The warehouses gave way to open lots, which had been covered in tent cities, around the same time the avenue became a simple road. These in turn gave way to fields, where crops were growing. Voice had apparently gotten a two-gold discount in exchange for delivering a letter and that shaped our initial destination. When we came across a well-travelled dirt road heading inland, we turned off the road and proceeded between the fields of corn.
As strolls go, this one was rather pleasant. The wind was just strong enough to keep us cool under the glorious sun.
“Considering it’s minus 20 outside, this is really, really nice,” Daisy commented.
“Minus 20?” Kelsey asked. “Yikes, I bundle up when it hits single digits.”
“Canada?” Voice asked.
“Did my accent give it away?” she asked with a smile. “Yeah, a little town in the middle of nowhere. If I couldn’t do remote work, I’d have gone crazy. I’m a Virtual Architect. What about you?”
“I’m a Data Analyst.” Voice said. I tried not to let out a snort. Calling him a data analyst is like saying Mozart was a piano player. Technically true, but a huge understatement. His company gets contracted to set up the automated systems that does the data analysis for other companies. It’s also not like him to understate that so much.
“Computer Science Teacher,” I said.
“PE Teacher,” said Sam.
“I’m a student!” added Kelsey with a grin. Her head snapped towards the field to our left. She rapidly raised her bow and loosed an arrow into it. She chased after her arrow and came out a few moments later with a rabbit.
“PE? Is that why you are so good with your weapons?” Daisy asked Sam.
“Gramps and Gran were hugely into re-enactment. Dad and all his siblings grew up learning how to fight with ancient weapons.” Kelsey said helpfully. “Gramps taught me how to use a bow.”
“As the Munchkin says. Though a big part of why I teach PE is because of that upbringing as a child,” said Sam. “Does your work help with healing?” he then asked.
“Sadly, no. My first responder training does though. We’re about an hour by helicopter away from the nearest hospital, so a bunch of us do regular paramedic training, just in case,” Daisy responded.
“That helps with the healing?” I asked.
“More so now I’m not using the boosted HOT all the time. I can focus the spell on a specific injury. The description says that it will increase the chances of a critical heal and speed up the effect if I focus on the exact thing which needs healing.”
“Oh god.” Voice and I said at the same time.
“He is going to be insufferable,” I added, then continued at the three confused expressions. “Jacobs. He’s a doctor. One of his repeated complaints is about how he could be so much better a healer in games if he could actively direct his powers. The level of smug he will exude…”
I pulled open my HUD, found Darksider on my friends list and sent him a direct message.
‘Aenara…: We just learnt about how healing works… How smug is he?’
‘Damian…: You know… that odious grin of his is there… but he hasn’t said anything. Directed more efficient?’
‘Aenara…: Daisy said increase crit chance and can speed up the effect if you know how to target the injury.’
‘Damian…: Oh god… yeah, he will be insufferable. Thanks for the heads up, I’ll pass it onto the others on the sly. Also explains how easy we have been finding these towers.’
“I’ve let Dark know,” I said to Voice. Then turned to the other three, “Jacobs is one of my oldest friends. He is genuinely a great guy, him and Peachy both. Honestly, some of the nicest people you will ever meet.”
“But when he gets his smug on…” Voice added.
“You just want to hit him.” I finished.
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We walked past a field which had a small group of players trying to till it with an ox pulling the plough. They had the look of people who had something shown to them enough to leave them alone doing it, but hadn’t quite mastered the skill and still didn’t have the confidence in themselves to do it confidently.
“Do you think your Computer Science stuff helps with the spellcasting?” Daisy asked.
“Maybe,” I replied. “It’s still a little early, but I’m about 80% sure that the spells are in a scripting language.”
“Like HTML?” Kelsey asked.
“More like JavaScript,” I said. “But maybe more object-based. I’m not sure. I need more pieces of the puzzle to properly understand it.”
“Vex here is really good at visualising stuff. We did an online escape room a couple of months back.” He turned to me, “was it thirty moves?”
“Twenty,” I confirmed.
