I found this silver bracelet while I was out camping.  It was in a pile of white bones.  The bones looked to be from a wolf or dog.  I pocketed the bracelet not thinking much about it.

A few days later in my apartment I found the bracelet while I was putting away my camping gear.  I slipped it on to see if it would fit.  The bracelet slipped on then melted into my skin.

I freaked out and went to bathroom and opened the door.

The door swung inward and the room beyond was encased in darkness.  It was definitely not my bathroom.  I reached in and searched for a light switch on the wall but couldn’t find one.  I grabbed my iphone and used the light app to illuminate the room.  It was big, 15 meters by 15 meters by my guess.  The only furniture was an old metal table with an old lap top computer on it.  The walls were a smooth metallic gray.  The floor was a glossy black.  The ceiling was smooth and matched color of the walls.  I walked inside and the door swung shut behind me. 

I didn’t see any lights so went to the desk.  An old steel chair was at the desk.  I sat down and the chair swiveled cleanly and I focused on the computer.  It looked a little old and I doubted the thing still had power.  I tapped the keys and the screen flared to life.  A white screen with black text appeared.

Traveler Perished, Access Terminal Reset

New Potential Traveler Detected, Acclimatize to the Terminal.  Y/N?

I hesitated briefly before hitting the Y key.  The air got heavy and smelled of ozone but before I could panic the screen changed to show various icons.  There were six icons.  The first was a star and had the text ‘tutorial’ below it.  All the other icons were blurred out.  Without any better idea I tapped the tutorial icon.

The computer speaker started to speak, “Welcome to terminal D-713.  The first step in the tutorial is the system store.”  The star icon changed to a book.  “In the store you can purchase items.”  The icon expanded into a catalog and went to ‘lighting tab’ in the catalog and an old florescent tube light was selected and that same light appeared on the ceiling of the room, instantly lighting up the room.  “You can also purchase dimensional doors to one of the mission realms.”  The screen selected a shimmering door in the catalog and a door materialized on the wall to the right of the desk.  “You can also purchase room expansions.” The catalog went to select a small bathroom and selected it.  An alcove appeared next to the door in the wall with a toilet, shower and sink.  “You can purchase any utility items that the system has cataloged.”  The catalog went and selected something that looked like large dumpster.  It appeared in the room.  “Finally you can purchase items for use in realms for an increased cost.”  The catalog quickly went through clothing and weapons selecting various items.  A gray skinsuit, beige pants, white long sleeve shirt, boots, knife with a sheath and holster with a hang gun appeared.

“The second part of the tutorial is the reclamation function.  You can place items in the reclamation dumpster and then the system will analyze the contents and convert the items to credits.  Credits are necessary to purchase items in the store and adventurer upgrades.”  The second icon was a trash can and I assumed it was referring to the dumpster the system auto purchased.

“The third part of the tutorial is personal upgrades.”  An icon with my face came into focus.  It was selected and an ugly naked guy appeared on screen.  Next to the figure was a table.  It read:

Strength

68

Constitution

36

Stamina

50

Agility

34

Speed

37

Intellect

78

Aether

0

Channeling

0

Charisma

42

 Under the figure was a medical icon.  The computer highlighted it and a list overlaid the naked image of me.  It listed over twenty nine ‘ailments’ from high blood pressure, precancerous nodes and improperly healed bones.  The computer clicked on each ailment and I felt heat surge through my body.  The figure on the screen appeared to get healthier as each item was removed from the list.  My constitution went from 36 to 52.  My agility increased to 37 and speed to 42.  I felt really good, Tom Brady healthy.  I could breathe easier and felt no aches and no longer needed my glasses.  “The human maximum is 100 for these stats, after 100 you will be beyond normal human capacity and the costs greatly increase.  For this tutorial you can select one statistic to increase by 10 and one statistic to increase by 5 and one statistic by 1.” 

This was some type of video game interface.  I was sure this system had to have some downside.  My stats were pretty below average for a person, assuming 50 was average.  Aether and channeling obviously was tied to some type of magic.  Hedging my bet I selected 5 for Aether and 1 for Channeling.  I immediately felt the electric warmth in my arteries and veins.  Awareness of mystical force spread in my consciouness, I was a frigging Jedi now.  I tried to add my 10 to Channeling but the system spoke, “Three different attributes must be selected.”  I found I couldn’t change my selection. 

I thought a bit.  Physical stats could probably be raised with training I thought so I should choose either intellect or charisma.  I decided on Charisma.  I had never been that great in dealing with people and if I was going to be in a game I would have to work other people to survive.  My facial features smoothed and I no longer had an ever present expression of indifference on my face. 

“Your 4th tutorial is your skills, traits and abilities.  Skills can be purchased or learned on your own.  There are 11 ranks of skills.  The first rank, neophyte, has five levels, each level is equivalent of 20 hours of knowledge.  The next five ranks are the beginner, novice, apprentice, skilled, expert; each has ten levels.  Each level in the beginner rank is equivalent to 100 hours of knowledge.  A level in the novice rank is equivalent to 200 hours of knowledge.  An apprentice level is equivalent to 300 hours of knowledge.  A skilled level is equivalent to 400 hours of knowledge.  An expert level is equal to 500 hours of knowledge.  The upper 5 ranks, renowned expert, master, grand master, legend, mythical; have 100 levels each.   In this tutorial you can select two skills at beginner-1 rank and one ability/trait at beginner-1 rank.”  A massive directory appeared.  I did some mental math, Expert-10 in this system was equal to 15100 hours of knowledge.  If a person worked diligently 8 hours a day on just one skill it would take over 5 years to develop just one skill to Expert-10.  The system didn’t even mention the upper rank equivalents in knowledge.  Figuring spending 2 hours a day might be normal, a year working on a skill would mean beginner-3, in my opinion, would be a good level to indicate proficiency.

Looking at my system equipment I searched for firearms so I could use the hand gun.  I found, Ballistic Firearms: Hand Gun, as the closest skill.  I selected the skill.  A small migraine assaulted me behind my eyes and then I felt a short brain freeze.  Then I found the knowledge there.  This was fantastic.  I knew how to aim, shoot, reload, clean and maintain hand guns.  I decided to choose Dodge as my second skill after getting overwhelmed by the options.  Like in a game I thought of myself as a ranged attacker.  My brain absorbed the info again, albeit less painful this time.  I know knew how to minimize my profile and read opponents to avoid ranged and melee attacks.  Under abilities I narrowed my list to improved self-healing or ice bolt.  I already had a ranged weapon so the improved self-healing seemed the better option.  I selected the option and my body burned for a bit.  I intuitively knew each rank in this trait improved healing speed by 10%, so I healed 60% faster now.  Not exactly what I was hoping for but still useful.

The system voice continued, “The 5th tutorial is realms.  Each gate can only connect to one realm.  Each realm is vast, containing galaxies of stars and hundreds of thousands of habitable planets.  Once you connect you select an access point to a realm.  Additional access points in a realm  can be purchased.  Your first realm is pre-selected, Farseer.  Your first point of access is the city of Arywyn on a planet with a similar biosphere as your origin planet with bio-compatible life.  It is suggested to learn the local language before using the gate.”

“The final tutorial is missions.”  The last icon on the screen expanded. “Missions will be available based on your gates access points.”  A list of twenty quests appeared the first quest was automatically selected.

Explore 15% of Arywyn City, Reward 100 Credits, +1 Skill Points

A little over eager I suited up with the gear the terminal purchased minus the skin suit.  The pistol was a Glock .45 with a 13 bullet clip and two spare clips, 39 shots.  I then stopped myself.  I didn’t have a grasp of the local language and didn’t quite understand the portal mechanics.  Could I return if I didn’t finish the mission?  Could I survive on the other side of the door?  Breathe the air?  I sat down and thought, formulating a plan.

Eventually I left the terminal room and in my apartment dragged everything I owned into the terminal’s space.  I was surprised how much stuff I had  when it was spread out half hazard.  I ‘disconnected’ the terminal access from my closet door.  I just knew how to do it.  I knew I didn’t even really need to link to a doorway but it made the connection stronger.  I left the apartment and went to the apartment admin offices and cancelled my lease, paying a moderate penalty.  The post office was next, getting a PO box and having my mail forwarded to it.  I then hopped into my silver RAV4 and drove to a 24 hour vehicle storage site.  I rented a two vehicle unit and set a recurring payment from my checking account.  Then I drove to Lowes and bought a door with a frame and tied it to the roof.  I then went to Wal Mart and purchased two shopping carts full of non-perishable food.  Back at the storage unit I pulled in and locked the bay door from the inside and set up the door securely.  I wasn’t sure what would happen if the door was destroyed or fell over and was lying flat but was pretty sure the portal itself, once linked was stationary and i probably didn’t even need a door.  Crossing my fingers I linked the terminal to door I bought from Lowes.  I opened the door and was greatly relieved it worked. 

I hauled all the food inside.  The place was a mess.  I started putting a bunch of items in the dumpster to recycle in the terminal and hopefully would get some credits.  The old TV, playstation, some old electronics and 20 odd games got me 310 credits with a note of a first time recycle bonus.  Five large plastic bins of old clothes got me another 178 credits.  I reduced my furniture to just a blanket chest, shelf, bed, two end tables, a leather couch, a dining room table and two chairs.  My 2 dressers, 4 chairs, 2 recliners, six lamps, two end tables, half of my kitchen wares, six framed paintings, and all the movies and books I had wanted to get rid of anyway went in earning me 738 credits.  I then spent a few hours organizing the remaining things.  I used one wall for the bed, end tables and the two blanket chests.  Exhausted, I made the bed and went to sleep after eating some jerky and Gatorade.

Waking up it took me a minute to realize it wasn’t a dream.  I went to the terminal computer and sat down.  Most of my worldly possessions that had probably cost me $10,000 new had earned me 1226 credits.

I went to the personal icon and looking at the ugly figure decided to upgrade my stats.   Until I found out how much that cost.  To raise a stat one point cost 10 times the new attribute.  I decided to raise my Aether from 5 to 7 for 130 credits and Channeling from 1 to 5 for 140 credits.  I appreciated the warmth in my veins and the pulse of magic with my heart.  Then I found something unfortunate, I had a limit on how many stat points I could purchase.  That counter was now at 72.  So I had 72 more upgrades.

Going to skills I found neophyte-1 for a skill cost only 100 credits and going to the same place I found a counter for stats had 8 remaining.  I was limited to just 10 skills!  I went to abilities/traits and the counter was 4.  The cost was also 100.  Well all my work so far was to help me increase survivability.  I started by adding the language of Arywyn at Neophyte-1, it was called Caldonian.  My mind hurt briefly and I had a vocabulary and script knowledge of maybe 100 common words of the language.  The great news was languages didn’t use a skill slot as the counter remained at 8 for skills!

To raise the language to beginner-1 cost a total just (2+3+4+5+10) 24 credits.  My knowledge expanded and I felt I could hold a conversation if my target talked slow.  For 50 more points I raised it to beginner-3.  Even though this all seemed simple and quick, these decisions and learning the system took me 3 hours.  To raise non-language skills the cost was ten times the cost so beginner-2 would cost me 200 credits for handgun or dodge.  I then bought Ice Bolt at Neophyte-1 for 100 credits.  I raised the spell to neophyte-5 for (20+30+40+50) 150 credits.  Then I cast my first ice bolt.  The icicle the size of a small carrot shot forth and shattered against the far wall in a cold mist.  I knew the power of the ice bolt could pierce flesh and expelled a freezing mist on impact.  I was underwhelmed especially since my 7 Aether only allowed me to cast it 14 times.  My channeling indicated how much Aether restored over a 24 hour period, a massive 5 points.  But I had magic now!

With 532 credits remaining I decided on getting two skills at neophyte-5 for 250 credits each.  With survivability once more in mind I choose Short Blades to use my knife and Persuasion to make use of my charisma and also minimize my poor grasp of the language.  Eating through two bags of salt and vinegar chips I searched the catalog for items.  My 32 credits wouldn’t buy much but I wanted to get an idea of the expanded catalog.  I noticed an item that looked like my iphone but was called a generic communication device for just 50 credits.  Then it struck me, probably most of the tech advances in the world had been purchased and brought into my world via terminal purchases then reverse engineered.  I thought it best to keep my head low for now in the real world and not be a target for other users.  The items ranged from simple bricks all the way up to space ships.  It seemed there was also an option for a purchase to be restricted to the terminal room which reduced the cost.

I felt ready for the mission.  Walking to the door I tightened my belt holster and knife and entered.

I was in a smelly ally between two buildings, one stone, one wood.  The smell was definitely urine mixed with rotting vegetables.  I turned around and saw a shimmering door.  I held my breath and returned to the terminal room.  I was back!  I had feared that I wouldn’t be able to return.  I went to my things and got an old Nike backpack, filled it with food and water and returned to the smelly ally.  I planned to wander Arywyn, complete my first mission and return.  I knew that I was the only organic being who could use the portal so I wasn’t worried about someone wandering to the terminal room.

Exiting the ally into a sun lit street I found I was in a medieval city!  My gun was still in its holster so technology was not restricted.  It was early morning and the people in simple garb didn’t pay me much attention.  I spent four hours wandering the city.  I found there was no display to access my stats, skills or abilities like I expected from a game.  I still had the knowledge that I had acquired though.  I avoided the guards and checked stalls in the market quarter.  It was like stepping back in time.  The city was over a square kilometer with a 3 meter wooden wall on the perimeter.  There were two gates which had regular traffic passing through.  The language was Caldorian but I heard at least two other languages in my wanderings.  I checked out just one shop, a clothier by the sign.  A young woman tried to help me and I struggled through the conversation but she was patient.  It was just me taking my time to process the sentences.  I was getting comfortable quickly with the language though.   I had no local currency so I just let her peddle some colorful shirts.  I asked about the city, the people and rumors.  Her name was Malli and she complied with a salesman’s enthusiasm. 

Arywyn was a border city that supplied four forts in the frontier.  There were elves, dwarves and gnomes in this world but she had never seen any of them in her young 17 years.  Caldonia was one of three human ruled kingdoms that she knew of.  The currency was coins; copper, silver and gold, like any good fantasy world.  She reiterated some gossip about the duke that ruled Arywyn.  He was rarely seen and ruled through the constables.  Having exhausted the conversation I left.  Malli had tried to get me to meet her at the local eatery for dinner but I declined.  She was pretty but it was getting near dusk and I wanted to get back to the terminal room.

As I left the shop I started to make my way back to the alley.  I was definitely being followed by two men.  Not panicking I walked toward the entrance to the alley.  As the men were about 20 meters behind me I was able to turn in and sprint to the shimmering door and disappear before they could get to me. 

I pulled my gun and turned ready to fire but after 20 minutes relaxed.  They were not coming through which I had known but had played it safe.   I compared my iphone time to the ipad on my bed and after a few minutes found they were still synched so time passed the same in both worlds. To answer another question in my head I went to the terminal and found I had to give someone access to my terminal room by giving them a mark.  The mark was basically a special paper that transferred a tattoo that cost 1000 credits.  I could also design the tattoo as well. 

Feeling better I went to the mission icon on the screen.

Explore 15% of Arywyn City, Reward 100 Credits, +1 Skill Points

Completed, 64% of Arywyn City Explored, 30% bonus, 130 Credits, 1 Skill Point Awarded, +1 to Persuasion Skill

I was happy with the bonus credits and advancing Persuasion to Beginner-1.  It was a successful first foray.  On my balance sheet I noticed the credits were listed in a different column.  So I had 32 credits and 130 credits. It took a while to figure out there were two types of credits, Basic Credits and System Credits.  System Credits could only be earned by completing missions and could be used to purchase certain items in the store such as to advance stats beyond 100.

I started looking at the available missions.  There were now 27.  Most were travel quests to other cities.  There were five in the city of Arywyn.  The first was to sell five items in any Arywyn shop for 250 system credits reward, I accepted this quest.  The second was to assassinate the city’s Duke, pass on that.  The next was to explore around the outside of the city, reward depending on amount explored, I accepted.  Before I could read the next mission I found the rest of the quests grayed out.  Apparently my quest limit was two, good to know.

Sell 5 items in the city of Arywyn City, Reward 250 Credits

Explore lands outside of Arywyn City, Reward varies

I got out my backpacking and camping gear and cooking set and made some ramen with tuna then went to sleep.

I woke refreshed and took a shower in the alcove.  I could set the amount of water, temp and pressure, it was amazing.  I left the terminal room and went to my world, leaving the storage garage.  I headed to the Dollar Store to find something to sell in Arywyn.  After going up and down the aisles I settled on the imitation perfumes.  I bought 30 bottles for just a dollar each.  I also bought a bunch of socks.  In the parking lot I moved the bottles to the socks, not wanting the box packaging with writing to hamper me in Arywyn.  The bottles should be super fancy and the spray function should be a pleaser as well.  As a backup plan I purchased two bags of apples at a road side stand on the way back to my storage unit.

I repacked my backpack with the apples and perfume and put back on my clothes from the terminal.  I sat at the terminal screen for a few minutes tempted to buy a skill increase but held myself back.  I put a bunch more items in the recycler till I got 90 more credits then using 120 points I bought a new skill at Neophyte-2, Martial Combat.  I choose it because I wanted a base form of weaponless combat.  The knowledge filled my head and I gained some confidence.  I had never been a fighter, hell I had never been in a real fight in my life.  But being followed by those two guys yesterday had spooked me, maybe I should have taken a running or stealth skill?

In the alley in Arywyn I waited for a good twenty minutes scanning the street before heading out.  I was much more aware and gawking less this trip.  I made my way to the clothier shop.  Malli was there and smiled on seeing me.  We started talking and a half day had passed, so time had passed normally while I was gone.  I gave Malli one of the perfumes and she was over the moon with the gift.  I gave her an apple too, more to see if they were available here as well.  I learned they were but the local variety was smaller and more bitter.  This was great news.  I asked her where the best place in the city would be to sell my perfumes.  She said either to the jeweler or the general goods store.  The jeweler would be better as the owner, Grinshot, carried other luxury goods.  I decided to head there.

Grinshot was an old man, in his seventies at least.  When I brought out the perfume he was interested.  I had seven different fragrances in the remaining 29 bottles.  I told him I was a solo merchant that had traveled far and wide to sell my goods.  This was a mistake as Grinshot said I could get a much higher price for these gorgeous looking and smelling goods in a large city.  Even with my miscue we turned to bartering.  He was currently selling bottles of high end perfume for 1 to 2 gold coins.  After about twenty minutes we agreed on the price of 1 gold, 6 silver, 10 copper for each bottle.  It was 100 copper coins to a silver and 10 silver to a gold.  All the coins were about the size of a nickel.  I was given 40 gold, 64 silver, and 90 copper coins.

I now had a small fortune in either world.  My best guess is the 40 gold coins were about 6 ounces of gold total.  They were minted with the face of the king on one side and his crest on the other.  I decided to try and sell my apples as well.  After eating one of the apples Grinshot was sincerely interested.  After a short discussion I managed to get another gold and two silver out of him for all the remaining apples.  New tasty things to eat were a novelty in the city and Grinshot wasn’t shy in saying that he could double or triple his investment.  Grinshot then got a bottle of alcohol out and glasses we toasted and drank.  It tasted like Amaretto.  I asked him how much a bottle of this drink cost.  Most distillations were about 8 silver but this one was a bit finer and from a renowned brewer/distiller, he had bought it from a merchant for 3 gold.  I thanked him for the business and he said to come back next time I was in the city. 

Rather than explore outside the city I returned to the alley and back to the terminal room.

Sell 5 items in the city of Arywyn City, Reward 250 Credits

Completed, 46 items sold, 100% bonus, Reward 500 Credits, Mercantile Skill at Neophyte-1 added

I panicked for a second but was relieved that the mercantile skill didn’t reduce my new skill purchase ceiling.  I then went to see how many credits I could get for a gold coin.  One coin returned 50 credits in the recycler.  A silver coin returned 5 credits.  I was fairly disappointed.  Gold was about 40 times more valuable in my world so I could always exchange gold for silver for a 400% profit.   I dropped 50 silver in the dumpster to get 250 credits and lighten my pockets.  I went out to eat and checked my real world finance on my phone.  I had $4,268.59 in my checking and $245.34 in my debit card account.  After having my debit card stolen a few years back I kept the accounts separate.  My bills were $179.99 a month for the storage unit, a $2,120.56 credit card bill, $389.56 per month car payment with insurance and $72.24 a month phone bill.  I had two 401k plans with about $90k combined but I just ignored that for now. 

I returned to the storage unit.  I went into the system catalog and found the iphone-like device.  I found a more powerful unit that was a bit larger and its description said it had a micro AI and could connect to regional comm networks and work as a personal assistant.  The device cost 800 credits.  I decided to drop 16 gold coins in the recycler to buy it.  It materialized in the center on the room and after a few seconds.  The AI copied all the info from my phone, assumed the cell number and cancelled my cell phone contract.  The device was powerful and seamlessly connected to the internet in my world while I was in the terminal room.  Unfortunately when I went to Arywyn I didn’t have a connection to the terminal room.  I guessed the reason was the connection to my world was similar to a two way gate.  But when I travelled through the portal to Arywyn it was a one way gate.  The AI cloned the info on my phone to my terminal computer so it could function in my world while I was exploring the other realm.  It would resynch every time I returned.  The phone itself looked like a clear piece of glass when not active.

I found in the catalog I could buy a new anchor point in the realm for 500 System credits.    Each successive anchor point for a realm doubled the cost.  So 1000, 2000, 4000, 8000, 16000 ect…  Once an anchor point was laid it couldn’t be moved as far as I could find.  I decided to buy an anchor point, a silver door knob handle materialized.  I found it didn’t require a door to activate.  Since only I could see and use the portal I could place it anywhere.  It had to be used in the realm so I would have to travel to a new location by foot.  I wondered how I would travel to other planets and see the higher tech planets.  A new realm door cost an even 100,000 System credits so that option was out for now!  I found a new list in the my personal folder as well.  With System credits I could buy body mods and even reverse aging at the low cost of 100 system credits per year!  I was basically immortal if I could complete quests. 

I went into missions and searched out a mission to travel to the capital city of Caldonia, Stormheart.  I didn’t know how far that was but the reward was a 1250 credits. 

Travel to the Capital City of Caldonia (Stormheart), Reward 1250 Credits

I decided to make some more preparations in the real world.  I drove to an antique store in DC, that advertised as buying rare coins online.  It was a 4 hour drive but the phone AI had filtered it as my best selling option for my remaining 24 gold coins without leaving a digital trail.  I parked two blocks away and wore sunglasses in the shop when I got there.  The owner spent about an hour examining the coins, confirming their gold content  and asked a few questions which I just said I found them in my grandfathers basement.  Eventually he offered me $10,000 cash for all the coins.  I was shocked as it was more than twice what I had hoped.  I accepted and left quickly.   

I went to BoA and opened a new account depositing $3,000 into a new account and setting up the account on my phone.  I gave the AI access to play the stock market with information it gathered from the internet, limiting the AI to just two trades a day so as to not draw attention.  The bank that held my credit card had an office in walking distance so I went there and was able to pay cash to zero out the card.  That felt liberating.   I was fairly certain no one was following me but I walked around city for an hour.  I then got a cashiers check using cash for $4896.48 and drove home to the Toyota dealership which held my car, buying the car and ending my last 20 high interest payments.  Now I just had the storage unit $179.99 and $92.46 car insurance monthly payments.  Living in southern Virginia was nice but I needed a better access point than a storage unit. 

Eating a late lunch at Red Robin I was talking to my phone while doing a search for a new place.  The AI found state and bank auction sites.  I set the AI to monitor them, I was looking for a remote place, maybe an old farm or cabin in mountains that was less than an hour from a city.  I had always wanted to have a small farm.  I narrowed my search to North Carolina and Southern Virginia.  I set my initial goal to raise $100,000.  The teen couple on the table next to me asked me about my phone and I just said it was a prototype for new company.  

I had no cash left after gas and meals from my road trip but it was worth it.  I bought 90 bottles of perfume from 4 different Dollar Stores and returned to the storage unit and the terminal room.  I knew I could use the AI to hack banks and get me money but stealing was not how I was raised.  The AI had already increased the $3000 to $3600 in just eight hours after two trades.   

In the terminal room I got my large backpacking pack packed with my normal trail gear.  I packed 10 bottles of perfume to sell on the way.  I was planning to use my new anchor point in Stormheart to retrieve the rest in the terminal room to sell in the city.   I had 307 Basic Credits and 130 System Credits.  I raised Short Blades to beginner-1 for 100 credits.  I raised Martial Combat to Neophyte 4 for 70 credits.  My last increase was Mercantile to Neophyte-4 for 110 credits.  I then reviewed my skills. 

Skills (7), 1 Skill Point Available

Ballistic Firearms: Hang Gun                     Beginner-1

Dodge                                                          Beginner-1

Short Blades                                               Beginner-1

Persuasion                                                  Beginner-1

Martial Combat                                          Neophyte-4

Mercantile                                                  Neophyte-4

Abilities/Traits (3)

Improved Self-Healing                               Beginner-1

Ice Bolt                                                        Neophyte-5

Languages

Language: English                                      Skilled-7

Language: Spanish                                     Neophyte-4

Language: Caldonian                                 Beginner-3

It was good to know four years of high school Spanish showed up on my skills.  I was greener than green but my plan was to bee line for the capital and set up an exchange there to generate wealth and credits.  I ended up making a trip to Wal Mart to buy 200 rounds of .45 ammo as the gun was my ace in this world.  When I got back I slept for a few hours.

Entering the alley with my large backpack I headed to see Grinshot.  He would have more worldly knowledge than Malli. 

He was thrilled to see me.  He had sold out of the apples and just had 5 bottles of perfume left.  We bargained for 10 minutes and he got 10 bottles I had with me for 20 gold even and agreed to buy more at 2 gold each in the future.  The city had about five thousand people and about 150 wealthy women and men.  So he figured he could sell 50 bottles every month or so.  After business I asked about Stormheart.  It was 15 day walk north on the main road.  There were many towns and two small cities the size of Arywyn along the way.  If I had a horse I could make it in just 5 days.  I inquired and a horse cost 5 gold for a nag according to Grinshot.  But I didn’t know how to ride or take care of it.  I still had to walk around the city of Arywyn for my other mission as well.  I thanked Grinshot and left.

Outside the city I circled the wall once and my feet already hurt.  Hiking was a hobby and I knew my feet would harden in a week.  My second circle had just started about a kilometer from the wall when two men approached.  I recognized them.  The two men I ran from a few days ago.  One guy, the leader, said I could leave my coins and gear and live or they could kill me and they could just take it.  I pulled the Glock and shot 5 times at the speaker, hitting 4 times at 10 meters.  His partner was shocked by the noise and turned to run.  I fired all 8 remaining shots and he fell.  I couldn’t believe my firm intent in killing someone. 

I changed the clip and walked hastily away.  I wasn’t far from the city and surrounding farms.  I didn’t know the law either, best to move away and plead ignorance if questioned. 

I got to the north road and slowed down.  It was close to noon and it was cool weather.  I stopped worrying after two hours and just passed a single farmer headed into town.  At sunset I stopped, moved off the road and set up my tent behind some bushes in the trees.  I made some mac and cheese with my camp stove with diced spam.  I slept well and wasn’t disturbed.

I got up early and ate granola bars and Gatorade while I walked.  A rider came up behind me mid morning but he didn’t stop and rode past.  My sore back and feet made me wish I had taken a chance on a horse.  I pulled out my phone and had it play some music.  The sound was really good, better than a Bose stereo.  I entered a small town late in the day and paid two silver for a room and meal.  Even better I found a merchant wagon heading north in the main dining room.  The merchant would let me ride to the city for 50 copper and conversation.  He also had a young guard riding along side.

The merchant, Drydan, bought wool and flax and brought it to the city to be processed.  He returned with conscripted goods.  The guard, Adam, was an academy graduate who spent six years in military service.  He had a young wife and child now.  At night we camped and they were impressed with my stove.  The titanium pot threw them as well, they thought it was mithiril.  I ate my dinner, mac n cheese, but passed each of them a snickers bar after I finished.  They were in heaven.  My tent and gear made them think I was some wealthy noble in disguise from a mysterious kingdom. 

At night we heard some large animals outside but nothing bothered our tiny camp.  The next day Drydan offered me two gold for my tent.  He wasn’t rich but a waterproof highly portable shelter would be a godsend for him.  I said 5 gold to discourage him and he agreed instantly.  Damn.  I didn’t want to go back on my word so I pulled out the tent.  At least it was 2 kilograms off my back.  At midday we reached the city they were dropping me at.  It was not as clean as Arywyn.  Not wanting to sleep under the stars I got a room for 2 silver and paid 15 copper for dinner and an early breakfast.

I ate breakfast before sunrise and planned to double time it to the next town.  I must have done 40k easy that day.  It rained briefly but I weathered it fine.  Although I was beat I was happy to get a room in the tiny town.  My body was recovering faster and 40-45k was not too bad for me.  It took a total of 13 days to reach the capital beating Grinshot’s estimate of 15.  Stormheart was on the coast and covered a dozen square kilometers.  It had over 500,000 inhabits according to Drydan.  At the gate I was briefly questioned before being let in.  The buildings were 2-4 stories tall, much taller than the 1-2 story buildings I had seen so far.  I looked for the best place to set my second anchor portal. 

I asked around and found a moderate priced inn, The Wandering Soldier, and got a room for 3 silver with all meals included.  I ate a hearty stew for dinner then walked around the inn and set my anchor in a small alcove behind the stables attached to the inn’s main building.  I slipped back to my terminal room and immediately took a shower.

Refreshed I sat at the screen.

Travel to the Capital City of Caldonia (Stormheart), Reward 1250 Credits

Completed, Reward 1250 Credits

Explore lands outside of Arywyn City, Reward varies

Completed, Reward 250 Credits

Nice.  I bought another anchor point for 1000 credits.  I figured having one on hand could be my get out of trouble card.  I looked over my stats, my stamina had increased from 52 to 54.  No other stats changed.  The only skill that advanced was Mercantile to Neophyte-5.  I pulled together my remaining 80 bottles and put on a smaller backpack with the goods.

My phone beeped and I found seventeen voice messages on my phone.  Three were from my boss, the last one firing me.  No problem.  One message from my friend, Jack, asking to go fishing.  I texted him saying I was going on a road trip cross country.  The remaining messages were from my two sisters.  We usually talked once a month at most.  I texted them saying I quit my job and was going camping for a few weeks.  I texted my parents with the same message.  That taken care of I donned the backpack.

I returned to the capital.  The door had two nodes on the side.  By pressing the corresponding node I could chose the destination.  In the city I talked to the innkeeper, Samuel, a retired soldier.  He gave me leads on two vendors for exotic perfumes.  The first shop offered 1 gold for each bottle and wouldn’t budge.  I managed to get the second vendor, Amilia, to my target price of just over 2 gold.  174 gold coins earned.  I immediately returned to the stable and onto the terminal room. 

I dropped 150 gold coins for recycling, getting me 7500 credits.  I settled down to the seat in front of the computer.   The first thing I did was spend 600 System Credits to reduce my age from 43 to 37.  My body racked in pain for a few minutes then I felt better, really better.  My next purchase was spending 1500 credits on a room expansion in the terminal, a luxury bathroom with a large shower and hot tub.  I was able to customize the floor to white marble and walls to sandstone.  I had always had wanted a mansion, for now I would settle for just the bathroom.  I added another room, a kitchen.  It wasn’t as fancy as the bathroom for just 1000 credits.  It was large at 6 meters by 10 meters and would be the pride of any large Italian family.  I filled the refrigerator with drinks and sat at the kitchen counter on a stool with the system laptop.  It was time for personal upgrades.  Firearms: Handguns, Short Blades and Dodge up to Beginner 5 for 1400 credits each.  I upgraded Ice Bolt to Beginner-2 for 300 credits.  My last purchase was a training robot for 500 credits, the first training bot was just 500 but the price jumped to 5000 if I wanted another.  I selected Dodge, Martial Combat, Short Blades, Long Blades and Instructor skills at Skilled-1.  All applicable stats were set to 50.  The robot could also be upgraded later on.  When it materialized it looked like a bald mannequin and I designated the robot as Bruce.  I decided to try Martial Combat first.  The robot explained and demonstrated actions and then made me practice, correcting me continuously, then we fought and I repeatedly got my ass kicked. 

