“Because I had to, because...”
The prisoner trailed off, tongue tied to the point where he couldn't speak.
“Did someone else force you to do this?” Justiciar Bodil asked. “You may nod assent if you are unable to speak.”
The prisoner shook his head.
“Did someone else ask you to do this?”
The prisoner nodded.
“Can you think his name?” Bodil asked.
The man shook his head again, obviously miserable.
“If it makes any difference, I believe the man who put him up to this is named Arvid,” Eddie said.
Bodil had half-turned to him as he spoke.
“Did this Arvid ask you to do this but ensure secrecy with an oath or other binding promise?”
The prisoner's face grew pale and drops of sweat poured down it. He nodded, or tried to, but only made it halfway through the nod before dropping as though he were a puppet with his strings cut. He gave a soft cry as he fell and Eddie rushed over to check on him.
“He's still breathing,” Eddie said.
“Yes, his mind is stressed,” Justiciar Bodil said. “I had to break the hold the oath he swore had on it and the strain was too much for him so he has passed out. He should be fine when he awakens, meanwhile we should make plans. It is obvious that this Arvid knew, or at least suspected, that this man would be caught. Otherwise why make him swear a binding oath?
“Well, make sure that's in the laws so there's no way he can sneak out of it? Make sure that someone who plans an illegal act but somehow gets someone else to perform it is held responsible as well as the person who actually did it?” Eddie said.
“It is in most basic law that those who enlist someone else to break the law are as guilty as those they enlist. So we can hold this Arvid guilty of the crime of arson as well.”
“That'd do it,” Eddie said. “But we'll have to catch him doing something after the laws are in place though, right?”
Justiciar Bodil actually blushed.
“You are correct. We will have to do that, perhaps I was hasty in my reaction to this news.”
“Don't worry,” Eddie said. “I have the same sort of reaction myself. I just want to make sure that there's no way he can worm out of it once accused, so we need to get solid evidence first. I wouldn't have thought that Arvid was clever enough to use an intermediary, or even gutsy enough to try something like this, even second hand.”
~ ~ ~
Chapter Twenty-Five
Greenshaw sat in his office, sure that he was going crazy.
I don't know what's going on, but that moment of sheer panic and terror I experienced tells me that yes, I am going to need a vacation. The construct tests are garbage, but at least the rest of the testing is still going well. Who knows where the hell Cooper got the idea, but I ran it past a few of my techs and they agreed that performing the construct testing in a virgin environment would be preferable.
He shook his head as he remembered the email from the techs.
I didn't understand half what they were saying about the game code causing problems with the construct tests. Memory slots, RAM, and a bunch of other techno-babble, it all made no sense to me. At least they said that a server set up for that purpose and that one alone would be preferable. I know just who to give that task to also, that guy who I promoted to head his own tiny R&D branch. At least his tests are going well. What was his name? Aaron, I think it was. Between his knowledge of the code from debugging and his recent experience with the new pods, I think he'd do admirably for setting up and administering a virgin testing environment.
Greenshaw considered other possibilities for a moment. He'd really prefer the person administering the virgin system to be part of the military, unfortunately most of the techs he had from the military weren't even half as competent as Aaron.
If I remember right when I pulled him off debugging it took three of my guys to pick up the slack when I moved him to R&D. Even then I had to give him limited debugging duties again.
He sighed heavily and allowed his mind to wander for a moment. He was surprised as images of a sandy beach appeared in his mind. The thought of just lying there and doing nothing, basking in the sun, accompanied the images.
Shows just how far off my norm I am. My preferred vacation has always been hunting, or at least doing something a little more physically active. Even just taking a week off my normal duties to go practice and re-certify my weapons skills is normally enough to recharge me. A beach though? I guess I'm more stressed out than I thought and need a complete lack of responsibilities for while maybe? It's been more years than I care to think of since I did something like that.
His subconscious was supporting him on this, he had that feeling he got when his subconscious was right on target and giving him good advice.
Alright, I'll schedule some time off as soon as I can. Maybe even go to the beach like it seems my subconscious wants me to. Maybe I can find one near a decent firing range at least?
~ ~ ~
Eddie knew that Karl was probably still asleep, but he desperately wanted to talk to him, to see if Karl had found anything out from Arvid the night before. He was sure that if the scout had found out anything important he would've mentioned it when they were together this morning though, so he resisted waking Karl to find out.
Instead he tried to focus on his current construction project, the tower at the castle site. He wandered back up there to watch for a while. The masons, with the floor in at thirty feet, seemed much more confident and as a result were moving at three or four times the speed they'd been making earlier on.
Good, the walls for the tower should be completed today, Eddie thought. I'll make sure Griff has all of the carpenters scheduled for tower work tomorrow, or at least enough of them that we can get the floors done as quickly as possible. That'll mean we have the tower done tomorrow and I can find out if it'll work for the partially completed Stronghold I need.
