  A smile spread across her face, one that took her from cute to downright beautiful, if still looking like she was in her late teens.

  “Oh, in that case, I forgive you.”

  Wait, for what? She forgives me for her assumptions? Don't go there Aaron, just don't.

  “Thank you,” he said. “But, I wanted to meet you for a reason. I've got a tracing program that runs on the network. One that has found an unregistered or improperly registered destination that I just can't pin down.”

  “Ah, one of those. There used to be three of them, but now there's only one that I know of,” she said.

  “Really? I wasn't aware.”

  “What, exactly, is your job here? I need to know that you have the need to know about those,” she said. “Oh, and by the way. You're Aaron, right? I'm Lydia. I looked up the file associated with your email address, but it was redacted when it came to the job title and details. So I need to know why you need to know.”

  The sentence was convoluted enough, and jumped from topic to topic enough, that it took Aaron a moment to parse it.

  “Yes, I'm Aaron. I'm in charge of a small R&D section now, but I also do debugging for the game, make suggestions on ways to alter it, and do the coding for the suggestions I've made. In this case, there's something going on in the game that I'm pretty sure shouldn't be and it keeps making a connection to the unregistered address I'm talking about. So, the authority for that would probably fall under the debugging portion of my job?”

  Lydia leaned back, swallowed, then laughed out loud.

  “Hah! I always thought I had it bad with the multiple duties. You'd think a network admin would just administer the network, right? But no, I also have to do hardware work, and when the buffoons in IT support can't fix something, which is like half the time, guess who gets called in to do it. So maybe I'm not the only one with the problem of too many jobs. Sounds like you've got more duties than me even. Anyhow, sure I can help you with that, but it'll cost you.”

  “Cost me?”

  “Yup, I can tell you exactly what that unregistered address is since it coincides with your own duties, but I want something for the info,” Lydia said.

  By this point Aaron felt like he'd been run over by a truck.

  “Uh, what do you want?” he said.

  “I'm glad you asked. We can start with dinner and drinks. Breakfast is negotiable depending on how well the dinner and drinks go. By the way, in case you wondered, I think you're kind of cute too.”

  Wow, what the hell? I'm not about to say no, and I'll definitely try to make sure the breakfast is included, because I just gotta know what she's like in bed. If she's like this in a random conversation at work? Blowing me away? Does that carry over to other things too? Aaron thought.

  “Done, when would you like to do that?” he said.

  “Tonight works for me. How about you?”

  “Sure, when do you get off?”

  She cocked her head and looked at him, smirking.

  “Really? That old joke?” Aaron said. “I meant work, when do you get off work?”

  “Five-thirty. You can meet me at the front doors and we'll go from there,” Lydia said. “And what you're looking for is an experimental cerebral implanted computer. The only person left in the building that has one is Franklin Greenshaw. Just don't tell him I'm the one who told you. He doesn't know that I know.”

  Aaron was still grinning when he made it back to his office, just in time to see the AI-L server's CPU spike again.

  ~ ~ ~
>
  The next few days Eddie spent the mornings with his new herdsmen to make sure they knew their job and worked on the wall in the afternoon. It was definitely warming up and he was debating switching those two things around. Do the heavy labor of wall building in the morning, and spend the hotter afternoons dealing with the herd.

  His efforts had paid off in one way at least. He'd gained three points in Animal Husbandry and a point in Animal Handling by helping his new employees with the herd. He'd also gained another point in Masonry during the same period.

  In addition, he'd assuaged his curiosity about whether or not the analog cows gave milk like real cows. The answer was a resounding yes, which led to a barn being built. One that was attached to the corral and pasture. It also led to a bunch of metal buckets being made by Delgar. Now they had milk and cream at the inn, as well as excess to sell. He'd picked up the blueprint for a butter churn and was planning on making that while he spent time on the farm this morning, watching the herd and talking to the herdsmen.

  He grabbed the materials he'd need for it, then sat in the shade of the new barn, something he'd also hired out to the local carpenters in order to get it done as quickly as possible, and started working. The herd seemed content in the pasture, although Eddie was worried that it wasn't large enough. The herdsmen had told him there was plenty of room for that many cattle, but Eddie still fretted.

  An hour later, as he finished the butter churn, he got a notification he hadn't seen in a while.

  You have upgraded the skill Carpentry to (14). I give up on you. Go saw nails and hammer logs for all I care. You'll never be a true warrior at this rate.

  He smirked, the snark in this one being particularly lame and ineffective.

  Maybe it means it's giving up on putting any effort into the snark, he thought. That'd be nice, although some weird part of me might miss it too.

  He stood the churn upright and carried it into the barn. He knew how it worked, theoretically, but wanted to try it out. Especially now that he had the option to turn down a new skill if he qualified for it. Fortunately the blueprint he'd found had been for a paddle churn and not a plunger churn. From what he'd read, the paddle style was much quicker and easier to use.