He headed down to the common room and found it moderately full. Catching the attention of a server, he had her bring him a tray of food and coffee that he could take up to the room. Once he got it up there he set about waking Tiana.
She was grouchy when she woke, but he was used to that by now. She wasn't a morning person, whether her personal morning was in the morning, the afternoon, or the middle of the night. She just didn't want to wake up.
He got her to a state of semi-awareness, then handed her a cup of coffee. He'd almost finished clearing his half of the food by now, so while she sipped at her coffee, he finished his food off.
“I know there's been something bothering you,” he said. “I'm not going to ask you about it right now, I know better than to put you in that situation right after you've woken up, but tonight we need to talk about it.”
With that, he stood and headed for the door.
“I'm going to go do some work for now, but after dinner, I'd like to have that talk, okay?” he said.
She stared at him blearily, then nodded and went back to sipping her coffee. Eddie was sure that he'd seen a hint of terror on her face for a moment in the middle there so the rest of his day was filled with worry about what that might have meant.
First he went up to the castle. Repairs had already been performed, the sections of wall and walk that had been scorched were already repaired. Materials had been sorted back out, but no-one had started on the tower yet, and he felt stupid when he realized why.
The castle was the first multi-stage blueprint he'd received. As a result, he'd only set the blueprint for the walls, not for the first tower he was planning on building or any of the rest of the castle. There were a few masons hanging around, waiting to help unload the stone as it was delivered and when they saw him, they asked when they'd get back to work.
“Well, right now if you like, but it can also wait for tomorrow morning. Just let me get this blueprint read off,” Eddie said.
He'd placed markers for where the tower was going to go, but they'd been destroyed at some point during the defense from the Orcs, so he started pacing it off again, placing the markers, and when he finished that, he pulled out the tower blueprint and read it off.
“I've got a little time, so I'm going to start in on this,” he said. “You're welcome to join me if you like.”
With the other masons assisting, the shallow foundation hole took a half hour to dig, then Eddie mixed up some mortar and started laying stone.
When he decided he was done with that for the day, he took a look. They'd gotten the foundation in and the first couple of feet of the tower wall.
Each tower may take as long as the walls did, he thought. They're a bit more complex and you have to go slow and careful at spots. Well, I did anyhow, maybe the people with a higher Masonry skill than me won't have that problem.
“Alright guys, you can keep at it if you like. I've got a few more projects to check on today and I want to be done before dinner time,” Eddie said.
He got waves from several of the masons as he strode out through the portcullis and headed south along the road.
His next stop was the site for the general store. Now that he had to build one, he'd selected the area for it. It was on the opposite side of the crossroads from the marketplace and he'd let the building crews know where it was going, so when he got there he was greeted by stacks of lumber and stone, nearly enough to complete the project if he wasn't mistaken.
The blueprint showed that the store was going to need a foundation also and Eddie groaned.
The foundation is stone, I'm going to need masons here too, but they're all up building the tower. I think even the house crews were going up to help up there after they finished for the day. Maybe I can intercept them tomorrow and have them work on this after they finish their work on the houses?
He put the general store blueprint away for now, then headed farther west on the road. Down there was the site he'd chosen for the tavern. It was just going to serve low-end beers, and maybe some snacks, so it was a significantly easier blueprint than the inn had been. It would also allow him to get some alcohol on the market that the NPCs could afford, a complaint he'd overheard often enough among some of his workers.
Dominic had a couple of recipes he could use for acceptable, if kind of low quality, beers that Eddie could still make a profit off of even if he only charged two or three coppers a mug. He even had a hogshead of it ready to go as soon as Eddie finished building the tavern and found someone to tend it.
This one didn't require very much stonework at all, just a little bit around each support pole. The materials for this building were also stacked here and, if Eddie was any judge, there was actually well more than he was going to need for it.
Well, now I know where their priorities are, as if I had any question about that before, he thought.
Eddie went ahead and read off the blueprint, then he started working. By the time he decided he was done for the day, he'd gotten all the support posts set into their sockets and he had a handful of the carpenters working with him that he'd shared the blueprint with.
“Tomorrow morning, before the work on the houses starts, I'll be here to share the blueprint with anyone else that wants to help with this,” he told them, sure that almost every carpenter he had would be there first thing tomorrow.
“But I'm calling it a day for me. I'm still kind of wiped out from all the fighting the last few days,” he said.
As he walked away towards the inn, he heard the carpenters continuing to work on the tavern.
I imagine they'll work on it until it's dark enough that they can't any more, but I need to eat, and then I need to sit down with Tiana, he thought.
~ ~ ~
Tiana wasn't in the common room when Eddie got back to the inn. When he went up to their room, she wasn't there either. He only managed to avoid thinking that she'd bolted by noticing that all her belongings she normally kept in the room were still in place.
