Defender Light Online Four

by Larcombe, Tom

  He walked Tiana down to the temple then headed over to the Town Hall to check on things. When he found that the employed number was still the same, he headed down to the basement.

  “Eddie, sir, just the man I was hoping to see,” Erik said.

  “Well, I was looking for you, too,” Eddie replied.

  “Go ahead,” Erik said.

  “I wanted to make sure you got my note and find out if you were going to be doing more hiring.”

  “Which is exactly why I wanted to see you as well. I wanted you to check out the new recruits and make sure that they were to your standard. I've got no problem with women in combat and there are a few tasks the guards take care of that are better suited to a woman. I didn't know if you'd allow that though.”

  “You have a bunch of women to hire for guards?” Eddie asked.

  “Three, plus five men, but I wanted to get your approval on all of them before I actually hired them on.”

  “Alright then. I'll take a look, but in the future I'll trust your appraisal of them.”

  Then he had a thought.

  “But, if you want someone else's opinion of them for future hires, I suggest asking Justiciar Bodil for her opinion of them. I have a feeling she'd be better at determining someone's suitability for the position than I'll be. Assuming, of course, that's she's willing to do so.”

  Erik shook his head for a moment.

  “I've worked with Justiciars before, but this one is a bit cold, more rigid than I'd expected,” he said.

  “Give her time, maybe? She did, after all, just barely become a Justiciar. It seems like the type of role you might need to grow into. If we can, we can help shape that also, to be more of what we want and need out of her,” Eddie said.

  “Maybe you can, but I don't know how much advice she'd accept from me,” Erik said.

  “There's only one way to find out, and if it works, then we'll have a better fit. Kind of like you bringing your guards by to meet her.”

  “I do hope you're right. If the guards and the Justiciar can't get along, that might cause issues.”

  Eddie spread his hands and shrugged.

  “Like I said, only one way to find out. She's been rather cold to me as well, although she did accept me having the final say on the local laws. Speaking of which, I need to go find her and see if she has a copy drawn up for me to look through.”

  “Wait a moment first?”

  Eddie stopped and turned back to Erik.

  “I'll have the potential recruits out back where we train right after lunch. Can you stop by then to approve them?” Erik asked.

  “Yeah, I can fit that into my schedule. I'll be here,” Eddie said.

  He took his leave and headed back up the two flights of stairs. He knocked at the door to the room Bodil and her priest underlings were using for their quarters, and waited for a minute or so before the door was opened.

  “Justiciar Bodil, I was hoping that you had a copy of the laws you drew up for me to look through and approve,” Eddie said.

  “One moment, Mayor Eddie,” she replied.

  The door closed and he listened to her move around in the room. A minute later it opened again and she held out a sheet of paper.

  “Good, nice and short,” Eddie said. “I'd hate to have enough laws that people couldn't remember them all.”

  That drew a brief smile from her.

  “If you'll excuse me, I need to get a bit more sleep. I'll have the list of items we need drawn up later on today,” she said.

  Then she closed the door on him again.

  Well, not quite friendly yet, but better than yesterday at least, he thought. I hope it isn't just because she wasn't fully awake.

  Eddie scanned through the list of laws as he walked towards the tower to help build the floors in it.

  Good, she got all the basics: murder, theft, property damage, vandalism, and the like. She didn't add in drunk in public or rowdiness, which is good. She did add in accomplices and conspiracy, which I like. These last few laws have to go though. Even if we get nobility, I don't want them to have any different laws than anyone else.

  When Eddie arrived at the tower, the other carpenters still weren't there. It was probably nine-thirty or so, so he just started hauling planks himself and working on the floors. He only had one section completed by the time the rest of the carpenters arrived and when they did, he found himself slightly isolated again.

  I've got to figure out how to break down that barrier. Either that or teach a few more adventurers carpentry and get them to help me.

  He snickered to himself.

  Not that that last is very likely to happen, but it's possible.

  By lunchtime he'd finished several sections on his own and the first three floors were done: ground level, one at ten feet, and one at twenty feet. The floor at thirty feet needed its supports, and it needed to be completed where the ramp had passed up through it, then they needed to do the very top floor.

  He called the tower forty feet tall, but technically it was a little taller than that. There was a waist high wall rising up above the floor that was positioned at forty feet, and crenelations going even higher than that. Even so, he was pretty sure that the carpenters would manage to finish it today even if he weren't here to help them. He intended to come back after checking the new recruits for the guard, but he was also aware that far too often as of late, he never got around to what he intended to do because one thing or another came up that needed his attention.

  After lunch at the inn, non-rushed this time, he made his way back down to the town hall. He heard the impact of what sounded like wooden weapons out back and proceeded to the back of the building.

  Several of the existing guards were out there in their full kit, fighting with wooden swords. There were also eight others, dressed in regular peasant clothing, watching. Erik stood and judged the fights. Once the people who were currently fighting had finished their bouts, Erik dismissed them and came over to Eddie.

  “So, here's our recruits, well potential recruits at least.”

  Eddie looked closely and recognized most of them by their looks even if he couldn't place any names to them. Most importantly, he didn't recognize any of them as being Arvid's friends.

