by Tom Larcombe
It was slow and tedious, but he was making good progress, at least he thought he was until he was interrupted when Karl cleared his throat.
“Hey Eddie, I see you're playing with logs now, eh?” Karl said.
Eddie glared at Karl.
“Give me a hand here, would you? I thought this was going quick, but if you're back already then maybe not.”
“Nah, I'm a little early. I didn't know if venison was going to take longer to cook so I thought I should come back an hour or so earlier than normal.”
Eddie wasn't sure himself, but as he thought about it he realized that he could just keep carving off the surface layers as each was done cooking and it wouldn't take much longer than the bunnies had. Maybe even less time since he wouldn't have to keep re-spitting pieces of meat as often.
“A little more time than the bunnies, but not that much. Help me finish setting up the outer walls here and then we'll go start cooking.”
Karl grumbled about it, but was willing to fill in the dirt around the bases of the rough-hewn planks while Eddie held them in place. The last wall was finished much more quickly with his help and the two of them started walking towards the field where the food stand was.
Eddie stopped and turned to look back. Everything was still lit up, showing what went where, but as he'd moved away from the construction site the flashing had stopped. Evidently, the blueprints wanted him to lay the floor next as the flashing area had been on the ground inside the walls when he'd finished with placing the last plank for the walls.
“Damn, I hope that stays lit like that until tomorrow,” Eddie said.
“Lit like what?” Karl asked.
“You can't see that?”
“See what?”
“The area for the building is lit up, showing what pieces go where. A flashing section tells me the next piece to place.”
“Nope, I don't see that at all,” Karl said.
“Huh, I wonder if it's just the person who activates the blueprint can see it or if it's anyone with carpentry?”
“What's it matter. You're getting your building either way.”
“That's true, I am. I'd just like to know,” Eddie replied.
Karl shook his head as they moved over to the food stand. Eddie's notification icon was flashing, so he pulled it up.
“Woot, I got another two points in carpentry,” he called out.
Karl shook his head again and sighed.
“You know,” he said, “most people get more excited about levels or loot, not just a point or two in a skill.”
“Don't give me shit,” Eddie replied. “I know you get it or you wouldn't have asked for a cartography kit when there was so much else you could've asked for.”
“Hey, that's different,” Karl exclaimed.
Now it was Eddie's turn to shake his head and sigh.
~ ~ ~
By the time Karl had the fire lit and Eddie was working on separating the coals, Tiana was there.
“I'm a little worried,” she said after they'd been setting up for a few minutes.
Eddie had needed to go get some longer sections of wood to use as forks for his spit. The venison was much larger than the bunnies and would have hung far too close to the coals if he'd tried to use his original setup.
“Why's that?” he asked absentmindedly, setting up the new forks.
“One of the groups that runs the Forest with us during the day didn't come back when they normally do. I'm worried they may have wiped.”
“Wouldn't they just have spawned right back here?” Karl asked.
“There's no spawn point near here. You have to have a public building, a monument, or something like that, to set a spawn point. There aren't any here, so normally we just try to be really careful.”
“Won't a private building work if you have the owner's permission?” Eddie asked. “I know our spawn points are set at the place up the road we started in.”
“I don't know, maybe? It might just be that your spawn point was automatically set to your starting point,” she said.
“Tell you what, would you try something for me?” Eddie asked.
She raised an eyebrow and Eddie sighed, Karl chuckled.
“What do you want me to do?” she asked.
“Walk up the road a couple of hundred yards. When you see the building under construction, walk up next to it and try to set your spawn point.”
“You're building something?”
“I told you I was, I just started working on it today. But I've got the land claimed. I'm wondering if you can set your spawn point to player owned land or buildings.”
She shrugged.
“I'll be right back,” she said, then headed down the road.
A couple of minutes later Eddie got a prompt.
Tiana Anders would like to set her spawn point to your land claim. Accept?
(yes/no)
He thought 'yes' and a moment later heard a whoop of joy echoing down the road. He expected Tiana to show up right away, but it was several minutes before she returned and when she did, Lucky was following her.
“Lucky looks attention starved,” she said. “She looked so pathetic I had to stop and play with her for a few minutes.”
“Thank you, I didn't have time for that earlier on. I felt bad about it, but...”
“Well, she's got something for you,” Tiana said.
Lucky came up and dropped a trout on the ground in front of Eddie. It was still alive, barely, and flopped feebly on the ground in front of him.
He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, feeling bad, then opened them and rubbed Lucky's head.
“Come here girl, you're an awesome huntress,” he said.
She pounced at him as he squatted to pet her, bowling him over backwards. Eddie let himself just relax and play with his pet for a few minutes before standing up again.
“But you've still got fish breath,” he whispered, wiping his face where she'd licked him.
