Defender Light Online Four

by Larcombe, Tom

  “Mayor Eddie, sir?” the priest said. “Justiciar Bodil asked that I deliver this to you.”

  Eddie looked down and his eyes widened. The description of what she wanted filled nearly half the page.

  “Thank you. Please tell Justiciar Bodil that I'll do my best to fulfill her request. I haven't read through it yet so I don't know how feasible it will be, but I'll do my best.”

  The priest bowed his head slightly, then turned and left the room.

  “Sorry guys, I've got to be on my way,” Eddie said.

  He got some murmured good byes from the three guards that were currently in the office as he stood and left via the back steps. Once he was in the sun again he simply turned his head up to its warmth for a moment before heading for the temple.

  He wasn't sure Tiana would be there yet, but he wasn't really headed for the temple proper, only its grounds. When Lucky hadn't been out at the back pond earlier, he'd been pretty sure where he'd find her.

  When he came in sight of the pond, he confirmed his suspicions. Only this time, the cat was lying at the edge of the pool, batting alternating paws into the water. As Eddie approached, he saw that there was a smaller Koi in there now. It looked like it was a baby, barely the size of his pinkie finger. Lucky was cautiously batting back and forth as it swam in circles.

  “What are you doing now, Lucky? Your bigger friend lose interest in the game?” Eddie said.

  Lucky sprang to her feet and raced around the pond, batting at a bigger Koi on the other side. It raced across the pond, Lucky trying to beat it there, but failing. Then Lucky batted again and it raced away just before her paw struck the water.

  “Ah, I see, just trying to get a new playmate?” Eddie said.

  Lucky trotted over to him, reared up and put her paws on his shoulder, then licked his face.

  “Well,” Eddie said, once she'd finished licking him. “I'm headed up to the smithy and was wondering if you wanted a bit of a walk.”

  She dropped back down onto all fours, then padded along beside him as he headed off east along the road.

  Eddie skimmed the description as he walked. Most of the writing described an etching she wanted on her blade, one that pretty much matched the symbol she wore around her neck.

  I don't know if Delgar will be able to do that, but I bet Karl could combine his drawing skills from cartography with some sort of acid to etch it or something? Maybe it would have to be Karl and Delgar together though. We'll see.

  Eddie stopped in the inn on the way by, seeing if Karl was in the common room. He didn't see him there, so he kept going.

  Once he'd reached the smithy, and Lucky had gone to fish in the stream, Eddie headed in to talk to Delgar.

  “Hey Delgar, got some more work for you, if you're interested,” Eddie said.

  The dwarf looked at him and rolled his eyes.

  “What, do you want manacles or something now?” he asked.

  “No, got a custom weapon request from our new Justiciar.”

  At that, the dwarf's eyes lit up.

  “What kind?”

  “Single-bladed, heavy ax. With etchings of some sort.”

  Delgar shook his head.

  “Sorry, I don't have the patterns for one of those yet.”

  “I thought you might say that, that's why I bookmarked one,” Eddie replied.

  He went back into the auction and pulled up the blueprint he'd bookmarked on his way up. A single mental click and then he just had to wait for it to be emailed to him. Once it was, several minutes later, he pulled out the blueprint and offered it to Delgar.

  The dwarf studied the blueprint.

  “I can do the ax itself with this and I can do etching, but I'll need a pattern for the etching. Can you get me one of those?”

  “Just a drawing of what's supposed to go on it?”

  “That'd do, I suppose. I can take it from there at least.”

  “Sure, if I'm lucky, and Karl's sober, I'll have it for you tomorrow,” Eddie said.

  “Then there's the question of payment,” Delgar said.

  “Then you'll return that blueprint to me after you're done? I'm pretty sure it was more expensive than an etched ax would be,” Eddie said.

  Delgar scowled.

  “Done then. I'll have it for you in a few days, assuming you get me the drawing.”

  Eddie smiled back at the dwarf. He knew Delgar was in the game to earn coins, much like Eddie himself, but he wasn't going to hand over blueprints to the dwarf for free and then pay him on top of it.

  “Pleasure doing business with you. I look forward to seeing how popular those axes will be once you get a chance to make some to sell.”

  At the chance of future profit, Delgar's scowl faded. He shook his head.

  “I don't know if it's a pleasure or torture, but I will admit you've made my life easier in here repeatedly.”

  “Just don't forget that I made 'here' for you also. The deal was you make me things and you get to use the forge for free,” Eddie said.

  Delgar flushed, and coughed into his hand.

  “Yeah, about that, maybe I had... umm, forgotten that. Thanks, Eddie.”

  “You're welcome Delgar. I'm not trying to rip you off, but I'm not going to let you rip me off either.”

  The dwarf coughed into his hand again.

  “I'll get right on this ax then, shall I?”

  Then he turned and went back to his forge.

  ~ ~ ~

  Hoping to avoid fish breath, Eddie waited until he was walking down the road to whistle for Lucky. He wasn't successful trying to avoid it. Instead of getting paws on his shoulder and fish breath in his face, Lucky pounced on him from behind. She kept her claws in, but it still bowled him over. As he lay flat on his face in the road, Lucky pawed at him, rolling him onto his back. He was still in shock from what she'd done so he didn't resist very well. Then she started licking his face.

  “Lucky!” he wailed.

  She got off of him a few moments later and proceeded to bump into his hip every few steps as they returned to the inn, nearly taking him off his feet several more times in the process.

  Note to self: Eddie thought. Do not try to deprive Lucky of her little pleasures, or she'll take them anyway.

  This time when he went looking for Karl, he found him in the inn.

  “Just the man I wanted to see,” Eddie said, sitting down at the table with Karl and Allie.

  Karl looked around warily.

  “What did I do this time?” he asked.