  “Before we get to that, I should tell you something. I've got a fighting ring outside of my inn that's very good for training,” Eddie said. “Liv, that's my innkeeper, rents it out. I can reserve it for you though if you like, give you an hour a day or something. There are weapon covers that go over the weapons, but people can get practice with their real weapons and it tends to speed up their increase in weaponry skills.”

  Erik broke into a grin, it was one of his eager ones, not his frightening ones.

  “Now that's a good bit of news to hear. We can go arrange that later on. Now, on to the recruits.”

  Erik insisted that Eddie talk with each of them for a minute or two. He really didn't know what to say, so he asked them why they wanted to be guards. Every last one, even the women, simply said that they wanted to be able to defend themselves and others if something like the goblin attacks happened again. That being a guard and being able to protect people seemed like the best way to achieve that.

  Eddie was happy with their comments and didn't get a bad feeling from any of them, so he told Erik to go ahead and hire them.

  “Alright, all of you, back here in the morning. You'll make your mark on a contract, then you'll get an equipment issue. You'll accompany other groups of guards as you're assigned, and when they train, you will also,” Erik said. “Dismissed.”

  The applicants left, seeming eager for the following day to arrive. Meanwhile, Eddie and Erik headed to the inn to reserve the fighting ring on a regular schedule.

  Like I suspected, there's always something else that I forgot, or that I have to do for someone else. Hopefully I make it back to the tower to get another hour or two of work in on it today, Eddie thought.

  ~ ~ ~

  Chapter Twenty-Six<
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  Justiciar Bodil stared around the room she sat in. The room alone was larger than the entire house that'd been built for her recently. She would've been more than happy to keep living in her house instead of here, but the concept of being that far away from the courtroom on a regular basis was revolting to her. She'd never get a good night's sleep being that far away.

  Mayor Eddie will solve that, he'll build us rooms here. I don't know if the other two care about being as close to the courtroom as I do, but I know they feel the need to stay close to me, to assist me in my job. Not that I'm entirely sure just what I'll be doing yet. I mean, I know in essence what it will be, but how to do it?

  She shook her head.

  I need to keep up the front though, keep myself above everything going on so as to appear impartial when my duties are required. Gods, that's painful though. I feel like an impostor, I'm sure I look like one of those rich snobs I saw before the town was burnt out and I had to flee here. Mayor Eddie already asked me to write the laws for the area as though I knew what I was doing so I did my best, but I may not be cut out for this responsibility. It's too late now though.

  The rigidity with which she'd been holding her body fled, allowing her to sag into the chair she'd been sitting in.

  Mayor Eddie's been good so far, even telling me to disregard the formal titles he deserves. How can he maintain authority while disregarding the titles? How does he ensure that the inhabitants respect him and follow his will while doing that. Maybe he can show me how and I won't have to appear to be the stuck-up prig that I've come off as so far? I can only hope, and force myself to ask him how he does it. It can't be any harder on him than it is for me to try to project the gravitas of a Justiciar when I'm only the daughter of a lowly baker.

  She cast her memories back to before the previous town she'd called home had been razed. Her father had been a kind man, even after her mother had passed away several years earlier. She'd been sure that she'd follow in his footsteps, taking over his bakery when he grew too old or passed away. Now she wasn't even sure if he'd survived the razing of the town. The survivors had been scattered to the four winds.

  She'd been lucky enough that her group had heard that the Meadowlands was looking for more inhabitants. Luckier still that they were supplying good, if small, homes to anyone who needed one. But allowing each of the inhabitants to claim as much land as Eddie had allowed was nearly unheard of.

  Plus Mayor Eddie insisted that I strike the series of laws dealing with Noble privilege from the list. He's like no noble I've ever known. Although he's only a mayor, so not quite a true noble, he's definitely in charge of things around here. It's almost as though the town belongs to him. Yet he still tries to get people to treat him like everyone else. I wonder if the respect he's shown is because of that or simply the people trying to remind him that he isn't just like everyone else, that he holds a position of responsibility that they are aware of and want him to remember it on his own as well?

  ~ ~ ~

  Eddie finished out the day by helping complete the top floor of the tower, the only one that hadn't been completed by the time he arrived. He'd been slowed on his way back up when Griff stopped him. Evidently a pair of the recently arrived refugees had been asking questions about opening their own businesses, wanting to know if they needed permits to build and the like. Instead, Eddie had gone with Griff and pointed out good areas for a butcher shop and what he'd thought of privately as a light shop. The second shop had specialized in different sorts of lights, making and selling candles and torches, as well as intending to purchase basic lanterns and lamps from the smith for resale.

  The light shop had a small addition in the back where the proprietor would make the consumable portions of items he sold, candles from melted beeswax, torches with wood, pitch, and cloth, plus oil for the lamps and lanterns. He'd also carry wicks and fire starters of one sort or the other from what Griff had said. Eddie had made sure that that shop would be built away from the residential areas and also a fair distance away from any trees.

  A grass fire would be bad, but if trees caught on fire or if any of the houses started burning we'd have a lot more trouble, he'd thought.