Four hours later I showered under the hot jets in my new shower.  It was glorious.  Later I was lying in bed with my phone in my hand.  The AI had increased my BoA funds to $15k playing the stock market!  He was doubling the funds every 6 days or so on just two trades a day.  I checked the compiled searches for properties.  There was a 30 acre of undeveloped land in North Carolina that was projected to sell for $100k but it was down a 10 mile dirt logging road.  A 339 acre dairy farm was also available in Virginia for $350k but it had been unoccupied for 4 years and the buildings were falling apart.  It was higher than my original limit but was rated as the best value by the AI, about $1,000 per acre.  Much of the land was rocky and not good for crops.  The location was perfect though, 15 minutes from Interstate 81 from which I could reach a large population either north or south on the highway.  I told the AI to track the property and if we reached 350k in funds I might buy it.  I looked and found a humanoid labor bot that could leave the terminal room cost 8000 credits and came with three basic skills at Apprentice-1.  The same bot only cost 800 credits if it was restricted to the terminal room.  It had something to do with how the skills and power were supplied directly to the bot from the system.  I bought a maid bot with Cooking, Housekeeping and Gardening at Apprentice-1 for 800 credits after I exchanged 16 gold coins.  I designated the maid as Betty and I set it to work cleaning up the space.

After a 12 hour nap I woke rested.  I couldn’t believe how long and how well I had slept.  First order of business would be selecting two new missions.  I decided on two missions near Arywyn, Stormheart was overwhelming and I wanted to improve my skills.

Visit Three Caldonian Frontier Forts, 1500 Experience, +1 Mission Slot

Bring Two Hundred Kilograms of Flour to Fort Blackstone, 1250 Experience, 10 Caldonian Gold Coins, +1 Mercantile Skill

I was 90% certain Blackstone was one of three forts Arywyn supplied. 

I decided I needed a new skill or ability.  After 40 minutes of searching I bought Fire Bolt Neophyte-1 for 100 credits after exchanging two gold coins.  Testing the spell it was the size of a golf ball and burned for 3 seconds after impact.  The only bad thing was it didn’t fly very fast at the target. 

I went to three Wal Marts to get the flour, 300 kilograms, and also loaded the RAV4 with groceries and a replacement tent.  I added 68 bottles of perfume and 145 pairing knives, 200 pairs underwear, 45 glass bottles of retro Coke from the Dollar Stores I hit as well.  I was hoping to sell the goods to soldiers at the forts.  I now needed to get information and buy a cart.  I entered the gate to Arywyn.

It was dark out.  I had figured out that sunrise to sunrise this world’s day length was about 23 hours and 40 minutes.  So the day night cycle didn’t quite synch up.  I went back to the terminal and practiced martial combat with Bruce, took a shower and napped. 

Returning to Arywym it was mid-morning and I was able to sych my phone with both day night cycles for the worlds.  I discreetly went to see Malli.  My goal was to find out if I was in trouble or a suspect in the two thieves deaths.  Malli was happy to see me and after some gossip I learned the thieves were found but they were thought killed by a magi they tried to rob.  Happy with the news I inquired about the forts.  They were Blackstone, Bascom’s Shield and Oak Point.  A fourth fort was currently being built.  Blackstone constantly experienced raids from forest goblins.  The other two were fairly quiet.  Companies of 60 soldiers constantly travelled through Arywym, soldiers going to and from the forts.  I thanked Malli again and passed her a box of chocolates I had brought.

I proceeded to Grinshot’s shop.  I told him I was back from the capital and I needed a cart and horse to bring some goods to one of the forts.  When I told him Blackstone he suggested I hire some guards as well.  Merchants rarely travelled there because goblins attacked travelers.  I was looking at around 8 gold for a used wagon and a nag to pull it.  Grinshot said he had a friend who would take care of getting everything ready.  He suggested four guards at 4 silver each per week.  It was six days walk to Blackstone.  If I added in visits to the other two forts I was looking at a 3 week journey.  I decided on 5 guards at 2 gold each for the expected three weeks.  I was thinking the 50% higher pay should get me the better guards available.  Instead of giving Grinshot gold I passed him 10 bottles of perfume with a grin.  He gave me 10 gold back saying I should pay the mercenary guards myself.  If I came back to his shop tomorrow at an hour after sunrise everything thing should be set.  I thanked him and gave him a Hersey’s milk chocolate bar.  I asked him to sample it and let me know if he wanted to buy some from me tomorrow.

I returned to the terminal and did some short blade practice with Bruce before showering, eating and sleeping.  I now had my phone’s AI synched with both worlds so it set an alarm off two hours before I needed to return to the shop.  I took a trip to Home Depot and bought 20 black plastic totes with yellow lids.  Back at the terminal room I packed the flour and goods in the totes and moved the bins close to the portal.  I ended only needing 16 tote bins.  I ended up arriving almost an hour late to the shop.  There was a decent sized wagon outside with a pair of horses tied to it.

Entering Grinshot’s shop I found Grinshot, six men and one women talking and laughing.  Five of the men and the woman were dressed in leather armor, had swords and looked fit.  The other man was Grinshot’s friend, Harry.  He introduced the mercenary guards, Caleb and his wife Beatrice, Calab’s two brothers who were twins, Ansom and Ansel, and Caleb’s army buddies Fanz and Currant.  The six men would cost me 10 gold for the three weeks, in my head an extra body was good.  Harry had gotten the cart and two horses for 10 gold.  A widow was unloading them and the horses had a few years left of good use.  I thanked Harry with 5 silver coins.  Grinshot asked about the chocolate.  He was willing to buy each bar at 3 silvers.  I had brought 10 bars with me so got three gold from him.  After talking and getting to know the group for an hour we left the shop.  I paid them the full 10 gold in advance.  Three of them went to get their gear and crossbows.

After some minor struggles I managed to get the wagon to mouth of the alley.  I went and moved the totes and my camping gear to the alley.  I then carried the totes and gear to the wagon while the mercs guarded the alley entrance.  If it was strange for someone to pull a bunch of foreign looking totes out of a random alley no one said anything.  We moved to the south gate and the rest of the guards met us with six large backpacks of their gear and four crossbows. 

Caleb asked if they could have a few minutes to get some additional rations for the road.  Since they were paid in advance they could get some higher quality foodstuffs for cheaper.   The forts didn’t usually sell food and if they did it was expensive.  I said no problem and gave them 2 gold coins to get me grain for the horses as well for the three week trek.  Caleb said that would only cost a single silver coin.  I frowned and said to use the rest of the money was for their food like that was my intention all along.  An hour later they came with a bunch of packages that were stored in the 4 empty totes.  When they started loading and slinging their heavy packs on their back I said to put them in the wagon.  Caleb said that was not normal procedure but it didn’t take me long to convince him. 

Fortunately Fanz was a horseman and showed me how to care for the horses as we made camp the first night.  The camp was cheery and the group worked well setting up a fire and getting two rabbits with their crossbows.  We had rabbit stew, bread and soft herb cheese.  I set my tent in the wagon and the group set their tents around it.  They were going to do watches in groups of 3.  Each triad doing half the night.

The trip was actually enjoyable.  The mercs had tons of stories and were happy to have someone who hadn’t heard them yet.  We had a mix of rations, forage and fresh game.  They even spent some time teaching me to spar with a sword in the evening.

When the fort came into sight over a rise we were met with a field of goblins.  We turned around but a detachment of goblins noticed and came at us.  Caleb estimated 40 goblins at about 2 kilometers.  We had maybe 10 minutes.  Caleb said I should run and they would delay them.  If I got far enough away he said they wouldn’t chase me.  I scrapped that idea, had them surround the wagon, anchored the horses so they wouldn’t flee and got on the wagon.  The goblins were coming straight on.  My guards fired their four crossbows at 50 yards, felling three goblins.  Rather than reload the heavy device they got in a line.  The goblins had stubby legs and were not overly fast even at a run.  I started firing my Glock when the goblins got to 30 yards.  They were a bit strung out and I hit 7 goblins with my first 13 shots.  Each hit downed a goblin as they were not tough opponents and they slowed at the noise of the first gun shots.  As two goblins got to our line I reloaded and starting firing at the middle of the pack.  I only hit 5 goblins this time with the clip unloaded and was more shocked at how calm I was.  The mercs were holding 8 goblins back with 9 more coming.  I was down to my final clip.  The melee goblins were only 6 meters away and I had height over them.  With my last clip I started aiming and firing in a rhythm.  I only missed once before the gun clicked empty.  There was just 3 goblins standing and I fired ice bolt twice to help out the mercs.  Caleb had two guys run out to end the injured goblins.  I sat down and was busy reloading my clips. 

Caleb was just staring at me now.  He wanted to ask me about the gun which he probably assumed was magical.  I finished loading two clips when Fanz came jogging back and said another 20 plus goblins were coming.  This time Caleb had Ansom and Ansel in the wagon with me using the crossbows.  The goblins crested the rise and rushed us as a mass.  I started firing at the mass at 50 meters this time as it was hard to miss.  I unloaded both clips by the time they reached us, just 10 goblins still standing between the crossbows and my Glock.  I switched to ice bolt but it probably wasn’t needed.  Before they could flank us two more goblins collapsed  to quarrels.  The remaining 8 turned to flee, 3 fell to bolts and one to my ice bolt.  The other 4 got over the hill.  Fanz made sure the goblins were dead and scouted again.  It was 20 minutes before he returned. 

Fanz said all the goblins were retreating to the Great Woods.  They probably thought we were reinforcements for the fort.   The tree line was 2km from the fort so once they disappeared in the woods we could race to the fort and they shouldn’t be able to reach us.  Ten minutes later we made best speed to the fort.

We were welcomed with cheers from the 250 residents of the fort.  The commander invited us to dine with him, we accepted.  At dinner we learned the goblin tribes had merged and about 800 goblins had sieged the fort. They just surrounded it and had prevented a message from getting out.  A troop rotation was due in 10 days but supplies were thin due to lack of foraging and the fact the goblins had hit a supply wagon a few days ago and killed the six soldiers escorting it.  The quarter master at the table gave me a purse of some 30 silver.  Apparently there was a 50 copper bounty on goblins.   We quickly negotiated 6 gold for all my flour.  Unfortunately my plan to sell other goods to the soldiers wasn’t a good one. Most were poor farm boys recently out of training and earning 20 copper a week.  I did sell 30 pairs of underwear to the 10 command staff at the table for 2 silver each and sold all of my Coke, after losing two bottles to sampling, for 5 silver each.  The commander bought the majority of the Coke so either he had a sweet tooth or it was his way of thanking me.  It was midnight when I finally crashed in a spare room at the fort. 

The next morning I woke late and peddled the underwear and pairing knives.  I was selling both at 2 silver each.  I only sold 6 knives and 12 pairs of underwear.  The majority of the men were just poor soldiers for the most part.  Worried about an attack from the goblins we waited 8 days when 120 reinforcements came with a caravan of supplies.   I managed to get the extra eight days added to the merc contract for 12 pairs of underwear and 6 pairing knives.  We raced to the other two forts and back to Arywyn in just 10 days.  I sold out of the underwear but still had 46 knives.  The other safer forts had a mix of wealthier enlisted men which helped with sales. 

Back in Arywyn I thanked the merc squad and went and sold my horses and cart, taking 10 gold on the spot, breaking even.  I unloaded the knives on Grinshot for 1 silver each.  He even bought the plastic bins for 2 silver each.  I now had 103 gold, 211 silver, and 25 copper and three longswords I purchased on the trip.  I happily returned to the terminal room to complete the quests.

Visit Three Caldonian Frontier Forts, 1500 Experience, +1 Mission Slot

Completed, Reward 1500 Experience, Mission Cap Increased to 3

Bring Two Hundred Kilograms of Flour to Fort Blackstone, 1250 Experience, 10 Caldonian Gold Coins, +1 Mercantile Skill

Completed, 30% Reward Bonus, 1625 Experience, 13 Caldorian Gold Coins, +1 Mercantile Skill

I looked over my skills.

Skills (7), 1 Skill Point Available

Ballistic Firearms: Hang Gun                             Beginner-7

Dodge                                                                    Beginner-5

Short Blades                                                         Beginner-5

Persuasion                                                            Beginner-2

Martial Combat                                                    Neophyte-4

Mercantile                                                             Beginner-2

Long Blades                                                           Neophyte-2

Teamster Wagoner                                             Neophyte-3

Abilities/Traits (2)

Improved Self-Healing                                        Beginner-1

Ice Bolt                                                                   Beginner-2

Fire Bolt                                                                 Neophyte-1

Languages

Language: English                                                Skilled-7

Language: Spanish                                               Neophyte-4

Language: Caldonian                                           Beginner-9

I earned +2 to handguns.  I also had new skills, teamster and long blades!  The twenty or so sword practice sessions and weeks driving the wagon paid off.  My grasp of the language also improved a lot.  I checked my phone and spent ten minutes sending text messages to family having been gone for three weeks.  I called mom and talked for an hour getting caught up.  She wanted to know where I was living and I told her I should be back from hiking in a few weeks and would figure it out then.  She offered to send me money but told her I was doing fine.  Checking the BoA account while talking to mom it had 88k in it!  I fist pumped and finished the call.  I had the AI take control of my 401k moving it to a self-managed fund.  And I decided to give the phone AI a name, Herb.  I checked on the properties, the north Carolina one had sold.  The old dairy farm had dropped to 340k with a note the existing well needed to be redug.  I decided to drive over and take a look at it after I got settled in.  I converted 100 gold coins to credits.  Before going further any further I took a shower.

After an hour in the shower, it was how long it took to get the stench and dirt off, I settled in at the counter eating eggs and toast prepared by Betty.  I got a washer and dryer installed in the kitchen and washed my clothes.  I had 5027 Basic credits and 3155 System credits.  I used 700 System credits to reduce my physical age by 7 years.  All my gray hair was now gone and I felt awesome physically, emotionally and mentally.    My next upgrade was getting Healing Hands at Beginner-1 for 340 basic credits.  We had only suffered a few scratches in the battle with goblins but I wanted to be able to heal in the future.  I then upgraded Aether from 7 to 15 for 920 basic credits.  I upgraded channeling to 10 for 400 credits next.  My body was tingly and my head light.  I felt super drunk and it took a few minutes to return to normal.  The knowledge of the healing spell told me that when I touched a person I would learn, based on the injury how much Aether was needed to heal their injury.  I upgraded Martial Combat to Beginner-1 for 150 credits next and vomited.  Apparently these personal upgrades needed time to acclimatize.  I waited 20 minutes till my next upgrade, Charisma to 54 for 1070 points.  I felt just a little off after the upgrade.  I choose Charisma because it was my current path to wealth via mercantile.  After 30 minutes I raised agility to 43, adding 4 points for 1680 points.  It increased my fine motor control which would help with fire arms aiming.  My last upgrade with basic credits was to increase Long Blades to Beginner-1 for 220 credits.

Although my body felt like I had just done an hour workout from the upgrades I was really excited.  This was my chance to live a better life.  I banked my remaining system credits for now, 2455.  I napped for a few hours.

I planned my car road trip next, 3 hourish not including all the stops at dollar stores for perfume, to check the Virginia farm out.  I left the storage unit, disconnecting the connection to the terminal room.  Just the free standing door was left in the unit.  I was 90% certain I wouldn’t be back. 

When I stopped for lunch at a dinner the waitress was definitely hitting on me.  She even wrote her phone number on the receipt!  I got to the farm 30 minutes after I left the dinner.  It was in rough shape, nothing could be salvaged.  Two barns, a house, a garage, one silo, and a bunch of rusted farm equipment.  A guy drove up while I was walking the property.  He was in his seventies and told me the farms story.  It was sold off over the years piecemeal to pay the bills until the farmer, Jon Wilde died at 88 four years ago, no surviving kin.  The bank now owned it but the land was only good for a small cattle or milk cow herd.  Nearest neighbor was 2 miles down the road.  It was mostly perfect for my plans.  I asked him about building permits for a house and building inspectors and such.  The good news was I just had to file the building plans with the county, no inspectors.  Because there was no power out here they qualified as homesteads.  I drove around.  There was a town center a few miles north with a hardware store, church, dinner and post office.  All looked in rough shape when I drove by.  Asking around I learned the town’s population was just under a 100, 500 for the county.  The town paid the county to the north for fire and police coverage.  I drove out to interstate 81 and got to a motel.  I used the bathroom to access the terminal room and learned I didn’t really need a door to enter.

Using the system credits I bought two wall displays.  They were 5 meters wide and covered floor to ceiling.  The first wall I used for my personal info and to add notes for future development.  The other wall was for my real world plans.  I needed 340k cash to buy the farm.  Another 40k to build a three car garage with a large apartment over it.  Another 40k for a truck.  I upgraded Herb’s AI twice with some more credits.  The first upgrade was for processing, the second was a 20 meter sensor.  Then I connected him to the wall units.  He put up maps of the property and together we very quickly designed the massive garage with a one bedroom apartment style unit over it.  The garage was further back on the property from the road.  I added a future main house location, two barns, one barn for horses and the other for farm equipment.  I laid out pastures and more using Hal for best efficiency.   There was a 50 acre plot of farm land south of the property that was being used for crops and a 23 acre farmland north currently being held by a different bank, asking price was 200k as it was close to town center and had been removed of rocks.  The Appalachian mountains were west and owned by state forestry.   I didn’t explore the other side of the road as I had enough on my plate.

I was down to 755 credits.  I stopped there for now.  I decided to accept some missions next. 

Rescue Vivian from magistrate Cooroff’s manor in Stormheart, Reward 1500 Credits, +1 Aether Stat

Visit 50 Shops in Stormheart, Reward 1000 Credits

Join the Merchant’s Guild in Stormheart, Reward 500 Credits

I took the first mission because of the free Aether stat point reward.  The other two were manageable in the city.  I got a backpack ready with 178 bottles of perfume ready and headed to Stormheart.

I made my way to the Amilia’s shop.  She was thrilled to see me as all the perfume she had purchased had sold.  I managed to get 400 gold from her for my 178 bottles as long as I promised her to only sell to her in the city.  Then I started visiting shops.  I spent money, getting nice clothes, snacks and beautiful hand crafted items.  I spent over 40 gold but didn’t care, shopping was therapeutic.  I learned the gossip about Constable Cooroff, where his manor was, his habits and how he wasn’t liked.  After I exhausted the rumor mill I stopped asking.  Later, Looking good in new clothes, I walked into the merchant guild hall.  Apparently it just took a few minutes of paperwork and 10 gold to become a member.  The benefits were not much, access to guild guards that were more expensive than the norm, the ability to buy insurance for trips, quicker access to city gates and small discounts at associated inns.  I took my silver card stamped with my name and left.  I sped up making sure to hit enough shops before dark.  I didn’t count but knew I had to be over 60 so I returned to the Wandering Soldier, slipped behind the stable and returned to the terminal room.

Visit 50 Shops in Stormheart, Reward 1000 Credits

Completed, 10% bonus, 1100 Credits Awarded

Join the Merchant’s Guild in Stormheart, Reward 500 Credits

Completed, 500 Credits Awarded

I converted 200 gold to 10000 credits then proceeded with some stat upgrades.  Using basic credits I increased my agility to 55 for 5940 credits.  The 12 point jump was painful and I passed out.  I ate when I woke.  Damn.  My goal was to max out my 100 point of available stat increases.  But I needed to only do 3 or 4 points at a time in the future. 

I went to the wall and looked at where I had planned to use my remaining stat upgrades.

Strength

68

Constitution

52

Stamina

53/55

Agility

55

Speed

42/50

Intellect

78/85

Aether

15/20

Channeling

10/15

Charisma

54/75

I knew magic would probably be more useful than other stats.  But charisma was my go to.  I increased charisma to 61 in 1 point increments.  That used up my basic credits, leaving just 187.  I held my 2355 system credits in reserve.

I then called and talked to my sisters.  It had been awhile.  My elder sister wanted me to take her kids for two weeks over the summer so she could go on a cruise.  Mom and Dad were apparently going on vacation that same week.  She said I could watch them at her house since I didn’t have a place.  I agreed and I had to be up there in three weeks. 

I added my financials to the farm wall.  $92,560.60 in BoA, $1,856.28 checking, $28.69 debit card, $97,872.09 in the retirement fund.  I had Herb go and register a financial firm call Portal Inc.  Then increased his daily trading limit to 6 through Portal Inc.  I emptied my checking to my debit card and added $2,560.60 from BoA.  Then seeded the Portal Inc company with the $187,872.09 remaining assets.  I would owe taxes eventually on the funds.  Herb noted my two payments for the rental and car insurance were tied to the checking account.  I had Herb cancel the rental unit and prepay the car insurance for one year in advance.  I then had Herb start the paperwork for buying the farm.  I planned to buy it in one week after Herb had doubled Portal Incs holdings.

I then spent my days in Stormheart doing quests waiting for the seven days to pass.

The first day I completed two quests and sold 500 chocolate bars to Amilia for 100 gold coins.  Amilia’s shop was packed with women and the new product was introduced.  I even got a chance to flirt for a bit with some wealthy women. 

Talk to 5 ship captain’s at Stormheart’s docks, Reward 500 credits

Completed, Reward 500 credits

Gamble at one of Stormheart’s Gambling dens, Reward 250 credits

Completed, Reward 250 credits

I learned a lot from the captain’s about the region and even bought a map from one.  It seemed the system was pushing me to explore so the map was useful.  I lost 8 gold in the gambling den before leaving.  I was never very good at dice games, especially when I couldn’t figure out the rules.  It had been a long day and was happy to have a shower and meal.  I ended up buying a small expansion for the terminal, a laundry room and dragged the washer and dryer from the kitchen there to contain the dirty clothes smell.  My clothes were ripe and Betty got to work on them. 

The chocolate gold was converted to credits.  That allowed me to raise Charisma to 75.  Now I learned that human stats were a bell curve with 50 being normal.  A score of 75 put me in the top 10% not the top 25%.  It made me rethink my stat distribution plan.

Strength

68/75

Constitution

52

Stamina

53

Agility

55

Speed

42/45

Intellect

78/90

Aether

15/18

Channeling

10

Charisma

75/77

Charisma, strength and intellect.  It took me till midnight to decide on this new plan. 

I spent the next day in the real world shopping and eating out.  I went back to the dinner with the waitress who had given me her phone number.  She was 30ish, tall, thin and somewhat attractive.  I asked her to join me for a beer that night.  I finished my shopping then met her.  Two hours later we were at her place, naked and having sex.  It was good physical sex.  She left for the breakfast shift at 6am.  I thanked her in the morning and went to my hotel. I brought in all my purchases and sat at the terminal.

I went to the physical icon.  Using system credits I increased my height to 188 cm (6’2”) adding 5cm.  Next I increased the size of my penis.  I wasn’t sure why, it was already a healthy 18cm, not porn star big for sure but the two hours of sex last night could have been better?  Well I just increased it to 23 cm.  Now the physical changes were painful to be sure but I looked fantastic.  I removed some birth marks on my skin, changed my eye color from dark brown the golden brown, eliminated all hair from the neck down permanently, reduced my body fat to 5% and lastly gave myself a perfect straight white smile.  All this cost me just 860 system credits.  Basic credits couldn’t be used for physical changes.

I probably wasn’t recognizable to my family or my acquaintances on the other side of the portal any longer.  I searched for new missions and selected two. 

 Fight and Win 5 matches in ‘The Pit’ in Stormheart, Reward 2500 credits, +1 strength, +1 stamina

Read two books in the Stormheart Library, Reward 500 credits, +1 intellect

The missions were selected mostly for the stat increases.  But I also knew the Pit was an underground fight club visited by the magistrate so I hoped I could get closer to finishing the rescue Vivian mission. I arrived early morning in Stormheart and went to the docks.  One of the captains I talked to had crew who fought in the Pit. I got an invitation to fight, the fighting started well after dark so I went to the library.  Membership cost me 25 silver coins.  But I talked to one of the curators and pulled out ream of printer paper.  The 500 sheets of fine white paper were a hit.  A normal sheet of parchment cost 1 silver so my ream of paper should be worth 50 gold.  Unfortunately it wasn’t as durable and half the size.  We agreed on 30 gold for the paper, then I pulled out 4 more reams of paper, 150 gold, easy money.  The curator gave me a library pass for life as well. 

The library was three stories and had maybe five thousand books.  I got help to get two geography books and paged through them.  Looking at the maps and notes.  Each only had 20 pages.  Next I started paging through mostly picture books, goblin ecology, dragon mythos, griffon mating habits, dangers of sea travel, and mystery of magic.  It was all interesting and I could read about 70% with my current grasp of the language,  apparently my knowledge is written as well as verbal.  Magic was apparently rare and magi were educated in certain schools, none were in Stormheart.  I decided to return to the terminal room.  On my way a young girl got clipped by a wagon wheel.  Her arm was broken and she was bleeding.  Without thinking I used my healing on her.  My ability let me know her ailments, two broken bones, torn ligaments, damaged muscle, a gash with minor bleeding, some malnutrition and a blood viral infection she was fighting off poorly.  It cost me 12 Aether and 24 seconds to cure everything.  The girl was coming out of her shock and ran off.  The waggoneer hadn’t stopped but two older women did notice me and I left the scene.  They didn’t follow me and I got to the portal and the terminal room.

I went and dropped 200 gold in the recycler.  It would be smart to upgrade a bit before the fighting tonight.  I got on some simple sweats with shorts underneath.  The matches were with no weapons.  So I just packed 2 gold and some towels in my backpack.  I went to the computer.

Read two books in the Stormheart Library, Reward 500 credits, +1 intellect

Completed, Bonus 30%, 650 credits, +1 intellect

No new skills unfortunately.  I passed on a new mission for now and went to upgrades.  I upgraded Martial Combat to Beginner-10 for 5400 credits.  Forgetting not to upgrade in big increments.  The download and muscle memory hurt for twenty minutes.  To upgrade to novice-1 cost 1000 credits, 2000 for novice-2, and I stopped there.  I increased speed from 42 to 45  using 1320 credits.  I then did some quick math, exchanged 3 gold coins and raised Aether to 18.  That was the best I could do without using my 2895 system credits.  I left my Glock behind reluctantly and just took my knife and returned to the city.

I went to the warehouse.  I was a bit early and went to an erected bar tossing a gold coin since I had nothing smaller but got drinks for the entire night.  Some of the other fighters were there.  The lead organizer showed up and I gave him my name.  he said I was the second fight of the night.  I asked when my second match was.  Apparently fighters usually only fought once a night.  After talking he said he would see if anyone else who won would want to fight twice. 

I mingled and an hour later the warehouse was crowded and the fights started.  The first pair did some bad boxing before one guy fell bloodied after a few minutes.  I pulled off my sweats laid them on my backpack and entered the pit.  My opponent was a head shorter than me but really well muscled.  Our fight started and I kept my distance while we circled then did a feint and swung around connecting with a round house kick to his head.  He wasn’t expecting it and it knocked him out.  The crowd of 200 or so was quiet then cheered my victory.  My purse was 12 silver.  I put on my sweats and waited to see if I would fight again sipping through two beers over an hour.  The promoter said he had another fight for me.  A regular fighter wanted a shot at me.  Thirty minutes later I was in the Pit again.  This opponent was fast.  When he came at me we had a good exchange, he hit me at least 5 times in the chest and once to my face.  I got him 3 times in the head and one kick to his knee.  His knee was messed up, taking away his movement advantage.  From there I controlled the clashes.  He waived conceit after three more engagements.  I walked stiffly out of the ring and said to the promoter I could go again.  I got 27 silver for the win.  At the bar I used my healing, draining half of my 10 available Aether to heal.  I let the blood dry, not cleaning it.  I healed a bruised kidney, one cracked rib, a mild concussion and numerous skin bruises.  It looked like this mission would take more than a few nights.  The bar keep did point out the constable for me so I now had eyes on him.  He was middle aged and looked evil.  I watched him bet and cheer on fighters when suddenly I was told I had another fight.

I stepped into the ring to a giant, a literal frigging giant.  It was two heads taller than me and definitely not human.  I could tell the betting was not in my favor.  The fight started and I tried to get behind the giant.  I failed, took a hammer fist to the head.  I tried for his leg, it was like iron, I took two more fists, one to my back and the other to my head.  I was dizzy as I got distance.  I really should have conceded but went in again and then blackness.  I woke on a bench with the warehouse empty.  My backpack and all my possessions were there.  I used healing and felt better even though I couldn’t heal all the injuries as Aether ran out.  The promoter came out of the shadows as I was moving slowly to the door.  He said I healed fast but I didn’t mention the magic.  He said in two days the fights would happen again.  He hoped I would fight and gave me the new address, it was the Constable’s mansion.  I accepted, the missions were possibly linked.  I wasn’t sure how the system missions worked but it was definitely pushing me in certain directions.

I walked toward the Wandering Soldier and was accosted by thieves.  Dam it.  I just gave them my coins not wanting to risk a fight.  At the stable I slipped behind and went home.  I went to the shower put on the hot water sat down and fell asleep.  At some point I woke, dried off and crawled to bed. 

I woke and it took just 2 aether to fully heal but I still had the fatigue.  I spent the day aimlessly walking down aisles at WalMart, buying food and items I hoped to sell.  I was feeling better after a massive lunch at Olive Garden.  I brought my purchases to the hotel then got them into the terminal room.  Betty put away the goods. 

I sat on the leather couch with the computer.  The only upgrade to all my stats and skills was healing hands advanced to beginner-2.  I needed to win 3 more fights.  I grabbed a backpack and filled it with paper reams and went to the library.  I was only able to get 240 gold for the 10 packages of paper.  The library didn’t have any more superfluous funds either.  Maybe in a few weeks the curator said they would have resold or raised more funds.

I went to see Amilia after a quick restock.  She did have a bit of trouble recognizing me at first.  I sold perfume and chocolate for 176 gold and 68 silver.  It was her entire funds on hand.  I returned to the terminal and noticed I was being followed.  God damn it.  They didn’t look like thieves.  I just slipped them and took a side alley to the stable slipping back to my terminal room.  After dropping the new gold in the recycler I had 20,907 credits. 

I got my strength to 75 one point at a time for 5040 credits.  I looked at myself in the mirror.  I was friggin cut.  I probably spent too much time admiring myself.  My charisma was raised to 77 for 1530 credits.  I just had my intellect to be raised by 12 points left to fill out my goals and finish using my 100 stat increases.   I hesitated for a second and resisted adding more physical stats.  I raised martial combat to novice-4 for 7000 credits.  The knowledge was impressive.  I then raised dodge from beginner-5 to novice-1 for 5000 credits.  I had a little over 2000 basic credits left.  I called Bruce over and started martial practice.

With Bruce I worked on combos.  He developed three combos that used my strengths.  I went through them for a few hours then practiced on Bruce.  I set up my stereo and played the Rocky soundtrack in the background, no I really did.  I slept and ate, practiced and worked.  Before I knew it Herb alarmed me saying it was time to go.  I didn’t take anything besides the dress clothes I was wearing and a rolled towel that had my shorts and sneakers in it.  I looked at my stats and skills on the wall.  Nothing increased in two days except my confidence.

It was dark when I portaled in.  As I came out to the street there was someone there on watch and he followed me.  Why couldn’t anything be easy?  I started to head toward the mansion staying in the street main ways.  My follower disappeared, or at least I couldn’t see him.  I sprinted for a bit to make sure he didn’t get the drop on me.  At the manor two armored guards and the promoter were there.  I got led in by another man they called over when I announced myself.  There were 16 men, well 15 men and 1 women.  There would be 5 rounds.  Once a winner was declared from the first 4 rounds that winner could challenge one of Constable Cooroff’s 3 champions.  Each round I won would get me 10 gold, and if I defeated a champion I would get an additional 200 gold.  We went down to the basement of the manor into a small arena.  There was maybe seventy nobles around the dirt circle that definitely had blood stains.  The Constable was seated with four scantily clad women, how cliché.  I assumed one of them was Vivian.  The 3 champions were seated behind Cooroff and one was the frigging giant that pummeled me.   That explained some things.

I was the 5th match and I watched the competitors intently in the first four matches ignoring the crowds betting and cheering.  My turn came against a young man in his 20s.  I used one of the combos I learned and took him down without even getting hit.  The woman had strawberry blonde hair and was in the next pair.  She won her match with a double groin strike.  She had quick feet and very fast jab.  The next round had me against a very tall and solid fighter.  He was tough in that he could take a lot of hits.  My hands hurt by the time he tapped out.  Sitting, I healed myself with 2 Aether as I was barely injured.  My next match was against the woman.  She would have been attractive if it wasn’t for the scars.  She had won both contests by going for the groin.  I took a side stance and moved constantly not letting her attack my balls.  She switched to my head and we had some exchanges.  I then used a combo getting her twice in the sternum and once in the kidney.  She was almost down and snapped.  Her charge allowed me two shots to the back of her head but she connected with her target, a jab to my crotch.  She was woozy and I had trouble standing.  I used my practiced combo and knocked her out but hobbled to my seat.  I had about 15 minutes to heal.  The bitch did manage to get some bleeding in a testicle.  I spent 3 aether healing and was at 95%.  The other pair was even and the winner was fairly beat up.  I fake hobbled back to the pit and easily beat him down without getting injured. 

