Chapter 12

Once the experience and money were all registered in our HUD as collected, I pressed the button on my arm to turn off the stream.

The view counter had been 367 when I turned it off. I was too busy during the mission to even notice it, so I didn't know if that was our peak or not.

Either way, that seemed like a good start.

I checked my HUD and was happy to see that I had $113.52 as well as 0.3 gold total. It was a lot better than what I had started with only yesterday.

How was that just yesterday? Had we really been moving that much?

The rain was starting to let up and the sky was still gray, but I was excited about the prospect of a new town.

"Go get supplies," I told Coot. "Explore, too. Aberdine is new to me, so I'll be doing the same. Maybe we set up here tonight," I said, but found myself wondering how far away McLintock Ranch was from Aberdine. If I didn't burn too much of whatever daylight remained by exploring, then there was no reason I couldn't make my way to the Ranch and meet up with Joan Cremont. It would be nice to sleep in something that I could consider my own.

Also, I was ashamed to admit that I wanted to watch the fight that we just went through and the only way to review my streams was from my camp.

"Want me to recruit anybody?" Coot asked.

I sighed. I hadn't wanted to gang up with Coot, but that had turned out alright. It was likely that everything in this world could be easier with allies, but strangers would backstab you.

Shaking my head, I said, "Socialize and feel them out. If you see anyone who might be a candidate, let me know. Maybe we can join them for a bit and see if they are our kind of people." I shrugged. "I don't want a big gang."

Coot's eyes took on a wistful look as he nodded slowly. "Right, not a big gang. You're looking for a family."

"What?" I demanded. "I'm not looking for a family, I'm looking for people who won't stab me in the back because it's funny. Can we do that?"

He put his finger against his crooked nose and nodded. "I'll find you just what you're looking for."

He turned and ran down the street like I had told him to go and fetch a doctor.

I hoped he remembered to get supplies.

Aberdine was pretty. Not "let's get a drink," pretty, but maybe "showroom" pretty, but at least "put a magnet on it and put it on the fridge" pretty. There were shops that actually looked like shops, signs with lights on them, even street lamps with electricity. It was so different from Aberdine that it almost felt like I was in an entirely different game.

"When are you gonna treat me with some respect?" Horse asked over my shoulder as I watched Coot sprint away.

"What are you talking about?" I spun toward him. I couldn't read horse faces and their emotions, so I had no idea if he was kidding. "You get more say in what we do than Coot does."

"Yes, that's true," he admitted, "but I don't get mission rewards. When do you start spoiling me like an old house cat?"

"Never," I shook my head. "You're not an old house cat, you're a member of my gang that is shaped like a horse. That is it."

"Except that I need some attention."

"Attention? What are you even talking about?"

"I'm saying," Horse was getting annoyed with me or pretending to get annoyed with me, I couldn't tell, "let's leave this alley and walk over to the stables. Then you can ask them to wash and feed me."

Whether he was a horse or not, he was right. He wasn't getting anything out of these missions other than the satisfaction of knowing that his rider might take care of him, and that had not been happening so far. He chose to be a horse for the horse experience, and that wasn't just being a work animal. That meant care, feeding, and maybe a few scratches behind the ears.

I didn't think we were anywhere near scratching the ears, but I could pony up some cash for a bath. Maybe even that new saddle he wanted.

I agreed and let him lead the way. He seemed to know where to go and I didn't feel like looking at my map again for the billionth time in the last hour.

The Aberdine stables had no one in them, not even the clerk, Horse explained that they can't watch the place all the time and still live out their lives. When we walked in, a menu popped up on my HUD with a list of options of things to purchase for Horse. I selected the wash, a brush, and a feeding. The price came up as $10, which I thought was robbery, but Horse said was pretty good.

I paid and a notification told me that he would be ready for pickup in about an hour.

I dug around in my satchel for that pocket watch I had seen and checked it. It was three.

The gunsmith was easy to find, but was closed. The grocer was still open and I grabbed some canned goods that looked like they could heal me up really well and the few boxes of ammo they had.

I asked the clerk how someone got anywhere quickly if their horse was busy, and he pointed me in the direction of the stagecoach.

He called it a stagecoach, but I could overhear the handful of other players near it calling it a "Fast Travel."

That's what I wanted.

I don't know if it was the clean city or the lack of aggression in people's eyes, but the other players here didn't put me nearly on edge as they did in Easter. It made me wonder what raids were like here.

There were a lot of things that I still didn’t know and getting to a place where I could sit and review what had happened to me, and plan for what might be coming, was still something that I needed to do.

My body was still aching from the mission. It was weird how I could feel these pains that made me think my body was real, when I was anything but. The analytical part of me wanted to know if that was my mind interpreting the weird signals indicating I had been shot or if that was all part of the simulation. The rest of me popped open one of those cans of food, peaches, and drank from it like a cup as I walked through Aberdine toward the Fast Travel.

