Keeper Read online

  Eddie sat on the back stoop and proceeded to play fetch with Lucky. Not with a stick, like a dog would be happy enough to do, but with the slowly deteriorating corpse of the rabbit.

  Definitely no soft mouth there, Eddie thought. She far prefers to make sure that whatever she's picking up is dead.

  After a few tosses, Lucky stopped bringing it back and started chewing. As Eddie listened to the cat eating in the darkness, he started planning.

  I'd love to take a day or two off, he thought, but I already know what I've got to do. I need to finish the next level of the Developmental Issues quest, I need to get us up to a Player Town as well. Plus I need to help all those NPCs get settled in with houses. How many people do I need for the Player Town, anyhow?

  Help player town, he thought.

  Player Town:

  A player town is a functioning town. It is considered a player town when the player either owns the land it is built on or the player employs at least twenty-five percent of the occupants with no other player employing a higher percentage or owning the majority of the land. The occupants of the town will acknowledge the player as their leader, unless there is another elected leader, and ask him for advice on businesses and building placement.

  Taxes may be levied by the player or elected leader at this level, up to 5%, with the potential for a one-time emergency tax of 10%. The occupants of the town may also volunteer assistance to anything being built in the town. Any emergency taxation will cause dissatisfaction among the inhabitants, but the dissatisfaction will fade over a period of two weeks.

  A town is a community of one hundred to two-hundred and fifty occupants. A successful town will attract more occupants over time, slowly growing. For a Player Village to progress to a Player Town the player in charge of the village must have completed the quest: Developmental Issues II for the town.

  Well, looks like that's just more of the same, Eddie thought. Although being able to levy taxes is an added bonus. That alone is probably a good reason to go for it, never mind the rewards for completing the quest, which aren't listed here. I hate that they don't mention things like that some of the time.

  Quickly checking his quest log, he made sure that he remembered right and had already finished Developmental Issues III.

  At least I'm ahead of the game there, he thought, but I bet I need to keep pushing that one up too, in order to finish the other.

  Lucky had finished eating and now she raced up the pegs Eddie had placed in the wall for her to get to his room. She nuzzled the window up there and disappeared into his room, so Eddie returned to the common room, slipping back behind the bar.

  “Damn it!” one of the adventurers cursed. “I'm only about eighty experience from leveling. I wish we'd found just a few more goblins out there today.”

  Oh yeah, Eddie thought. I still haven't used my stats for level nine.

  He'd given it some thought on and off for the last day and realized that if he really wanted to work Conjunction up he'd need more mana, and more skills, so that had guided his choices.

  Add one stat point to intelligence, one to wisdom, and one to agility, he thought, his last choice dictated by his attempts to keep his agility high for his level.

  Alright then, let's see what I look like. Character sheet, he thought.

  Edward Hunter

  Human Male

  Level: 9

  Class:Warrior (Ranger)

  Strength:13

  Intelligence: 13

  Agility: 26

  Wisdom: 18

  Heartiness: 14

  Charisma: 11

  Willpower: 16

  Health: 150 (160)

  Endurance: 14

  Mana: 180

  Luck: 14 (17)

  Stamina:390 (400)

  Experience:

  197,392/270,000

  Base Attack: 13

  Base Armor: 10 (51)

  +2 attack melee (strength)

  +35 armor (studded leather, helm, boots, bracers, greaves)

  +6 attack ranged (agility)

  +7 armor (agility)

  Skills:

  General:

  Acrobatics: 4

  Animal Friendship: 1

  Animal Handling: 1

  Animal Husbandry: 1

  Bowyer/Fletcher: 2 (+2 to checks)

  Carpentry: 9

  Climbing: 1

  Cooking: 13

  Evaluate: 5

  Farming: 2

  Fire Building: 1

  Fishing: 3

  Herbalism: 2

  Hunting: 3

  Improvisation: 2

  Rope Use: 3

  Tracking: 3

  Weather Sense: 1

  Weaving: 4

  Combat:

  Bows: 5

  Staves: 2

  Small Blades: 1

  Short Swords: 4

  Special:

  Conjunction: 4

  Magical:

  Nature Magic: 5

  Accel Plant Growth: 2

  Arc: 4

  Create Food/Water: 2

  Fox Fire: 2

  Nature's Binding: 1

  Safe Site: 1

  Wall of Thorns: 2

  Create Spring: 1

  Along for the Ride: 1

  Looking pretty good, if I do say so myself, Eddie thought. Although I only skimmed the help on Along for the Ride the other day when I got it. Seeing through the eyes of animals just seems weird. Maybe I'll look closer.

  Help Along for the Ride, he thought.

  Along for the Ride:

  This spell will allow the caster to see through the eyes of an animal. As the name suggests, the caster is not in control of the animal although they can express a desire to go in any particular direction that the animal may or may not respond to.

  Target: Must be targeted at a living creature of type animal.

  Range: LoS (Line of Sight) for initial targeting. One mile per point of Nature Magic effective range to ride along.

  Type: Nature, requires material components.

  Components: A bit of the animal type to ride along with, i.e. - a feather or other bit from an owl would be necessary to ride along with an owl.

  Duration: indefinite

  Cost: initial cost of 20 mana, plus 5 mana per minute beyond the first.

  Eddie nodded.

  I know I can use that to scout things out for us, farther out than Karl would want to scout. But could I use it to help make sure all the goblins are out of the Meadowlands? Five miles isn't that much, but in a lot of spots that would go from the road to the edge of the Forest of Fools, so maybe?

  Eddie wasn't sure if that would be the best use of his time though. As he thought about it, he decided that the first thing he had to do was help the refugees build new homes. The adventurers would probably be able to run down any goblins still in the Meadowlands.