I had won all four matches and was given a sack of 40 gold.  Now I had to challenge a champion.  The giant who kicked my ass? No way.  One guy looked like a bearded dwarf.  The third champion looked like a linebacker, then again so did i.  I selected the third guy.  I was given 30 minutes to get ready, well 30 minutes for the nobles to place their bets.  The odds were 6 to 1 against me.  I bet 40 gold on myself because why not.  My confidence had some nobles betting

 on me as well and the final payout was 4 to 1 against me.  My opponent smelled bad as I stood across from him.  The giant at least smelled clean when I had fought him.  One of the crowd yelled for me to be careful because Jorn bites!  From the yells this opponent sounded like  berserker.  His eyes looked wild as well.  Damn I should have chosen the dwarf.

He had speed, strength, ferocity and was freaking insane.  He attacked with abandon and even though he left a lot of openings and I was connecting he was doing twice as much damage to me.  It was an insane five minutes and the crowd was going nuts.  I was going to lose and he was just drawing it out.  I tried to focus and fight on.  We separated for second, both of us breathing heavy.  I used the few seconds to heal, I had internal bleeding, sight was gone in one eye and I was missing a chunk of flesh from my forearm, Jorn did bite.  I was able to use 3 aether before Jorn charged again.  I fell backwards and managed to get my foot on his chest and using my legs pressed him up and flying into the stands.  I used the reprieve to heal 2 more Aether worth of wounds.  My sight was back to normal and my arm wasn’t bleeding.  Jorn attacked again after untangling himself from the seats but it was now even when he attacked.  We were doling out equal damage and I was healthier.  I could see Cooroff’s unhappy face.  I managed to get Jorn with a strong strike on the back of his head.   He was dazed and I used a kick to shatter his nose and teeth.  He fell and I was declared the winner.  I got my coins and pats on the back from the nobles.  The nobles even threw in bonus coins in appreciation.  I had over 200 gold.  Then Cooroff approached with his entourage.

The giant snickered at me.  I didn’t care.  My currant goal was to identify Vivian.  I started talking to the Constable and he was a real prick.  He offered me a position as one of his champions which I declined.  I tried to get him to offer up one of his beauties for my use which he declined.  Cooroff started to say his farewells to his guests and I got to one of the girls and asked if she was Vivian, she said no but pointed to the brunette with blue-green eyes. 

Eventually we were all escorted out.  I made my way back to the stable contemplating a liberation plan for Vivian.  As I turned the corner behind the stable I was beset by four men.  I had no chance and three blows to my head knocked me out.

I awoke in a dungeon.  I was tied to a rack.  A man stood there and started asking me questions.  Where was I from?  Who made the goods I was selling?  What was my purpose in the city?  I gave vague answers and eventually learned the man was the king’s master spy.  They thought I was here to sabotage Stormheart.  Drain the city of gold, ruin the economy for a foreign power.  Well shit I didn’t bring my handle to establish a new portal.  I saw my backpack with my gold and thought up a story.

I told him I was a mercenary who was hired by a third party to liberate Vivian from the constable.  If I was given the girl I would leave the city.  I described the girl in detail and the spy master sent someone to retrieve her.  An hour later he returned with Vivian.  The spy then questioned the girl who was much more forthcoming than me.  She was abducted by the constable’s champions from her village, her family killed, in the north part of the kingdom and used as a slave to service the constable and as a reward for his champions.  She had been praying to the goddess for a savior.   The spy master had a sour expression on his face.  He left Vivian in the chamber with two guards and went to have council with the king.

I waved at Vivian and asked how she was doing.  She just looked at me, obviously sizing me up.  An hour later the spy master returned with the king.  He seemed like an ok guy.  He asked the same questions and I gave the same vague answers.  Vivian repeated her story.  The king asked if I was an agent of the goddess.  My reply was, maybe.  The king went into a monologue about how Cooroff was his wife’s brother.  They were from a kingdom where slavery was legal.  The constable was supposed to be able to run his estate as he saw fit but since he had abducted women from beyond his estate in Caldonia he violated the laws.  He was being banished and his estate turned over to the crown.  The women will be released, Vivian’s eyes lit up.  Cooroff would be taking his champions with him everyone else would stay.

Now the king turned to me.  I was causing trouble pulling small sums of gold from circulation in the city which is why I was pulled off the street.  It was the damn library that had alerted the crown, asking for 500 gold coins to buy paper!  Fucking librarians.  The king released me after asking me to reduce my trading in the city to under 100 gold per month.  Shit this felt like a game that was using a king to check my easy growth.  I could keep the 412 gold I earned from the fight club as much of it was Cooroff’s.  I could leave with Vivian as well and I was released.

I left the castle with Vivian and headed for the Wandering Soldier.  I asked Vivian were she could go.  No clue.  Was there a temple to the goddess she could join?  She didn’t know.  Inside the Inn I asked the retired soldier, Samuel, about a temple in the city.  He gave us directions and we went there.  I gave Vivian 112 gold and said it was her choice now.  Join the temple or use the money to start a new life.  I didn’t wait to see what she would do.  I admit I hoped she would run to me and reward me but the poor girl had been through a lot.  At the stable I slipped back to the terminal.  Ok I would avoid Stormheart for a while.

I showered and ate.  Sitting at the terminal I brought up the missions.

Rescue Vivian from magistrate Cooroff’s manor in Stormheart, Reward 1500 Credits, +1 Aether Stat

Completed, 100% bonus, 3000 credits, +1 Aether Stat, +1 unassigned stat point

Fight and Win 5 matches in ‘The Pit’ in Stormheart, Reward 2500 credits, +1 strength, +1 stamina

Completed, 100% bonus, 5000 credits, +1 strength, +2 stamina, +1 unassigned stat point

I read the lines a few times.  Wow.  I looked at my stats and figured I should drop the stat bonuses in either, strength, charisma or intellect.  After a minute I put both into strength because it felt right at this moment.

I converted my 300 gold to 15,000 points.  For 10,260 I raised my intellect by 12 points finishing off my 100 point of planned stat upgrades and looked at my stats for awhile.

Strength

78

Constitution

52

Stamina

55

Agility

55

Speed

45

Intellect

91

Aether

19

Channeling

10

Charisma

77

Speed was my weak point.  I found to my delight I could still raise stat points but only with system credits.  I had 10,895 system credits and was happy or lucky to have reserved them.  I raised Aether to 20 and Channeling to 15 for 850 system credits.  Then I turned and ticked up speed till I couldn’t anymore, moving it from 45 to 63. I had just 235 system credits left.

These upgrades took five hours.  The speed took a while getting used to.  I practiced with Bruce and I could hold my own!  He had the skill advantage but my superior speed evened things out.  I would have to upgrade him, maybe increase his physical stats to 70.  Well I was broke right now.  I needed a new plan.  I wanted to get to a higher tech planet in a realm.  But the only way was with a new door, 100,000 system credits, or traveling there from the planet I was on.  The catalog had space ships but they ran in the millions of credits. 

I brought out my map of the kingdoms, Caldonia, Tirion and Pestual.  Pestual was the slavery state that Cooroff was from.  Tirion bordered elven and dwarf lands and had good relationships with everyone.  They were the richest empire as well.  I should head to the capital of Tirion and set up a portal there.  My best guess with my maps made it 850 kilometers away.  I needed to learn to ride a horse.  My Portal Inc stock trading company had 530k, Herb got in on an IPO that tripled in value and he sold it off at its peak of first day trading before it settled down.  I decided to complete the purchase of the farm with the funds and got a check cut for the bank.   The next day left in the morning to complete the purchase. 

It took four hours to complete the paperwork even with it being prepared beforehand.  Then they gave me a key which I knew was useless.  I went to the hotel and checked out. 

It was early evening when I pulled into the farm.  I parked behind the house, set the link to the terminal inside the falling apart farm house and returned to the terminal room.  I pulled up schematics on the wall.  I had to convert the metric measurements to standard for the plans then sent them to a reputed construction company that was an hour away with a list of the materials.  The garage unit was 30 meters by 15 meters with a slab foundation.  The first floor had one oversized bay door with a 3 meter ceiling and a large separate workshop.  The second floor had cathedral ceilings with a massive living room, large bedroom, big walk in closet, master bath, a good sized study/office and full kitchen.  There was a back porch that would have a mountain view.  Herb estimated construction at $48,000 in materials which is what I wanted delivered.  The company got back later that day, $52,800.56.  I put 10% down with delivery for next week to pay in full. 

I went to the catalog.  A simple foam concrete extruder labor bot was 2800 credits and the size of a motorcyle.  The material was a matrix concrete that came out as foam after mixing with water and hardened in minutes.  It had a computer that you programmed.  I still needed to buy the matrix mix at 10 credits per cubic meter, that was going to cost 5000 credits.  I needed a digger bot as well, just 1500 credits for the smallest model.  I bought the digger bot.  It was like a ATV sized bulldozer but it ran on a high capacity battery.  I needed to widen the access door to get them out of the terminal room!  The normal door was 1.0 meters by 2.5 meters.  I  increased it to 2.0 meters by 5.0 meters.  It cost 2000 more credits.  I only had 1000 basic credits left so I just got the bot outside and covered it in a tarp i found in the barn.  Then I programmed it with the help of Herb.  Prepare the site for the new building then demo the old buildings except the house for now.  It was going to just work at night. 

I went back to the terminal room and reviewed missions, selecting three.

Travel to Tirion’s Capital city, Radovak, Reward 1500 credits

 Meet your first elf, Reward 500 credits

Travel 500 kilometers, Reward 500 credits

Nothing spectacular but all should be manageable.  I packed a large bag of goods to sell to Grinshot, 2 reams of paper, 42 bottles of perfume, 36 chocolate bars, 100 bic pens, and 30 pairs of ladies underwear.  I then ate a meal prepared by Betty, showered and slept. 

The morning I checked the dozer bots overnight work.  It was good and I brought the bot back to the terminal room.  I then went to see Grinshot.  After some haggling I got 120 gold for the lot.  Then I told him I planned to ride to Radovak.  At a relaxed pace it was about 17 days.  I needed a horse, two guards with horses and they also needed to teach me to ride and care for the horse.  I needed to be at my sisters to watch my niece and nephew in 16 days Herb reminded me in English.  I explained away the voice coming from my pocket.  I had forgotten about that.  Grinshot said the road was good and you could make the trip in twelve days riding hard.  Ok it was going to be close then.  I asked him if he could find the guards and horse by tomorrow noon?  He guessed 20 gold for a good riding horse and 8 gold for the guards.  I gave him 30 gold and told him to pay the guards.  Worst case I would just set my new anchor short of the capital city.

The remaining 90 gold turned into 4500 credits.  I bought the concrete foam extruder and some mix to get it started.  I moved the terminal door closer to the rumble and the dumpster recycler by the door and started cleaning up the demolished buildings piecemeal.  It was hard work.  Bricks, boards, metal some weeds and dirt.  Since I didn’t have to walk far I did pretty good, getting rid of a few tons of debris, maybe half of it so far.  I found I had generated enough credits from this trash to get the rest of the mix and still have 2300 credits left over.  Maybe I should take my act to a junkyard to earn credits?

Exhausted from the work I crashed after a shower in the terminal.  I woke, ate, checked the foundation.  It was really nice, a meter thick and perfectly level.  I parked the extruder in the terminal so no one would find it while I was away and set Herb to transfer the funds for the materials coming.  They were to drop it on the slab, no signature required.

I then returned to Arywyn and headed to Grinshot’s on time.  He had two men in chain mail with lances there.  My horse was a dark brown mare all saddled and ready to go.  This was a one way trip for the guards and they understood that.  My backpack just had food, camping gear and 200 silver coins.

We left shortly after.  The guards were Henric and Peyton.  We spent the first hour going over riding basics.  My ass hurt and when I chaffed I could heal using an Aether.  We did 20 km that afternoon and they showed me how to rub down the horse. 

They were shocked at our pace the next few days.  I was healing my horse and myself so I appeared tough to them and my mount seemed of high quality.   After 4 days I healed their mounts secretly as well as they were worried about our quick pace doing harm to their mounts.  We skipped past towns and cities, only staying if we arrived late evening.  We made it in 13 days.  The city was much more impressive than Stormheart.  Easily twice the size with bigger and fancier buildings.  I thanked my escorts and went to the merchant side of the city finding a stable to sell my horse.  I got 23 gold for the horse and saddle.  Then I found an inconspicuous alley between a book shop and cheese shop and activated my anchor, returning to the terminal.

I called my sister and said I was leaving to drive to Maine to watch the kids.  It was a 14 hour drive but I had promised.  I checked and the materials had been delivered.  Portal Inc had increased its holdings to $605k!  Damn.  I went to the chevy dealership and got me the biggest truck I could, $72k for a new king dullie full lux model.  They put an extended tank on it and had the registration, plates and insurance done in 4 hours.  I guess if you pay cash things happen fast.  I left my RAV4 at the dealership.  I would get it in few weeks.

Driving to Maine in the truck with Bose speakers and leather seats was nice.  Herb selected the driving music based on my preferences.  I stopped that night and slept in the terminal room.  Breakfast was good from Betty.  I returned and finished the drive to Maine and pulled in the driveway at my sisters.  My 14 year old niece and 16 year old nephew came running outside to see me.  The truck was pretty awesome too.  I told my sister and the kids it was my new company vehicle.  I worked on a farm in Virginia now for some rich asshole who paid well.  My sister thought I looked great, was I taller?  We hadn’t seen each other for a year and I just told her I was working out.

I had to bring them to the airport in the morning, 5 fricking AM, and ended up going to a motel instead of sleeping on the couch so I could sleep in the terminal room.  I woke at 4 AM.  I drove them to the airport.  She said the kids had swim lessons Mon-Fri from 7am to 9am.  Other than that do whatever.  She gave me an envelope with $600 cash for food and I dropped them off.  It was a 2 hour drive round trip.

It was Saturday and the kids wanted to go to the beach.  Of course my nephew had his girlfriend come which meant my niece had to have her two friends come.  We got to the beach at noon, a 40 minute drive with 4 teenage girls and my nephew, not fun.

When I took off my shirt I was happy to see me getting looks from many ladies.  One of my nieces friends offered to put sunscreen on me.  No thank you, I didn’t need the potential trouble.  I found the towel the kids brought for me was too small.  I went to the shop by the beach but found they only had snacks.  I slipped behind the building and went to terminal room.  I quick search through the catalog and I bought hydrolite body board and a large towel for 16 credits.  The hydrolite somehow created energy from the pressure contact with the water for propulsion.  I exited and headed to the beach.

I told the kids I ran into a guy and bought the stuff.  The board was fun, you could ride the surf endlessly.  When you fell off it stopped.  I played for half an hour before giving it to the kids.  Back at our site I unfolded my blanket and was about to lay down when two young women asked me to join their volleyball game.

There were five women and three guys, all locals.  They were friends and getting ready to go back to college in a few weeks.  We played three on three, rotating every 11 points.  I had two of the women on my team, one tall girl, Camilia, who played volleyball at Wake Forest.  The other, Olivia, was at USC, playing soccer.  They both looked nice in their bikinis.   We were virtually unbeatable.  One of the other girls rowed at BC but had two left feet.  The guys held their own but Camilia seemed to step up if the guys were at the net.  Olivia confided that Camilia had dated two of the guys in high school at different points.   As it got late my niece found me and it was time to go.  Camilia and Olivia both gave me their phone numbers and said they were around for another week and to call any night to meet up.  My sisters place was 40 minutes from the beach and after a second I gave them both my number as well. 

We got back to my sisters house and I got the kids 5 pizzas to keep them and their friends fed.  I looked at my sisters bedroom, it was messy, smelled funny and I didn’t want to use the bed.  I went out the back door and looked at her yard.  She had four acres.  The grass was high and the woods stretched further back.  I began to get an idea.  I could build a pool and pool house in the back yard, well maybe back in the woods a bit.  I got more and more excited.  I stepped into the terminal room. 

The pool would be 20 meters by 8 meters with a 5 meter slide at the deep end.  It would have a 4 meter apron.  The pool house would be single story with cathedral ceilings.  It would by 20 meters by 8 meters but a third of it would be storage and pool water circulator.  The living area would have a large common room that shared the kitchen, a separate large bedroom with a master bath.  There was a separate bath with a shower that was accessed only from outside.  I added a sunken hot tub to the pool apron.  I added a built in bricked in grill next.  Then Herb compiled the materials, $27,860.  Herb filed the plans and permits online.  Herb hacked into a building company and the materials would be delivered tomorrow night. 

Herb said I had an incoming call from Olivia.  It was 11pm.  I answered and she just wanted to talk.  She was obviously smitten with me but kept mentioning Camilia.  I promised to meet them Monday night.  I set my digger and extruder to work overnight.  My sister didn’t have any close neighbors and the machines worked fairly quiet working on battery power.  I checked my missions.

Travel to Tirion’s Capital city, Radovak, Reward 1500 credits

Completed, Reward 1500 credits

Travel 500 kilometers, Reward 500 credits

Completed, Bonus, Reward 500 credits, Horsemanship Skill at Beginner-1

I found two simple missions.

Register with Tirion’s Merchant Council, Reward 250 credits

Have 500 gold in transactions in Radovak, Reward Basic Dimensional Pocket

The dimensional pocket was a one meter space that I could put items in and remove.  The basic one cost 10,000 system credits so this reward was worth it.  I hoped I could get my three active missions done in six hours. Wait tomorrow was Sunday the kids didn’t have to be at swim lessons.  I gave myself 8 hours.  I changed and entered with a backpack full of goods.

I walked through the city and found a book store.  My reams of paper only got me 10 gold each for 100 gold for the 10, but at least my backpack was lighter.  I got directed to the merchant’s hall and the registration just took a few minutes after showing my silver card.  I listed my goods as luxury goods.  There was a 10% city tax for merchants up to a max of 5 gold annually.  I just paid the 5 gold in full now, not mentioning I had already sold paper.  I got directions to an alchemist who sold perfumes.  The alchemist was more interested in the bottles and sprayer than the perfume.  I managed to get 3 gold per bottle!  I had 20 bottles on me so I added 60 gold.  After some polite conversation I got info on a high end restaurant owned by elves down the street.  I headed there and got a meal for 2 gold!  But at least I talked to the elf waiter for a bit.  I gave him a chocolate bar and asked him if the chef could sample it and see if he wanted to buy a supply.  I waited for 20 minutes before an elf women came out from the kitchen.  She said it was too sweet but that she would like 100 bars.  Damn.  The price wasn’t that great, 4 silver coins each.  The cook, Hyraefellia, drove a hard bargain.  I gave her my last 9 bars and said I would be back and she could pay then.  All I had left in my pack was 4 rolls of Charmin Toilet Paper.  I was given an elven delicacy dessert complimentary, it was like lemon lime sorbet but served warm.  I said it was fantastic not wanting to offend Hyraefellia.  Not sure where to sell the toilet paper I got directions to a high end luxury goods store.  The proprietors were snobby men who set off my gaydar.  But they saw the market for the Charmin.  Instead of buying it we agreed they would sell it and I would get 75% of the sales price.

I went back to the terminal, having spent 5 hours in Radovak. I sat down and checked the mission board.

Register with Tirion’s Merchant Council, Reward 250 credits

Completed, 250 credits

Meet your first elf, Reward 500 credits

Completed, 500 credits

Betty brought me milk and squash cookies, much better than they sounded.  I dumped all my gold into the recycler.  Then I bought an add on room to the terminal that was 10 by 10 meters and half filled it with bags for the extruder machine.  I put enough bags outside so it could finish the pool, apron, hot tub and foundation for the poolhouse.  It was 6 am and I laid down on a lawn recliner and fell asleep.  The sun woke me and I went into the house.  It was a mess, pizza boxes, empty soda cans, the girls were sleeping on wrap around the couch.  I grabbed a slice of pizza and the time was 10am.  The girls stirred.  My niece asked where I was and I said I was star gazing all night.  The fridge was mostly empty so I said we were headed out for breakfast.  My nephew and his girlfriend came out of his room.  I brought the entire group to IHOP and bought them breakfast.  Then dropped them all off downtown.  My niece and nephew could call me when to pick them up.  I gave each of them $20 and returned to the house.  I had a text message from Olivia, she said her and Camilia wanted to know if I would be at the beach today.  I replied that I was busy baby sitting. 

The extruder had done a great job.  The digger had excavated the spot for the septic tank.  I went back to the terminal room.  Herb said it would be easier to buy a bot to do the pool liner and buy the machinery from the store as he wasn’t able to use his tricks to get expedited installation.  I bought everything that Herb said I needed and was down to just 200 basic credits and 2985 system credits.  I used my 2900 system credits to raise my stamina from 55 to 60.  I was going to bust-a-build tomorrow and didn’t want to run out of steam.

Back in the real world the smaller extruder robot started lining the pool with a blue rubber compound while I installed the filter system water lines and heaters.  It was surprisingly simple as the extruder had left cavities the perfect size.  I was done before the extruder and I just sat down and watched it for a bit. It reminded me of a slug leaving a slime trail.  I needed to go buy the chocolate.

I got up and drove to a store called Ocean State Job lot because Herb said they had the chocolate I needed at the best price.  They had half a dozen brands and types of chocolate all for between $1.59 and $2.00.  I just loaded the cart with everything they had.  The bill was $850 at the register.  I just smiled as I was rung up and said I was doing a web video of making a life size chocolate bear.

Back at the house I got the bars to the terminal and into a backpack.  It was heavy.  Almost 500 bars of chocolate.  I returned to the pool.  I put the finished pool liner extruder bot back in the terminal then I waited until the buildings supplies were dropped off.  The two guys loved the pool slide.   The septic tank was coming on a separate truck.    I had to wait two hours for the septic tank and leech lines and piping.  They dropped the 2500 gallon tank in the hole on the crushed stone and left.  Herb contracted pool water to be delivered tomorrow.  I connected the lines and piping for the tank before dark.  My niece and nephew called asking to sleep at friends houses.  I agreed.

I went to the terminal and brought the chocolate back pack to the elf cook.  It took three hours of sampling various bars.  She loved the 90% cocoa.  I got 250 gold from her for the lot.  She invited me to dine with her in her apartment to discuss further business.  I had to postpone the offer.  I went to visit the shop where I left the toilet paper.  They sold each roll for 8 gold!  I got 24 gold from the men and headed back to my portal.  I thought this was too easy.  I was cautious walking back but didn’t notice anyone.  Back safe in the terminal room I dumped the sack with 250 gold in the recycler.  I had 12,700 basic credits now.

I bought the systems version of a table saw, nail gun and tools.  Bruce asked if I wanted to spar but I just showered and went to sleep.  I woke early and moved my tools out to the building supplies.  I had framed houses during the summer so this was nothing new to me.  I worked efficiently and with the superb tools had the walls framed by 1:00pm and the outside sheathed with plywood.  I ate some cold pizza for lunch and checked my phone making sure the kids were ok.  They would be home for dinner.  Camilia asked where to meet me tonight.  Shit forgot about that.  I said 9 at a bar that was down the street.  She would have to come to me.  She just sent a smiley face back.  Back to work.

I had to buy two anti-grav drones controlled by Herb to help with the ceiling rafters.  It was getting close to 8 when I finished the framing.  The sun was setting and I heard a car door shut.  I checked and my niece was back and looked exhausted.  My nephew showed up 5 minutes later, his girlfriends mom dropping him off.  I thought it was funny the kids didn’t notice the pool and poolhouse yet.  I ordered them some Chinese delivery and took a shower in the house.  I slipped to the terminal from the bathroom in the house to change clothes and get ready.  I left at 8:45 telling the kids I would be back later and reminded them they had swim lessons in the morning.

The bar was not busy at all.  Camilia, Olivia and one of the other girls from the beach was there.  Her name was Gwen.  They were already drinking so I ordered 100 wings for the group in 5 flavors.  We started talking and when Camilia found out where I lived she took out her phone and mapped it from Wake Forest, just over a two hour drive.  She seemed to think this was fantastic.  The young women were drunk and Olivia said Camilia had a lot of bad relationships which I learned about.  I was on my 20th wing and just nodded.  I hadn’t had too much to drink and was sober, it was getting close to 1am and I didn’t want them driving.  I asked if I could drive them home and Olivia said they would love to go home with me.  Oh, oh!  They were all attractive but I wasn’t going to take them to my sisters smelly room.  I asked them if a hotel was ok and they said ok.  There was a Mariott close.  The girls loved my truck.  I got the best room with a king bed and it was on.  Now the waitress a month ago was only the third ever person I had ever had sex with.  And I was doubling that in one go.  I think I performed admirably, giving each one plenty of attention.  By 5:00am we had all fallen asleep.  Herb woke me at 6:30am, I had to bring the kids to swimming.  I untangled from the naked bodies got my clothes on and wrote a note saying I would be back to bring them to their car around 10am. 

I dropped the kids off.  They still hadn’t looked in the backyard.  The pool was about 50 meters from the house but still the poolhouse was pale white wood.  I was able to get the roof completely sheathed by the time I had to get the kids with the drones bringing sheets up and me nailing them.  This time when we pulled into the driveway they were like what the heck is that!  They were excited for the pool and awesome slide.  The water trucks were coming to fill the pool in the afternoon.  I was a little worried I couldn’t use my helper drones now.  The kids were not going to leave the house.  I went to get the three college women.  Camilia was up.  She was embarrassed, she couldn’t believe they did that.  Gwen had a boyfriend!  Olivia had a boyfriend!  Olivia woke and told Camilia they actually drugged her.  She had been so pent up sexually all summer they decided as her friends they needed to get her laid.  The situation including them was accidental but totally worth it.  She grabbed my ass.  Camilia looked upset so I consoled her saying I would not have had sex with her last night if I knew she was drugged.  Olivia butted in saying Camilia had been talking about me non-stop since the beach and I had sex with her four times last night not just once, like that made it better.  It was a quiet ride back to their car.  Had I raped her?  Had her friends by drugging her?  As I dropped them off Camilia held back for a second.  She asked if we could hang out some more before she left for school.  I said just give me a call.

Back at the house I laid down the roofing and started on the exterior trim.  They half filled the pool with a few trucks and would finish in the morning.  As it got dark I went inside and did the electrical and plumbing.  It was fairly basic and to code.  I had Herb set up the inspector for tomorrow afternoon.  He needed to check the framing, electrical and plumbing before I closed up the wall.  It was 6:30am and I was still working. 

I woke the kids and brought them to swim practice.  Back at the house I got the drones into action.  It speed things up.  I had a cutter on the drones and they could cut wood.  As the water trucks started arriving the drones hid in the enclosed house doing precise precuts.  The kids were going to a friends house for a BBQ and would be home for dinner.  They asked if the pool was ready yet.  It was but I told them no.  As the water trucks finished I brought out the drones again.  The inspector showed at 3:30.  He did a walk through and signed off on everything.  After he left I got the windows and doors installed.  As it got dark I went to the terminal room and got an insulation extruder attachment for one of the drones.  Herb programmed it and it got to work on the insulation.  The other drone cut the drywall and I followed tacking the perfectly cut drywall in place was the specialized nail gun that highlighted the studs and nail placement.  This was insane speed build.  Before the kids got back the interior was all dry walled, even the cathedral ceiling.  The kids walked in and were stunned.  I kicked them out and they went swimming.  The slide didn’t have power yet to cycle water to the top yet but they swam and asked if their friends could come over tomorrow after swim practice to swim.  Sure whatever.

I got two extruder attachments from the system for the drones.  One was a plasterer for the drywall, the other a painter.  I let the drones work while I went to the system terminal.  I ordered the hardwood flooring from the system.  Presized and cut perfect on ordering.  It was real wood but sealed and would never rot.  I ordered all the appliances and furniture as well from Lowe’s.  Herb paid and it all would be delivered and installed tomorrow night.  I would have bought appliances directly from the system but I didn’t want to leave advance tech here.  By midnight I had the floors laid and baseboard done.  The digger unit buried the septic tank and the concrete extruder resurfaced my sisters driveway.  I risked the machine being seen that night. 

I was exhausted but my body seemed to be able to resist going to sleep.  I learned I was burning Aether to avoid sleeping!  It kind of made sense.  I worked through the night again.  The interior was done after I got the kitchen cabinets, shower stalls, toilets and sinks from the system.  I bought a special drilling bot to dig a well.  I figured I would need the bot for my property in Virginia anyway.  It also mapped the natural underwater cisterns as well.  I connected to all three water cisterns in range since it was simple.  Herb put in a work order for connecting the power from the street to the poolhouse.  He hacked their system and made it a priority.  The electric company would be there first thing tomorrow to install the meter and connect power lines.

It was 4am when I got a text from Camilia asking to meet up today and hang out.  Damn, she was awake early. I replied in the affirmative anytime after 10, just name the place. She apologized for waking me then said I could pick her up at 10, she supplied an address. 

At 6:30 the kids went to practice.  I finished the siding in the two hours between pickup.  When I picked them up apparently I was bringing a small army of kids back.  The kids attacked the pool.  The electrician was at work, power should be on by noon he said.  I left to go see Camilia.

She was waiting outside a nice house and jumped in the truck smiling and nervous.  She asked what I wanted to do.  Lunch?  Sure.  We talked and ate at the best restaurant in town.  She told me all about herself.  Going into her senior year at Wake Forest as a biology major.  She was stressing about the MCAT and applying to med schools.  She played volleyball but after her freshman year she was regulated to a rotation front liner.  She had a recurring knee and ankle injury that hurt her vertical.  It went on and on, her family, friends, places she wanted to visit.  And I listened and I found I really liked her.  If she knew I was actually 43 would she actually still be interested in me?  I looked like I was maybe 30.

Herb said the furniture and appliances were going to be arriving in 45 minutes.  I said I had to leave and Camilia’s face dropped.  I explained I was expecting a delivery.  When I said she could come she brightened.

At the pool all the kids were still there.  Some lying on the apron suntanning, some swimming, it looked like they multiplied.  I had Herb order 10 pizzas for delivery.  That would be lets see…one pizza for 3 kids.  Make it 15 pizzas with a BBQ chicken for me.  Camilia was just smiling at the action all around.  When I brought her inside she wandered through impressed.  Then the delivery trucks came.  Camilia started unpacking the furniture.  A cheer came from outside.  The power was on and the water slide was working.  Camilia set up the bedroom to her satisfaction.  She was putting sheets on the king bed when I checked on her.  She just blushed.  The bed wasn’t quite where I had envisioned it but best not to correct her.  The living unit was just to get me through the week and occupy my time.  The living room was set up with an 80” TV.  The leather couches were fancy and comfortable.  I was sitting on the couch when she came out of the bed room.  She sat next to me and she smelled good.  We started kissing and I stopped when I saw the kids looking at us.  I suggested we spend some time to install the door and window blinds.

The kids had already hit the pizza, my special BBQ chicken was all gone, damn it.  It was getting dark when we finished with the blinds.  I told the kids who didn’t live here it was time to go home.  Not checking if they left I took Camilia to the bedroom and we started kissing and undressing.  It was a very slow and passionate coupling.   Camilia had a very nice body and she was only 2cm shorter than me.  At 6:30 Herb woke me.  Damn AI.  At least I got a few hours sleep this time.  Camilia was next to me in the bed.  I woke her with a kiss.  I didn’t mind the morning breath, mine and hers.  I told her i had to bring the kids to swim practice and would be back. 

When I got back she was up and dressed.  She was smiling ear to ear.  She said I needed food for the new fridge, I tossed her the keys to the truck, gave her 200 cash and said lunch was up to her.  After she left I got to work finishing the unit.  I got the AC/heating unit installed for the central system, got the outdoor grill installed, got the pumps for the hot tub going, had the drones paint the interior and exterior and ordered a whole bunch of kitchen, bathroom and bedroom stuff from BBB.  Well Herb did that last one.  The kids started arriving again.  Camilia wasn’t back yet so I called her.  She was crying.  Apparently she backed into a concrete barrier.  No one was hurt?  Then no problem.  She got back and the bumper was dented.  I really didn’t care, I said her punishment was that she had to wash my body in the shower.  It was a very good shower.