He wasn't sure what he'd do if it didn't count, maybe just continue building the castle until it did. He was sure a castle would count as a Stronghold, and the quest had specified a partially completed one, so he was sure this would work.
I know it will, he thought, trying to convince himself.
His next stop was back at the town hall. He managed to avoid running into Justiciar Bodil as he made his way into the control room.
I thought we should've made it to City by now, the population was high enough the last time I checked. What's the hold up?
The issue was obvious when he looked at his numbers.
Great, I need to hire two more people to have the twenty-five percent employed. Maybe letting people continually stream in isn't working as well as I thought it would. What other occupations do I need that I can hire some people for?
As he thought about it Eddie realized that his guard force was a bit small for the size of the settlement. He'd kept waving that away mentally because there were so many adventurers in the area that they could make up the difference.
But maybe I should just ask Erik if he wants to add to his forces. I know he's been training some of the locals with weapons, so just maybe...
Eddie went downstairs to the basement, looking for Erik, but the guard on duty at the desk told him that Erik was currently sleeping. Eddie sighed, then decided to just leave the guard captain a note.
'Erik:
If you're willing to take on more guards, I'd like you to hire some from the locals. I'll cover the cost of their training as well as their regular payroll. Something to think of as well, at some point we'll be beginning two more settlements, one to the east, and one to the west. I'd like to send guard detachments with each of those settlement parties if we have enough guards to manage it, so keep that in mind when you're hiring, assuming you are willing to hire more guards.
Eddie'
Eddie folded the note up and wrote Erik's name on the outside. After handing it to the guard on duty and getting assurances that he'd d
eliver it to Erik, Eddie headed outside again.
That should do it. Hopefully he's willing to expand his guard force. Then after we split it up into three settlements we can give him some sort of title above Guard Captain, maybe Regional Guard Commander or something? It doesn't matter for now, but I'll keep it in mind, Eddie thought.
He knew he had a lot more people than he needed for a city, but he'd never asked Charles how many of the local residents he'd be taking with him, or even asked Charles who was going to make the decision as to who went with him when he left to form his settlement.
He can probably take fifty people without dropping us under the City level, but if any of those are my employees that could cause a problem since I'm only going to be barely over my percentage to make it a player city. Although, if he's taking inhabitants that could fix the problem as well since it'll mean I need less people employed to qualify as a city. Damn it! This is a game, why's there so much math? he wondered.
At loose ends, Eddie headed over to the temple pond, finding Lucky there as he'd expected.
“Hey Lucky, I need to burn off some frustrations, want to go hunting?” he asked.
Lucky turned to look at him and cocked her head.
“Well, we could go hunt bunnies, or maybe rats, but I was thinking that maybe we could surprise Karl with some bacon. Should we go hunt the fringes of the Forest of Fools? I'm sure the two of us could take down a wild boar. What do you say?”
Lucky broke into a feline grin, baring her teeth in the process. Then she jumped over to Eddie, put her paws on his shoulders and gave his face one long lick. After that she dropped to all fours and started walking south, turning back to see if Eddie was following.
“Should we bring Tiana?” Eddie asked.
Lucky changed direction to the door of the temple. Once there, she chuffed loudly, then waited.
Tiana came to the door, asking Lucky what was up. When she saw Eddie she smiled.
“I should've known. Lucky hardly ever comes over to the temple on her own. What's up?”
Eddie explained his desire to burn off some frustrations on a hunt and asked her if she wanted to join them.
“So, you want to go on a pleasure hunt in the fringes of the evil, dark woods?” she asked.
Eddie nodded eagerly.
“Okay, count me in. If only to be there in case you need me to heal you after you get gored. Just one thing though, are you sure you aren't channeling Karl?” she asked.
~ ~ ~
Eddie's hunt for a boar was unsuccessful.
I knew I should've asked Karl to mark the spot he saw them on my map. Probably better this way though, if there's only a few, we'll want to catch all of them if we're going to breed them, he thought.
On the other hand, Lucky had brought him snake after snake that she'd captured and killed, some of them as much as five to six feet long.
That's the other thing, he thought. I knew there were goblins out here, I knew there were snakes and the like as well. What I didn't know was that there were other things as dangerous as the goblins in the woods themselves.
Tina had just treated the whole thing like a peaceful walk in the woods. Which it would've been if Eddie hadn't felt the need to help Lucky out on a couple of the larger snakes. As it was, he'd gotten a smattering of experience along with a whole mess of snake corpses.
I don't know if Liv will want the meat or not, but I bet those snakeskins can be used for wrapping sword grips. With the size of some of those snakes, they can do a lot of sword grips.
They made it back to the inn for dinner time and Eddie hoped that Karl would be there so he could find out what, if anything, they'd discovered about Arvid. His hopes were fulfilled, Karl walking in a few minutes after Eddie had ordered his food.
“So Karl, you didn't tell me this morning, what did you find out about Arvid?” Eddie asked after the scout had sat down.