  By the time he'd finished going through those things with Griff and gotten back to the tower, they'd completed the lower levels and were starting in on the top floor. He'd pitched in with a will, happy to not have to worry about anything but crafting for a little bit.

  Now he was sitting in the inn with the rest of his party, discussing the new Justiciar.

  “I'm telling you we could get some of that coal we mine, shove it up her ass, and get diamonds shat back out at us,” Karl said.

  Tiana frowned at him.

  “I don't think so. I remember her from before. She was one of the refugees and while not soft spoken, she wasn't a pain or anything. Either receiving the class did a major personality change on her, or it's all a facade that she's using to reinforce the position. I don't think the game would wrench an NPC's personality around like that, so my guess is that it's just a mask she's using. I imagine she feels an awful lot of responsibility right now, especially with you having her write the code of laws up, Eddie.”

  Eddie shrugged.

  “I just thought that if she was going to have to enforce it, she should write it,” Eddie said. “Plus, what she included gives me an idea of what she's really like. Facade or not, she did cover all the things I wanted. I even had to have her take out a few things dealing with the privileges the Nobles normally get, plus strengthen up some of the accomplice type things. So we know that she's used to a society that doesn't really consider noblesse oblige to be a thing, the nobles are more self-centered than that. I suppose I might've gone a little harder than normal on the accomplice area, but I wanted to make sure a certain someone was caught in its net as soon as possible. We can always adjust them later. Well, I think we can anyhow.”

  Allie shook her head.

  “You could've just asked her, you know?” she said.

  “I might've, except when I told her she could just call me Eddie, she kept calling me Mayor Eddie.”

  “You mean like almost every other NPC around here? I'm just amazed you've managed to get some of them to not call you that,” Karl said.

  “Alright, alright, maybe there was another way to do it, but whether it's a facade or not she comes off as cold and stern. Which is exactly not the type of person I tend to have a friendly conversation with, so I did it the way I did it,” Eddie said.

  “I agree,” Dominic said. “If she wants us to be friendly, she needs to at least be approachable, you know?”

  “I still think it's a mask she's using,” Tiana said. “Since she's technically a priestess she's worried about representing her deity. She's also worried about how people around her view her in the position she's gotten. Of course she's going to be distant, at least for a while. I bet that if we keep working on her she'll warm up some and maybe leave some of the mask behind.”

  “She is a Justiciar,” Jern said, as though that explained everything.

  When he saw the look of confusion on the rest of the groups' faces he continued.

  “She is a Justiciar. That means that she must keep herself apart somewhat. There is no way of knowing who she may need to pass judgment on, and it isn't unheard of, in the past, for the other parts of a group containing someone who has been judged to attempt revenge on those close to the Justiciar.”

  “That sounds lonely,” Tiana said. “We definitely need to befriend her if at all possible. I doubt anyone could do something like that to us, at least not in this zone, unless they're a high level NPC.”

  “We can try,” Eddie said, doubtfully. “I don't know how well it'll work, but at least she didn't keep adding the sir to my name and title. I just thought it was because as a Justiciar she considered herself above needing to use it.”

  “Time will tell,” Tiana said. “But for now, I want another drink. You said that the bard would be coming back with Bjorn?�
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  “Assuming he manages to find Bjorn in Brightport. Liv was certain he would, but I'm not so sure. It's a big city.”

  “Bjorn's a big man,” Karl said. “I doubt there are more then four or five as big in Brightport, so he should find him. I'm with Liv on this one.”

  The group settled in to a discussion on what music they hoped the bard would be capable of providing, if and when he made it here. The night passed quickly and pleasantly for the group, but as it grew later people started excusing themselves to go to bed, or in Karl's case to go to work spying on Arvid. He'd noted before that Arvid was prone to napping for several hours in the early evening, so Karl would come back to the inn to amuse himself until his target was awake again.

  ~ ~ ~

  The next morning Eddie woke and realized that he was at loose ends for the day. There was absolutely nothing that he had to do, at least not construction wise. There were still new residents trickling in, but the housing crews had the homes for them taken care of.

  Wait, I still need to rough out sleeping rooms for Bodil and her underlings, he thought.

  The vaguely empty feeling he'd been experiencing fled.

  “Well, shit!” he exclaimed loudly.

  His exclamation was loud enough to wake Tiana, who sat up blinking blearily.

  “What is it? What's wrong?” she asked.

  Eddie shook his head, realized that she wasn't awake enough to get any meaning from that and started speaking.

  “I just realized that I'm addicted to work, or maybe to crafting, or something. I woke up and thought that I didn't have anything I needed to do today. That made me feel kind of queasy, but once I remembered something I had to do the feeling went away.”

  She stared straight at him for a moment.

  “You're weird, Eddie,” she said before slumping back over and pulling the covers up over her head.

  He stuck his tongue out at her, once he was sure she couldn't see it, then dragged himself out of bed. After dressing he went downstairs and made a tray of breakfast for the two of them. This time when she woke, to the scent of coffee and food, she seemed a bit more coherent.