Camilia made lunch, P&J.  I was famished and had three.  We went outside to the pool.  I looked around and whispered to Herb to order thirty large towels, 10 beach recliners and five 3 meter umbrellas with bases.  Now, I thought this made watching the kids easy.  It was probably expensive if the food cost was included.  But I didn’t care.  I was happy.  Herb said the items would be delivered in the morning. 

I sat at the pool my feet in the water.  I had Herb order Panera for the kids, $400.    I wondered if the parents of these kids appreciated my efforts.

That night I talked with some of the parents who had stopped by to pick up their kids.  I set up a deal that they would bring my niece and nephew to and from swim practice in exchange the kids could hang out at my pool after practice.  It worked for me.

That night Camilia said she was leaving in three days for pre-season camp at Wake Forest.  I said we could just enjoy our time for now.  It was the wrong thing to say I guess as she got tense.  I asked her what she wanted me say.  She didn’t know.  She guessed she was hoping I would be upset or tell her we would see each often since I lived close.  Just a few days and she was already clingy.  I decided to test her resolve in the perceived relationship.  I told her I was 43.  She thought I was joking until I showed her my drivers license. 

She was silent for five minutes.  She went to the kitchen not saying anything.  I heard the sink running and she returned with a glass of water.  She was going to throw it in my face I just knew it but she drank it instead and sat on the bed.  She asked if I did this often.  I asked her what was she referring to.  She said take advantage of young women for sex. I panicked and said no I thought she wouldn’t want to be with me since I was old.  I would be happy to be her sugar daddy.  She started crying.  God damn it.  She said she just wanted a normal relationship.  I said I could that.  A normal exclusive relationship on this planet.  I figured I could safely have some flings on the other side.  She seemed happy with that response.  I was emotionally exhausted but the sex was good after the talk.

Camilia left early for the gym.  She had a workout at the gym.  Olivia picked her up and I was free for a few hours.  I went to WalMart and bought toilet paper and lots of sugar.  My next income idea was to show the elf cook to make caramel.  They had butter, salt and heavy cream.  They just needed the sugar.  I brought everything to the terminal room and loaded a backpack with sugar.  I had two large hand bags for 36 rolls of Charmin.  I started to wonder why I didn’t just buy the items from the terminal rather than stores in my world.  I decided right there that I would continue to do it my way.  It gave me a connection to my world, an anchor. 

Before heading through I picked up two more missions. 

Heal four people, Reward 250 credits, +1 Channeling

Register as a mage at the Arcanium, 250 credits

I figured registering was a good idea before practicing healing magic.  I dropped off the Charmin first.  I heard a funny story, one of the women who bought one of the first rolls tried to make a dress out of it.  It ended poorly as she was sweating on a hot day at court.  The guys ended buying the rolls for 100 gold as the lady with the bad experience had been working to squash the product.  Oh well at least I got an idea to bring in fabric.

I went to the elf chef next.  It took me two attempts to make caramel.  The first attempt the milk was too thin.  On tasting it I knew she was hooked.  I had 18 kilograms of sugar.  90 gold was the price decided on.  She also asked about getting more chocolate.  I told her on my next trip.

Having lightened my load I went to the Arcanium.  The Arcanium was a massive square building that was in essence a magic university.  I ended up spending three hours there.  I had to demonstrate my magic which I just said was healing, no point in revealing all my cards.  I got one of healings done on some burns from a studying mage, she was probably only 15.  That done I went to the poor section of the city.  I found a small temple run clinic and was able to heal six people before running out of Aether.  I found it cost more Aether to heal other people.  It felt good to help people for free.

I returned to the terminal room.  Connecting, Herb said I had six text messages from Camilia.  She was at the poolhouse with Olivia and my truck was there but I wasn’t.  The text messages ran for 3 hours.  Shit, thinking quickly I had Herb text her a message I was out hiking and had no cell service.  I would be back in hour or so. 

I settled down on the leather couch with the computer.  First thing was missions.

Have 500 gold in transactions in Radovak, Reward Basic Dimensional Pocket

Completed, Basic Dimensional Pocket Available

Heal four people, Reward 250 credits, +1 Channeling

Completed, 50% bonus, 375 credits, +1 Channeling, +1 Healing Touch Skill

Register as a mage at the Arcanium, 250 credits

Completed, 250 credits

This was all good stuff.  The dimensional pocket was a 1 meter square.  It took only a tiny bit of Aether to open the window to the space and hold it open.  If I moved more than 1 meter away the connection would be cut and access closed.   Rather than select new missions I headed back to the poolhouse.

Camilia was in the living room with five of her friends.  I soured a bit because they had alcohol and there were 20 teenagers just outside at the pool.  She picked up on my concern, she brought the beer in here for that reason.  They had some board games they wanted to play.  I went out and checked on my niece and nephew.  Herb had ordered food, Burger King, for everyone so there was no emergency.  I relaxed and was happy to unwind. We played until midnight and the friends left. 

Camilia stayed and said she was sore and could use a massage.  I slipped to the terminal and bought massage oil.  The massage went well.  The special massage oil had curative effects too.  The sex after was good too.

Camilia asked me to help pack her things in the morning.  It turned into an ambush for me to meet her parents, brother and sister.  I was taken aback that her mom knew I was 43 when she said I didn’t look 40.  All in all it went well enough and we were talking openly by lunch.  We loaded the car after since her bags were already packed.  Camilia was leaving in the morning so we just kissed in the driveway and I left.  I made stops at Wal Mart, Job Lot, Dollar Store and Family Dollar.  Once my truck was full I returned to the poolhouse.  Herb had ordered pizza so I grabbed some slices, pepporoni and black olives, and I went to poolhouse.  Carrying the bags was a pain so I had Herb schedule the digger and extruder to build a side driveway to make two parking spots behind the poolhouse.  It was through undeveloped land so I hoped my sister wouldn’t be upset.

I had a thought and asked Herb if my machines could build underground rooms.  He brought up two new machines which I bought for 6800 credits that specialized in underground digging.  They could clear 10 cubic meters per hour and reinforce the space with a matrix concrete.  I had Herb select to build an underground facility under the poolhouse with a secret access through my walkin closet.  The closet would shrink from being 4 meters deep to just 3 meters but oh well.  I had 5 more days before my sister returned.  Herb’s room was going to be 10 meters down a circular staircase and would be 20 x 20 meters with a 3 meter high ceiling.  It would be water tight and if I ever visited my sister again I could add ventilation and lighting.  It was just a test project for when I got back to my farm.

The next five days were spent traveling to Radovak once a day and selling to the various shops.  I tried to keep my transactions to around 200 gold coins per day and for the most part I was successful.  I texted back and forth with Camilia as well.  My niece and nephew seemed to be doing well, they were obviously pretty popular.  I completed 8 missions as well.

Become a student of the Master Swordsman Faris, Reward 250 credits, +1 Long Blades Skill

Completed, 250 credits, +1 Long Blades Skill

This took a little work to find him and cost me 5 gold for a 4 hour lesson.

Swim Across the Pharing River, Reward +1 Swimming Skill

Completed, +1 Swimming Skill

This was a terrible mission.  It was a fast moving river about a quarter mile across and people asked why I didn’t use the stone bridge.

Cook 4 meals and have people eat them, Reward +1 Cooking Skill

Completed, 100% bonus, +2 Cooking Skill, +1 Agility

This was an easy mission as I just worked in the elfs restaurant during the lunch rush.  The extra agility point was unexpected and I learned even though I made forty salads the max bonus for a mission was 100%.

Stop one act of violence, Rewards +1 Stat Point, 1000 Credits

Completed, 100% bonus, +2 Stat Points, 2000 credits

This mission took two days to complete.  The city was pretty well policed so I had to wander the streets at night in the low income areas.  I prevented two muggings and 1 assault in the city slums.  I did get stabbed in the kidney for my effort but was able to heal myself.  I used both stat points for speed, running away was the best way to survive!

Gain an audience with a member of the royal family, Reward +1 Charisma, +500 credits

Completed, 100% bonus, +1 Charisma, +1 Gambling Skill, +1000 credits

This took four days.  I found two of the princes participated in a high stakes card game and I paid 50 gold to get into the game.  I lost another 75 gold in the card game but completed the mission. 

Help farmer Brant harvest his wheat, Reward +1 Strength, 1500 credits

Completed, +1 Strength, 1500 credits

I checked on who this farmer was before accepting the mission.  He lived five miles outside the city and had broken his leg.  He wasn’t going to be able to pay his taxes and was going to lose his farm.  I talked to him and he had prayed to the goddess for help...just like Vivian.  I set and healed his leg then spent 8 hours helping him.  We only finished a quarter of his field but the mission was shown completed so I didn’t go back to help more.

Bring 20 loafs of bread to the orphanage, Reward 250 credits

Completed, 100% bonus, +1 skill point, 500 credits

This was probably the easiest mission morally.  The orphanage was in the slums and had 56 occupants run by two disciples of the goddess.  I contracted a bakery to drop off 20 loafs daily.  Loafs cost 2 copper each so for 8 gold I paid for 200 days of delivery.  I also set up to have a kilo of butter, a kilo of cheese and four chickens from nearby shops each day for 200 days for an additional 64 gold.  I figured if the goddess was in some way controlling or influencing missions so it was best to over do it. 

Eliminate the rats in Baker Samswell basement, Reward +1 Ability/Trait Slot

Completed, +1 Ability/Trait Slot

This mission I cheated on.  I smuggled the extruder into the basement at night and had it fill in the cracks in the walls and put a skim coat over all surfaces.  I only had to kill 4 rats trapped in the room. 

Reviewing all my balances.  Portal Inc held 2.3 million dollars, my debit card account had $12,606 dollars.  I had 403 gold, 528 silver and 439 copper coins.  I also had 14,408 basic credits and 5960 system credits.  My Portal Inc Company was going to be taking off.  I made sure to have Herb create a good paper trail in case I ever got audited.  I spent 1000 basic credits to upgrade Herb’s processing so the computer could find other lines of revenue generation.  It was time for some stat upgrades as well.  I looked at my stats.

Strength

78

Constitution

52

Stamina

55

Agility

56

Speed

65

Intellect

91

Aether

20

Channeling

16

Charisma

78

I knew human stat distribution was a bell curve and after a few minutes with Herb got a general reference chart.

Stat

% of Population

1-5

.01%

6-10

.09%

11-20

1.0%

21-30

6.0%

31-40

10.0%

41-60

66.0%

61-70

10.0%

71-80

6.0%

81-90

1.0%

91-95

.09%

96-100

.01%

So once my stats hit 81 I would be in the top 1.1% of humans.  That was probably where professional athletes fit.  I should probably be focusing on Aether and channeling but other than healing hadn’t felt much need for it.  For 5800 points I got my charisma to 81 and my speed up to 70.  The changes were a bit painful but I was happy with my choices.  I was happy with my 81 charisma, being in the top 1% of the population was good enough for me.  My next goal was to get my all my physical stats to 91.  I didn’t know if I should bring them up uniformly or focus on one at a time.  I held off on new skill upgrades until I selected some missions outside the city.

I exited the terminal room and sat by the pool waiting for my sister.  Her friends dropped them off at 8:34pm from the airport.  I was hoping it would have been light out so she could see the pool and pool house.  When the car pulled in I gave her a hug and said things went well.  I told her to let me know how much her taxes went up for the cottage I built out back for myself.  I would pay it.  I said mom and dad could use it when they visited her.  Before explaining further I left, hoping in my truck and beginning the long drive back.  An hour later she called and we had a conversation, she wasn’t mad, just flabbergasted.  I told her not to let her kids us my pad and that I was serious about paying the taxes.  If she sold the house she could pocket the cash.  That done I wished I had a self driving car.  Herb said if I could get the truck into the terminal room I could buy upgrades.  I pulled off the main road, entered the terminal and expanded the portal for the second time, it was now 5 meters wide by 4 meters tall.  I moved things out of the way and drove the truck in.

A very complex engineering program came up.  I had Herb handle the details of the mods just telling him what I wanted.  First was fixing the dent in the bumper.  Next was changing to high density batteries.  The batteries could operate for about 1200 miles between charges.  Next was the self driving modification with sensor package.  I changed the paneling to high density composite panels that could deflect a .50 caliber round.  The dark blue paint was now a Teflon coating that was super easy to clean.  I added hidden compartments for storing guns, two hand guns under the front floor boards and a rifle spot under the back seat.  I set up dark tinting windows so I could black out from people looking in.  The back seat was made to fold down into a nice bed.  I then set up drop down screens in front and back that connected to the terminal system so I could work on the road.  Happy with the changes I watched my basic credits disappear, only 860 remained. 

I drove the truck out of the terminal.  Folded the bed down and told Herb to have the truck drive me home.  Shit, I forgot pillows and a blanket.  The bed suddenly went ergonomic and I sank in and fell asleep. 

Ten hours later I woke and had the seat fold up and brought the screens down.  I made calls to my parents, replied to texts and then had Herb bring up money making opportunities.

The first option was drugs, buy a biotech company, get a drug from the system and market it.  Herb said it could be worth 3 billion dollars in five years.   Not a bad idea.

Next was to intercept money laundering the Russian oligarchs are pushing through American companies.  It was about 100 million every month and Herb could funnel it away and hide it.  I was going to say no but Herb started showing the crimes, sex trafficking, drugs, stealing from governments, assassinations and theft from the people.  Damn these were not good people.  Ok could we do more damage to them?  We could do a one time cyber siphon worth 3 billion dollars then send documentation and video of their crimes to world governments newspapers effectively putting them on the defensive.  Ok, go big or go home.  It would take Herb 3 weeks to put together the massive attack, transfer and dissemination of info.

I decided to let Herb focus on that one project and dropped the last three ideas, deep core mining, unlimited power generators, and develop a new universal cell phone. 

Next was setting up the development of my land.  The hardware store downtown was up for sale, $190k.  Herb suggested I buy it and expand it so we could doctor the sales records to cover the expansion of my farm.  Expanding it to a Home Depot sized type store with a farmers twist would cost about 5 million to build, 9 million to stock, require 29 employees and operate at an annual loss of 600 thousand.  Damn.  I brought up down town on the screen.  I wanted a Red Robin with a large bar because I liked burgers, a new post office, a fantastic coffee and bagel shop, a small police station, a fire station, a great pizza place, town hall, town commons that could have farmers markets every Saturday, a micro brewery, a supermarket, a low cost day care, a nice hotel, a good sized town library, a middle school, high school, a functional hospital and football field.

We simed out this awesome town center with all these amenities and more.  It was a donut with a 2 square kilometer park in the center and two crescent buildings encompassing the park.  The buildings each had a massive underground garage, the first story was typically shops and restaurants, the second floor was shopping and the third floor was all offices for rent. The price tag for construction was 1.740 billion, with an expected annual operating loss of 54 million.  The facility would employee 1,021 people.  It was an idealic town image for me.  The whole sim was more an exercise as I wasn’t sure if it would ever build the structure.

The truck pulled into the farm and up to the slab.  The building materials were there.  It was early morning.  I went to the old farm house and entered the terminal room.  I dumped 400 gold into the recycler.  Ok two helper androids would cost me 8000 credits each.  To make them look and act human cost me 500 more credits each, they looked like blonde Nordic men.  They came with 3 skills at Apprentice-1.  I spent 1500 credits upgrading each ones skills.  I named them Thor and Loki.  Thor had the following skills.

Construction: Residential            Skilled-1

Electrical Wiring                           Apprentice-1

Waste Systems                             Apprentice-1

Labor Efficiency                            Apprentice-1

Laser Weapons: Pistol                 Apprentice-1

Language: English                         Novice-1

Language: Danish                         Skilled-1

Loki had the following skills.

Construction: Residential            Skilled-1

Combustion Vehicle Mechanic    Apprentice-1

Renewable Energy Systems         Apprentice-1

Labor Efficiency                            Apprentice-1

Laser Weapons: Pistol                 Apprentice-1

Language: English                         Novice-1

Language: Danish                         Skilled-1

I figured they would cover my needs for now.  I didn’t plan to arm them but you never knew in the future.  20000 credits and they materialized.  They would need to recharge in the terminal every third day.  They looked human and there movements were smooth.  They had no facial expression and they had the exact same voice, guess that was the best i could do for now.  I choose two languages so I could play them as foreigners if needed. Well I didn’t think of everything.  Ok I gave Loki the plans and brought the two outside to the pile of building materials.  If anyone came by they were to just say they were hired to build the building.

Off they went.  I sat in front of my farm wall panel in the terminal.  I needed real people to work the farm.  Lets rework this.  Ok a greenhouse that was 30 meters wide by 300 meters long, 2 employees.  The horse farm, shooting for 25 horses, 2-3 employees.  A chicken coop with maybe 60 chickens and 40 milk goats and possibly sheep, 1 employee.  I wanted an orchard, apples and pears, maybe 300 trees of each and 14 bee hives, 1 employee.  I thought about what else, maybe barley and hops to make a micro brewery?  If I did the beer thing that would be at a satellite farm. So 7 employees would be my target.  I spent a few minutes designing a small house.  It was 8 meters by 12 meters.  The basement was open except for utility in one third of it.  The first floor had a kitchen, dining room, half bath and living room.  The second floor had a big bedroom, small bedroom and a full bath.  I decided on building eight of these houses with 15 meters between them.  I planned a road with four to each side.  At the end I put another building.  One story, 10 by 12 meters.  It was a large dining room and had a restaurant style kitchen.  I figured I could serve the employees breakfast, lunch and dinner every day, so add an eighth employee, the cook.  These houses would be 90% matrix concrete so the extruder robot could do the work and I would just have to do the roofing.  I liked it.  I would have to buy the land to the north and south of my current plot to do everything. 

I worked with Herb to figure out compensation.  We decided on room and board, health and dental, and $3,000 a month.  Since everything was provided they could essentially save their entire paycheck.  I had Herb start doing a media search for the best candidates.  Herb asked for more processing power.  750 credits gone.  I had Herb start purchasing the land too.  The 23 acre plot to the north was quickly done after a $290,000 offer to the bank holding it.  The 50 acre plot to the south was owned by a farmer.  Herb said the farmer had 120 acres of other land and was actually earning a profit annually.  I felt a little guilty as my farm was a mix of cover for using the terminal and a dream for me.  The 50 acres to the south would be for the orchards and horses.  Ten acres for pears, 20 acres for apples and 20 acres for the horses.   Herb estimated I would have to offer $600,000 to $700,000 for those 50 acres.  I said to prepare an offer with implementation after the harvest. 

Thor and Loki were cruising when I checked on them.  The walls on the first floor was up and the garage unit would be completely framed by morning.  I would add the drones to the construction crew after dark to make sure they finished.  I went back to the terminal, I needed three new missions.

I decided to go to a new area of the planet.  I got another anchor.   The missions I choose would move me to the Dwarven cities. 

Explore the city of Granite Fist.  Reward 1500 credits

Trade 500 gold worth of goods in a Dwaven city, Reward 1000 credits, +1 Mercantile skill

Spar with a Dwarven Master swordsman, Reward 500 credits, +1 Long Blades skill

I could get to the city quickly if I drove my truck through the portal.  Well I actually was thinking of getting an electric bike from the system.  I would be able to do 400 km a day on the rough roads.  According to my map the city of Granite Fist was 1100 km from Radovak.  I would need the Dwarven language.  I had been lucky that the human language seemed similar to Caldonian, just different accents and a few different pronunciations.  The system had two, Ancient Dwaven and Common Dwarven.  Both were used but ancient was used mostly in formal settings.  I decided getting them both at Apprentice-1 was my best bet was to be fluent in conversation.  That would cost 7065 credits each.   It was time to stockpile trade goods again.

I spent the next two days travelling up and down I81 hitting stores.  I had hundreds of bottles of $1 perfume, cases of paper, dozens of face sized mirrors, hundreds of kilos of sugar and 480 dark chocolate bars.  Thor and Loki had finished the garage loft unit and Herb had furniture and appliances coming that Loki and Thor would set up.  I needed to keep them busy while I was gone.  I decided on having the foundation for the greenhouse and the 9 employee buildings queued.  Herb could order materials to finish the buildings, the drones and robots could be stored in the garage during the day.  Better yet during the day they could work on an underground complex, why not right, I planned on a major cistern for storing water for the farm.  Thor, Loki and I also got all the remaining debris into the recycler ending all the old farm buildings.  Camilia had a pre-season volleyball game coming and I decided to drive down and see it tomorrow as a surprise.

I sold 300 gold worth of goods and touched base with all my buyers then got ready to leave.  It was a two hour drive to the campus and I had time to review Herbs prospective employees.  He found a Melittologist (bee biologist) who just graduated from college.  The guy had his master’s degree and was only 24.  Herb said he was heavily in debt, $68k, and was working in a wal-mart.  Leo was his name and I said to make him an offer, 36k plus housing, med and dental as planned, food wasn’t included yet.  Herb had a list of agricultural candidates as well.  I sorted out two young women, Kaylee and Vanessa, both also had large college debt.  I wanted my green house to be 80% produce and 20% flowers.   I had Herb send them both offers as well.  I figured my last employee for now would be someone to manage the chicken and goats and possibly sheep.  Herb had a young couple, Kate and Dave, that should be a good fit.  They just lost their farm to the bank due to flooding in Kentucky.  They had a four year old as well.  They would be a good starter group, they could save their salaries and start a new farm in 7-10 years.  Make them an offer I told Herb.

I got to the volleyball court and was in the stands and saw Camilia in a knee brace on the bench while the team was warming up.  She didn’t notice me for a bit but then waved and smiled.  She got the ok from her coach to come talk to me.  She told me she had an ACL tear and a cracked patella from a collision with a teammate that drove her knee into floor at a bad angle.  Her senior season was pretty much over.  She didn’t want to tell me as she still hadn’t come to grips yet with it.  She hadn’t cried yet but probably would once it really set in.  I told her I would meet her after the scrimmage and take her out to dinner.

I found a discrete place to enter the terminal room.  I did some research and found a med capsule.  It would be a good 5000 credit investment as I could use it as well and save credits in the future using instead of the system credits to heal.  I needed to get Camilia an access tattoo.  I made the tatoo into a door inside a circle, the symbol for Portal Inc.  I then got a knock out drug.  I met Camilia and we had a nice diner and went back to her apartment.  She lived with two other volleyball players.  We went to her room and while we were kissing I asked her if she wanted to play this season.  I had a bottle that could make it happen.  I produced the knock out drug.  It was her choice.

She said I shouldn’t tease her.  I said it was real, drink this and I could help her.  It took her over 30 minutes before she drank.

I carried her to the terminal room and got her into med capsule.  The machine did a diagnostic.  It listed 21 ailments and her stats.  I had the machine to start working on the ailments, 6 hours, not near instant like the system.  I looked at her stats.

Strength

48

Constitution

52

Stamina

58

Agility

64

Speed

63

Intellect

52

Aether

0

Channeling

0

Charisma

59

I could raise her stats with the system, 100 points before requiring system credits, the same as me.  It cost the same as it did for myself.  I had a balance of just over 5700 basic credits.  This would be beyond what I promised her.  I hesitated then raised her strength to 50, agility to 70 and speed to 64.  Herb said the new stats would put her in the top 5% of the female population for her strength, the top 0.5% for agility and the top 3% for speed.  I put her on the bed in her apartment with the changes done.  I wrote her a note saying not to reveal she healed in one night…make it gradual. 

I left her at 4am.  On the drive back I found Leo had accepted my offer.  I had Herb send him $3000 for moving expenses as he was in California.  Start date was two weeks.  Kaylee was asking a bunch questions in her email reply.  I dictated the reply and sent it.  Nothing from Vanessa yet, Herb said the email wasn’t opened yet and the letter would take two days to arrive by post.  Kate and Dave had a few questions as well.  I dictated a reply with a note they would receive $6000 in relocation expenses.  They had over $17k in credit card debt according to Herb so I hoped this would get them here.  Herb put forth a cook, well a pair of cooks.  Another husband/wife who ran a highly rated townie restaurant that recently burned down and the insurance didn’t cover it due to a payment that was missed.  They were a black couple from Texas in their fifties.  Gerry and Vilma.  I reviewed their restaurant menu, American fare with a focus on using fresh local produce.  I wasn’t sure I needed two cooks though.  I mean two people to cook for 10-14 people?  Herb suggested I add seasonal workers as well, maybe a bunkhouse addition.  Going with the idea maybe an internship program?  Together we designed a bunkhouse, the basement had a common room and clothes washer machines.  The first floor had separate mens and womens bathrooms.  The individual rooms were off a central hallway and small, just 2.3 meters by 4 meters, but had their own heat/AC controls.  The long house had 16 rooms. Interns would be given room, board and $150 a week and terms would be 12 weeks.  I set the intern house half a kilometer away from the housing units.  Herb queued it with the building bots.  I sent a job offer to Gerry and Vilma after mentally debating it. 

Before I got home Kaylee sent me an email accepting the job and asked to start ASAP.  I had Herb search her media accounts as to why she was so anxious to start.  She just had a breakup with the boyfriend and her mother remarried two weeks ago, father had passed three years ago, and she was having trouble adapting to the new family coming from college.  I had Herb transfer her the $3000 moving expenses.  She was in eastern North Carolina, about 4 hours away.  I told her she could start in two days. 

I got back just after sunrise and had the greenhouse prioritized.  The scaffolding had been delivered but panels would be about 6 days away.  It could be ready tomorrow if I ordered the panels from the terminal.  The water and sewer were not ready either, no connections, no water supply.  Ok I should get another digger bot to help expedite the connections.  I wondered around the property all day planning roads and buildings.  My main farmhouse home still needed to designed. Walking the property was different than looking at a map.  It was getting close to around noon and it was really hot.  I told Herb to schedule to build attached car ports to the houses and transplant some larger trees for shade between the houses.  Hungry, I drove to the terrible dinner in the tiny town center.  I regretted the terrible food and decided never to eat there again.  I walked through the hardware store I was going to buy.  It was a dump.  I would build a new large Farm Depot.  But that was after I had my own farm established.

When I got back to the farm there was a crappy old Toyota Camry stuffed to the gills with stuff parked near my garage-home.  A young women was walking around the house.  She was short, blonde, maybe 5’3”, and was very cute.  Much cuter than her picture.  It was Kaylee, she must have driven straight here.  I introduced myself.  She beamed a happy smile and I was quite taken with her.  She had an energy to her that radiated.  I told her she was two days early but I would show her around.  The first stop was the greenhouse.  The greenhouse had its foundation done with a one meter high concrete apron.  A metal scaffolding was going up and Thor and Loki were working on it.  I told her this was one of her main projects, get the greenhouse up and running.  I told her there would be an orchards as well, pear and apple trees.  The orchard would be planted next spring.  Other than that maybe some 2-3 acres for elderberry trees and some cherry trees.  Walking behind her I thought, Damn she wore those jeans well!  We got to the houses and none of them had roofs yet.  The entire houses were built by the extruder like a 3D printer and looked quite good.  The material was a beige color.  We walked through one and Kaylee was excited, which one would be hers?  Which ever one she wanted was my response.  When we got back to the garage-home unit I invited her to diner.  We went upstairs and thank god the furniture had been unpacked.  The place smelled new.   And the fridge was empty.  I told her she could make herself at home and I would get some food.  I had Betty prepare some food, left in my truck, went to the terminal room and waited.  I figured an hour delay would be best then I had a slight panic, what if she looked in the garages and found the bots?  I would figure something out.

An hour later I had the system create some containers and packed the food.  I also got a datapad from the system for Kaylee. A green salad mix, some cordon blue chicken and buttered green beans.  I came up the stairs and Kaylee was asleep on the couch, damn she was cute.  She apologized for sleeping.  I said no big deal.  Over dinner she told me her story.  Last week her boyfriend, who had been on the cross country team with her in college, broke up with her.  He was in Italy on a trip and cheated on her.  Her new step dad was also pervert.  He accidently walked into the bathroom twice when she was coming out of the shower.  She was just getting overwhelmed with everything and needed to get away.  She really enjoyed the food.  I told her she could stay here until the houses were ready.  I gave her the datapad and told her she could use it to start ordering stuff for the greenhouse.  She was shocked it worked on vocal inputs.  Herb was the AI behind the pad so he could order whatever she found she needed.  I told her I had work to get to and wouldn’t be around and not to go into garages below.  I left her and went to the garage.  Herb said I could spy on her as the pad had a spherical camera.  I was tempted for a second and told Herb to just track her.

I parked by the houses and entered the terminal.  I went through the texts from Camilia first then called her.  She was super excited and felt amazing.  She had a plan to recovery and had a meeting with a doctor for a reevaluation of the injury.   She would say it was sore but not painful and hoped to be playing in a week.  The call was an hour long.  Next I got Kate and Dave on board and transferred $6k for moving expenses.  Vanessa sent an email, she was hiking in the Rockies and apologized for missing the job offer.  She accepted if it was still available.  I sent her $3k for moving and sent her Kaylee’s email and phone number so they could start working together. 

The 23 acres north of the farm was in the final stages for purchase.  I would have the deed in two days the latest.  Ok 300 free range chickens 60 sheep and 60 goats for the north most 20 acres was the new plan since I had two people.  I had Herb set up stock buildings for construction as well as a facility to process goat and sheep milk and make cheeses on the remaining 3 acres.  I would need two more employees for this new endeavor.

I made a quick trip to each city earning 245 gold.  I converted the funds to credits and got more bags for the extruder, panels for the greenhouse, and piping for the water network.  I had a plan for an underground cistern with 100 million gallon capacity.  There would be a special filtration facility and reclamation facility to produce fertilizer underground as well.  If the facility was full it would be enough water for the farm for two years.  There would be a draw filter for human buildings and a general unfiltered water feed for the fields and animals. 

It was sunrise when I started bringing the materials out of the terminal at the greenhouse.  Thor and Loki helped and soon we were done.  I enjoyed the work.  Looking at the mountains in the distance I remembered my time hiking the Appalachian Trial.  The trail passed about 2 miles away from my property.  Maybe I could build a hostel for the hikers?  Or perhaps an outdoor store?  Before I could start another project the old Toyota drove up.  Kaylee got out in short shorts.  She was saying something about the panels that I missed.  I said they would be installed by tomorrow.  She asked if they would be working through the night or something.  No comment from me.  She asked what she would be growing with Vanessa.  I told her crops that could be sold at a farmers market.  I also wanted 20% space for flowers for sale as well.  I told her our bee guy would make sure the bees had access no need for hand pollination.  If things went well I would add two or three more greenhouses.  The girls talked on the phone and decided on four crops for the greenhouse, bell peppers, tomatoes, ginseng and various herb starters for the first greenhouse.  Well there would be at least two greenhouses because I had more panels coming.  I had no plan to earn a profit but I didn’t tell them.  Kaylee and Vanessa were trying to find a way to generate $150k of annual sales as a target.  I told her about the 16 interns down the road, she might get one or two to help with the greenhouses.

The roofing materials for the houses was coming in as we spoke.  I tagged Herb to get all the appliances delivered tomorrow.  Thor and Loki could get at least one building roofed after the greenhouse.  I spent too much time talking to Kaylee.  What was I doing?  My 30 year old hormones were obscuring my vision.  She wasn’t helping, obviously flirting with her rich new boss.  Or at least I assumed she was flirting.

I left Kaylee who was facetiming with Vanessa.  I told Herb to add phone plans as another benefit for employees.  Of course they wouldn’t cost me anything with Herb controlling the accounts on system phones.

I sat in the back of the truck working in the AC.  I put a plan for a road running toward the mountains and started designing an outdoor gear store at the edge of my property.  A 150 meter by 100 meter building with 120 parking spots.  It had 3 stories, and I modeled the interior after a Bass Pro Shop.  But the retail was limited to backpacking, mountain climbing, rafting, canoeing, kayaking, fishing, skiing, mountain and road bikes. No large boats or guns.  It had a modest restaurant as well.  I started figuring out staffing, Herb said it would require 34 employees to staff for seven day operation even if the restaurant was only open 11am to 9pm, Tue to Sun.  If the building was only open 10am to 7pm including the restaurant I could get employees down to 27.  Herb would handle inventory saving me three more employees.  If I went to self checkout with no cashiers I could get down to 20 employees, 9 of those for the restaurant.  I had Herb hold off on the building, just set up power and water lines to the planed site.

I closed my eyes and tried to focus.  I really didn’t need to return to the other realm.  Herb would make me billions and I could live nicely.  If I wanted to make use of the life rejuvs I could just do missions in the three cities I already linked to.  But I had already locked in the three dwarf city missions so needed to clear them.  I made a decision that would be my last anchor set up.  I was feeling pretty horny from talking with Kaylee.  I thought about driving to see Camilia but discarded that, she was focused on volleyball.  I thought of other options, Malli was an easy get but I didn’t want to lead her on.  The elf chef, she had touched me provocatively a few times.  I settled for porn.  Stress relieved I fell asleep in the back of truck.  I would get my garage-home back tomorrow.