“Right… there was this puzzle you were supposed to work out the move, it would change the puzzle, you then worked out the next part. Aenara here did the whole thing, in her noggin, in one go. I think that's why she is the world's leading mage.” Voice grinned at me.
“Others are going to catch up to me, you know. I’m only a little ahead because of the quest reward.”
In the next field along, it looked like the handful of players were trying to reap the field under the supervision of a man in a straw hat. They stood in a line, swinging a scythe and cutting down the corn. Then after a few steps, they would put down the blade, gather up the stalks into a bundle and add them to the slowly moving cart. Before returning to reap some more.
The road eventually opened up into the grounds of a farm. It seems this was the place to go for any player wanting the farming experience. Voice and Daisy went off to hand deliver the letter, while the three of us looked around the bustling hive of agriculture. There was a pair of players pulling a cart coming in from one of the fields and it was loaded with what seemed to be grain. There was another player, pushing a huge millstone around a grinding stone, turning grain into flour. It all looked like hard work to me, but every face I saw was either smiling and laughing with their workmates or looking incredibly content.
Daisy and Voice came out of the farmhouse and joined us, watching the hustle and bustle.
“We’ve been asked to clear out a field on the way to the Central Services building. Will give the farmers more land to cultivate.” Voice said.
“Lay on, Macbeth,” I replied.
We followed the other road out of the farm, past several more fields being worked. The mud road led up to a tarmaced one and we turned right, taking us back towards the coast. In the distance, I saw a square building, that I assumed to be our eventual destination. To our right was a farmer, leaning against the stone wall between the field and the road.He was observing a group of players using an ox-pulled plough to turn the soil.
“You’se been sent to clear teh’field?” he asked, a piece of straw between his teeth.
“Aye.” Voice responded. “They said you would point us to the one you want clearing.”
“That I will.” He turned toward the road and pointed to the other side. “T’would be dat one. You all think you can handle it?” I looked across at the apparent empty field.
Voice looked between us, and then turned back to the farmer. “What sort of infestation are we talking about?”
The man nodded at us. Bent down and picked up a rock from the ground. He tested its weight a couple of times and then, with a bit of a grunt, threw it into the field.
The stone bounced three times, there was a brief rumble and then a huge worm burst out of the ground where the stone had landed.
We stood leaning against the wall, looking into the field. Kelsey threw another stone into the field.
“I honestly don’t have a clue,” I said once the creature dived back below the ground. “That's at least ten feet of worm. Could try all of us hitting it when it comes up…it might be flammable” I wasn’t confident it would do the job, but at least we might actually do some damage. “Seems risky to have you two in the field though… what if there is more than one of those things…”
“I never tried wrestling a worm before…” Voice said.
“You want to what?” I asked.
“Well…I don’t want to… But I can’t see another way to keep it from diving back down.” I looked over at Sam, who actually looked like he was considering it.
“Wait! Are you considering that insanity??” His niece suddenly asked him.
“If we can stop it from getting away into the soil… You three can blast it down…”
“Madness,” Kelsey said. “Sheer madness.”
“Let’s call that plan zeta,” Daisy said diplomatically.
“Pull!” I said. We stood in a line with the wall between us and the field.
Voice tested the weight of the stone again. “I don’t know… I really think we should try and get it onto the road at least… what if it gets away?”
“We agreed, you two wresting the worm is plan zeta. We are trying plan alpha first, which is where you throw the stone and we use ranged attacks when it pops out of the ground. Now pull.” I said in a commanding tone.
“Fine.” He sighed and threw the stone five meters inside the wall.
The ground rumbled, the worm we had been baiting for the last few minutes, took it again and popped out of the ground, swallowing the stone.
I released the spell I had been holding.
Kelsey loosed her first arrow.
Daisy waved her hand in its direction, casting
Sam fired the two pistols he was wielding.
Kelsey loosed her second arrow.
The pellet of my spell hit the worm. The
The blast caused Voice to take a step back. It knocked the rest of us onto our rears. I looked up to see the tank grinning down at us. Bloody tank privilege.