The fish was now dead and Eddie wondered if it counted as a lootable mob. When he touched it and thought 'loot' a pair of fish fillets appeared in his inventory. He grinned and laid the fish out on a mostly flat rock. Although he didn't have the fishing skill, his cooking skill was sufficient to clean it and obtain another pair of fillets. He tossed the head, skin, and offal to Lucky.
“There, if you're still hungry you can have that, but that breath tells me you've had a few fish of your own already today,” Eddie said.
He turned to Karl and Tiana.
“Surf and turf for dinner anyone?”
“Yeah, but let me go check and see if that other group ever made it back. Do you mind if the rest of my group binds their spawn point to your land also? That would be really awesome for them,” Tiana said.
“Sure, no problem. Don't spread it around too much though. Every time someone binds to it, I get a notification and have to authorize them doing it, so make sure I know your group's names too, okay?”
“We'll stop by on the way back and they can all introduce themselves,” she said.
Ten minutes later Tiana came back through with her group. The only name he remembered from the first time he met them was Allie's and he wasn't even sure if that was her in game name or her real name. He cut them all off a slice of venison on the house as they introduced themselves.
“Alirshyn,” the Elven woman who'd sold him the bow said.
“Should I call you that or Allie?”
The Elf smiled back at him.
“Call me Allie, but Tiana said you needed to know my full name for the spawn bind.”
Eddie nodded and turned to the three men.
“Dominic” said the man he'd guessed was a wizard.
The man in darkened leather armor introduced himself as Sombra while the plate-mail clad fighter was Terrod.
“Cool, now I'll now who to authorize when you go to bind your spawn point,” Eddie said.
For some reason he got the idea that the three men of the group didn't like him
very much, and at the same time he noticed that Allie was keeping herself as far away from them as she could without being overly obvious about it. The group immediately turned and left, the three men leading the way. Allie stayed back for a minute and spoke in a soft voice with Tiana.
When Allie followed the men, Tiana let out an exasperated sigh.
“I was afraid of that. They've been pestering her. They pestered me before as well, but I put a stop to it since you don't want to piss off your healer, but Allie...”
Tiana shook her head.
“She's not very good at telling people things they don't want to hear, let's just leave it at that,” Tiana finished.
The four requests to bind to his land as a spawn point came in then and Eddie authorized each of them as they arrived.
“So, does she need a place to hang out when you aren't adventuring? If you adventure during the day, she's welcome to be over here while we're open if that would help,” Eddie said.
“Or we could, you know, talk to those guys,” Karl said.
Tiana shook her head.
“I doubt talking to them would help. Arrogant and overbearing only starts to cover Terrod and Sombra's attitudes. They think that because they're higher level than me and Allie that they should be able to tell us exactly what to do. Dominic has already knuckled under and does what they tell him to most of the time.”
“That's just wrong,” Eddie said.
Tiana shrugged.
“I keep thinking I should just leave the group, but some of the others around here are even worse. I can't help but think that if they'd been the first ones to some of the zones that are camped now, that they'd be the ones camping them and keeping everyone else out.”
“Not all of them?” Eddie asked.
“No, just the other ones that are on during the day. I suppose I could look for a group that goes out in the evening, but I'm just used to doing things during the day and relaxing in the evening, so I haven't given it much thought.”
“Well, you're welcome to spend as much time as you like here or over at the new place once I finish it,” Eddie said.
“Or if you want to go out adventuring you could escort me while I map,” Karl said. “I'm trying to map out the entire Meadowlands eventually. From the way people talk about it, I'm guessing no-one has bothered to do that yet.”
“No, I don't think they have,” Tiana said. “Most of the players around here camp near this hamlet because it's the spot that's closest to both the mountains and the forest. The Meadowlands is narrower from north to south here than anywhere else, so it's the easiest spot to access either of the other zones surrounding it.”
Karl smiled.
“Good, then maybe I'm doing something new. Eddie here inspired me with his plans. He's already had me doing a bunch of things in game that I'd never done in any others.”
About then the four people who had just changed their spawn point passed, headed back down the road. Eddie could hear Terrod and Sombra shit talking him as they passed.
“What the hell was that crap? Is someone trying to build something?” Terrod said.
“Looks like it, I wouldn't trust it to not fall on my head though,” Sombra replied.
Allie broke off from the other three, moving over to rejoin Tiana. A moment later she came over to Eddie.
“I'm sorry Eddie,“ Allie said, “I don't know what's up with them, they started insulting you as soon as we were headed for your land. Doing that when you're doing them a favor?”
She shook her head.
“At least Dominic wasn't saying anything. I think he's realized the other two have been pushing things to a breaking point. He used to join in the shit-talking with jokes, but once it got nasty, he stopped.”
“You know you're welcome to stay here with Tiana if you like. You don't have to be back at your camp with them nearby,” Karl said.
Allie looked at Karl in surprise.
“That would piss them off,” she said.
“Do you care if you piss them off?” he asked.
She slowly shook her head.