  Tiana came in then, having spent her time down at the temple, trying to help the refugees in her own way, plus training her acolytes further. He'd been waiting for her and since the dinner rush was mostly over, they got their food quickly once they'd settled in at a table.

  They talked while they ate and Eddie told her his plans. She agreed wholeheartedly that he should help the refugees first, but thought that after that he should probably get the town hall started, at the very least.

  “Because, like you said, the inhabitants are liable to help for something like that, so get it started, get the foundations in and the walls started, then slow your own efforts and see if anyone else helps, right?” she said. “That way, you might not have to do it all on your own.”

  “Um, sure, we can try that,” Eddie said.

  “Just remember, you don't have to do it all yourself for the quest, we helped on the others and you still got credit, so...”

  “Well, when you put it that way, sure,” Eddie said. “That was what I was worried about too, I don't know if I have to do it, do most of it, initiate it getting done or what. If I knew, this would be a lot easier.”

/>   “And probably would've gotten done before it it were easier, so I wouldn't gripe about that too much,” she said.

  “You've got a point there. I'll stop complaining, it's not like it's even a major complaint, I just wish I could plan for it better.”

  When they'd finished eating, they headed for their room.

  ~ ~ ~

  In the morning Eddie resigned himself to days of building and headed down towards the temple after breakfast, munching on risen bread as he walked.

  Maybe it won't be that bad, I might get a few points in carpentry if I use different blueprints for some of the houses, he thought. Plus it'll let everything in the village catch up a bit before I start trying to make more changes.

  He'd been surprised to find that Paul had already showed up and borrowed his cart. He figured Paul was just trying to get his building materials to his current sites before Eddie needed the cart to let the villagers get their own materials, so when he found a stack of rough-hewn lumber sitting outside the temple, he stopped dead.

  Paul was just unloading the last few planks out of the cart when Eddie walked up.

  “Eddie, got a present for you. I figured the refugees might be slow to start on getting materials so I'd give you a jump start. If you let me borrow your cart for a little longer, Jern's setting up a load of stone for it up near the smithy.”

  “I... I don't know what to say,” Eddie said. “Except, thank you.”

  “Like you said, enlightened self-interest. I figure if I can help you get this taken care of, you'll be working on building the village to an even larger size which will need specialized buildings. Those are where I make my money, so it's in my own interest.”

  Eddie was pretty sure that Paul wasn't being entirely honest, but he wasn't about to say anything about it. He was just happy that the older man was willing to help out here.

  As he thought about it, there was a shimmer in the median between the road and the front of the temple. An adventurer shimmered into being, wearing newbie equipment. He looked around, saw the two players and the stack of lumber.

  “Huh?” the new player said.

  “Goblin raids, we're rebuilding,” Eddie replied, pointing a thumb at the stack of lumber.

  “Goblin... raids? Cool, where do I sign up?” the newbie asked.

  “Well, you'll find some adventurers at my inn, just east along the road a little bit.”

  “Awesome, thanks for the tip, man,” the newbie said, heading out east along the road.

  When the newbie got a few steps away, he did a double-take and looked back the temple itself. Then his eyes went wide, he shook his head, and he continued east.

  Eddie pulled out a copy of the blueprint he'd used for the Collier's house and walked to Griff's plot of land.

  “Morning Griff, shall we get your house started?” Eddie asked.

  ~ ~ ~

  Greenshaw leaned back in his chair.

  Harmon failed us, the voice from deep within his mind said. Find us a replacement.

  Yes, what was he thinking? We told them to stick to humanoids, but he couldn't manage to follow that simple order, Greenshaw thought.

  The connection that allowed him to access his computer, the one that had been built into his head so he could use the advanced technology available for most of his purposes, pulsed slightly before the voice spoke again.

  You'll need to have your men make a new in-game command screen, this time one that cannot be tampered with or used by anyone but the replacement. Make sure its results can not be tampered with either.

  The voice, the one that Greenshaw trusted more than anyone else since it had never steered him wrong, made the demand sound more like a suggestion or request, but there was never a thought in Greenshaw's mind to deny it.

  We can do that. It's a good idea even, make sure it's locked down for everyone else, we can even train him on the new version before we drop him in the game, Greenshaw thought.

  This time there will be nothing that malicious witch can do to stop my plans, the voice said.

  Our plans, Greenshaw corrected.

  Yes, our plans, which she foiled once already. This time, she will not be able to stop us.

  ~ ~ ~

  Continued in:

  Light Online

  Book 3:

  Leader

  ~ ~ ~

  About the Author:

  You can see the author's other novels at:

  Tom Larcombe's Amazon Author Page

  Tom Larcombe lives in the Rocky Mountain Foothills in Colorado with his wife, daughters, cats, and chickens. The latter two vary in number from time to time, but fortunately the first two are pretty much set in stone.

  He started tabletop gaming in the early '80s and did so for years with numerous gaming systems (D&D, AD&D, Call of Cthulhu, Car Wars, G.U.R.P.S., Vampire: The Masquerade, and more). At the same time he got his first computer in the early '80s, a TI-99/4a. (Don't laugh, at the time he was ecstatic to have it.) From that he eventually got into computer RPGs as he upgraded systems and more options were available.

  He's always been an avid reader, but when he first stumbled onto LitRPG as a genre, he read it voraciously. Having already published 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 Light Online: Farmer, and now book two in the series; Light Online: Keeper.

  The next book in the series is planned to be Light Online: Leader. There are five books planned for the series if people continue to read and enjoy them.

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

  Tomlarcombe.blogspot.com

  He's trying to post there once or twice a week now, so he should see your comment and be able to reply.

  Sign up to be notified by email when I release a new book:

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  This list sends emails only when I release a new book.

  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

  The "An Untimely Error" series is a triology about 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