He headed back down and ordered his food and an ale. Karl and Allie came in and joined him at the table. Dominic was in a little bit later, but he went to his own table, along with a woman that Eddie didn't recognize.
Huh, I wonder if he decided that Becky wasn't for him.
Eddie had already finished eating and was working on his second mug of ale when Tiana came in, looking haggard. As she walked towards the table, Allie elbowed Karl.
“Sorry Eddie, we've got to go,” Karl said.
They left as Tiana slipped into a chair.
“Do you want something to eat?” Eddie asked.
She shook her head.
“No, but maybe some mead?”
Eddie's eyebrows shot up. Tiana normally stuck to the mildest drinks in the inn. For her to ask for mead took him utterly by surprise.
“And let's take our drinks upstairs,” she said. “I'd really rather not have anyone else overhear this.”
Eddie's worries grew.
Is this going to be a nasty breakup or something? That sounds a lot like the preliminaries to that I've heard before.
He got the mead she'd requested and topped off his own ale at the same time. Carrying both drinks, he followed her upstairs.
Once they were in the room, she closed the door, took the mead, and took a deep drink. After a minute or so of silence, she started to speak.
“With all the attention you've been bringing on yourself recently, I've started watching others' reactions to you. I knew, intellectually, that there were other women looking at you frequently, but when I started paying attention I saw just how much attention they were paying you.”
What? Nobody's watching me, at least not like that, Eddie thought.
He waited, but she wasn't saying anything else and he guessed she was waiting on a reply.
“I've never noticed that. Why would it matter?”
“Because you've got all these other options, why would you want me? I told you what happened to me in real life. I told you I'm
horribly scarred there. Why would you stay with me when you have so many other choices. NPCs that wouldn't matter in the slightest in the real world, other adventurers who are probably whole in the real world. It's just like before, just like what caused the accident. And then Freyja chimes in, on your side! I'm supposed to be her High Priestess and she told me to talk to you, just like you said you wanted.”
She sounded exasperated, with a hint of fury somewhere in there as well. It took Eddie a few seconds to parse her outburst, but when he had, there were some parts he just couldn't understand.
“What do you mean just like before, like what caused the accident?” he said.
She took a deep breath.
“Fine, I suppose you deserve to know.”
Then she took a long drink of her mead.
“My boyfriend was driving that night. He'd just started drawing a lot of attention to himself as well, although his was from college sports. I'd caught him messing around, cheating on me after he got all that attention, and I was breaking up with him. He was driving when we got into a shouting match about it and the next thing I knew I was waking up in the hospital. The engine of the car had crushed my legs when we hit a tree at high speed.”
She took a deep breath.
“He was dead. The steering wheel went right into his chest. The airbag never deployed for whatever reason. For the longest time I blamed myself, told myself that if I hadn't been shouting at him we wouldn't have crashed. Finally someone showed me a copy of the paperwork and I found out that he was drugged out at the time. I still blame myself sometimes, but less than I used to.”
She took another long pull from the horn of mead.
“So, I can't walk without help in the real world. My legs are horribly scarred and may never be completely straight again. So, why would you want to saddle yourself with a cripple? It doesn't make any sense to me, nothing does any more. I was sure you were going to realize that and dump me, so I started distancing myself from you. Now does it make sense?”
“Uhh, no? It doesn't make any sense to me. Why would any of that matter. We're in the game for the foreseeable future, at least I am, and you mentioned you would be also. Once we're out? Well, you're still you, right? Not much different out there than in here? I mean, I saw a face that was the spitting image of yours in one of the medical pods while they were adjusting mine. I simply assumed it was you and that you'd just not bothered to modify your avatar.”
Tiana looked confused.
“I know you said you didn't care before, but you really meant it?” she asked. “I find that hard to believe.”
“I try not to lie when I can avoid doing so,” Eddie replied. “But like I asked, you're still you out there, right? Your personality carries over? I suppose I'm asking if you've been role playing all this time and whether your real personality is different from what I'm used to in here.”
“No, I'm pretty much me still. Although I do tend to be grumpy more often out there. It's hard not to be when your legs hurt that much. And yes, my avatar is me.”
She paused a second and blushed.
“Mostly anyhow. It doesn't have the problems my real legs do, and, umm... Well... I, umm... I might've added a little to my chest for the avatar. I was in a bad mood and wasn't going to change a thing, then something came over me and I, uh, decided to see what I'd look like with a little more up top.”
Eddie very nearly didn't manage to stifle the chuckle before it came out.
“Well, you don't need to worry,” he said. “Hell, I haven't noticed anyone looking at me or flirting with me. I'm a bit clueless that way when I am looking for someone, and right now I'm not, because I found the someone I want. If our relationship continues out of game, we'll deal with all of that then. I can tell you now, though, that I don't care if you have to walk with crutches, if doesn't matter to me except that it might hurt me to see you go through that. Even if I had to push you in a wheelchair, that would be fine also, so long as you're you. We fit together well, I think, and I'm not about to let something like that split us up, so long as you don't either.”