“You didn't look like you'd retain anything I told you then, so I didn't bother. Not much really. He had a few guys over and they just talked like old people. You know, how good things used to be in the good old days? Bunch of stuff like that. It was weird though, it sounded like they preferred things the way they were before you started building up the town.”
“Makes sense to me,” Eddie said. “There are always people who prefer to be a big fish in a little pond over being a little fish in a big pond. Arvid putting himself up for mayor tells me he'd rather be a big fish in a big pond, but he's so disliked that that won't happen. Even his son wouldn't vote for him.”
“Ingolf is smarter than that,” Allie said. “I've talked with him before. He likes the idea of the town growing. He even reserves a market stall once a week to sell the things he carves. That's on top of the wages Paul pays him, so he's doing quite well for himself. Even he hates Arvid though and they're father and son. What, exactly, do you have to do to get your son to turn against you in as small as a community as this used to be?”
“I'm more interested in knowing who Ingolf's mother was? What women put up with Arvid for any length of time at all?” Karl added.
“That's neither here nor there,” Eddie said. “What we need is something we can act on now, not what happened in the past. I'm hoping if we can find something like that then the Justiciar can take care of Arvid. I don't really want him dead, I don't hate him like that, but I actively dislike him and he keeps trying to sabotage things around here.”
“Well, you still need to get those laws and publish them before she can act, right?” Karl asked, showing more insight than Eddie had expected.
“Yes, she's supposed to have the list of them for me tomorrow morning. I'll alter any as I think is needed, then publish them. Once they're published, she can act against anyone violating them.”
“So, step one is to take care of that. Once that's done, we can find something against him. Like I said, there wasn't anything last night, but I could easily see their grousing crossing the line and one of them trying something.”
Eddie had stopped listening to Karl midway through his statement. His notification light had started flashing and when he opened it, he was sucked into what it showed.
Success:
You have completed the Hidden Quest: Developmental Issues (5/5)
For being the first player to build a Tavern and General Store as well as beginning construction on a Stronghold in: The Meadowlands. You have been awarded 25,000 Experience and 1000 Gold Pieces.
Your reputation in: The Meadowlands has increased.
You have been awarded a Quest Chain Completion bonus of: 25,000 Experience.
Would you like a Bonus Quest based on the Developmental Issues quest line?
(Y/N)
Yes, Eddie thought, almost desperately.
The experience from the quests he'd been following had given him several more levels than he would've gotten without them, at least he thought they had. Even so, the other rewards had been well worth it also. So when given the opportunity for another one, he was all over it.
You have been given a quest:
Developmental Issues Redux:
This quest continues the development of: The Meadowlands.
To complete Developmental Issues Redux you must construct a magic based building in: The Meadowlands.
Rewards: ???
Eddie started cursing under his breath, then finally looked back to his companions at the table. They were all staring at him.
“Um, sorry?” he said. “I just got the notification that the Stronghold counts as being started. I assume when they finished the walls of the tower. Which completed a quest for me.”
“The Developmental Issues one?” Tiana asked.
He nodded.
“That's the last of that chain though, right?” she said.
“Yes and no. I got a quest chain completion bonus, but then I also got offered another quest, Developmental Issue Redux. That's why I was bitching. They want me to build a magic based building in the town. I was just thinking we'd already
done that with the temple and what are the chances of getting another one?”
Tiana shrugged.
“What were the chances of getting the first one?” she said. “It's got to be possible. What's the reward?”
“That's the other reason I was cursing. It's just question marks. I've no idea what the reward is.”
She grinned.
“Those are always the best. They seem to have the best rewards, most of the time at least.”
“And the ones that don't have the best rewards have shit for rewards,” Karl said. “It's like your damned medallion there, the rewards are hit or miss.”
“Well, the rewards for the first parts of it were pretty good. I'll just have to hope that this one is as well,” Eddie said. “Only one way to find out, and I doubt I'm going to find the blueprints for a magical building in the auction house either, so I'll need to figure it out myself.”
Karl shrugged, used to Eddie's reactions to things like this.
“Nothing new there, it seems like half the game is about figuring things out for yourself,” Allie said.
The rest of the evening was uneventful and Eddie and Tiana retired to his bedroom well before the common room filled and got rowdy. The laughter and merriment was barely audible from his bedroom, but even if it hadn't been that soft they were otherwise engaged enough that they probably wouldn't have heard it.
~ ~ ~
In the morning Eddie wasn't up as early as he had been most of the time recently. The only thing on his task list for the day was to help the carpenters put in the other floors on the tower.
I'm actually kind of surprised that they didn't make me get that done before registering the Stronghold as begun, he thought. But maybe just having the one solid floor in there was enough for it?
He and Tiana had a leisurely breakfast, this time in the common room instead of in bed. Eddie knew the carpenters didn't normally get working until nine or ten o'clock, now that the rush of getting enough houses built had subsided, so he wasn't in a hurry.
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