I was standing on my mud field. Wondering how long it would take to get it back to its full glory. My best friend. Two hours ago I had peeked at the prices of some basic grass seeds. I had barfed into my helmet and was forced logged out for the first time. The experience left me scarred, but atleast now I knew that I needed to grow as quick as possible to get even its most basic form back. To buy these seeds of hope, I would need the money to buy a sportscar. An amount far away for now.

A slight drizzle came down from the dark grey overhead sky. No wind to speak of. My hair stuck to my head. Drenched from head to toe. Even my training suit, underneath my raincoat was wet. It wasn’t cold, but neither was I comfortable. I looked miserable but for the smile on my face. I had finished it. Well, I had finished one side. One, one hundred and ten meters, side. I had to admit that it looked great. Even if it had no use yet and was only one-fourth finished. I had built something. Something that would forever only be mine.

It felt good. So freaking good. The smell of puke couldn't even bother me anymore. I thought back to where it all started, my love for the grass, for the game, my obsession. It had been at a local club, built already. Owned by the city, managed by people who liked to boss people around without taking the blame if it went south. It wasn’t mine, and still, my love for it had been immense.

Now, here in this game, this fake world felt so incredible, more real than I could have dreamed. I build my first step towards such a place and it felt amazing. The love, the obsession, the passion. It all floated back into me as I felt my enthusiasm go up another nudge. This was it, I felt it, this was where I belonged.

Hindsight was 20/20, they said. But had I not been so stubborn how far could I have come in this place? The average life expectancy had climbed to about a hundred. But with my way of living I had no unrealistic hopes I would make it to the magical three digits.

I shook my head and let my hand go through my wet hair. My full head of hair, thick and full of life. I had no time for empty musings and long-winded staring sessions. There was a second, more luxurious, shed to build.

I had taken around four days to make this part of the fence. When I was halfway done, I realized I could either keep my two lumberjack pal’s or build my fence to completion. Sixty-five dollars per four days was better than nothing. I broke off the build at this one completed side and had been staring at it until now. Wasting precious doing time.

I got into a small jog towards the shed. It was getting harder to walk around due to the rain, but not impossible yet. I arrived without accidents and went in.

The lumberjack brothers had cleaned it up as much as possible. Now instead of what looked like a piss bucket, two sleeping bags were draped into a corner. They had been sleeping on the ground ever since I hired them. Which, in any other world than this one, would get you the full-blown rage of the labor unions. That or the outrage and pitchforks of a social media posse full of justice warriors. Guess they didn’t care about the living conditions of the digital workforce. The lumberjack brothers did though. They had been asking me if I was planning to build them something better every day. Very polite, but very persistent.

They were at work now, so I didn’t have to listen to their 'scuuse me, sirs'. I now associated the sentence with money falling out of my pocket. Feeling a fight-or-flight response every time one of them started their sentence with it.

I got to the clipboard and searched for the entry I had found yesterday. A blueprint called 'a basic living quarter'. Just what the doctor ordered. It looked like the shed but then twice as big. It stated that it could be build within six days by a carpenter, but I was not sure yet if that would be possible. Given my fucky financial status.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

I ‘bought’ the blueprint as it was a basic design, thus free. Then I looked at the requirements and for once in this new reality, I got surprised in a good way. Most of the list I already had. I still had the varnish, the nails. The poles had to be three meters instead of five but that wasn't a big issue. I could even make the wooden planks necessary myself. If I asked the lumberjack brothers to work while I slept, I could produce the planks without spending a dime.

"Fucking finally." I voiced my happiness to the damp enviroment.

But how much would the carpenter cost? I had two hundred and fifteen dollars left. The sad sixty-five dollars every four days would not make much of a dent. Going to another part of the shed I looked for clipboard and went to the carpenter, reading its entry ‘Carpenter. Specialty: Building. Speed: Basic. Cost: 9 dollars an hour. Maximum working hours: Ten. Hours of free time: Fourteen. Extra info: Brings his own equipment.”

I sighed a small breath of relief. I could hire the guy for twenty-two hours which meant a little over two days. The good part was that I could pay the man on a daily basis. Which meant I could lumberjack myself silly while he was building my living quarter.

The living quarter was three meters wide and five meters long. It stood two-and-a-half meters into the air at the front and two at the back. It needed eighty-three five-meter planks and fifty-two three-meter planks. I could cut down fifteen trees a day and make them into seventy-five ten meter planks. Doing the math that meant I alone could provide the wood needed and then some in one day. I still had all the poles necessary, as they were the main part of my fence. I would keep earning around a hundred and fifty dollars a day on my work alone... Not bad. The carpenter took seventy percent of that money but still...

I knew it would not be that easy. The love and hate relationship with the not finished fence had taught me that much.

Never underestimate the power of money falling out of your pocket. It worried me. One of those worries where nails. It did not specify how many the good man needed. I had bought a bunch in bulk spending one hundred dollars for a thousand. But was that enough? or was the glue? and how was he going to make a working door? Using my hard earned cash... Would he bring his own sander? Considering where he should sleep, I hoped the shed could handle three people as much as it did two.

I checked the ‘Accept’ box after checking the carpenter on the sheet of paper. Some time passed by, then I was no longer alone in the shed. Like before a person was standing in front of me and a contract was hanging next to the other two on the wall. New rusty nail, and my perfect autograph.

The carpenter had a mustache more fabulous than I had ever seen in my entire life. In cartoons, but never in the real. It had more hair than it should have, and this alone was a natural miracle. the points looped at the ends but the ends were at ear height.

He patiently waited for me to stop staring at his mustache, like the gentleman I knew the man to be. His glasses about halfway on his smallish nose, curious brown eyes, and bushy brows. His mouth was half covered by the miracle stache as only his bottom lip showed. I expected to see a pipe and felt disappointed by its absence. The guy looked like he knew his way around the weights and he was around fifty years old if I had to guess. He wore a simple and worn blue overall with working boots and a tool belt. The icing on the cake was that he was bald as a baby’s backside. Major Armstrong, please forgive me for letting you sleep in a shed.

I smiled a big smile at the man and the man seemed to smile back. We shook hands, and I handed him the blueprint. He nodded his head a view times while looking at it. Then in a chirpy voice, he said “This shouldn’t be too difficult, will you provide the materials, sir?”

I nodded and said “Yes, the poles are almost ready for use, the varnish is already on site and so are the nails and glue. If you need any other work done or materials, let me know. The planks will arrive at the end of tomorrow.”

He looked up from the blueprint and said “Perfect. Where would you want it?”

I showed him out of the shed and walked him towards where the lumberjack brothers were doing their work. About twenty meters from the forest line I stopped and asked if it was a suitable spot. He nodded, and I went to work on getting all the materials towards the construction site.

Materials on site and done for the day I was about to log out when I heard the carpenter shout “Scuuse me, sir... “

God fucking dammit.