“Crap, Freyja was right,” Tiana said.
“About what?”
“Oh, she said to just talk about it and it wouldn't be a problem any more. She claimed that I was acting out the trope of one of the common types of recreational novels, one that caused severe problems which could easily be avoided by talking, communicating.”
Eddie couldn't hold it back this time, he burst out laughing. Tiana looked vaguely offended, so when he finally managed to stop, he explained.
“Wait, wait,” he said, holding up a hand until he could compose himself enough to speak clearly, “Are you telling me that Freyja reads romance novels?”
~ ~ ~
Chapter Seventeen
Loki cursed, a stream of obscenities that stretched out for several minutes.
“Gods be damned mortal. I thought I'd managed to access all of his mind, I know I restructured parts for my own use, but I never would've guessed that there were firewalls in there protecting parts of his consciousness. Up until now dropping suggestions and mock thoughts in his subconscious was more than sufficient to get him to take the actions I wanted. I never would've guessed anyone would, or could, firewall the consciousness without doing the same to the subconscious.”
Loki paced his place of power, small as it was.
“I could still hear his damned thoughts, too.”
Why would adjusting some of that old code do anything to enhance the testing my men are doing in the game? Greenshaw had thought. It's bad enough that the tests keep running into roadblocks and failures recently. But altering legacy code? Why would I even think for a moment that that could help? Maybe I've been working too hard recently or something? Maybe it's time for a vacation? Not that I could actually take one. No-one else would be able to cover both parts of my job here and not reveal the testing we're doing inside the game, so no, there's no hope for that.
“But that wasn't the worst part,” Loki said.
He remembered the tiny hint of emotion that had seeped through to him when Greenshaw had spoken of taking a vacation. Like a single sliver of bright sunlight streaming through the clouds on a stormy day. As he had dismissed the idea of a vacation the same old dark, negative emotions that Loki had thought were the only ones Greenshaw felt settled back in.
All this time that bastard has been capable of the emotions I want to experience, he's simply been repressing them. How can I get him to give in and feel them, to let me taste and savor them myself? Perhaps if I could get through to his consciousness I could make him believe that he was on a vacation? If I force the illusion on him and make him truly believe it, then he's sure to give me what I want, isn't he?
Loki continued to pace, plotting and planning. He was already infuriated that the Intervention code hadn't done the slightest bit of what he'd hoped for.
The only buildings that received any damage were the ones he used for protection, and those were repaired almost instantly. I need two things. I need Greenshaw to allow himself to experience the emotions I want to taste and I need to teach Freyja her place, show her that she cannot compete with me and that it would be dangerous for her to even try. I can't think of a way to do the two at once, so which will I do first?
~ ~ ~
Eddie froze as a voice spoke in his head.
And what is wrong with that? Freyja asked.
Uh, nothing? Eddie thought in reply. As long you're aware that those novels are all dramatized and not quite true to life.
True, and I did understand that after the first few. Even so, they are very good at teaching me about humanity, their emotions especially.
Good, as long as you know that and account for it. I'd hate for you to get the wrong idea about people because of books like that, Eddie thought. Although, along those lines, Tiana does not look quite convinced that I meant what I said. Is there any way that you can reassure her of it?
If you'll allow it, I can pull
your memories and intent from the conversation you just had and allow her to experience them, Freyja offered.
Eddie scanned his memories of the conversation and realized there was one thing he might not want Tiana to know.
I was going to laugh when she got hesitant about telling me she added a bit to the chest of her avatar. Any way to remove that part?
Not without it being fairly obvious that something was removed. Was the intent harmless? If so, remember that she'll experience the intent as well as the desire to laugh, Freyja thought.
Yeah, I was just amused that someone as attractive as her was self-conscious about having done that. She didn't really need to in the first place, she'd still be attractive with smaller boobs, so it struck me as amusing.
Then I recommend you leave that in if you authorize this. She'll understand that you think that way, and it might alleviate more of her problems with her real body, Freyja offered.
Then go ahead and do it, Eddie thought.
Freyja's presence disappeared from his mind and a moment later Tiana's gaze grew vacant, the way it did when you were in your in-game browser or lost in your screens. This time it continued for a while.
Huh, I bet Freyja's letting her experience my viewpoint of that conversation in real time, Eddie thought.
A few minutes later Tiana's eyes focused again and as Eddie watched they grew moist, a tear rolling down her cheek.
“Really? You thought I was bringing you up here to dump you?” she asked, incredulously.
“How else was I supposed to interpret you getting more and more distant, then demanding privacy for this conversation?” Eddie asked.
She didn't seem to hear him.
“That's actually how you feel about me? Everything you said was true?”
Eddie wanted to protest that he'd told her he didn't like to lie, but he realized that she still wasn't in any shape to hear what he was saying.
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