I woke and responded to emails and texts.  My sister wanted to use the poolhouse as a rental unit.  It was her property and I said she could but not to count on me to watch the kids again. 

I reviewed the progress on the farm.  Three houses were roofed, had power connected and water lines as well.  Herb said the geothermal power unit needed 13,000 system credits for the deep facility and the bots to construct it with the thermal lines.  Herb put up the itemized list.  Power could be set up in 60 hours once they were purchased.  Interim a 350 credit generator could handle the load.  All power and water lines were buried deep.  I texted Kaylee saying she could move in.  She would be responsible for her own furniture.  The appliances would be installed by Loki and Thor by evening.  I got to the garage home and Kaylee was there with her crappy car.  I thought for a second and had Herb order eight 4x4 pickup trucks, all white.  They would be farm vehicles assigned to employees.  Herb found enough Silverados in dealerships close to have them all here in a few days.  I would drive them into the terminal room to get them painted baby blue and add decals for Portal farms. 

I checked my funds when I got into the terminal room, Kaylee having driven off.  Portal Inc held 2.7 million dollars, my debit account had $32,106 dollars.  I had 37 gold, 420 silver and 620 copper coins.  I had 190 basic credits and 160 system credits.  I had been spending money like water so was not surprised it hadn’t gained a large amount.  I asked Herb why my debit had so much and he replied my salary was paying out to balance the books. 

Seven gold would get me the generator.  I took care of it and deposited it outside the portal.  Loki and Thor could hook it to the grid.  It was time to make the trip to the dwarves.

I found a mechanical horse for 2500 credits.  I decided that was my best option to draw minimal attention.  I should probably set up Herb to handle everything on the farm for this leg to the dwarven city.  I bought some remote drone sensors for Herb to monitor the farm and got 20 more datapads identical to the one I gave Kaylee.   The horse looked like a normal horse but moved a little mechanically.  Guess I couldn’t have everything.  I had the drones set up the sensors and left the datapads for Kaylee to distribute.  I would get the Silverado trucks redone when I returned.  The employees could use them until then.   I gave Herb a few directives but for the most part told Herb to let the employees dictate progress.  Thor and Loki and the datapads should be enough connection to get things done.   Back in the terminal room I filled my dimensional space with all my gear, food, camping gear and a few trade goods and most importantly the handle to set a new portal anchor.  I wore traveling clothes, phone, my Glock, knife and 3 spare ammo clips with 2 boxes of 100 rounds. 

I entered the city of Radvorak with my black mount.  I exited the city and used my phone to orient me.  Herb used the sun to set up a map and sent the directions to the horse bot.  This was going to be easier than I thought.  It was much rougher riding the mechanical horse on my ass but I was moving much faster.

I got a lot of looks racing down the roads.  I took to resting my body every 30 minutes from the pounding ride.  I camped before sunset.  I had a large tent and cot in my dimensional space so I was very comfortable.  The next day I stopped at a small hamlet and rented a room in a house for 50 coppers.  Herb said I had come 700 km in two days.  But even with healing my body was taking a beating.  I was slow to leave the next morning and talked to some dwarves.  They all had facial tattoos. They were also headed west to the dwarven cities and asked if I wanted to travel with them.  I agreed to join the fourteen of them just to slow down my pace a bit.  Their mounts looked like stubby legged mouse.  We talked a lot on the road and I learned their culture was similar the native americans of my world.  They held strong belief in spirits and respecting the earth and nature.  We made about 70 km the first day and 80 km the second day.  That second night we arrived at the border of the dwarven lands.  A small building 15 meters by 15 meters and 20 meters high made of a blue white stone marked the checkpoint.  My companions talked with the guards in the tower and overlistening I learned there was an uprising to the south.  The gnoll, goblin and ogre tribes were causing trouble.  It sounded similar to what the Baldorians dealt with the goblin clans.  That night the dwarves schooled me a bit.  There were many races on the southern part of the continent that were less civilized, goblins, orcs, orges, gnolls, giants, beastkin and lizardmen.  Only in the past 200 years when the humans started expanding their territory did they start forming up together to repel the human invaders.  The dwarves had remained neutral until about 50 years ago when an army of 100,000 pushed into their kingdoms.  It took an alliance with a nearby human kingdom to slow and turn the army.  Generally attacks were not dangerous unless the attackers had a lot magic wielders. 

The dwarves had their own war wizards and high guard.  A war wizard would be paired with a high guard.  Most of the time the pair was husband and wife.  The high guard and war wizards trained for decades before earning their titles and status.  The reason this was brought up was four of the dwarves with us were going to take the entrance exam to the high guard academy.  The dwarfs had spartan and frankly uncomfortable beds.  The next day we only made 60 km and I was considering leaving my traveling party of dwarves.  We slept in stone shelter, one of the many the dwarves had built on the roads for travelers.  Before the sun rose a group of dwarves came rushing through with news an army was moving north, at least 50,000 strong.  A southern outpost had been overrun and a defense was being set up at the two southern strongholds.  They were spreading word to rally.  My companions immediately packed and headed out to reinforce the fort closest.  I spent a few minutes before I mounted and caught up.  I figured this couldn’t be any worse than the goblins. 

We road hard the 80 km to the dwarf stronghold.  It covered a quarter of a kilometer and had impressive 30 meter high stone walls.  The fort had 600 dwarves with small groups heading in constantly.  We had half a day before the army arrived.  When the doors shut we had just under 1000 defenders.  On the walls I watched the army appear next to a well armed female dwarf with neat tattoos that shimmered silver.  We talked while the more and more enemy showed.  She was very tactical in her assessment.  I thought she must be part of the forts leadership.  Then another dwarf came next to her and they started talking.  The other dwarf was a war wizard!  Which made my female dwarf his high guard companion.  The conversation became a three way.  I learned there were three war wizards who traveled to this fort.  The other fort had six war wizards dispatched to it.  it seems we had about 70,000 enemies with just under 100 giants.  The wizard said he had received communication that the other fort had about 70,000 enemies at their gates as well but nearly 1000 giants.  The dwarf army of 40,000 men would form and turn back the army at the other fort in three days and then they would head here.  We had to hold for five days.  I asked about our chances.  The female responded with joviality that we had the great war wizard of the dwarven assembly, Domir Barrinhord.  There was a humorous back and forth between the wizard and high guard.  Her name was Denterra Barrinhord.  They eventually asked why I was helping and I responded I was just here to ply my sword and spells against the horde.  They were surprised I was a mage and asked me to demonstrate my skills.  I was embarrassed with my ice bolt and fire bolt. I said I could heal as well.  They both said I could definitely help with magical healing.  Domir passed me two Aether potions.  He said it would recover my Aether but it would greatly deplete my body.  He also gave me a fancy necklace made of silver and bone.  Domir said it would increase the power of my fire bolt, it was a relic from his early days. I put it on and felt it synergize with my Aether.   Denterra was a sword master and on the wall we had a little spar.  I learned what a true master was.  She taught me as she beat the crap out of me over the next two hours while Domir watched and cheered me on. 

When we finished and I returned to my dwarf traveling companions.  They heard of my interactions and watched the sparing match I had with Denterra.  Apparently they were not joking, the wizard and high guard were legends.  Denterra was the grand sword master of the Assembly, the best of the best.  I did feel my swordmanship improved in just the two hours we sparred.  Her husband, Domir, was a member of the triumvirate, one of the three ruling wizards on the Assembly.  Guess they were pretty good.  My dwarfs friends were envious. 

We only had to wait until night till the first attack.  I was on the wall watching and I was truly scarred.  The mass of screaming bodies reached the wall and got ladders up.  The war wizards then acted, shifting the earth and spilling the ladders.  I cast my fire bolt a dozen times and it was more powerful.  The attack faltered after two hours the army withdrew.  Over the next day the stench from the dead bodies permeated the stronghold.  The attackers lost maybe 2000 last night with 7 dwarves died and 60 were injured.  I spent time healing until I ran out of Aether.  The next night the attack was more subdued.  Domir said they were just trying to keep us up and prevent sleep. 

Then there was bad news.  A third army intercepted the dwarf army, not many but enough to slow them down.  Domir expected something big was about to happen.  Then it did happen that night.  The army attacked in force but had mages to counter the dwarven war wizards.  It was a crazy battle.  I was on the wall and had to use my Glock to help defend troops that made it to the top.  It was a brutal six hour fight and I had thought about retreating and using my anchor and retreating to the terminal room.  When the fight was over 200 dwarves had died, another 300 injured, and the enemy still had over 50,000 men.  I was having breakfast with Domir and Denterra, who had become friends in the last few days.  They asked questions about my Glock.  I had probably killed 100 on the wall during the night with it.  I said it was a unique item from my homeland and I only had 13 more firings left.  I learned things were not good.  The army was just reaching the other fort and it should be fine over there.  This fort however was likely to fall tonight.  They apologized I was going to die here. 

I mulled during the day what to do.  I figured I should get my handle out of my dimensional pocket.  But I couldn’t open it!  I panicked and went to Domir.  He explained the enemy mages had set up a field to prevent portal magic.  What the fuck!  I was pretty sure my portal would have worked to my terminal room.  But my dimensional pocket was Aether portal magic.  I spent my time and Aether potions healing dwarves the rest of the day.  Getting as many as I could back to the wall.  The aftereffects of the Aether potions were bad, nausea and migraines.  Herb had no plan to help me out.  As the sun set I was feeling scarred, this was bad.  I had planned poorly and my life was going to end here.  I wondered about Camilia and Kaylee, would they miss me, my family?  After a bit of feeling sorry for myself I joined the dwarves on the wall.  I got nods and Denterra handed me a beautiful sword with runes on it. 

The attack came in force and we held well for the first hour, the war wizards using their most powerful spells.  It was crazy as I moved on the wall.  My Glock was expended quickly and I had to switch to fire bolts, which I only had enough Aether to cast four but all were painful due to Aether fatigue and I almost vomited after each casting.  I switched to the sword and was running up and down the walls assisting when things got bad.  I had two wounds that I couldn’t feel.  As I moved to the east wall the rampart in front of me exploded.  A dwarf yelled the giants had closed inside the deflection shield and were throwing boulders.  Things got bad from there.  One of the war wizards shield failed when a boulder hit it and he was thrown from the wall.  The east wall was overrun and there were no dwarves left there.  Domir cast a spell that blew the top of the east wall off.  It spilled 200 enemies off with debris that killed more below.  Then my wall, the south wall, shuddered.  It was almost over for me.  My wall shuddered again and a third of it collapsed into the keep taking twenty dwarves and fifty enemy with it.  The wall plowed through the courtyard and into the lower levels of the stronghold.  A few minutes later I felt the sway of the wall below my feet, then a crack, I was now on a ride to the courtyard to join my fellow defenders.  On my ride down I saw brilliant streaks on fireballs coming from what I thought was the north.  Reinforcements?  Too late for me.  I hit hard, bounced and fell further into the opening of the lower layers on the keep.  I hit my head and then bottom.  I few rocks hit me but I didn’t feel it.

I regained consciousness a few times but it was dark and my legs and arms were pinned, I was thirsty when I woke for the third or fourth time.  I focused and healed myself as much as I could.  I had damaged organs, broken bones and numerous other conditions.  Before I passed out again I stabilized my body.  I woke again.  My phone wasn’t close, so no Herb.  I was deep under rubble, I heard nothing.  There was tons of debris above me.  I could open my dimensional pocket but could not move my limbs to get anything out.  I passed out again straining to reach it in the dark.  Next time I woke it was raining outside as water was dripping down.  I was thankful to suck up the water that reached near my lips.  I was parched and the oily dirty tasting water passed my lips.  I think days passed but I didn’t know.  I was fighting for my life and was experiencing hunger and thirst like I couldn’t believe. 

I don’t know how long I was there when I woke to grinding.  Soon light shown done on my face.  The light blinded me and an angel was before me.  Not an angel.  It was Vivian.  She said sleep now and I was unconscious again.

Next time I woke I was in a bed and Vivian was there in a chair next to my bed.  I could move a little but my bones were still broken.  Vivian said my bones would be hard to heal with magic but the goddess said I could handle it myself.  She was here to answer my questions through the goddess’ voice.  I didn’t understand until Vivian’s voice changed.  The goddess was talking.  The goddess was an entity, one of many, who controlled the terminal rooms across the 13 realms.  Ok so at least there were only 13 universes.  Well there were technically more but the others were not habitable.  I asked why the terminals?  The entities had a mutual agreement to not act directly in the realms.  They spur on the Travelers with missions.  Why me?  Well the creature that I found hiking and took the terminal key from was actually a wolfman, a Traveler.   How many entities were there?  Seven who were currently active, a few dozen that were currently asleep, and six that did not have terminals.  How many terminals were there?  At this moment, around 20 million, with 18 millionish actively occupied by Travelers. What did the entities hope to gain from manipulating the Travelers?  The entity paused as if thinking on a response.  Her answer, after a few seconds pause, was that some entities hoped to achieve some type of self morality, others hoped to gain power by raising new entities to power that were subservient to them, others treated it as a game out of boredom, others tried to change fates course.  I couldn’t process this but asked about fates course.  Fate is preordained in a universe, everything will play out in a specific order.  By bringing in Traveler’s from other universes the flow of fate changes.  For example my participation in the defense of the dwarven stronghold has caused a large ripple on this planet.  If I hadn’t been here the fort and all occupants would have fallen.  Instead my presence delayed them enough that twenty war wizards were able to fly here from far to the north and turn the tide.  Domir and Denterra survived and will both be pivotal in the future to stabilizing the dwarf lands in the next ten thousand years.  If they had died here then that would have resulted in the slow collapse of the Dwarf Assembly over the next decade as the forces continued to push north.  Also two of my original dwarf companions would become high guards in the future and earn their own fame.  How many dwarves survived?  176.  Wow 80% had died.  Vivian said she would answer one more question, this fragment of her consciousness had to be elsewhere.  What was my best course of active?  She smiled.  She suggested I finish the tutorial, which meant getting one skill Skilled-1 rank.  The tutorial completion conditions were hidden so that was why I wasn’t aware of it.  That question answered Vivian’s voice returned to normal. 

Vivian said with my magic and her help we could get me on my feet in two days.  I said I could just return to my terminal room and heal there.  Vivian then said she had some advice to pass on.  There were some 2 billion habitable planets in this universe and using all my anchor points on this planet was probably not the best plan.  Vivian had been tasked to be my helper by the goddess.  She had been given some general knowledge when she devoted herself to serve.  Ok we would spend two days healing up and get to the city of Granite Fist. 

My mechanical horse was smashed so I got a wagon with Vivian and we travelled by cart the rest of the way and I got time to get to know her. Vivian had long silky black hair and deep blue eyes that turned green in the sunlight.  She was young, maybe 19.  Her body was slim but well endowed and I would say she was very attractive.  She was tall, her head came up to my chin.  Talking to her I learned she had been given five magic spells from the goddess.  And a large amount of knowledge.  We slept in my large tent the three nights but I didn’t make any move on her, she had been raped repeatedly by Cooroff and his minions. 

The dwarven city of Granite Fist was impressive, carved out in tiers from an isolated mountain it reached into the sky, it was one of three great dwarven cities.  The few dwarves I had travelled with from the stronghold told the soldiers I was one of the defenders of the stronghold that almost fell.  I was summoned before the Dwarf King.  Domir and Denterra were there as well.  They were happy to see me alive and I apologized for losing Denterra’s sword she had loaned me.  The Dwarf King named me Dwarf-friend and gave me an amulet and gorgeous dwarven blade.  Then we partied.

The party lasted almost an entire day.  In the end Domir brought me to his quarters and got me to explain what a Traveler was.  I answered his questions as best I could.  He then suggested I use my anchor point in his guest room next to his quarters, he would make sure the room would be empty as long as he lived and I could come and go as I wished.  I accepted his offer.  I brought Vivian to the guest quarters and gave her all my funds from my dimensional space, 39 gold, 528 silver and 620 copper coins.  I told her I would be gone for some time.  She asked why she couldn’t come with me.  I paused, should I get her a mark so she could use my gates?  Truthfully I was worried, she was tied to the goddess and I wasn’t sure if this was a ploy to assume control of my terminal room.  I told her maybe after I returned.

The clean air of the terminal room, Betty and Bruce, my bed and Herb.  The first thing I needed was credits so I could get a new phone for Herb to download into.  I grabbed the computer and sat down on the leather couch.  Betty brought me fresh coffee, it was good to be home.   

Explore the city of Granite Fist.  Reward 1500 credits

Completed, 1500 credits

Spar with a Dwarven Master swordsman, Reward 500 credits, +1 Long Blades skill

Completed, 100% Bonus, 1000 credits, +3 Long Blades skill

I looked at my skills next.

Skills (7), 2 Skill Points Available

Ballistic Firearms: Hang Gun                             Beginner-7

Dodge                                                                    Novice-1

Short Blades                                                         Beginner-5

Persuasion                                                            Beginner-2

Martial Combat                                                    Novice-4

Mercantile                                                             Beginner-2

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Long Blades                                                           Beginner-7

Teamster Wagoner                                             Neophyte-4

Horsemanship                                                      Beginner-2

Swimming                                                             Neophyte-1               

Cooking                                                                  Neophyte-2

Gambling                                                               Neophyte-1

Parry                                                                       Neophyte-4                                               

Abilities/Traits (2)

Improved Self-Healing                                        Beginner-3

Ice Bolt                                                                   Beginner-2

Fire Bolt                                                                 Neophyte-3 (+3)

Healing Hands                                                      Beginner-4

Languages

Language: English                                                Skilled-7

Language: Spanish                                               Neophyte-4

Language: Caldonian                                           Novice-3

Language: Ancient Dwarf                                   Apprentice-1

Language: Common Dwarf                                Apprentice-2

I made some progress, guess a few days of fighting got me a few bumps.  I also got a new skill, parry.  I spent the whole 2500 credits getting me a new phone.  It was good to have Herb back and close.

Herb started giving me updates.  I had been gone 21 days.  Portal Inc held 19 million dollars, my debit account had $128,630, 260 basic credits and 160 system credits.  Both adjacent farms were purchased and the 50 acres would be harvested in two weeks and the land turned over to me.  The housing was finished, the buildings for the goat and sheep farms were done, the cheese factory was done, the building foundation for the outdoor store was done, most of the planned roads were done, a second greenhouse had been completed, and the hardware store had been purchased as well as four acres downtown to rebuild it into a much larger operation.  Next Herb updated me on the employees.  Leo had arrived with his girlfriend, Paige, and had purchased 60 hives and fourteen bee colonies.  Herb said the extra hives were to harvest bees if they swarmed.  He was setting up two colonies each with half the colonies at to corners of the properties.  Kaylee and Vanessa had hydroponics set up for one greenhouse and were just starting on the second.   They had about 20% of the first greenhouse planted as well.  Kate and Dave had ordered sheep and goats but didn’t have any yet.  Dave had his farm truck and was currently driving to pick up 300 chicks for the chicken house.  Gerry and Vilma opened the kitchen ten days ago and from the communications of the employees they were doing really well feeding the crew.  Thor and Loki had switched to grounds keeping.   They were clearing brush and preparing land.

Next I had to review text and phone messages.  162 text messages and 25 phone messages from Camilia.  Herb had sent her some texts simulating I was travelling the pacific looking for business opportunities.  I called her and we talked for 90 minutes.  She was super excited.  She was killing it on the volleyball court and the team was 9-2.  She wanted me to come see a game.  I told her I would do my best.  Next was calling my parents which lasted 45 minutes.  Then I texted my sisters.   Herb said Portal Inc had a federal review but it shouldn’t be an issue with the documentation Herb sent. 

I walked out of my garage.  Of course it was 4am and dark.  There were two white pickups parked outside and my silver RAV4.  Herb said the other 6 pickups were being used by the employees.  Leo, Kaylee, Vanessa, Kate, Dave and Gerry each had one.  Ok I decided I would upgrade the two pickups I had.  I drove the first truck into the terminal.  I added a sensor and tracker for Herb.  Changed the color to baby blue.  I changed from gas to high density batteries.  I added the decals and the number #1in small lettering on the hood, tailgate and doors.  It was just over 500 credits for all the changes.  A little more than I was hoping.  I left the truck parked with updates pending payment since i was short.  I made a note for Herb to have charging stations installed at the houses and major buildings on the farm.  The HD batteries would give over 50 hours of intense operation. 

It was time to hop in my black truck and tour my farm.  It was 5am so I went to the screens while the truck drove to the north part of the farm.  I needed someone to operate the cheese factory.  I sorted through Herbs list of potentials.  I settled on a Canadian who had dual citizenship.  He had 22 years experience working in three different productions.  I had Herb offer him the job.  He had no debt but lived in an apartment and had no savings.  Herb calculated he had a high probability of accepting.  To run the horse farm I narrowed the list to six but decided to hold off for now.  Herb said I should hire a vet as well.  I had two open houses in my little community but both were planned for the horse ranchers.  Herb had twenty candidates for the vet.  I found a vet on the list who specialized in equine and bovine vet medicine.  She was a recent graduate from Texas.  She had an impressive resume, top of her class, impressive residency at a cattle ranch.  She was 27 and had over 100k in student debt.  She also rode as a cattleman to make extra money and did rodeo barrel riding growing up.  She was perfect.  I had Herb make her an offer, 5 year contract.  I would pay her a 20k bonus every anniversary of her hire.  If she was smart she could pay off her debt in 3-4 years.  I made sure to mention the company truck and phone.  I also decided she could freelance on the side.  Herb said I had a 70% chance to hire her.  What would help?  Herb said her grandparents, who raised her, were in Texas and it appears she didn’t want to be far from them.  What did her grandparents do?  Grandmother was a retired teacher and the grandfather was a retired mechanic.  Well I would have to see what the vet said. 

The sun finally gave some light and I could see the chicken coup was a four acre fenced in chicken run covered in a mesh to prevent hawks and eagles from getting them.  It had fresh water running down the middle.  The coup itself was a U shape. The nesting boxes were easily accessed and a small outbuilding had an egg washing and packing machine with refrigeration.  With 300 chickens we should get about 25 dozen eggs per day. 

The cheese factory was nice, directly adjacent to the milking barn.  It had over 2 million dollars of equipment and set up to produce 8 different cheeses.  It had three separate aging rooms.  It could process about 1000 gallons of milk per day.  The goat and sheep pastures were marked off but only one was fenced in so far.  There was to be three different pastures, each 11 acres.  Two of the pastures were on the main farm.  We didn’t have any sheep dogs I asked Herb.  I told Herb to get the best five Australian Shepherds and get a trainer here to train them, a 6 month contract.  Herb was to coordinate the training with Kate and Dave.  Kate pulled up in one of the trucks and we got to talking.  Dave had the chicks and would be back soon.  She said milk production would begin in spring after the birthing.  They were settling in well and grateful for the opportunity. 

My next stop was the cafeteria, it had four large tables with 12 seats each.  Only Gerry and Vilma were there and they were fantastic people.  They served me cheesy cornbread, orange juice, tea, blackened ham and eggs.  They gave me a tour of the kitchen.  We talked for an hour and they just had a bunch of questions.  They could get as many ingredients as they wanted to from the farm and have the greenhouses grow requested ingrediants.

I toured the houses and intern barracks.  They all looked great.    I had Herb schedule to build two more houses for employees.  Herb said the vet, Rae, was calling.  I took the call.  She had a bunch of questions that I answered.  Her final question was if she could have people live with her.  I said no problem but the houses only had two bedrooms.  She said she would get back to me. 

My next stop was the greenhouses.  Kaylee was bubbly and excited to show me the progress.  She had 250 cuttings of elderberry growing.  She showed me the hydroponics set up, it cost nearly $200,000 and she had another set coming for the other greenhouse.  Money was like water.  Vanessa was nice but fairly quiet.  She told me she played ice hockey in college and tried to go pro.  She made a team but was offered $4k for the entire season and no health benefits.  That was typical and discouraged her so she went hiking in Colorado and started looking for a job.  The two hit me with all their ideas to make the greenhouses profitable.  I told them to focus on getting the apple and pear trees ready for planting in the spring on the acres planned for the orchards.  They said that would be 2000 minimum, maybe as many as 3000 trees.  Ok plan on 2400 then.  I told them to buy 2 meter tall trees and nurse them through the winter in the second greenhouse.  That threw them for a little tizzy as they had plans in the works for the second greenhouse.  I said put their plans on hold for 7 months.

My next stop was Leo.  He wasn’t the nerd I thought he would be.  He was equal to me in height and definitely worked out.  He had some diagrams of the property and where he was placing the hives for best coverage.  He had plans on honey harvesting and projected sales.  He had a list of flowering trees and plants that would bloom over the spring-summer-fall cycle and the amount that needed planting.  He had projections that once the orchards were up the property could sustain 80 hives.  Leo suggested I plant some native flowering trees outside my property in the Appalachian range to the west.  I liked the idea as long as they were indigenous.  I told him to get with Kaylee and Vanessa and released $100k for the project.  I had Herb order 4 John Deere ATVs for them to use on the project. 

My next stop was the outdoor store.  It was a grand building.  The parking lot was smaller than planned, only 60 spaces.  I had Herb note to triple it.  Maybe make a two level garage, with one level underground.  The building was all concrete, no wiring, lighting, woodwork.  Herb said the site had been approved for commercial sales so I could proceed.  I walked to the back of the store site and planned some buildings in my head for the AT hikers.  An underground hostel with 20 bunk beds, bathrooms, showers and washing machines.  I would have to make a trail to the AT.  Hmm I should have Leo plant flowering trees on the sides of the trail.  I put things in motion with Herb.

My next site was the site for the main house.  Thor and Loki had cleared the land.  It had great views and was relatively private.  I would have to design something soon.  I had a few ideas but held off for now.

My last stop was the 50 acres of farmland to the south.  I owned the land but could not develop until the harvest was in or November 1st if the harvest was left.  The road to the outfitter ran on the border of the properties.  The orchards would run along the road.  The horse pasture would be far to the south with a road running through the orchards.  I still needed a large mechanics garage for all the farm machinery.  I decided this building would be by the main road.  It was going to be big.  I sat in the back of the truck and opened a design interface.  40 meters by 80 meters.  Two stories.  It would be a beautiful stone façade.  The second floor would be storage and where Loki the Thor would habitat, a faux apartment. 

The sun was setting after a long day and I parked in the garage and slept in the bedroom after drinking a two liter of coke and two jars of applesauce.  It was all that was in the fridge that was appealing.  The next day I made the rounds buying salable items for the dwarven city.  It was a long 10 hour day.  I did bring back some white castle frozen burgers.  I went to sleep after eating 16 sliders and responding to texts.

In the morning I dragged everything to the terminal room and had Betty make me a great breakfast.  After breakfast I pulled everything through the portal Vivian was still in the room and started organizing things as I pulled them in.  Domir was gone but the guards said I was free to pass at will.  I started with the paper.  The dwarves were not as impressed and I only got 4 gold per ream of paper.  That got me 80 gold.  My perfume was a dud as well so I decided to save them for Grinshot.  The mirrors were a hit and I got 120 gold from what I brought with me.  Chocolate did well, getting me 50 gold for 200 herseys bars.  Toilet paper was in demand as well but the price point was 2 silver per roll, adding 12 gold.  Coke wasn’t a big hit, apparently elves had the sweet tooth not dwarves.  Then I found a hit.  I was snacking on some salt and vinegar chips and shared some with a dwarf merchant.  He would buy a large bag for 1 gold each!  Salty junkfood seemed to be a hit with dwarves.  I went back to my guest room to return.  Vivian who had accompanied me all day was also with me.  I told her she could do what she could to sell the items I was about to pull out.  Then I pulled out all the remaining crap I had bought minus 50 reams of paper and 65 bottles of perfume.  I returned for a short trip to Arywyn and sold the perfume to Grinshot for 130 gold.  Then I went to terminal room, ate a meal from Betty, showered and slept. 

It was mid morning when I entered my world.  Hoping in my truck I went to see what Gerry and Vilma were cooking for lunch.  Lunch wasn’t going to be ready for a few hours but they heated dinner leftovers, chicken parm with ziti.  I talked with them and they asked about installing a beverage dispenser machine.  I said fine and had Herb give them a $20k budget for it.  I said to add a short bar with four quality beers on tap but only have the taps open for dinner from Mon to Sat and limit the drinks so no one gets drunk.  We had enough space in the walk in fridge to have 4 kegs on reserve.  I thanked them for the food and left.  I got in the truck and had it head to stores on auto pilot.  I updated my correspondence and the vet had accepted my offer.  Excellent.  I had Herb send her $3k for moving expenses.  The Canadian cheese maker declined my offer.  Too bad, guess Herb wasn’t always on target. 

I got to a Wal mart and bought 100 bags of chips, mostly salt and vinegar.  Then I bought salted peanuts, salty candy bars, 20 pickle jars, 2 cases of candied bacon, and 40 packages of salted caramel cookies.  My truck was half full.  I decided to repeat at the next closest Wal Mart.

On the way there Herb said he was ready to move on the Russian oligarch money at my command.  I had him explain the mechanics in general terms.  Herb had wormed into their computers and would transfer the funds to a different account.   He expected to transfer about 3 billion cash in about 2.5 seconds.  He would then cycle the money away to various accounts.  It would be unrecoverable for them.  Phase 2 would be sending documentation of the oligarch crimes to 500 different news outlets that would have specifics that could be checked.  Phase 3 would be seizing and liquefying their other assets.  Herb estimated he could get another 400 million from this phase as he had the legal digital documentation from his investigation.  I found it humorous that I was sitting in a Wal Mart parking lot on a junk food run and I was plotting the downfall of some of the most powerful and evil men in Eastern Europe.  I gave Herb the go ahead.

I filled the truck at the second Wal Mart and returned to the farm and brought my haul to the terminal room, and onto my guest room in Domir’s suite.  Vivian wasn’t there and most of the original goods were gone with a large stack of gold on the table.  I got the chips into trash bags and went to my seller.  He was happy to pay 203 gold for the bags.  On the way back I ran into Denterra.  Domir was in council for the next few days as they decided on a course of action in response to the attacks from the south.  I brought her to my guest room and we sparred for a few hours.  Vivian returned as we started and just watched.  I was sweating profusely and Denterra was cool and collected.  I asked Vivian if she wanted to learn.  She said I was hers to direct.  I asked Denterra to train her.  She agreed and said she would bring the girl to the academy for the high guard.  I gave Denterra a snickers bar which she loved so I gave her a case.  She liked the salted peanuts as well.  I decided to let Vivian handle the sale of the rest of new items.  Vivian and I talked for an hour.  She was eager to please and wanted to help.  Her only issue was she didn’t speak dwarven.  She was doing fine.  I had to get back and get to a volleyball game to surprise Camilia.

Herb said the hostile action was completed, 3.12 billion dollars was now available.  Holy shit.  I was in the truck driving to the volleyball game.  What could I do with that kind of money.  Herb said I would need to launder it.  He put up a bunch of suggestions, construction firm, overseas personal, manufacturing.  Construction was the easiest, do I few large projects and clear 20-30% as profit, more if I could somehow use the construction bots from the system.  Herb suggested sport stadiums.  Didn’t Vanessa mention something about women’s ice hockey, I looked it up.  There was a league but the players were not happy.  How much for a hockey stadium, about 40 million for an 6000 seat rink.  If we attached a four story 2,000 car garage, a massive weight room and athletic training facility and an attached 30 unit apartment building.  We were looking at 70 million now plus the cost of 16 acres to build it on.  Fake cost overruns, and doing work with bots, Herb said I could clear 50 million.  Hmm if I started my own women’s hockey league with 8 teams that was 400 million cleared.   I looked at a map and picked 8 cities close by and gave the teams names, Nashville Sirens (TN), Chattanooga Locomotives (TN), Roanoke Renegades (VA), Atlanta Aviators (GA), Raleigh Rough Riders  (NC), Asheville Argonauts (NC), Knoxville Knights (TN), and Charlotte Tempest (NC).  I had Herb start looking for land to build on using the stolen funds.  They were clustered enough that each team would just need a luxury bus for travelling.  Now how much to run an ice hockey team.