The Fast Travel was different. It was a bench with a sign next to it. The sign had arrows pointing along the different roads. Each arrow had a name for it. I wasn’t entirely certain what to do, so I reached out and touched the part of the sign that read McLintock Ranch. Three dollars deducted from my funds. When nothing else happened, I tried sitting down.

I was somewhere else.

It wasn’t the weirdest thing I had ever experienced, especially since first coming to Wicked West, but it was up there. The moment my butt touched the wooden bench, I wasn’t sitting in Aberdine, I was sitting at the edge of a farm next to some train tracks.

This was obviously supposed to be McLintock Ranch, but I only knew that because it was where I had been trying to go. This wasn’t just a ranch, like I had been expecting it to be, but it was an entire small village. There were stables and pens for the animals, at least two barns and a large house with smaller shacks or cabins littered all over the place. I was next to a literal train station that stood just a few feet outside the fence line.

I brought up my map and noticed all the little things that weren’t at McLintock. It might have looked like a little village, but it didn’t have the things that the other towns had. There was no post office or shops of any kind. Actually, the only things that the Ranch had were an orange teardrop at the large house that I assumed were more jobs for hire and a yellow circle at one of the cabins just behind it. Assuming everything went well, I could meet with Ms. Cremont and get back to Aberdine in time to get Horse and Coot.

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I walked through the fence half-expecting someone to shout at me for trespassing as they shot at me. Nothing like that happened. Instead, I was greeted with hat-tips and howdy’s.

Easter was a northern town with tall trees and cliffs with rivers nearby. Although it was built on a flat area with plains not far away, Easter reminded me of the visit to the Adirondacks that Tyler and I had made about thirty years before he died. Aberdine had been different. It was a port town on a wide river. It reminded me of the midwest, like a town on the edge of the Mississippi.

McLintock Ranch was another environment entirely. It reminded me, again, of Tyler. Everything did, but this memory was dumb and cute and made me smile as I walked.

It reminded me of binge watching all of Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman. It was a show from the 1990’s about a pioneer woman pushing back against the world that said women couldn’t be doctors. It took place in a town called Colorado Springs, but it had a windswept and dried look that made western towns look dirty and rugged.

That show was why I thought retiring as a pioneer woman would be fun. I was still learning my lesson in ‘be careful what you wish for,’ but that show was a happy place for me and Tyler.

Up until now, Wicked West had been doing everything it could to dissuade me of those happy pioneer thoughts. This was the first time since I had arrived in this world that I had found a place that fit my dream ideas. Looking around, it gave me an idea of what I might do after level 250.

It also solidified my plans on what I would need to do to make sure that my post-retirement retirement was exactly what I needed it to be.

Everyone that I passed was either cheerful or busy. I made my way to the yellow circle on the map and found an older woman with deep lines on her face sitting in a rocking chair on a porch attached to a small cabin.

Joan was rocking gently in her chair with a book in her hand. I couldn’t see what it was, but I found myself suddenly wondering what kind of books were available to us here. We weren’t shut off from the developing real world, we were only restricted on communicating with them. Could we get real world newspapers and books? I hoped so. It gave me a low level of excitement to think that I could read the latest Paolini or Hambling novel.

“I was beginning to wonder if you got my letter,” Joan didn’t look up from her book as she spoke. “I’ll do the job, but it’ll be a dollar a day and I expect you to provide me with the meat that we’ll eat.”

“That’s simple enough,” I said. I placed my left foot on the first step of the porch but didn’t move any closer.

“Is it?” She finally put her book down and leaned forward. “Can you manage a dollar a day? You’re thin and you look weak. I don’t even know that you could bring the food we’ll need.”

“Are you trying to test me?” I asked. “Is this part of you taking the job? Or are you always this,” I looked for an old west word, “ornery when you’re being interviewed by a gang leader?”

My bravado was also a test. I wanted to see how scripted she was, but I also wanted to see what kind of reputation I had, if any.

“Gang leader?” She slow-clapped three times. “We’ve got us a bonafide outlaw, is that it?” She sighed and returned to rocking in her chair. “Job interview, indeed. This ain’t no job interview. You want a safe place to rest your head, food on your table, and good conversation. You want me to make you a home. That ain’t no job interview. No, ma’am. That makes me a third-party contractor. Or a wife. No third-party contract, or wife, takes on that kind of work without knowing that the job will be safe and well paid for.” She crossed her arms and gave a smug smile. “A woman needs to know she’ll be cared for before she commits to anything.”

Something about McLintock Ranch, or maybe just seeing Joan Cremont sitting there being her ornery old self, solidified the plan that I hadn’t been sure I was thinking of committing to. The plan that I had been asking Coot about.

“I have a plan,” I don’t know why I was telling her. Everything about this felt like I was in a safe place. Maybe that was her role, not just building a camp and a safe place for me to rest, but also making it feel like a safe place. “A grand crusade.”