“Then you're welcome to stay here if you want. It's your call.”
~ ~ ~
Chapter Eighteen
Aaron was sitting in the waiting room of Cynthia's office. He'd gotten an appointment as soon as he'd requested one, but now he wasn't sure what to expect.
“Aaron?” the receptionist called out. “You can go in now.”
The first thing Aaron saw when he stepped through the door was Cynthia staring at him and blushing.
“I need to apologize,” she said. “Before we get to whatever you wanted to meet with me about, I need to apologize. I've been avoiding you ever since the party. I never should've done what I did there, and was too embarrassed to see you again after.”
Aaron's face twitched as he held in a smile.
Thank god, I thought she was pissed at me for rejecting her, but she was just embarrassed at what she did.
“Apology accepted. I will note though that the only reason I turned you down was because you were drunk. I didn't want you to regret anything later on.”
“Turns out I did anyhow,” she said, “just not what you were worried about me regretting. Take a seat, tell me what brings you here.”
Aaron's face finally gave in and he smiled.
“Well, I've got a potential upgrade for the game, more properly for the access to the game. I thought you might be able to figure out how to monetize it and authorize some money for the research required,” Aaron started.
He saw that he had her attention and took the seat she'd offered.
“So, we can potentially keep players in game for much longer than thirty days while keeping their body healthy, and not overload the servers. Most of the cost would be footed by the player since they'd need an upgraded pod. We'd only need to reconfigure a few things and we might even be able to retire some of the log out servers. But we need some funds to research and test the process.”
Cynthia's face lit up.
I knew she'd be interested, Aaron thought, now to set the hook.
An hour later Aaron was ensured that he would receive funding, the amount yet to be determined. She'd let him know in a day or two.
As he was walking out the door, she spoke one more time.
“Aaron? I'm sober this time. Would you like to have dinner with me? Maybe something more later, but at least dinner? You aren't technically under my authority in the company, so there shouldn't be any issues with it.”
Aaron only had to think about it for a moment.
“I'd love to, just let me know when and where.”
~ ~ ~
The venison on a stick was a hit. Eddie sold even more of it than he had of the bunny meat either of the days he'd been open so far. Combined with the produce they'd brought down for today, he had his highest day's total yet.
Allie and Karl had talked a lot while they'd been selling and when they finally closed for the day, the two informed Tiana and Eddie that Allie was going to escort Karl on his mapping trips during the day. As a cover for her leaving her current group, Karl was going to be paying her for the escort.
Tiana shook her head when they said that.
“You know that's just going to piss them off, right?” she asked.
“Yeah, I know, but I'm not going to put up with their wandering hands any more. I'm out. If you're smart, you'll get out too. Even if you're a healer, you know how they are. A leopard never changes its spots, even if it looks like it has.”
Tiana stopped for a moment, deep in thought.
“You're right, but what am I going to do?”
“What do you mean?” Allie asked. “It looks like you had a fine time tonight and we were running a food stand. Why don't you see if you can hang out with Eddie all the time?”
Eddie held up a hand.
“If I understand correctly, you think there are going to be problems with your former group mates?” he asked.
They both nodded, v
ehemently.
“Maybe not Dominic,” Allie said, “but definitely the other two.”
“Then I've got an offer for you,” Eddie said.
Tiana got a guarded look on her face and Allie literally took a step back.
“What?” Eddie asked. “What did I say?”
“What kind of offer?” Tiana said.
“Well, if you can bind to the land I own here, you can probably bind to the farm I own up the road. Would you like your spawn points to be different from theirs?”
“Oh,” Tiana said. “Sorry, that was almost exactly the phrasing they used when getting us to join their group.”
“My apologies then. But you're both welcome to come to my farm and set your spawn point there if you can. There are extra bedrooms in the farmhouse, or if you'd rather not be in the same house with Karl and me, there's an entire bunkhouse, sort of like this one's going to look when it's done, that you can use.”
“Really? A real bedroom? Does it have a real bed?” Allie asked.
“Yes, the rooms in the farmhouse have feather mattresses, the bunkhouse is just straw ticks for mattresses, but they're still more comfortable than camping out.”
“Done,” Tiana said.
Allie echoed her a moment later.
“I don't suppose it's got running water?” Allie asked.
“Sorry, just a well. Although there is a copper tub in the farmhouse. You can fill it with hot water and take a bath. I'm just waiting to finish this bunkhouse down here. This one has showers, although I don't think the water will be very warm on them.”
“Heh, all you need is a wizard with the right spell and the hot water is no problem,” Tiana said, “or a priestess with the right spell.”
A grin spread over her face.
“I volunteer to help you build that if you need any more help. All I want for pay is first dibs on a shower.”
“I'm going to spend a few more minutes working on this place before we head up the road to the farmhouse,” Eddie said, after they'd finished closing the food stand and started walking along the road.