The season would be 1 month preseason, 5 months regular season plus 1 month of playoffs, 56 regular season games with 4 teams going to the playoffs for seven game series.  I should build an administration league building, Roanoke, as it was the closest to the farm, a four story building HQ with a full video suite and studio.  I put the base salary at $50k, so with benefits that was $1.8 million a year for 25 full time people at HQ.  Each team would need some full timers as well…GM, head coach, assistant coach, strength coach, athletic trainer, team doctor, operations person, equipment manager, publicist, ticket sales, 2 rink managers, and maybe three more I couldn’t think right now so i slotted in 3 more.  That was 15 full timers.  Salary range of 40k to 100k with an average of 60k.  Right about $1.1 million total.  Next was players, 26 per team, pay would be 40k to 100k, full health and dental plus in season housing, came to a total of $1.5 million per team.  That meant the average salary would be $57k for a 7 month season.  With benefits that was $2 million per team for players.  Next was game crew, 4 ice officials, 3 in the booth, 10 on video.  I would need just four crews.  17 at an average of $50k would be another $1 million per crew.  So just for salaries I was looking at $30.6 million annually.  The part timers; concessions, security, bus drivers, game operations, and others, would run $20k per game, so another $4.5 million.  Hmmm, bonuses for players.  $2500 for making the playoffs, $2500 for winning the first round and $5000 for winning it all.  All league players would divide 50% of any television revenue from the playoffs divided equally based on the number of games they were on a roster for the season.  I would also invest 50% of the regular season television revenue for a pension program for the players.  The pension would pay shares based on games played so as more players started collecting the amount would go down.  Team luxury buses for travel…I could buy them from the terminal cheaply.  Putting another $1 million misc budget funds for each team that meant I needed $43 million annually.  I added another 7 million for HQs budget.  So I now needed $50 million annually to run a women’s hockey league.  I had Herb run the numbers on income from the league.  He estimated average fan attendance at 500 with tickets at $10.  That was just over a million dollars.  TV advertising revenue should run around $10 million a year….so…I would be losing 40 million a year?  Herb said the rinks could be rented out for other events…estimated revenue from all the rinks would be another $14 million a year for concerts, expos and conventions.  I had thought I could at least break even.  Well technically the money wasn’t mine, I had Herb put 1 billion into an endowment fund for the league.  It should generate $44 million annually in a safe investment portfolio. 

So the next question was whether to pull the trigger on this spit balling.  It would probably take 2 years to get the buildings and rinks up.  Herb was doing just fine making money but if I decided to attack evil people financially again I needed to launder the money.  I told Herb to establish Portal Inc Construction and gave the green light.  I was in the parking lot and the volleyball started in 15 minutes.  I headed in.

Not wanting to distract Camilia I hid in the stands and watched, there was maybe 600 fans.  She was doing quite well but I noticed something, the trainer had put his hand on the small of her back between games.  It had to be nothing but he was definitely crowding her and she didn’t shy away.  Regretting the next decision I asked Herb to hack their phones.  It was bad news for me.  Definitely some text messages getting more intimate over the last two weeks.  I was angry, jealous, after all I did for her.  I steamed as her team won 3 straight.  I thought I should just leave but wanted to confront her.  I then calmed down.  I would talk to her.  I waited till she had finished with her coach and walked up behind her as she was talking to the trainer.   She turned when I said hello.  She blushed, looked guilty and not happy to see me.  I said it was ok, he was much closer to her age and I was ok with letting the relationship go.  She grabbed me as I was leaving and blamed me.  The short text messages over the last 3 weeks, no phone calls, no visits.  Yeah Herb was just suppose to send short responses to her texts.  It was ok, I came to grips that my life was too far from this unless Camilia joined me.  But after this I couldn’t trust her.  I wished her the best of luck with her volleyball season and left.  She was crying but I didn’t feel empathy towards her.

The drive back was terrible.  I had been planning on sex stress relief tonight.  Instead I found I was replaced by a frigging athletic trainer.  I thought to sabotage the relationship by revealing it to the athletic director but just dropped it.  then Herb had bad news, two satellites had started photographing the farm when passing overhead.  CIA.  Damn frigging government.  Ok go to slow development on the farm.  No new buildings overnight anymore.  I was really tense, things were falling apart.  To feel better I designed the main farmhouse, well mansion.  I dropped the same pool and poolhouse in the back yard that I built at my sisters.  The main house was three stories, 12 bedrooms on the upper two floors each with a private bath, a 26 seat dinning room, ballroom, large gym, music room, two butler bedrooms, two security bedrooms, billiard room, large study/library, a large personal office/cigar room and a massive kitchen.  It also had a large basement with a 24 seat theater, a vault/armory and a sub basement that was a huge wine cellar.  There would be a large 24 space underground garage as well.  It was my dream home. 

The construction would all be extruded concrete before putting a finishing layer over it.  I queued the building as a slow build.  I needed more bags of extruded concrete from the system anyway.  At least designing the house kept me distracted on the way home.  It was midnight when I got back.  I went to the terminal room and crashed.

On waking I spared with Bruce to get out some frustrations.  Betty made me French toast and said I needed to resupply the fridge.  Of course.  I took a very long shower and thought that I should buy a sex bot from the system.  I went to the computer and started to check but noticed the mission tab was flashing.   

Trade 500 gold worth of goods in a Dwaven city, Reward 1000 credits, +1 Mercantile skill

Completed, 50% bonus, Reward 1500 credits, +1 Mercantile skill

But that was not what was flashing, it was the available missions tab.

Liberate 5 sex slaves being held in Charlottesville VA, Reward 5000 credits, +2 stat points

It was the first mission I had ever seen in my world.  I set Herb to investigating, increasing his processing power by investing the 1500 credits I had just earned.  Ten minutes later he had information.  The girls were part of the oligarchs sextrafficing business.  They had been moved out of DC due to the info Herb had released.  Herb found communications indicating where the girls were.  They were to be killed if found since they had serviced some important figures in Washington.  Herb guessed there were four men guarding them at the remote house.  Herb said the government would probably find them in less than 24 hours.  I accepted the mission.  Went to the portal and collected all the gold Vivian and I had made, about 800 gold coins.  Back in the terminal room I dropped it all into the recycler.

What could I get for 16,560 credits.  Fast transportation.  I found a grav sled for 4500 credits, with an optical stealth mod.  It could reach 2km in altitude and fly at 700 km.  It was basically a one person speeder bike, but a lot sleeker than the ones in Star Wars.  Next was a combat suit.  I found a battlesuit that could be customized.  I selected +6 strength, +6 speed, +6 agility, stealth module, full optics suite for the helmet and light shield module.  It cost 7500 credits.  Last was a weapon, I found heavy laser rifle for 2500 credits.  I added a room expansion for 2000 credits, a shooting range.  I used the room to practice in the new suit and with the rifle.  The suit and rifle linked so aiming was easy.  Herb could even access the HUD display.  The only issue was the grav sled was not huge and wearing the suit in it was a tight fight.  Herb used 100 credits to modify the compartment making it larger and it was much easier getting in and out.  It was 8:23 AM and Herb said the FBI was getting close and the girls might be terminated to prevent the FBI questioning them.  Ok it was go time.  I took the sled out of the terminal to my garage and activated the stealth module.   It was awesome.  I started slow doing 50 kph before picking up speed.  Herb was walking me through the operation.  As long as I didn’t turn fast I would be fine.  I parked the sled 500 meters from the target house in the woods. 

In stealth I got to the house and activated my optics.  I could see the people inside.  There were 6 females and 7 males according to Herb.  I got close so Herb could get audio and figure out what was going on.  After twenty minutes he said the extra men had brought another girl from New York last night.  All the men were the bad guys.  The girls were in the basement.  All the men were on the first floor.  One entrance to the basement.  Herb didn’t detect any explosives, just six hand guns and 6 automatic rifles.  Herb assessed the threat as zero.  My suits shield had 100% resistance.  Great.  I walked into the house and rushed to the basement door and blocked it.  the men jumped into action as I had entered but I beat them to the door.  I fired on the first guy and burned a hole through his chest.  Then bullets began flying.  I didn’t understand the vulgar language but just moved from one to the next.  The rifle killed even through walls and after less than a minute they were all dead. 

I had Herb send a message to the local police and FBI and retreated to the treeline.  Forty minutes later the cavalry showed up.  I slipped back to my sled and just hoped the girls wouldn’t be a target in custody to protect their customers.  Maybe I should have rescued them and brought them to the farm.  Too late now. 

I was happy to get back and parked the sled in the terminal room.  I gave the battle suit to Betty to clean.  Why didn’t I do this earlier?  I could rampage though goblins, orcs and giants.  I got a shower and sat on the couch with a chicken sandwich and Coke on the leather couch.

Liberate 5 sex slaves being held in Charlottesville VA, Reward 5000 credits, +2 stat points

Completed, 20% bonus 6000 credits, +2 stat points, +1 Laser Weapons: Rifle

No piloting skill for the sled or combat armor operation was disappointing.  The knowledge about the laser rifle was great, maintenance and safe use.  I dropped the 2 stat points into speed, bringing it to 72.  It felt good.  I planned to speed my 6000 system credits. 

I added 9 points to agility slowly bringing it to 65.  Then used the last bit of my system credits added 3 points to Aether.

It was a good upgrade.  I needed to buy more bags for the extruder.  I needed more gold.  Herb had some ideas.  There were some drug cartels that had stock piled gold in South America according to transactions he tracked.  With my combat suit that sounded like a plan.  The suit had an eight hour battery at full operation, it needed a pack extension battery for longer ops, 80 credits.  Herb listed three target compounds, the first one had an estimated 400 kilos of gold.  It was guarded by about 80 men and the drug lord lived there.  My rifle had about 100 shots at highest intensity on a full charge.  I would have to get my hand gun as backup weapon.  The other two compounds had about half as much gold but the same amount of men guarding them.  How many credits per kilo of gold?  Herb had the answer, 25000 credits per kg based on current conversion.   But at some point the system would have diminishing returns.  What?  Herb said the system exchange rate would change over time.  It was a market system.  Ok I would let Herb figure it out.  10 million credits were waiting for me in southern Mexico.

I got in the truck and planned to head out to get merchandise for Vivian to sell.  I stopped for food at Gerry’s.  There was a carved wooden sign over the cafeteria that now said Gerry’s.  inside was a commotion.  There were five puppies frolicking, the Aussies for the sheep and goats.  I surprised everyone as it was early for lunch.  I said at ease, they could all work at their own pace and schedule.  Kate and Dave asked if they could name the pups.  I said it could be a community effort.  It took an hour before names were decided on, Reece, Django, Streak for the 3 males and Nyce and Rouge for the females.  After filling myself I left and spent the day loading up, 6 Dollar Stores.  I parked in the garage and spent two hours transferring it all through the terminal to the guest suite.  There was 78 gold on the table that I grabbed on the way back.  I used the credits generated to buy the expanded battery pack for the battlesuit and as much extruder concrete as I could afford. 

My next goal was to get a skill for the battlesuit.  Rather than buy the skill I used the built in tutorial with Herb guiding me.  After five hours I still didn’t have the skill so showered, ate and went to sleep.  On waking I continued with the tutorial and finished it after 3 hours.  Finally!  Pilot: Battlesuit   at Neophyte-1.  I dropped in enough silver coins to get credits to raise the skill to Beginner-1, then did the same for the laser rifle skill.  I was much more confident now.  The terminal room charged the sled, suit and rifle and I was off to kill drug lords. 

The trip was 3 hours long and I landed in the jungle 3 kilometers away.  I moved the sled to the terminal room.  I didn’t want to walk 3 km to pick it up after.  I stealthed the suit and moved to the compound.  There were guys dressed in military fatigues everywhere.  Herb ran a scan, he couldn’t penetrate the distant buildings but there were 68 men, 2 women and 2 children on the grounds.  I decided to wait till dark to attack.

At 11pm, Herb jammed communications and I started with an attack near the large barracks away from the main house.  Fifteen men were dead by the time resistance started to get  serious.  A heavy jeep with a fifty caliber was coming down the road.  I stealthed and moved away, circling the property.  I then hit a group of soldiers near the house, they were ready and my shields flared.  I walked steady toward them firing every 2-3 seconds earning a kill.  After about 20 kills an explosion knocked me hard to the left.  Herb said it was a shoulder rocket launcher.  He highlighted the guy and he was my next kill.  I moved around the main house and my suit was down to 15% power, the shields were draining the battery due to the intense fire.  I burst through a window into the house and shot two men then entered a door, a bathroom.  I opened the terminal and entered. 

I breathed heavy and quickly had the terminal charge the suit, 6 minutes.  I had Betty get me a drink.  I was sweating even with the climate control in the suit.  I had to heal myself as well, a concussion and two cracked ribs as well as muscle strains, 3 Aether.  It was time for round two.  I closed the visor and returned.

I surprised a soldier in the bathroom.  I used my martial combat to break his neck.  It was different killing with my hands.  I decided to just use the rifle.  I walked out and the carnage began again.  After bringing my kill count to 70 according to Herb the remaining people had fled.  Six vehicles had left the compound.  I started searching for the gold.  There was a vault in the basement.  The door was just heavy steel and 12 shots from the laser had slagged the lock.  Inside was a trove, a pallet of hundred dollar bills, shelves of art work, gold coins, gold bars, rolex watches, a few stacks of bonds, displays containing jewelry.   I opened the terminal room and started moving everything inside.  Herb scanned it all as I went.  It took just under an hour.  Upstairs suddenly got loud, the bad guys were back with reinforcements. 

I was hoping to take some of the nice furniture in the house but it looked like my time was up.  I had managed to get my suit up to 70% charge and the rifle was back to 100%.  Bullets were flying as I pressed to the back door.  I killed a handful as I sprinted into the night.  Two helicoptors flying close fired at my with .50 caliber.  I paused and burned one with the rifle.  Herb said the helicopter had been carrying the drug lord as it crashed.  Grenades started going off around me.  Not as bad as the missle but still draining the shield.  I fired three quick shots to down the other copter then sprinted to the jungle.  I was 100 meters in before I slowed.  Herb said they were not following.  The butchers bill Herb said 109 kills.  I moved 5 km away before entering the terminal.  Holy shit. 

I stripped, showered, ate and slept.  When I woke I put on the news.  The first story Herb had me watch was the recue story in Virginia.  It didn’t give details just saying the FBI was investigating an attack on a Russian diplomats house in the mountains of Charlottesville.  Nothing about the girls?  Herb checked and the FBI had them in custody.  I told him to keep an eye of them in case the government did something fishy.  The next story Herb translated, the Mexican army had attacked a drug lords compound.  The reporter said it was thought the army was on the take from the drug lord so this was broadcast as a betrayal.  Huh, no story about a vigilante?  I guess I was expecting something more.  Well at least I had the loot.

I dropped the gold bars into the recycler earning 7,808,600 credits.  I created a treasure room expansion in the terminal, 15 meters by 10 meters.  I had Betty move the artwork to it.  I had $30 million in various gems and jewelry, $60 million American dollars, the stocks and bonds were worth another $110 million, the watches, gold coins and 37 first edition books were worth another $25 million on the auction market.  I also had paperwork with bank account numbers and passwords, $680 million!  This was crazy.  I had Herb immediately transfer the $680 million to various charities around the world in case someone else had the access numbers.  The $110 million in stock and bond certificates I tossed in a plastic tote and put in a corner of the treasure room.  I made another room addition, a library/study.  Now I had some shelves for the books, coins and watches.

It was time to go shopping.  First I looked at spaceships because well spaceships.  I could get an intersystem shuttle for 4 million with top speed of 0.2 c.  A low orbit fighter was just 3 million.  A nice system patrol craft was 40 million.  I held on this for a bit, 24 crew capacity, micro jump capable up to 2 light minutes, and a good assortment of weapons.  With this craft I could rule Earth from space.  I went to the battlesuit and upgraded the shield so it would anchor in space and I wouldn’t get thrown around.  Next I bought two battle drones to link to my suit controls.  The drones were round and just under 1.2 meters grav drones with a heavy assortment of sensors, a heavy pulse stun projector good to 15 meters, a deflector shield, and heavy laser good to 400 meters.  I added an option for a full stealth suite which was optical, infrared and audio negation.  Each drone cost 7900 credits.  Herb would control them from my suit after a nominal upgrade.  I found a food synthesizer for a large luxury liner space ship.  It was the size of a cargo container and held enough base blocks to serve 20 people for 6 months.  I added an expansion to my kitchen and bought the food synthesizer for 25,000 credits.  It had 148 thousand dishes and drinks programmed.  I purchased an expansion for the base block storage, quadrupling its capacity.  I now had 40 years of food in the terminal if I was the only one here.  Next I upgraded Bruce, he was made more human appearing as a large 2.0 meter tall Asian male with large muscles and his base stats were 90 now, he also had his skills increased to Expert-10, I purchased him a personal shield as well.  I also gave him the ability to leave the terminal.  He would now be my body guard in the real world if needed.  Betty got an upgrade too, she looked very close to Charlese Theron from the Aeon Flux movie except her hair was blonde.  I added a bunch of support skill suites at Skilled-1 so she could be my personal assistant.   She was essentially a fully functional android now and could now enter the world as well.  Both Bruce and Betty had 96 hour batteries before requiring a charge outside the terminal. 

I then spent 1 million credits on various construction bots.  They were much larger scale than the cheap residential ones I already had.  I had them all queued up for materialization for when I got back to my farm.  Ok it was time to move to my next target.  I left the terminal with the grav sled and my two drones.  We flew 200 km to the next compound.  The drones flew over and found 69 men, 13 women and 5 children.  They were on high alert.  I tagged all the men for death and to not touch the women or kids.  The drones attacked from the gate entrance and they were efficient and 4 minutes later all 69 men were dead.  I walked to the main house ignoring the women and kids and entered the storage room.  There was a massive wine celler and a secret door in it.  I just ignored the door and punched through the wall.  Yep, cash and gold after peering inside.  I opened the terminal connection and had Betty and Bruce start moving everything of value to the terminal room.  I found I had to be within 25 meters of the door for it to remain open.  So I just wandered through the house.  I tagged everything except the mattresses and clothes to be taken.  The furniture was high end.  This drug lord wasn’t as rich, his assets were less than half of the first one and there were no bank account numbers.  There were locations of four drug processing facilities.  After Betty and Bruce finished I took the drones and destroyed these processing sites, killing the few guys with guns and burning the cocaine.   Ok I only had one more drug lord left.

His compound was 600 km away so I headed for it.  A fly over scan and found there were only 22 guards.  No women or children.  The drones made short work of the guards.  Herb said he detected a large explosive device through the drones sensors.  It wouldn’t detonate as it was a remote activation and easily jammed.  I searched the villa.  The bastard had moved a good portion of wealth away.  I took the best stuff I could find, lots of high end alcohol, 4 million cash, a fair amount of jewelry, and a collection of rare comic books.  I had Herb locate the drug kingpin.  Which one he asked.  Oh the last one wasn’t killed either.  After five minutes I learned one was in Mexico City in a luxury hotel, the other was on a plane to Europe.  I used the sled and went to Mexico City and the drones killed the drug lord and his 5 bodyguards from outside the 35th floor window.  Then I was off to home.  I was glad to be back in my garage.  Before showering and sleeping I got bags of concrete extruder out of the terminal.  I wanted my main house started on, I had a slow build order, 8 weeks to completion. 

A shower and a fantastic beef wellington from my food synthesizer and I was asleep.  On waking I got French toast with maple syrup and fresh OJ.  I knew when I bought it the food synthesizer it was the best investment to date.  I added a few rooms to the terminal, 7 bedrooms, a wine basement, a game room, and theater room.  That should give Betty enough expansion for all the crap we stole.  I sat down and went over things.

I was close to owning sites for all eight hockey rink sites.  I put a press on building the main league admin building to get built.  I wanted it open in one year.  Next was my farm.  The cheese factory needed someone so I started reviewing Herbs suggestions and offered the job to a family from Iowa.  The parents worked in a specialty cheese factory and they had 4 kids.  Their financials were not great so they should jump at the opportunity.  I needed someone for my horse farm.  Herb suggested I purchase some land for milk cows so the horse farm workers had something to do.  There was a 76 acre plot across the road that could be purchased for $500k.  Ok I said to Herb, 60 milk cows, add an expansion to the cheese factory, add the buildings across the street for milking the cows and feeding them.  I let Herb set up the best layout for efficiency.  I found two cowboys that could handle the horses and cows.  Both were in Texas and were a brokeback mountain couple.  Steve and Kyle.  The milking would be new for them but they could learn on the job.  60 cows for two guys shouldn’t be hard.

Steve and Kyle accepted almost immediately and I sent them $6k for moving expenses.   The family from Iowa called and soon they were on board.  Markus and Tanner were their names.  I hadn’t met Rae yet but Rae had asked me for a building to practice her vet medicine, I approved the building across the street and had Herb set up the build.  I went back to my town concept.  Currently police and fire were paid for through another county.  I needed more land.  There was 709 acre swamp across the street and 47 acre pond.  Pretty useless land.  Unclaimed, Herb could get it for almost nothing.   Herb had a map up, he highlighted the swamp and the land around it, a 2km by 5km strip of land with the swamp in it.  It would cost 11 million to secure these lands for development.  I approved.  How to develop the land?  I decided on a 250m by 4500m lake bordered by a 100m park around the entire perimeter.  On one side of the lake would be a road with residential housing, 256 ½ acre plots.  Herb parceled the land and planned electrical and water lines.  Waste water recycling would be a large underground facility.  Half of the lake would be a 12 lane rowing course, the other half would be residential boating and fishing.  The depth of the lake would be 8 meters on the rowing side and 30-40 meters on the public use side.  A pedestrian bridge would cross the lake separating the two ends.  On the other side of the lake I decided on a large college, no not a college, a school for Pre-K to 12th grade.  I started with a free day care facility, well free for anyone living in the county.  Next was K-7th grades.  It was just like a high end private school.  Next was the high school, grades 8 to 12.  I set it up like a college campus.  There were 10 dorm buildings with 96 rooms each, giving a max occupancy of 1920.  There were fields, rinks and courts for each sport.  Next to the campus was a fancy police station, three stories with an underground garage.  It was set for a capacity of 108 officers if needed.  Next to the police was the hospital, a four story building with 96 beds.  Next was the fire department building, two stories with eight bays.  Next was a town library, a very large 5 story town library.  Next was the strip retail.  I decided on an underground garage running underneath.  Then I added two story buildings, a post office, 9 restaurants, an IKEA, Kohls, Supermarket, Target, Movie Theater, Sporting Goods store, Book Store and a Shoe Store. 

Herb had filled in the details.  Next I went to the high school, called it Portal Academy.  It would be free for kids in the county and cost $60,000 for out of county.  But I would fill out the dorms with exceptional intellectual and athletic students.  I set the curriculum up.  The school would run year round.  Five 8 week terms with two 3 week breaks and two 2 week breaks.  Each term a student would have 3 academic classes, classes would be Mon-Thur, all in the morning, 8am-9:20am, 9:30am-10:50am, and 11:00am to 12:20pm.  A non-academic class was offered 1:30pm-3:00pm.  Everyone would play a sport, practice 3:30pm to 6:00pm.  I needed to have enough sports available.  I decided on football, weight training, yoga, modern dance, ballet, cross country, track&field, tennis, soccer, rowing, baseball, fencing, softball, field hockey, equestrian, martial combat, wrestling, gymnastics, volleyball, swimming, basketball, ice hockey, figure skating, cheer, lacrosse, and golf.  Having classes Mon to Thur would allow sport teams to travel Fri for games and competitions.  I wanted academic classes to have no more than 12 students.  Herb said I would need 328 teachers and 64 coaches.  I set the salary at $36k with full health benefits and $5k 401k and housing.  The housing would one of the housing plots.  A fixed raise of $2k annually was added.  They would gain ownership of the house after 15 years of service.  Herb brought up the map and we found plots of land to add 528 more houses.  I added a six story 250 luxury unit apartment building and two four story 300 luxury room hotels.  I figured some people wouldn’t want to take care of a house and live in an apartment.  The academy campus would be able to put any college campus to shame.  I would need another 72 staff to run and maintain the academy as well.  I decided to have Herb buy up all the land he could in the county as well.  The county was 37km by 55km roughly so I didn’t think we could get it all but I wanted to prevent others from moving in.  Downtown my Massive Hardware/Farm store was doing well, in progress.  I added a dinner, specialty bakery, specialty coffee shop, ice cream parlor, a high end restaurant and a town hall.  It was a lot going on and should take Herb a few weeks to get things rolling.  I planned to release my industrial build machines on the projects as well.  Herb had sent some patent requests for simpler machines and the foam concrete.  Once they were approved I could operate more in the open for the town and the hockey teams rinks.

Having spent a few hours I decided to walk the farm.  Kaylee and Vanessa were sweating in the green houses.  One of the Aussies was there, Streak, the trainer said he was deaf and pulled him from training.  Rae had told them it was from an infection as a puppy.  I put my hands on the pup and using my healing skill it took 3 aether to heal the damaged ear drums.  I didn’t say anything just followed the girls around listening to them.  They had 24 raised beds for ginseng, but only planned to harvest two a year.  They had 3200 trees in the other greenhouse.  Everything looked good.  I found Leo, we were up to 22 hives.  Next was the chickens, goats and sheep.  Kate and Dave had made progress.  We were at 70% of our goal.  Rae was there too.  A tall muscular red head.  She wasn’t hot, she was sexy though.  I would have to check and see if being attractive was one of Herbs criteria.  I talked with Rae for a while.  She was very happy but was hoping to set up a clinic soon.  I said it would be built soon and noted Herb to get Loki and Thor on finishing the interior.  I went with Rae to Gerry’s for dinner.  It was some thick chilli, baked chicken and various sides.  Rae was quiet spoken, intelligent and easy to talk to.  We talked well past diner.  Vilma brought us peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream.  Eventually I pulled away and headed home.  In the terminal room it was time to find some more missions.

There were missions in my world.  I used Herb to research them.  There was a recuse mission for two Iranian teem girls sentenced to death for being raped.  There was a timer on the mission, 4:56.  Herb found that was when the sentence would be carried out. 

Rescue Nima and Pyrisa from execution, Reward: 5000 credits, +2 skill points, Time Limit: 4:55

I accepted not going further on the missions.  I needed a faster vehicle to get there in time.  I found a hyper sonic transport.  It had a top speed of 9200kpm in atmosphere.  That was what, mach 7?  It was 120,000 credits.  I bought it and added a stealth suite for 8500 credits.  I got Bruce the piloting skill at Skilled-1.  The transport was 15 meters long, 5 meters wide, 4 meters high.  The cockpit had two seats.  The back was a cargo room, 7 meters by 4 meters by 3 meters.  I got Bruce and my combat drones in the cargo room.  I expanded the entrance again with credits to get the transport out.  I hoped into the transport with my battlesuit and rifle.  I had Bruce take us away while I changed.  Eventually I sat in copilot seat.  We were over the ocean.  It was a 70 minute flight at best speed.  Herb brought up the jail on a display in front of me.  The best plan was to have to two combat drones attack the entrance while I entered a roof door and went to the cells and retrieved the girls. 

Eventually we landed and I sent the drones out.  I waited 5 minutes after the shooting started.  The drones were to incapacitate, not kill.  I kicked the door on the roof in and went in.  I went down two flights and passed into the cell area.  No guards.  Everyone was probably out front.  The cells had dozens of men.  A cell on the end had two scared teenage girls.  I melted the door my rifle.  The girls were petrified but I grabbed them, one under each arm and rushed back out.  No guards as I got to the roof and entered the transport.  I recalled the drones and we took off.  The girls were shaking.  I had Bruce take the transport home.  I took off the armor and tried to talk to the girls.  They only spoke Persian.  Damn.  I had Bruce hover while I went to the terminal and added Language Persian at Novice-10.   Returning I could now talk with the girls.  They were 12 and 14 and I said I was here to rescue them.  I healed there minor injuries earning some trust.  I said they were coming to live on a farm in America as I wasn’t returning them to their family that allowed this to happen to them.   When we landed I brought the girls to the garage house.  I set them up in the house.  I went to the terminal and added a teacher program for Betty.  I brought Betty to the girls and told them that Betty was their English teacher.  Once they were proficient in English they could move about the farm. 

I left the stealthed transport on the lawn.  I went downstairs and back to the terminal. 

Rescue Nima and Pyrisa from execution, Reward: 5000 credits, +2 skill points

Completed: 5000 credits, +2 skill points

Good haul.  It was time for upgrades.  I looked at my skills. I raised them all to a minimum of novice-1.  It took 4 hours going incrementally. 

Skills (7), 4 Skill Points Available

Ballistic Firearms: Hang Gun                             Novice-1

Dodge                                                                    Novice-1

Short Blades                                                         Novice-1

Persuasion                                                            Novice-1

Martial Combat                                                    Novice-4

Mercantile                                                             Novice-1

Long Blades                                                           Novice-1

Teamster Wagoner                                             Novice-1

Horsemanship                                                      Novice-1

Swimming                                                             Novice-1

Cooking                                                                  Novice-1

Gambling                                                               Novice-1

Parry                                                                       Novice-1

Laser Weapons: Rifle                                          Novice-1

Pilot: Battlesuit                                                    Novice-1                                

Abilities/Traits (2)

Improved Self-Healing                                        Novice-1

Ice Bolt                                                                   Novice-1

Fire Bolt                                                                 Novice-1 (+3)

Healing Hands                                                      Novice-1

Languages

Language: English                                                Skilled-7

Language: Spanish                                               Novice-1

Language: Caldonian                                           Novice-3

Language: Persian                                               Novice-10

Language: Ancient Dwarf                                   Apprentice-1

Language: Common Dwarf                                Apprentice-2

I then decided I needed to complete the tutorial mission.  Which skill should I raise to Skilled-1?   I decided to get a new skill and increase it to Skilled-1.  I went to the skills.  I was getting into higher tech fields.  I decided on Starship Systems: Gravametrics.  It covered grav engines and artificial gravity systems.

Tutorial Completed, +10 stat points, +10 skill points, New Realm Door Added

Required Missions Added

Skills can only be increased with System Credits starting at Beginner-1

I wasn’t happy.  I could no longer push my skills up with basic credits.  I was grumbling as I raised my stat points, putting all 10 points into speed, raising it to 82.  I had 14 skill points which just became more valuable.  I went to missions and learned what required missions were.  A single mission was highlighted.  Every 30-60 days the system pushed a mission on me that I had to complete.  If I failed then I would get a penalty.

Primary Mission: Remove Prince Barwad from Pestual, Reward: 25,000 credits, +2 Charisma; Time Limit: 17 days, 6 hours

What a stupid name.  I found I couldn’t increase the portal size.  I needed to earn a portal expansion reward from a mission.  At least I could take Bruce with me.  I used my 5000 credits to increase my agility from 65 to 72.  Next I needed to find out more about this Prince I had to remove.

I started with visiting Grinshot, selling some perfume on the trip to Arywyn and raising 140 gold coins.  Grinshot just knew there were four princes of Pestual, Barwad was one of them.  Ok I moved to visit Amilia in the capital, selling chocolate and perfume, 136 gold coins added.  She thought Prince Barwad was rumored to be in charge of the darker side of the slave trade in Pestual.  My last research was talking to Denterra.  Vivian was there and she wanted to know what she should be doing.  I said she was to continue learning the sword.  Vivian was clearly a little frustrated.  Denterra was happy to see me and we spared with swords as we talked.  My speed and agility increases had closed the gap a little.  The dwarves didn’t deal with Pestual.  They despised the human kingdom, their slavery and warlike mentality turned the dwarves away.  She knew the princes each controlled important aspects of the kingdom.  After four hours of bruises and hurt pride I was happy to see I had at least made Denterra sweat a little. 

Back in the terminal room I bought six new anchors and 1000 tatoos to allow others into the terminal and put them in my dimensional pocket.  I was getting close to allowing Vivian into the terminal but not just yet.  My grav sled wouldn’t fit through the door, so I bought another mechanical horse, well two, one for Bruce.  I updated Bruce with the language and skills for horsemanship.  Bruce got some leather armor with clothing to appear more like a local and an assortment of weapons; long sword, two daggers, and a pulse rifle.  I moved my battlesuit to my dimensional storage with as many instant meals as I could fit.  I had 762 gold coins in my storage as well as a pouch of 25 gold coins on my person. 