  “Nothing yet, but I reserved the practice ring for later on today. Would you like to work on your sword skill? I really need to work on mine. The jump to a five in it was awesome, so I'd like to get to a ten if I can manage that. Geirvaldr said you can get up to a ten in the practice ring so I thought I ought to take advantage of that.”

  Allie elbowed him in the ribs.

  “See, I'm not the only one telling you to work your skills up.”

  “That's not what he said,” Karl replied. “He asked if I wanted to do it.”

  “Read between the lines, Karl,” Allie said.

  “Honestly, I was more thinking of working my own up,” Eddie added.

  “So you don't think Karl should too?” Allie asked.

  “I didn't say that, but...” Eddie paused for a moment, then stood.

  “Hey Karl, I've got the ring from four to five this afternoon, meet me there if you want to practice.”

  Eddie beat a hasty retreat, only speeding up his pace when he heard Allie start to laugh.

  When four o'clock arrived, Eddie showed up at the training ring, only to find Tiana, Allie, and Karl all waiting for him.

  “What?” he asked.

  “What, you thought we wouldn't want to practice also?” Allie asked.

  “It was a sneaky trick not waking me up this morning,” Tiana added. “So I need to teach you not to do that again.”

  She gave her mace a short swing to emphasize just how she intended to teach him the l
esson.

  Karl just shrugged helplessly.

  “You were the one to reserve it, not me,” he said. “Not that I have much of a choice now.”

  He glanced at Allie who had a truly pleasant, yet somehow frightening, smile on her face as she looked back at him.

  “Alright, well, let's get to it then. I know more than two people can fight at a time in there, can four?”

  Four could and Eddie found out that not taking damage from the practice did not mean not feeling pain from it. Evidently whoever designed the programming behind the training ring felt that pain was a good teacher, because getting hit hurt, even with the protective weapon covers.

  He did manage to pick up a single point in short swords though, and was happy that he'd reserved the ring for several days, hoping to improve his combat skills as much as he could before the raid. The group promised to meet at his reserved times for more practice, adding Jern in if the ring could handle five people.

  Eddie also set up an archery range, hoping to increase his bow skill the same way. The next few days were mostly spent in weapons practice that resulted in several skill increases for him.

  He did take one day off of that. The bard had arrived with Bjorn, and Eddie built an outdoor pavilion, one in which the only seating was around the edges, so Tiana and others could get their fill of dancing.

  The bard had a variety of music available, explaining his earlier answer that he didn't specialize in any particular type of music, so Eddie wasn't all that surprised to hear the strains of country western music coming from the pavilion the first night after he'd finished building it. Tiana came along and grabbed his arm, dragging him out onto the dance floor.

  After the first few dances, Eddie caught sight of Karl being dragged along towards the pavilion by Allie.

  “Eddie, how could you do this to me?” Karl wailed as Allie dragged him out onto the dance floor.

  ~ ~ ~

  Greenshaw leaned back in his chair, daydreaming about his upcoming vacation. Loki was in place inside of his head, catching the few slivers of satisfaction and pleasure that made it through to him.

  Alright, he thinks he's going on vacation, Loki thought. He thinks he's leaving in a few days. Little does he know that he'll be right here still, just caught in my illusion. He already believes he arranged everything for it, at least that's how he remembers it. With him 'on vacation' his guard should slip and I can get a taste of those other emotions. I should finally be able to gain a foothold in his conscious mind as well, assuming I can overload those firewalls. Once I'm in, they won't keep me out again, I'll adjust them so they can't, but leave them up to keep anything else from disturbing me.

  Greenshaw whistled for a moment before he caught himself.

  I'm not on vacation yet, he thought. Can't let my subordinates see me in anything but my normal state of mind. I know some of them are as cutthroat as I am and they'd see it as a weakness. Maybe I can picture their faces superimposed over the targets when I'm on the range near the beach though. That'd be another relaxing thing to do while I'm gone. It's been years since I got to do any wetwork with my own hands, but imagining it should be the next best thing.

  ~ ~ ~

  To be concluded in:

  Light Online #5

  Ruler

  ~ ~ ~

  Tom Larcombe lives in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. A wife, two daughters, cats, chickens, and assorted wildlife keep him from getting lonely. Writing keeps his mind from going stale. He's got a thing for Dragons, collecting lots of different types (pewter, stuffed animals, t-shirts, etc...), and writing about them in a number of his stories.

  He's been an avid reader since a young age, but when he first stumbled onto LitRPG as a genre, he read it voraciously. Having already put out several books in a different genre at the time, he decided that once he was comfortable enough with the genre he'd try publishing a LitRPG book. That takes us to the Light Online series.

  The next book in the series is planned to be Light Online #5: Ruler. This will be the fifth and final book planned for the series.

  If you want to communicate with the author, you can comment on his blog at:

  Tomlarcombe.blogspot.com

  If you enjoyed this book, or even finished it despite not enjoying it, please leave a review. If you liked it, let me know. If you didn't like it, let me know what you didn't like and how you think it could be improved in your review. I write for others' enjoyment as well as my own, so knowing what others would like to be reading can help guide me as I write my next book.

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  Books by Tom Larcombe:

  Light Online is a LitRPG series. Eddie Hunter joins a game to work as a farmer, just not the type of farmer he'd expected.

  Light Online: Book One – Farmer

  Light Online: Book Two – Keeper

  Light Online: Book Three - Leader

  The "An Untimely Error" series is a triology about the wizard Merlin reawakening in the midst of WWII.

  An Untimely Error - Series Page

  The Crow Hill series is an ongoing series of books about a wizard in modern times where magic exists but is kept secret from the masses. The story focuses on what such a wizard could do as an economic apocalypse explodes.

  Crow Hill - Series Page