“A grand crusade? In a game where nothing changes?” She addressed the fact we were in a game. That was weird. That seemed like the kind of thing they usually avoid talking about. She saw the look on my face. “Don’t give me that. What are they going to do? Delete me? Nah, that’s a waste of the energy to press the button.” She took a breath. “We aren’t normal NPC’s. Other NPC’s have to give you the quest and hand out the rewards to everyone, no exceptions. That’s how they keep their jobs. Not me. Camp Cookies get to pick their charges, if only because some sick bastards might like the idea of keeping someone under their thumb. The sickos can’t be allowed to run amuck in here.” She leaned forward again. “So, tell me, Sammy#0421, why would I want to be part of your grand crusade?”

I was kicking myself for using that phrase already.

A deep breath later, I said, “You’re right. Players can’t be allowed to run amuck, but aside from your ability to choose what happens, who stops them? When a new person joins this world, they are greeted by questions and blood. The only answers they are given are more violence and to check their mailbox. This world needs something in place that slaps the wrist of those who take advantage of the new people.” I raised an eyebrow at her. “Agitators, assholes, whatever you want to call them, they get the same boost in experience from killing new players, only minutes in the game, that they get when they kill experienced folks who have been in here for years. That’s wrong.”

“We can’t change the system,” Joan countered. “Even if we could, if we change one thing, then everyone will want to change things. This won’t even be the same game after.”

“Then we use the system to change the behavior.”

“Is that it, then?” Joan pressed. “Do you have some plan to use the system against the people who abuse it?”

“Something like that,” I nodded. “Most players spawn in Easter. I woke up in a tub and was dead within two minutes of being here. Nobody’s first experience should be violence. My plan is to stop it. Find people like me, mobilize the townspeople, turn Easter into a safe place for new people.”

“There’s no way to win every raid.”

I shook my head. “No, but winning some might give rookies a chance to see that they can make a life here.” I threw up my hands. “That’s the big sell, isn’t it? Come to Wicked West and live your life. A second chance in a different kind of world. That’s what they are selling but that isn’t what we’re getting, unless we do what the wild west was meant for. Unless we tame this land ourselves.”

“Starting with Easter?”

“Starting with Easter.” I agreed. “What do you say? Do you want to be the camp cook for someone like that?”

“That was a good speech. You should have hit your broadcast button.” She shrugged. “The cook doesn’t fight and there’s good pay in raids, whether you win or lose. I guess I’m in.”

You now have access to Camp. What town would you like to set your Camp near?

“Easter,” I said out loud.

Camp location set.

One dollar deducted itself from my funds.

“By the time you get there,” Joan picked her book back up and resumed reading, “camp will be ready and the stew will be hot.”

I tipped my hat to her, “Thank you.”

“I expect a full deer in camp at least weekly,” Joan said. “Now get out of here, vigilante, before someone catches wind of your grand crusade.”

I thanked her again and started the march back to the Fast Travel.

One of the signs at the Fast Travel read “Camp.” That was interesting. I could take the “stagecoach” directly to camp. With camp being a safe place, supposedly, where I couldn’t be killed, that was an incredibly powerful tool. I contemplated going straight there and seeing if Joan would beat me or if the camp would even be set up yet. I had already noticed the market of it on the map. It was a blue tent. When I opened my map all the way up, it looked to be on a cliff face just north of Easter. That was a perfect place for what I had planned. Almost too perfect, and I wondered if Joan had picked it for me based on my plan.

Either way, camp and Easter would have to wait. I still needed to collect Horse and Coot and see who he might have wrangled up for our cause. I had several messages from him that he found us a level 10 that had just accepted the Mountain Man profession. I still hadn’t had much of a chance to read up on professions, but that seemed like something valuable to add to the group.

Before I touched any sign, that reminded me to check my stats.

Sammy#0421

Level 4

No Profession

That was interesting. I had somehow missed level 3 entirely. I wondered if that had happened when I was on the mission to Aberdine.

New levels meant new gear and surprises in the mail. Before I gathered Horse, I should check out the post office.

I touched the Aberdine sign, lost $3, and sat down.

Before I could stand back up in Aberdine, I fell.

My ass hit the brick road of the city with a thud.

“What the hell?”

I had made it to Aberdine, but suddenly the Fast Travel was intangible.

I stood up and looked at the bench. It was still there but when I tried to touch it, a message popped up in the HUD.

Fast Travel is unavailable during a Raid.

“Well, shit.” I spun around, pulling my shotgun from my shoulder and aiming at nothing in particular. I didn’t see anyone, yet, but that wouldn’t last. I found myself worried that Coot was cornered again.

D0C70RC007: Hey boss, me and my mountain man friend are pinned down in a cemetery. Almost no cover. Could really use help.

I replied that I was on my way and didn’t mention that I hoped this new mountain man would be worth saving. I found Coot’s teardrop on the minimap and started running in that direction.

Then I stopped running, realizing that I wasn’t too far from the stables. Aberdine was twice as big as Easter. I glanced at my pocket watch.

Time to grab my ride.