Caldonia was the closet kingdom to Pestual so that is where we would leave from.   Bruce’s saddle bags had 200 perfume bottles as I planned to pose as a traveling merchant.  Normally it would be a ten day ride to the Pestual kingdoms territory but we rode non-stop at a heavy run and made it in 30 hours.  I was on time crunch, it was another 16 hours to the kingdom’s capital, Maligon.  We had bypassed other cities and this was our first entrance to a city.  There were numerous slaves, marked by a symbol on their forehead that looked like an 8 with a line through it.  There were many races outside of humans, dwarves, elves, orcs, goblins, catkin, wolfkin, lizardkin and  taurans.  All non-humans were branded slaves.  There was an active slave market just inside the gates as well.  I was a little sickened by this abuse of life.  We rode to the merchant quarter.  I entered a decent looking inn, The Golden Ewe, and got a room.  The room was on the second floor and had a small balcony over a small garden.  The garden had three trees and I descended to the garden, mostly herbs and flowers.  I went between the wall and modest sized pear tree and used an anchor setting access to the terminal.

I climbed back to my room and went to the common room with Bruce.  We ordered some chilled wine and food and sat at a table with other merchants.  I started with my backstory of selling perfume in the city.  I spent the next five hours digging for rumors.  I learned the biggest rumor was the Warlord King was in the process of selling off one of his illegitimate daughters.  Apparently she was quite the beauty and came with the rank of Baroness and some useless land.  The Warlord had many illegitimate children that he raised to low ranked royalty to seed his kingdom with his blood.  To pursue a bride you needed to pay 500 gold coins to enter the suitor ranks.  On an appointed day suitors would each present their offer before the Warlord and the Warlord would choose the bribe he liked best, not always the most valuable.  This would definitely get us into the palace.  Unfortunately the Warlord’s four sons were not always present when the suitors came, the suitors were due to present in 6 days, it was my plan B.  I learned a needed a permit to sell my perfume so after getting a few hours sleep I went and took care of it and traveled to four luxury good shops before selling my stock for 470 gold coins.  All my indirect askings about the whereabouts of Prince Barwad came up empty.  No one was even sure if he was in the city.  I returned to my room.  That night I sneaked back to the terminal room.  I packed up some 200 chocolate bars and eight reams of paper for tomorrows sales.  When I returned to my room I found Bruce had subdued two intruders. 

I spent the next 30 minutes questioning the two intruders.  They were not forthcoming.  I returned again the terminal and purchased 20 doses of a powerful truth serum.  The questioning went well after dosing them.  The two thieves were part of the Silent Knights.  It was an arm of the military of Pestual.  They were here to steal the gold I earned today as part of their initiation.  They had no backup and no one knew they were here, they gathered the intel on my sale personally.  One of the Prince’s ran the Silent Knights, not Barwad though.  I spent an hour learning the secrets of the organization.  I did learn that all four princes would be at the suitor presentation.  Apparently the illegitimate daughter was a beauty among beauties and the price was going to be high.  Her name was Celestial. 

I had Bruce end the thieves and recycle their bodies in the terminal room.  I sat thinking for a while before going to sleep with Bruce staying on guard.  The next day I sold the paper and chocolate for 356 gold.  I then made my way to the royal district to pay 500 gold to become a suitor.  The place for the deposit was a high end action house.  There were many scuzzy wealthy people here waiting for the weekly auction.  At a counter I said why I was there and was brought to a room in the back.  I produced the coins and was given a silver plaque, my pass for entering the palace as a suitor.  I learned I was the ninth suitor so far.  The clerk said although the husband of Celestial wouldn’t be royalty their children would be.  That is why many wealthy merchants vied for her.  He suggested I stay for the auction as they had some interesting offerings.  I think he assumed because I was trying to buy a bride I would be interested.  To keep my cover I stayed.  It was hard to watch the parade of slaves.  They started with trained humans with various skills then a few orc bodyguards, then some beastkin warriors.  Each slave had a short backstory and on overview of their skills.  The prices ranged from 50gold to 250gold.  The last few offerings of the night were the pretty slaves.  The human girls and boys went for 75 gold to 125 gold.  I resisted the urge to save them from their fate.  It was hard.  Next was a catkin girl, gray fur with golden eyes.  The price shot to 300 gold before stopping at 344 gold.  Two tauren women were next, 150 gold each.  Then was an elf women, she looked young, she was very attractive.  The auctioneer said she was fresh from the eastern border skirmishes with the elves and was a warrior.  She hadn’t been mind puppeteered or subdued yet.  I planned to just sit there and do nothing but her eyes looked to mine.  She had a deep blue ferocity in them, she hadn’t accepted her fate.  The auction had started and I studied her.  She was sizing up the bidders for her now.  The price had climbed 400 gold and was starting to slow.  I bid 500 gold and got a lot of looks.  The guy next to me said I must like a challenge in bed.  I just nodded and kept eye contact with the women.  I ignored the last two slaves, a half giant gladiator and a human male wizard with ice magic.  I discreetly got the funds from my storage space in the bathroom and went and paid for the elf.  She was turned over to me in shackles and I had Bruce lead her back to my room at the Golden Ewe.  I followed behind them but side tracked to the garden to head to the terminal.  In the terminal I bought Language: Elf Beginner-1 and a small device dermal regenerator to remove the slave tattoo on her forehead.  I then went to the room to find her standing defiantly.  In elfish I asked her name.  She was shocked and caught off guard.  Eventually she said Mephelia.  I said I was going to remove her slave mark and after a few minutes she let me use the system device to do so.  Bruce had the key to her shackles and I told her not to run or attack when she was released.  Well she immediately tried to do both but Bruce subdued her.  It took a while to settle her down.  I was tempted to use the truth drug on her but held off.  I told her she was no longer a slave and I would help her get outside the city to return to her people.  I just had a few questions.  She had to talk slow and repeat herself but eventually I got a clearer picture.  The elf clans had a standing war with the Pestual Kingdom.  The elf clans were greatly outnumbered and relied on stealth and hit and run tactics.  She was the equivalent of a ranger, specialization in stealth, bow and sword.  She was captured on her first assignment, a lookout for a village.  Although her warning arrow reached the village a mage in the Pestual army used a brightness spell which meant she couldn’t run away in stealth.  She planned to die fighting but was captured instead.  I told her she could either sneak out of the city on her own or I could teleport her to a city in my network.  I pulled some food out of my storage and she thought I was some ridiculously powerful mage.  She said technically for freeing her from slavery she owed me a life debt.  Which meant?  She would serve as my bodyguard until she saved my life.  I had some dirty thoughts.  Now I didn’t know how much honor an elf actually had but I trusted her for some reason.  Her eyes were softer now.  I got a tattoo out and said it would allow her to use my network.  She applied the paper to her wrist transferring the mark.  I led her off the balcony to the portal.  Once inside she was stunned.  I gave her a tour and showed her how to use the luxury food synthesizer.  I showed her how to use the portal to the different locations.  For now she could hang out here as I was planning to kill Prince Barwod.  She immediately wanted to help.  I said not this time.  I needed to keep her occupied.  I decided to bring her to Vivian and Denterra.  She could train with them.  After a brief introduction I returned to my room in the Golden Ewe. 

I needed a plan.  What I came up with was I would put a false bottom in a chest with some small combat drones.  When I was presented I would kill the royal family, if I couldn’t escape I would use a handle to create a new portal and escape that way.  I spent the next four days trading in the city and designing the chest.  The chest had twenty baseball drones that could fire a heavy laser ten times each and a secreted pulse rifle for Bruce in a false bottom.  Each drone cost 2800 credits but could be recharged.  The drones would all attack Barwod first before moving to various designated targets.

Next was filling the chest with gold coins and the jewelry from the drug lords.  It felt empty so I added 5 Glock Hand Guns.

The day finally came and Bruce carried the chest and we entered the palace.  The chest was taken from Bruce, requiring two burly men to carry.  I was announced to the ballroom, a big party was going on.  The prequel to the offreings.  There were 13 of us, I was ninth.  There were maybe 200 people here.  Damn, not what I had pictured.  I located the Warlord King and his sons and the daughter, Celestial.  She was as promised, a glow of beauty.  I circulated the crowd.  Ten generals, thirty-six royal guards, the four princes, the king, six war mages, the grand wizard advisor, seventeen dukes, twelve suitors, twenty nine servants and seven counts made up the males.  A few women looked dangerous as well.  While scouting Celestial came up behind me.  She was young, eighteen maybe, she had fear and resignation in her eyes.  She introduced herself and we talked briefly before her shepherd took her to another suitor.  The girl seemed innocent and not a manipulative devil like I thought she would be.  Fuck, I suddenly recognized Cooroff, he was talking to the king and pointing at me.  This was bad, my chest was in another room.  I went to the bar and got some wine.  Bruce was on high alert while I ordered target priorities on my phone to Herb.  After two hours or food, wine and socializing we were finally herded to a throne room.  The 13 chests were there in front and I was instructed to stand behind my chest with Bruce behind me.  The girl looked pathetic, like she was on death row.  The presentations started, gold, gems, artwork, deeds to fine horses, and other stuff.  Each presentation was a few minutes long with the presenter expelling on his goods.  The value seemed to be around 40,000 gold to 60,000 gold for the first 8 suitors.  It was my turn now.  I said I had gold and jewelry of unparalleled quality.  The porters brought them to be examined by the royal family.  Then I showed and demonstrated the Glock.  One for each prince and king.  They each tried firing it and I think I was suddenly at the top of the list.  Cooroff in the crowd looked angry.  The goods were all returned to my chest but as the last four presented the kings eyes kept returning to my chest.  And to the anger of Cooroff the king choose my chest.  As the chest and I approached the throne I activated the drones.  The balls sprang into the air and incinerated Prince Barwad.  As the drones switched targets an explosion threw me back.  Some defensive magic I think.  I heard screams and yelling.  Bruce had his rifle and was targeting enemies.  It was chaos.  My senses returned and I got to the chest and pulled out two Glochs.  But there was nothing left to do.  Bruce covered me, 16 drones still functioned but three others were obviously damaged.  I had 17 women hovering behind the throne for protechtion.  I healed myself to stop the ringing in my ears.  I looked for Celestial and found her alone in a corner.   What can I say, I was a sucker for a pretty face.  I walked to her and said she could come with me or stay here.  She stood slowly and rushed to me.  I took out a terminal handle and tattoo.  I gave her the tattoo and opened a portal.  I had Bruce put all the chests and broken drones through then entered with Celestial.

Wow that was intense.  I said aloud that I wished I knew what the fuck had happened.  Herb said the drones and Bruce recorded it all.  Herb said I should get a large holo display so I ordered it from the system.  Herb started the replay.  The throne room appeared around me and I could walk through it.  I was able to play forward in slow motion.  Lets see the drones emerged, fried the prince.  Six drones then attacked the king.  The throne expelled a strong defensive shock wave throwing many people back and drones bounced around.  The shock wave was focused at the chest which I was standing behind.  The drones recovered quickly and the second assault on the king burned him down.  Soon mages were firing spells, guards were swinging swords, recovered drones were firing beams and Bruce was brandishing his rifle.  It was Bruce who had saved the day.  Any opponent that successfully took down a drone immediately got a rifle blast from Bruce.   In less than 40 seconds the room stilled and my image stirred and I stood up.  Well damn that was embarrassing.

I ended the replay.  Celestial looked a little lost.  I had Bruce settle her into one of the rooms in the terminal.  I went to the screen to complete the mission.

Primary Mission: Remove Prince Barwad from Pestual, Reward: 25,000 credits, +2 Charisma

Completed: 25,000 credits, +2 Charisma; Time Completion Bonus: +3 Stat Points

A nice bonus.  I added the stats all to speed.  I could now access missions again.  But first time for some upgrades.  I looked at my stats.

Strength

78

Constitution

52

Stamina

55

Agility

72

Speed

85

Intellect

91

Aether

23

Channeling

16

Charisma

83

My constitution would have helped resist the concussion of the blast.  It was time to get hardier.  25,000 credits would get me from 52 to 87.  It was probably not the best investment but it felt right.  The slow increase hardened my body’s resistances and toughness.  I also increased my Aether to 25.  I also expected the increase to constitution would allow me not to be sore after fast movements from the increases to the speed stat. 

I stood and stretched and looked around.  I had the first farm truck parked and ready upgrades.  I checked with Herb and the chargers had been installed throughout the farm.  I updated the truck, a nice baby blue truck now stood there.  I decided to bring the trucks up to 20.  I had Herb order 12 more trucks to fill the quota.  They would be delivered in 48 hours.

Mephelia walked into the terminal as I was getting some food from the synthesizer, pork fried rice with orange chicken.   She said Denterra was an excellent sword master teacher.  But the dwarf food was bland and salty so she was here getting lunch.  She got vegetable soup with melted brie in honey with crackers.  We talked over food.  She said I should trust Vivian, she was working hard on my behalf.  We talked a little longer and I told her about the end of the prince.  She wished she could have see it.  So I replayed the hologram for her.  This time I noticed Cooroff slipping away as the place went to shit, so he was still alive.  Mephelia walked through and kept replaying it.  She was marking who died.  Finally she said I had killed the 14 of the most wanted by her clans.  The Pestual Empire would take decades to recover after all the infighting for the seat of the king.  I had done such a service for her people that she promised to serve me faithfully for the next hundred years.  I thought it was tongue and cheek but she was serious. 

I went and showered and slept.  On waking I went and saw Vivian.  I talked to her a bit and gave her a tattoo and brought her to the terminal.  Ok I now had three very attractive women in the terminal.  I sat with Celestial and asked her what she wanted.  She wanted to be as from the Pestual Kingdom as possible.  Would she want to work on a farm the rest of her life?  She was ok with that.  Ok I could use the system to give her the English language.  She got into the medical device so I could review any medical conditions she might have.  I cleared her of 14 minor ailments and looked at her stats.

Strength

39

Constitution

52

Stamina

58

Agility

50

Speed

47

Intellect

71

Aether

30

Channeling

62

Charisma

101

Her charisma being beyond human max of 100 was a surprise.  She also had a fairly strong Aether and channeling stat.  I could upgrade some stats, I increased her strength to 50, constitution and stamina to 60 and finally speed to 55.  I then gave her English language at Beginner-10.  She got out of the med machine and gave me a hug and kiss.  It was a huge application of trust from her.  She was just a girl.  I brought her to the farm and left her with Betty, Nima and Pyrisa.  She could get acclimated while I did some work in the terminal. 

Vivian and Mephelia wanted to see my world as well so I let them go.  Mephelia just had to keep her ears covered.  And then I was alone with Bruce.  I decided to send Bruce to look after them.  Ok some alone time.  Unlike the realm gate I controlled the one to my world and turned it off for now so they wouldn’t be able to get back to the terminal.  I went in my stealthed combat armor to see how the Pestual Kingdom was doing.  It was chaos with multiple fires in the capital city and fighting in the streets.  The Golden Ewe was barred with twenty men defending.  I got inside via my balcony and went downstairs.  They were antsy with my armor but I pulled the helmet down and got to talking.  I found out there were four factions fighting for control.  Cooroff of course was one of them.  He was the only one in the city.  A general on the front lines was another.  And the king’s brother a third.  The final was the king’s wife who I had left alive and she had fled the city with 100 royal guard.  I decided I could mess with Cooroff’s attempt to subdue the city. 

I stealthed and went to the three major slave markets, killed the guards and released the slaves.  Then I went through the city eliminating the 7 man guard patrols.  I had just wiped the fifth one when I got hit with a magic ice shard and it flash froze my side and left lung.  It was insanely painful.  I fired a few shots in the direction of the mage and hobbled away.  I should have brought the frigging drones.  My healing was muted because of the frozen flesh.  It took 8 minutes and 9 Aether before I felt well again.  I needed to be careful, if the mage had hit my head or heart I would have died.  I remained stealthed and looked for the mage.  I did find a small pocket of 30ish beastkin freed slaves defending from a force of 40 soldiers.  The beastkin of different species had banded together.  There were some children in with them as well.  I flanked the soldiers in stealth and opened with my rifle.  I shot down 12 before they started to break up and flee.  I gunned three more before reentering stealth and moving on.  At one of the gates a small battle was going on, some 500 soldiers outside the wall were trying to get in.  About 80 men guarded the gate with one wizard with them.  As I was watching they were reinforced by another dozen soldiers.  They were not fighting just yelling back and forth right now.  I listened for a bit and learned the soldiers outside were loyal to the general who was on his way to the capital and wanted into the city to protect the citizens.  The guards were loyal to the Queen and needed orders from her to open the gate.  The rumor was she had already fled the city though.  A third group approached the wall from inside, it was 26 men proclaiming Duke Cooroff was now in charge of the city and taking control of the gate.  Fuck that, I shot the leader of Cooroffs men and fled the scene. 

I did learn valuable intel, the Cooroff men had green armbands.  This gave me a target.  For the next two hours I moved on the roof tops and sniped warriors in the street with green armbands only.  After 30 kills I decided it was time to leave.  I went back to the terminal.  I ate, showered and slept.  I was thinking of what I could do to continue the mayhem and I thought I should reenter the palace throne room.  Maybe make my way to the treasury?  It had probably already been raided.  I woke after a seven hour nap and got my drones repaired and recharged.  With 20 drones leading the way I returned to the throne room.

The bodies were still there.  No guards or servants around.  Herb sent the drones to explore.  He found men in green armbands defending the walls and gate.  So Cooroff held the castle.  The dead bodies had very nice weapons, armor and jewelry.  I dragged 57 corpses to my terminal room, bought two basic labor bots and had them strip the corpses then recycle them.  While this was going on I returned to the throne room.  After exploring two rooms I went back and got the bots to start pillaging the castle.  There were a lot of nice things.  I found three guards stealing some dinnerware in the kitchen and gunned them down.  The noise brought two more guards with green arm bands but the drones eliminated them.  I went down thinking the treasury was in the basement but ended in the castle prison cells.  The prisoners were not guarded and pleaded for food.  The door keys were hung by the entrance and I just decided to release them.  One old man tried to talk with me and I asked him who these people were.  Political enemies, people who failed the king, spies of other kingdoms and people who generally displeased the king.  Who was the old man.  He was a spy from the Caldorians who had been captured more than 10 years ago.  Was there anyone here worth saving I asked him.  He thought for a bit and said the wizards were kept in magic deadening chains in the far room.  They were citizens of the kingdom who refused to serve the king.  I checked the cell and there were nine teenagers shackled to the wall.  The man said he had seen over a hundred come in here over the years and they either died here or changed their mind.  I told the kids the king was dead and there was a fight for succession.  They could fight their way out of the city.  I freed them all and was surprised some of them were girls.  They were just so thin I had mistaken them for boys.  They moved terribly and I ushered them to the throne room.  The bots were there awaiting orders the two rooms now empty.  I went to the terminal room and brought the mages food and water.  I wasn’t about to tattoo this lot yet.  They had a big plus in my head for being brave to resist the king but I wasn’t sure if they could be trusted.  The old man was still with the group.  I told him to watch them and left two drones guarding the two doors.  Of hand I asked if anyone knew where the royal treasury was.  A girl raised her hand.  Apparently she had been a palace servant before her magic manifested.  Well good karma for me.  I got the two bots and 10 drones to follow her with me.

She led us through royal chambers and up one of the towers in the center of the castle.  We reached a door that looked like someone had tried to burn their way in.  The girl said it was magically spelled and if opened the king and captain of the guard would be warned.  I wasn’t sure if the captain of the guard was alive but I just blasted the door to bits with my rifle.  It was a dense wood but succumbed after two dozen shots.  I slipped inside and using my suits lighting was happy to find trays of neatly lined coins, like poker chips.  There were chests, exquisite weapons, a few suits of armor and trays with gems and jewelry.  I should topple evil kingdoms more often.  I had the bots start hauling the loot to the throne room and filled my dimensional storage as well.  We also had passed the royal quarters, six bedrooms and four waiting rooms with exquisite furniture.  My bots had a lot of work ahead of them. 

Back at the throne room I went to the terminal and added ten more bots.  The young wizards were doing better.  Moving more freely.  Some were even getting their magic back, Aether charging.  It would be suicide for them to try to fight their way out.  The other prisoners were currently fighting in the outer castle area.  I stealthed and went to help.  I spent the next four hours picking off blue armband soldiers.  Then the prisoners finally got control of the gate room.  I used the drones to rush concentration of soldiers long enough to open the gates but I lost three drones to magic attacks.  There was no opposing force outside the gate but that changed quickly.  While they held the gate house a mass of citizens formed up and rushed the two mages and 100 odd remaining castle guards.  It was fascinating to watch but I soon retreated to the throne room.  My bots were still hauling loot, at least the treasury was emptied.  I looked at the teen mages and the old man, none of them would probably survive this.  I approached the group and said it was about time for me to leave.  I had Herb ready to pull the bots and drones to the terminal when the citizen mob army breached the inner castle.  I gave the group a choice, come with me and work for me or stay here.  They started asking questions and I just said I would never have them do anything against their will they would always have freedom of choice.  Eventually I marked them all brought them to the terminal room and then took them to the dwarven city.  I found Denterra and said I would like my nine young wizards trained in magic.  Of course it was not that simple.  Domir showed up and I had to negotiate.  Normally the dwarves would never train an outsider but I was dwarf friend and since these mages were working for me.  I would have to pay for their schooling, 500 gold per year per mage.  Fine.  I went and brought out 25,000 gold.  That would cover them for five years.  It was less than 10% of the treasury funds I had just looted.  Domir took the young mages to get settled into the academy.  That done I just had the old spy.  His name was Jakob. 

I decided he was to set up shop in the dwarven city.  I gave him 12,000 gold to open an inn in the city and set up an information network.  His primary job was to keep tabs on the new mages.  There were enough non-dwarf traders that he shouldn’t have much trouble getting information.  Denterra said she would help him get set up.  That done I returned to the terminal room.  I had a lot of frigging loot.  I started enlarging the terminal room.  I set the main room central room as a 300 meter wide circle with a 100 meter ceiling.  I put rooms around the as spokes on the outer wall.  I started with a 20x20 meter staging room, basically my armory.  Next to this was my portal room, a large 70x70x70 cube room.  The main portal to my world was just set into the wall of the 300 meter room so I could large objects through easy, a spaceship was on my mind!  Next to this was my private residence with my master bathroom.  Next to this was the library and treasury.  Next was the kitchen with the food synthesizer.  Next was three storage rooms, each 20x20x50 meters deep.  I filled two with stock for the concrete extruders and the third was just overflow from looted goods not fit for the treasure room or needed for the guest bedrooms.  Then I had guest rooms three stories tall into the wall.  Each had a private bath and large walkin closet.  There were 21 guest rooms, each with a balcony facing the center.  The last rooms were the training rooms, weight room,  combat rooms, shooting ranges, obstacle courses and twelve full suite simulators.  I set the center room ceiling to mimic a days sky.  A moving sun, floating clouds and a light summer breeze.  Half of the 300 meter center room was dedicated to a micro ecosystem with trees, flowers, and various plants.  Most had medicinal or nutritional value.  I updated my 12 bots to maintain the garden and keep the place clean.  As I was seeding and using the system to grow the plants I ran out of basic system credits.  I was a little surprised at first, I had burned through 7 million credits.  The bots were still moving things around, catching up to the changes so I went to my redesigned residence.  I had a bedroom, living room, study and massive walk in closet.  I sat in the study in an oversized leather chair with the system computer.  The far wall had my full wall screens.  I needed to select my next missions.  I had over 200 missions available.  I decided to filter for just missions with stat reward bonuses. 

Stop the Yazidi Genocide, Reward 5,000 credits, +2 strength, +2 stamina, +2 agility

This was happening in northern Iraq.  I wasn’t sure how much I could affect this.  After conversing with Herb I found I would have to eliminate some 25,000 perpetrators in the region.  Herb would need at least 500 networked drones to track them.  The stealth drones would cost 4000 credits each.  I could equip each drone with a micro launcher that launched rice grain sized projectile that would insert a time released capsule of cyanide.  Each drone was basketball sized and had a payload of 1,000 projectiles.  When I looked at the horror of the mass executions and brutal slavery of the women I accepted the mission.  I would have to trust Herb’s discretion on identifying the bad people.  I went to the treasury and got some gold bars from the drug cartel looting.  I got enough funds for 600 surveillance drones/projectile and 200 straight combat drones with heavy lasers and a high altitude stealth support carrier that was 8x8x25 meters that could repair and recharge the drones.  This all cost me 3.1 million credits, leaving me with just over 100,000 credits.  I got the carrier and drones outside and Herb had them headed to Iraq.  Ok I moved onto another mission.

Rescue the Berdini Twins, Reward 1,000 credits, +3 channeling

The Berdini twins were in the news in Italy.  Two boys were with their father in Egypt and had been kidnapped.  Herb said he had an 80% of locating the boys if I allocated some assets, 4 drones and some increased processing power.  So for 20,000 credits it seemed like a good gamble.  I accepted the mission and bought the drones and processing increase for Herb.  I sent the drones out.

Help the Simolia Family flee the Pestual Kingdom, 5,000 credits, +2 stat points, +2 skill points

The problem here is Herb didn’t have access to hack computers for info.  The rewards were great but where was this family, how many members and how far would I have to travel?  I decided to check in Jakob and see if he knew of the Simolia family before accepting.  I went to the dwarf city and found Jakob in an empty building he just bought, he was excited and had paper in front of him.  We talked a bit.  He had a great location and was ordering furniture and supply lines for food and alcohol.  I asked about the Simolia family.  He knew they ran a system of apothecaries in two cities some ten years ago.  They sold healing potions and poultices to the public.  I thanked him and returned to the Golden Ewe.  In the common room I got the updated rumors.  The castle was ransacked by the civilians, forcing Cooroff to pull soldiers from the wall to secure it again.  The slaves that revolted were wreaking havoc in the city as well.  The general was mustering troops outside the gates.  The Queen was mustering an army a hundred kilometers away.  The other six major cities were in minor revolt but being held with a firm hand.  Two of the merchants in the room knew of the Simolia Family.  They had a family estate in the city of Varteen.  Varteen was 200km north and near the border forests of the elves.  If that is where the family was I would need to bring them 400km to get to the Caldonian border.  This family was somehow important to the goddess entity.  I looked and didn’t see any other missions that attracted me.  I was going to check on the farm but decided against it.  I got my two horses to the enclosed garden and back to the terminal room.  Over a meal I looked at my map of Farseer’s continent.  My best bet was to travel from Caldonia to Varteen.  The easiest would be to get them, tattoo them, then take them through the terminal to safety. 

I needed to get some hi-tech transportation through the 1 meter by 2.5 meter door.  With the help of Herb I found a large air skiff that could be disassembled to parts that would fit.  The skiff was 8 meters wide and 15 meters long.  It was set up as a transport hauler with capacity of 12 thousand kilos.  The skiff had a light grav engine and could hover up to 200 meters and travel at 225 kph.  I bought two heavy swivel laser mounts for the skiff and an optic stealth suite.  I needed Bruce for this and went and got him.  I got Bruce the needed skills for driving and assembling the skiff.  I added the Starship: Mechanic skill to myself at Beginner-1.  That should give me enough skills to help in the assembly.  I ordered the skiff and upgrades.  It took me and Bruce 12 hours to break down the skiff.  I talked with Domir and Denterra about assembling the skiff outside on a roof in the dwarven city.  They agreed.  It took another half a day with the 12 labor bots to get all the parts to the selected roof.  I let Bruce start on the assembly while I rested and ate in the guest room. 

When I woke I found Bruce was half done and helping him we finished in a few hours.  Domir and Denterra were there looking at the machine.  They were not overly impressed but then I demonstrated the swivel laser mount.  With the range and power of one of these weapons Domir said they could hold off an army.  The power cell was the size of a suitcase and held 300 full powered shots.  Domir said he would buy 6 swivel laser guns and 18 power cells, just name my price.  The guns cost 1800 credits and the power cells 350 credits each, 17,100 credits or 342 gold coins.  I said 5000 gold coins.  He agreed immediately which meant I could have asked more.  I went and gathered the weapons and power cells.  I also got 6 solar arrays to recharge the power cells, they were only 200 credits each. 

I took Denterra and Domir for a ride on the skiff and now they were really impressed.  I said I could take 100 passengers and turn invisible as well.  When we landed I found we had created quite a stir in the city.  I talked with Domir for a while and found if Bruce was driving and I was captain I had no one to man the lasers.  I could update two bots but instead asked Domir if two dwarves would volunteer.  A half day later I had five dwarven volunteers, Jakob and my two mechanical horses on board.  Jakob had invited himself.  The five dwarves were all High Guard candidates from my defense of the dwarf fort.  I had bought twenty-eight anti-grav belts.  They were simple devices that were one use items.  If you fell from height they would slow your decent and prevent you from going splat.  I handed them out and put one on myself.

The flight to the city was nice sightseeing.  We landed 4km from the city of Varteen.  Jakob and I took the horses into the city.  I was wearing my battlesuit minus the helmet.  At the city gates we had to pay one gold each for entry.  There was a lot of unrest in the city.  Armed squads marched up and down streets.  We located the Simolia estate.  It took a lot of talking from Jakob to get an audience with the family patriarch.  I let Jakob do the talking during the meeting.  After a slow start Jakob found they were trying to leave the city.  It was a chance to get his family out of Pestual to resettle in the Tirion Kingdom.  I told him I could get his entire family out, which was a total of 33 members and 17 staff.  He asked when and I said tonight.  He was skeptical when I said each person could bring their body weight in personal items.  We had to pay 5 gold to leave the city.  Back at the skiff we got ready and at midnight we landed the skiff in the courtyard of the Simolia estate.  We turned off the invisibility and to a shocked group we started loading.  It took 30 minutes and I found we had 4200 kg of available weight.  I told the patriarch and they went and grabbed a bunch of furniture and alchemy sets.  This took two hours and the patriarch was nervous the entire time.  We were finally ready and stealthed and went straight up.  I noticed at least 4 large squads just outside the estates walls.  About 30 in each group.  They had planned to foil the family’s escape.  I smirked as we flew away. 

The patriarch, Jayme, was relieved and was surprised when I asked him where he wanted to go.  He said Tirion was his plan but he thought the dwarven realm was also good.  I told him the dwarf city would be best for me.  He agreed.  We landed on the roof we had launched from less than a day ago, successful on a smooth operation.  I locked down the skiff controls and weapons.  Denterra was on the roof and met with Jayme.  I got Bruce and we went back to the terminal.

I ate, showered and napped before checking missions.

Help the Simolia Family flee the Pestual Kingdom, 5,000 credits, +2 stat points, +2 skill points

Completed, 100% bonus, 10,000 credits, +4 stat points, +4 skill points

Holy crap!  Guess I did a great job.  The stat points went into strength.  I used the rest of the credits to get my Stamina stat from 55 to 71.  This was my final step in physical stats.  It kept them all close, if there was too much disparity then I would suffer damage, pushing another stat.  I looked at my stats.

Strength

82

Constitution

87

Stamina

71

Agility

72

Speed

85

Intellect

91

Aether

25

Channeling

16

Charisma

83

Ok I would start to focus on skills with system credits from here on out.  I would use quest rewards to raise stats. Agility, Speed and Strength would be my focus.  For skills I wanted to get more starship skills and level up my dodge, parry and long blades for melee combat. 

On the other missions Herb had found the twins.  They were on a private island off the coast, 9 kidnappers.  Ok I would get the transport spun up with my combat drones.  Herb had implanted 22,890 people so far responsible for the genocide.  He said he needed another 40 hours to get 97% of the people in the region.  He had 5,960 other targets not yet located.  He had a list of 8,952 other names that were probable, had relations or were part of the militia.  No direct evidence to convict these men though.  I told him to keep looking but not add anyone that was not proven guilty. 

Back in the real world I got into my transport.  It was light out and I didn’t recognize the area as we took off.  I would get updated after this mission on the farm and construction.  The trip took three hours and the assault took 3 minutes.  I loaded the twins and a few choice pieces of furniture, raided the extensive wine cellar and removed the corpses from the island villa compound.  Herb said video had captured the first part of the assault.  It had been transmitted before he locked it down which might be trouble in the future.  I had Bruce drop the twins off just outside their home in Italy and headed back to Virginia.

I entered the terminal room, ate, showered and slept.  I was really tired as I slept for 10 hours.  I sat on the leather couch.

 Rescue the Berdini Twins, Reward 1,000 credits, +3 channeling

Completed, 1000 credits, +3 channeling

That was another easy one.  Ok it was time to check on my investments in my world.  I sat on my couch in the terminal room.

The first review was the women’s hockey league.  Herb said 6 out of 8 sites were cleared by contractors.  Knoxsville was holding up permits, expecting some kickbacks for the politicians.  I had Herb go public with the communications drawing light to the corruption.  Ashville was having a public zoning issue.  A small group didn’t want the stadium close to their homes.  Herb said the issue was almost resolved.  Another week or so.  We had obtained a patent on the extruded matrix concrete and it had met construction standards.  We would be able to manufacture it in my world soon.  Fantastic!  I just disguised the extruders and could use the large extruders for the hockey rinks soon.  Herb asked about broadcasting rights for the league.  I said we could just broadcast the games free online.  The video quality and production would exceed the current pro sports standard with the system bought video equipment.  Herb said bandwidth was not good enough.  Shit.  Herb suggested I set up my own planetary satellite network.  I would need 420 satellites minimum at a cost of 7500 credits each.  These were hi-tech communications satellites, about 100 years more advanced than we had on Earth.  Herb said the satellite network would be able to handle 10 billion connections.  I could also get my own cell phone network.  Using the satellites I could have a no maintenance revenue generator.  I got with Herb and made some upgrades to the comm satellites.  I added some defensive lasers, thrusters, stealth, sensors and mini repair drones.  The cost increased to 10k but the satellites were rated for 800 years of operation.  I planned 600 satellites meaning I needed $6 million credits.  Herb suggested I also clean up the orbit of Earth as there was a lot of junk around the planet.  Noted.  Next project was a cell phone design.  I went with 4”x6” phone.  It looked like a smooth piece of black glass.  It was more powerful than a current desktop computer.  It would have a simple AI and be super customizable.  It was also nearly indestructible, it was charged by proximity to the charger, no plug in.  The battery was good for about 72 hours.  It had superior sound to anything currently available.  it had full video, camera utility and a 10 meter sensor suite.  Technically it could record in 3D but I decided to not include that option.  If you tried breaking into it the internals would fry.  Herb suggested I create another AI to manage the comm network.  Ok he could clone himself and it would be named Lucus.  I was thinking phone games, Apple made a crap ton of money.  Lucus’ first task was to research MMORPG.  He was to create a sword and sorcery game and a separate hi-tech space game.  The games could only be played on my phones.  Herb had a factory profile, it would cost 680,000 system credits and produce 48 million phones annually.  Raw materials were $68 per phone.  Herb suggested I set up some asteroid mining for materials rather than purchase them.  Things were blowing up.  Asteroid mining?  Herb said a sublight cargo/processing ship and twenty mining drones could make a trip to the asteroid belt, mine and return every four months with 200,000 kgs of rare materials for 80 million phones.  And this would cost me?  18.6 million system credits.  But it would pay for itself if I turned some excess rare materials into the recycler.  It was a goal for the future.  I bought a server for Lucas and spent 60k for his upgrades.  Lucas started hitting me with questions for the games and I said just use your judgement and we would polish the final product.  I told Herb to start buying rare materials for the phones.  They were to ship to a warehouse that we would build in town with the phone factory.  Herb took care of the details from there. 

Ok moving on I reviewed my farm mansion.  It was shown in 3D and it was awesome.  Herb had put a fair amount of furniture in it.  I told Herb I wanted a local woodcraft company making fine furniture, 20 employees or so.  My dad did it as a hobby  and it was a great skill.  I reviewed my inventory in the terminal and tagged a bunch of things to transfer to the mansion.  I took a quick break to go in person to the mansion and had the bots move the tagged items.  I took a swim in the pool and was embarrassed as the women approached as I was swimming.  Crap I forgot about them. 

Betty looked passive, Vivian looked amused, Celestial looked pissed, Mephelia looked lustful and the two Persian teens had wide eyes of shock.  Well I didn’t have trunks on so I was naked in the water.  I had Betty get me a towel and we went and sat down inside.  I guess I had sort of abandoned this group.  The teens were doing well and their English was getting good.  I had Betty take them away, they would work with the horses until my academy opened.  The other three were determined to help me with all future missions.  Fine.  I brought them back to the terminal room and had Bruce work with them preparing them.  I returned to my room in the terminal and returned to my review.

The farm was next.  There were 4 greenhouses now.  I put the limit to have a max of 5.  The goats and sheep were stocked.  Chickens were growing.  The orchards were being prepared for planting.  The Outdoor Life store was built, Herb had built an add on for just the bicycles, a 3 story attached building that freed up room.  Inventory was coming in and Thor and Loki were unpacking it and stocking shelves.  Herb had moved the cow dairy farm to the south on a different piece of land away from water sources and it had been built.  The two cowboys were out buying milk cows and two bulls.  Across the street the land was still being prepped.  The race course was done.  It was 8 lanes then a breaker wall and then 4 more lanes.  The breaker wall would wide enough for rails to hold a vehicle to follow races.  A bridge 100 meters past the finish was being built.  The lake further past was still being dug.  I massive hill of excavated earth was at the far end.  Herb was compressing it and using rocks to create a hilly park with walking paths.  He had a sandy community beach planned on one shore.   Even with all the machines I had purchased it was still taking time.  The road for the houses had been done along with the underground water, sewer and power.   Herb had acquired land and planned out 3600 houses in the entire county.  He planned to set taxes at $100 per month per bedroom.  Apparently he had acquired control over the entire county to set policies.  He planned to build 1200 two bedroom houses, 1200 three bedroom houses, 600 four bedroom house, 300 five bedroom houses and 300 six bedroom houses.   In addition he had 4 apartment complexes planned, each with 200 units each with two bedrooms each.  Herb needed living accommodations completed before he could start hiring.  Noted. 

The final review was farm staffing.  There were 9 new interns working on the farm.  Great.   The staff had spent 2.7 million dollars.  I reviewed the purchases and made notes to each person, overall no issues.  I was tired it had been 15 hours since I started on the review.  As I was eating Vivian, Mephelia and Celestial cornered me in the kitchen.  They wanted access to use the interface for the store.  I could set it to browse only so I did that for the three and set up shopping carts for each.  Vivian wanted access to missions. She said she would help me make good selections so I gave her access.  I had the system make three more laptops and keyed each one to just one person.  Then I went to sleep after a long shower.

Herb was beeping me awake.  Nope it was Lucus.  The new AI seemed to have an excitable personality.  Or at least a tone.  He had created a framework for the sword and sorcery phone game and wanted me to take a look.  I had the system make me a phone device for 200 credits and had Lucus walk me through.  It was a very advanced World of Warcraft style, better graphics massive maps, and great character customization.  It was ridiculously impressive.  I thought for a bit.  I told Lucus I wanted the game to be playable on the phone, computer and VR in the future.  It had to have continuous expansions and no level cap.  I bought a hologram cube and walked into it.  it was a VR machine, you lay down and it would synch with your brain.  I started with the universe.  I created a holographic solar system.  I created 7 planets.  The first was “Planes of Hell” game map, the second planet was “Metallica” a planet ruled by metal golems as a high level map, the 3rd and 4th planet had the same orbit but on opposite sides of the sun, these would be the two main servers each would start identical but would evolve with player actions.  The 5th planet was the dead planet with ruins and undead.  The 6th planet was a giant planet with 5 moons.  The planet was inhabited by spirits and ethereal beings.  The moons were maps for the 5 elemental planes, earth, fire, air, water and chaos.  The 6th and 7th planet would be high level maps for expansion.  I added an asteroid sphere around the system, trillions of rocks.  Then I added a moon to each main planet and each would be maps for the heavans and pantheon. 

I wanted a living breathing game so the maps would be life size.  With each planet being 35% water that should be enough playable area.  Next was the characters.

Lucus had 6 stats and I told him to expand it to ten stats.  He had 12 classes which was fine but I asked for each class to have 3 advanced classes.  Next was leveling speed, I asked Lucus to make leveling at the speed of 12 hours of active playing got you to level 2.  24 more hours to level 3.  36 hours more to level 4.  48 hours more to level 5. 60 hours to level 6.  Some people would be slower and some faster but that was the pace of development I wanted.  If someone played 10 hours a day they could reach level 30 in a year or so.  Hmmm, I told Lucus to give every player a personal instance for the first 5 levels, needed to get them trained and invested.  The starting instance would have a low level epic weapon and the possibility of getting a companion if roleplayed well.  We spent a few hours sorting the skills and magic.  I used the terminal system setup for skill levels, Neophyte (5), Beginner (10), Novice (10), Apprentice (10), Skilled (10), Expert (10), Renowned Expert (100), Master (100), Grand Master (100), Legend (100), Mythical (100).  Lucus would use skill and spell limits to balance the classes.  That was enough.  Lucus went to work on the changes after I bought a second massive server for the game.  It was 150,000 credits and 7 meters by 10 meters by 5 meters.  I would need a building in the real world to house this.  Something to do later.

Vivian approached as I exited the holo cube.  She had picked some missions for me.  I asked Herb on the status of my active mission.  One drone had been lost.  It got trapped in a room and self destructed.  Herb had 31,183 people tagged, which he estimated covered 96.4% of the bad people.  On my word the implanted capsules activated and those men died.

Stop the Yazidi Genocide, Reward 5,000 credits, +2 strength, +2 stamina, +2 agility

Completed, Bonus 25%, 6,250 system credits, +2 strength, +3 stamina, +2 agility

Good rewards.  Onto the missions Vivian had selected.

Kill Gilbert Adams, Reward 1,500 credits, +1 Aether

He was a serial killer the FBI hadn’t found, killed at least 27 people so far.  Herb had a location.  I accepted

Collect the last Violet Life Flower and use its seeds to Propagate the Flowers, Reward 2,500 credits, +5 Channeling

Vivian said she knew the general location of the flower from the goddess.  The flower was a special Aether rich flower that was used in alchemy.  They hadn’t been seen in 500 years.  I was hesitant but accepted.

Defend the Town of Greenstone, Reward 5,000 credits, +2 Stat points, Timer:4:47

I wasn’t sure what was attacking the town.  Greenstone, according to Vivian was 100 km west of Arywyn.  Ok just under 5 hours to complete.  I accepted and got up but Vivian pressed me down.  She had me go to the carts the ladies had filled up.

I was low on credits so I told Vivian to go get twenty gold bars to the recycler.  I would be using coins soon so I needed to get more funds.  Ok what did the women add to their carts.

I opened Mephelia’s cart first.

Black Skin Suit                                            300

Black Stealth Light Combat Armor           5300

Monoedge Katana Sword                          500

Two Black Edge Survival Knives                50

Black Survival Pack                                     150

Light Combat Pulse Sniper Rifle               750

Aether Belt Shield                                      1500

Ring of the Eagle                                        2500

Curious I looked at details.  The skin suit protected the body from elements.  The combat armor was pretty close to what I had but offered much less protection.  The Katana had a special edge and used a power pack in the handle to cut through almost anything.  The knives were 30cm blades with high density metal.  The survival backpack had gear for surviving in the woods, all hi-tech.  The rifle was very hi-tech, good to almost 3km, with special scopes.  The Aether shield was recharged with personal Aether and was a magic item.  So was the ring of the eagle, +3 agility and gave improved sight.  Ok nothing outlandish and I approved all the items.  They appeared next to me.

Next was Celestial.

Black Skin Suit                                            300

Black Stealth Light Combat Armor           5300

Two Heavy Plasma Pistol                           3000

Two Black Edge Survival Knives                50

Black Survival Pack                                     150

Aether Belt Shield                                      1500

Ring of the Panther                                    5000

The plasma pistols were pretty sleek but each only had 20 shots but did insane damage.  The ring of the panther gave +10 to agility and +5 to speed.

Last was Vivian

Black Skin Suit                                            300

Black Stealth Light Combat Armor           5300

Black Edge Survival Knife                           25

Black Survival Pack                                     150

Aether Belt Shield                                      1500

Aether Battery                                           5000

The Aether battery could store 500 aether for the user.  They all got matching armor which I thought was cute.  I ordered the gear and the women had arrived and started changing in front of me.  I think they thought to make me uncomfortable but I just admired their bodies.  Mephelia blushed a little and Celestial might have but she had her back to me.  I should probably get Vivian and Mephelia into the machine to access their stats.  Maybe after this mission.  They all looked bad ass sexy.  I got Bruce and we all headed to the dwarven city through the portal.

Two dwarf women were in my guest quarters to meet me.  They went and got Denterra.  She wanted to negotiate for more hi-tech items.  I told her we were on a tight schedule to save a town and made our way to the cargo skiff.  Denterra contacted Domir and she said they would both join me.  I said fine.  At the skiff there were twenty dwarves guarding it.  I got up my team up on it and the five dwarves that had manned the swivel guns before took stations.  No problem.  I had Bruce man the helm and get us moving.  As we were under way Domir can to me and we started negotiating.  He wanted 60 more swivel guns for 50,000 gold coins.  It was the same rate we had used prior, 6 guns, 18 power cells and 6 solar charge arrays for 5,000 gold coins.  He also wanted 240 suits of the combat armor.  The armor was for the high guard.  It would have to be sized for each dwarf.  I told Domir the problem and he said they would pay 2,500 gold coins for each set of armor.  I checked with Herb and he said he could scan a dwarf and use that info to create the suit with the system.  We got to details.  The suits would be silver in color, give +8 to physical stats and offer great movement.  I agreed to also supply a power resupply station and an automated repair station.  We added a force shield, non magical to the suits.  I said 4,000 gold each and I would throw in the recharge and repair stations.  This was great because it would solve my credit short comings.  Domir also wanted five grav skiffs.  He offered 25,000 gold for each!  Damn if he new these were just cargo movers.  I asked him how much a normal magical airship cost.  His hesitation told me I got him.  He said 100,000 gold coins and required four mages to power.  I said 50,000 gold coins for each skiff.  Bruce was going to be very busy. 

We approached the town at dusk and they were fighting off skeletons, hundreds of them!  The guns opened up and Domir started hurling concussion spells exploding skeletons.  We flew over the field of undead and I found the source, two men in robes raising skeletons.  They noticed us in shock and tried to run but Mephelia fired two shots killing them.  It took us twenty minutes circling to destroy the skeletons.  We landed and talked to the mayor.  They were thrilled at the save.  Unfortunately I learned there were five necromancers when the skeletons started.  They thought the other three went east as there was a very large old battlefield there.  We mounted up on the skiff and six kilometers east we found 200+ skeletons and the three necromancers.  I said to save one necro for questioning and the team got to work.  In less then ten minutes we were landing and I was hoping off the skiff toward a restrained necro.  Domir had cast a goo spell that hardened.  I grabbed the truth serum from my dimensional storage and we got to questioning.  This attack was all a faint.  The five necro were to raise 10,000 skeletons and draw the Caldonian forces here so their master could use his ghouls and zombies to destroy a city.  He only knew his master had over 5,000 advanced undead two weeks ago.  The city he planned to attack was Ganndrael.  He said the goblins should be mounting attacks on all the southern forts in coordination with the skeletons.  Damn there was a big plan happening here.  Domir said he would fly to Ganndrael with Denterra to warn them while I assisted the forts. 

We sped south to the forts.  There were a lot of goblins and blocks of orcs as well.  We were high in the sky and observing.  There were six goblin armies of about 2,500 goblins each.  Mephelia said there were about 100 orcs in each goblin army.  They were setting up defensive works.  My only concern were the magic users in the army.  We spent an hour spying until I decided on an army that Mephelia was mostly sure where the mages and shamans were.  It was a tent and we descended on it.  The girls and swivel guns focused fire on the tent.  A few Aether bolts shot at us but none reached us.  We shot into the goblins until they dispersed.  We moved onto the next army.  Knowing the spells couldn’t reach us it was just a matter of killing goblins and orcs until they dispersed.  We spent six hours flying to goblin groups and killing.  We killed most of the mages and maybe 30% of all the goblins.  The rest had entered the forest in retreat.  I wish we could have done more in reducing their numbers.  Oh well.  We took off to Ganndrael.  After a stressed opening we found Domir and Denterra we learned the undead army was hiding under the city waiting for the soldiers to leave to help the forts or town.  We got with the city council and set up an ambush.  The soldiers would leave but return in a few hours and wait outside the city.  The plan worked.  It was a gory fight but we won.  Domir and Denterra corned and killed the lead Necromancer.  It had been a long 36 hour mission.  We took the skiff back to the dwarven city.  I ended talking to Mephelia and she said that the battle got her horny and she needed a release.  It was a not too subtle request for sex from the elf.

I was looking forward to it and we rushed to my suite in the terminal room.  Now sex with an elf is different.  Her skin was cool and her body was that of a dancer.  She was aggressive, wrestling for a supremacy position.  I wrestled in high school and managed to dominate her most of the time.  With my high stats and enhanced penis I gave her a great four hour session in the bed and two hour follow up in the shower.  She was exhausted but I was ok and boy did I need that release. I left her in the bed and went to the couch with the computer.

Defend the Town of Greenstone, Reward 5,000 credits, +2 Stat points, Timer:4:47

Completed: 100% bonus, 10,000 credits, +4 stat points

I added the stat points to Speed, bringing me to 89.  With the 16,000 system credits I had I planned to focus on skills.  I brought up my skills.

Skills (5), 18 Skill Points Available

Ballistic Firearms: Hang Gun                             Novice-1

Dodge                                                                    Novice-1

Short Blades                                                         Novice-1

Persuasion                                                            Novice-1

Martial Combat                                                    Novice-4

Mercantile                                                             Novice-1

Long Blades                                                           Novice-2

Teamster Wagoner                                             Novice-1

Horsemanship                                                      Novice-1

Swimming                                                             Novice-1

Cooking                                                                  Novice-1

Gambling                                                               Novice-1

Parry                                                                       Novice-2

Laser Weapons: Rifle                                          Novice-1

Pilot: Battlesuit                                                    Novice-2

Starship Systems: Gravametrics                       Skilled-1                

Starship: Mechanic                                              Beginner-1

Wrestling                                                               Novice-3

Abilities/Traits (2)

Improved Self-Healing                                        Novice-1

Ice Bolt                                                                   Novice-2

Fire Bolt                                                                 Novice-1 (+3)

Healing Hands                                                      Novice-2

Languages

Language: English                                                Skilled-7

Language: Spanish                                               Novice-1

Language: Elf                                                        Beginner-2

Language: Caldonian                                           Novice-3

Language: Persian                                               Novice-10

Language: Ancient Dwarf                                   Apprentice-1

Language: Common Dwarf                                Apprentice-4

I increased Starship: Mechanic to Beginner -6 for 2000 system credits.  The 5 rank increase gave me 500 hours worth of knowledge.   It was a huge increase to my understanding.  I thought it was cute I had acquired the wrestling skill.  My past knowledge contributed to the higher starting I asumed.  System knowledge would reinforce and expand my proficiency.  I spent 4000 credits increasing wrestling to Novice-4.  It was a vanity attempt for me.  I wanted to be 100% in control if Mephelia wanted sex again.  The knowledge was fantastic.  My next increase was healing hands to Novice-5 for 10000 credits.  It had been my most used skill so I leveled it.  Wow that went fast. 

I relaxed in the leather chair and queued up the dwarf weapons and skiffs.  I started with two skiffs.  It would take quite a while for me and Bruce to break them down to get them through the portal.  I wish the system would allow me to purchase it in pieces but the option was not available.  The girls were in the center chamber with the skiffs.  They wanted something to do.

I asked Vivian where the Violet Life Flower was to be found.  It was located 500 km west of the dwarven empire in a mountain valley.  Hmmm, I decided to give Vivian the pilot skill for the skiff at Beginner-1.  Then the three women could take the skiff to search.  I gave her the passcode to activate the controls and off they went. 

I spent two days breaking down skiff after skiff with Bruce.  On the third day we transported parts for five skiffs through the portal with the 12 bots helping.  Bruce started assembling them and I went and got 250k gold coins from Domir, well 300k as he gave me an advance on the swivel guns.  That would generate 15 million basic credits for me.  It was enough for the satellites.  I had to wait as Domir had summoned 60 High Guard for me to scan for their battlesuits.  Herb had the dwarfs strip and it took about two minutes to scan each dwarf.  That done I headed back to the terminal room.  I dropped all 300k gold coins to the recycler.  I got all the swivel guns and accessories.  Then I got all 60 battlesuits with their names on them in dwarf ancient script.  I also got the support units for the suits.  The bots brought everything through and Domir received it all on the other side.  The balance of power was about to shift.  I ended sleeping and eating before returning to the dwarf city.  Domir was there and six dwarfs decked in their new battle armor including Denterra.  Domir apologized and I got nervish.  But it was just the dwarves only had 100k gold on hand.  They would need another 2 days to get the rest of funds here.  No problem.  Domir asked that I proceed with the next 60 scans of the High Guard.  I spent 3 hours getting the scans done.  I returned and made the suits and had them delivered in a few hours.  I was now concerned about the girls.  It had been a few days.  Domir said seven dwarfs went with them and one was a new Battlemage.  I went back to the terminal and got six drones to locate the skiff and a signal booster.  I sat with Denterra while I waited for the drones.  Four hours later I got a video feed on my phone.  The skiff was a little beat up but looked functional.  Five dwarves were around the swivel guns.  The girls and two dwarves were 7km north in the valley.  Everyone looked ok and they were walking east.  Apparently they hadn’t found the flower yet.  Hmm, maybe I should have given them some advanced scanners.  I left the drones to watch their progress.  Domir said my 380k of gold coins was going to take time and he was going to postpone the last 120 battlesuits for now. 

What should I do?  I had another mission, the serial killer.  I could also get the satellite network up.  I went to my world, leaving Bruce to the skiff assembly.  I suited up and got on my hover bike and went to the address of the serial killer.  It was a remote house in Northern California.  Some deep scans found twenty skeletons buried around the property.  In the house there were two people in cages in a hidden basement.  The killer was not at home.  I had to wait 3 hours, he was returning from work.  I shot him in the heart while in stealth.  Then I sent a message to local police and FBI saying two women were trapped in the basement at the address and location of the bodies that were buried throughout the property.   I waited 30 minutes to make sure the women were rescued.  As they were coming out of the house in the care of police I returned to Virginia. 

I pulled my transport into the terminal room on autopilot.  I upgraded the transport to add shielding and heavier thrusters and powerful grav units to allow it to be reliable enough to get me back and forth to orbit.  I bought a heavy space suit.  Damn I needed Bruce to fly it.  In the terminal I bought the first 250 satellites.  It was getting crowded so I stopped there.  I ate and rested watching the news.  There was a virus outbreak in Iraq…well just my assassination of evil people.  Illegal drug prices were really high and some minor drug wars had started in South America.  The rescue of the women was also on the news, the two women were healthy and grateful but hadn’t talked to the media yet.  Global warming was causing raging forest fires in the west.  A dumb ass president was causing nation wide protests.  It was all depressing.  I turned it off.  I got some sleep then went and helped Bruce finish the skiffs.  The girls finally returned triumphant.  The plant was in a large pot.  The dwarf battlemage had nature magic and with my permission he harvested the seeds.  I had more than 400 seeds.  I let the dwarf keep 25%.  The girls and I returned to the terminal room.  I bought some special Aether growth fertilizer for the seeds from the terminal.  It caused 900% faster growth for 30 days for plants and trees.  The girls cleared the land in the garden and we planted half the seeds.  I bought more fertilizer and brought it to the greenhouses.  I gave the fertilizer and 100 seeds to Kaylee and she flirted with me, which I reciprocated.  The flowers needed 5 years to grow before blooming I was told her and let her take it from there.  I gave her 9 barrels of the fertilizer and she was to use one every 9 months.  The flowers could do many things, heal, anti age a person, cure illness and made a great navy dye for magical clothing. 

I ate with the girls listening to their adventures, giant man eating worms, dense forest, poison snakes, spiders and rough terrain.  I was hoping Mephelia would want to have sex again but she was exhausted.  Crap.  It looked like Vivian and Celestial had a relationship going now too.  I thought about Kaylee for a bit but decided to just help Bruce finish, we finished in just a few hours.  Bruce returned with me and we flew out of the terminal into orbit.  With Herbs help we dropped off satellites close to ideal orbits and they self-corrected.  It was weird accessing the terminal room in the craft’s bay.  After the 250 satellites were out I got another 250, then the last 100.  It took 4 days to get them all in proper orbit but I now had the best spy network on the planet.  I added a special cleaning orbital drone.  It was pricy at 600,000 credits but it would go around the planet’s orbit and push non-radioactive debris to burn into the atmosphere.  Lucus was now linked to the satellite network and wanted me to try the game.  I then spent 8 hours playing, it was very addicting.  I had just made level two and was really happy.  We needed some Beta testers.  I had Herb put up an ad for game testers, 500 total, pay was $3000 for 1 month, and they must play at least 200 hours.  I made 500 phones with the terminal and brought them to my world.  I got in my truck, it had been a while.  The new farm trucks were there.  I needed to get them upgraded.  I drove to a Staples and bought 500 bubble shipping envelopes and a laser printer with sticker labels.  Herb printed out labels for the game testers he found and I shipped out the phones.  It had only taken Herb 6 hours to get my tester list.  I packed the phones and shipped them next day air at FEDEX.  It was a freaking long day.  I returned to the location of the future phone factory.  It was going to be built in 14 days.  I had a warehouse next to it with raw materials stock piling up.  I drove to the future police station.  I looked at the building.  The hospital and fire department were next to the police station.  I needed a police force that was loyal.  I started top down, two police helicopters, the hospital and fire department would have two helos each as well.  Next for police was staffing.

              2 Helicopter Pilots

              12 SWAT, 2 teams of 6, would work regular shifts

              2 Canine Units, drug and search and rescue

              2 CSI

              2 Detectives

              7 General Support Staff

              5 Officers, 1 Chief, 4 Lieutenants

              6 Motorcycle Cops

              22 Beat Cops, work in pairs

So I had 38 cops for shifts.  That gave me 3 weekday shifts of 45 hours and two weekend shifts of 28 hour.  19 pairs, 6 cops on each weekend shift, and 8 cops on each weekday shift.  That gave 4 extra for vacation and sick days.  I had Herb start the hiring.  36k to 60k. benefits and housing. Fixed $2400 raise yearly.  The station was redesigned by Herb to accommodate my new vision, he made it capable of hosting twice the number for future expansion. 

I moved to the fire department.

              2 Helo Pilots

              1 Chief

              6 Ambulance, 2 for each of 3 ambulances

              5 Engine Crew 1

              5 Engine Crew 2

              5 Ladder Crew 3

              5 Search and Rescue Team

              5 Search and Rescue Team

It was a lot for a small community.  The Fire House would have 10 living there on rotation for instant response with the rest on call.  My big thing was constant fitness standards and training.  Herb put a fitness center in the fire and police buildings.  I wanted my specialists to get 6 weeks of training a year and regulars 3 weeks.  Hmmm, I had Herb use some land to build my own fire, search/rescue and SWAT training facilities.  I looked at the hospital.  I decided not to hire staff yet.

I went to sleep, alone, after dinner or was it breakfast?  I opened the mission tab when I woke. 

Kill Gilbert Adams, Reward 1,500 credits, +1 Aether

Completed: 1,500 credits, +1 Aether

Collect the last Violet Life Flower and use its seeds to Propagate the Flowers, Reward 2,500 credits, +5 Channeling

Completed: 100% bonus, 5,000 credits, +8 Channeling, +2 Aether

I was shocked the flower mission had given such awesome rewards.  Lucus interrupted me.  The first testers were streaming the game.  It was getting huge reviews.  Herb had sent the phones to prominent streamers and set up the phone to project to computer screens.  We kept the phones AIs mostly passive and low key for now.  The only negative so far was the game was overly complex with 10 stats and dozens of skills.  It was hard to optimize.  The game also had no name yet.  Through the phones I had Lucus answer some questions.  The game could only be played on the phone device, the game designers were working on a virtual reality version to run in concert with the phone game.  The cost for the game was free but would be $10 a month per character.   The release date was TBD.  Immediately watchers asked a billion questions but I was done for now.  The hype train had started. 

The phone needed pricing.  I decided on $1200 and just $20 a month for unlimited phone, text and internet.  It would crash the phone industry.  I had Herb set up a website and put the phone/game up for sale.  Just 100 units would be available and a waiting list of 1000 persons, only North America though.  I wanted to see how fast it would sell out.  We had 26 streamers live and I waited another hour before sending out the link.  Four minutes to sell 100 phones and 35 minutes for the waiting list to fill.  I got 1100 phones with chargers made by the system and filled all the orders.  I had the system build simple packaging, a baby blue foam nest in a shiny black box, and then address the boxes.  I then went and mailed the packages next day.  Only 17 of the 1100 were new streamers but I expected things were going to get interesting.  Once the power of the phones was discovered it was going to cause massive ripples.  Herb said we needed another source for some of special metals for the phone.  It was time to get the asteroid mining going.

I went to see Domir.  I said I needed the 380k gold coins.  Domir said he needed another half a day.  I waited in the Dwarf city and sparred with Denterra.  It still wasn’t even close but I could hold her off for a few minutes now with my superior speed.  After nearly ten hours of instruction and spars and short breaks Denterra said I could now be considered a competent swordsman.  She brought me to the Academy and I sparred with High Guards and High Guard candidates.   After the 40th or so match Domir returned with the payment.  It had been ported here from many different treasuries.  It was mostly gold bars but that was fine.  I asked Domir if he wanted me to scan any more High Guard for battlesuits.  I didn’t have to make them but I could just have the info ready if he wanted them.  He agreed and got 60 more dwarves scanned.  It took half a day to get the dwarves here and I continued to spare and get feedback from Denterra improving my skill.

After the scans were done I returned to the terminal room and added 400k value in coins to the recycler, giving 20 million credits, which I decided was my budget for asteroid mining.  I carefully reviewed my options and it was determined my best and most economical solution was to head to the asteroid belt personally and build the mining and refining there.  I would buy one system craft for 11 million credits that I could materialize and get through the portal.  The ship was 36 meters long, 12 meters wide and 9 meters high.  It was a luxury ship with 14,000 kg of cargo space.  Definitely not a cargo ship but it had a stealth suite and could land in atmosphere so I could deliver materials directly to the factory.  I had Herb note to make a landing site for the starship on the roof of the warehouse.  It could get to the asteroid belt in about 4 days.  Then I would have to find a good mining site by scanning asteroids.  I was going to be gone for at least 20 days according to Herb.  I called my parents and sisters to catch up and told them I was going on a business trip. 

I materialized the ship and explored it.  It was a gorgeous ship, light gray exterior with smooth lines.  It was called an ambassador class ship.  It needed a name.  I thought for a long while then decided on the name, Angelica.  I took four bots and gave them skills for maintaining and servicing the ship.  These bots got physical upgrades to look human and a personality AI.  I decided on two male and two female, all attractive looking.  Bruce got the piloting skill, sensors and navigation for the Angelica as well.  So I had a crew of 5 androids.  I decided to get the piloting skill as well, Starship: Pilot System Scout at beginner-1.  That was the ships class, a military scout that had been stripped of weapons and deep space scanners in exchange it now had luxury quarters, fine décor and a high end food synthesizer.  I asked the girls where they wanted to be left while I took care of setting up asteroid mining.  Vivian said she had found two missions they could complete while I was gone.  Well I had hoped they would come with me but didn’t voice that.  I looked at the missions.

Bring Food to Bresnay Village so they can survive the winter.  Reward: 5,000 credits, +2 stat points

Bring 200 Aether Ice Crystals to the Glowing Sand Dessert.  Reward: 5,000 credits, +3 Channeling, +2 Skill Points

The Bresnay Village was far to north.  Vivian thought she needed food for 200 people for 4 months.  The Bresnay were known for mining the Aether Ice Crystals so she thought she could use the food to exchange for the crystals.  The dessert was on the other continent.  Vivian thought the crystals might bring the dessert to life.  Vivian said the dwarves would probably help as I looked reluctant to let them go.  Fine.  I got them some supplies and they went to the dwarf city to get my skiff. 

I started to think about turning the two female androids into a sex bots.  Twenty days was a long time with just androids for companions.  Maybe I should take Betty and the Persian teens?  The teens for someone to talk to and Betty just needed a few upgrades to be a sexual partner.  Yes that seemed the best option as the teens already knew I had advanced ships.  I moved the Angelica out of the terminal near my mansion.  I went and got the teens and Betty.  The girls looked happy and healthy.  I decloaked the ship and said it was time for a road trip!  They went aboard to explore the ship.  I took Betty to the terminal to upgrade her, she got the piloting and navigation skills to back up Bruce.  Soon we joined the teens on the ship and took off.  The teens were on the bridge as we left earth.  Their English was pretty good now.  I added combat lessons with Bruce during the trip for the girls, focusing on martial arts training and short blades.  They watched my practice with Bruce as well.  We talked about their aspirations.  One wanted to be a doctor and the other wanted to fly spaceships, then the doctor changed her mind to flying spaceships too.  I told them a high school would be built in town and they could go back to school and onto college.  After college they could work for me. 

The trip proceeded with combat practice meals and working on my design for the mining facility.  I couldn’t bring myself to have sex with Betty, especially with Nima and Pyrisa around.  It was fine because the girls felt like daughters to me and I wasn’t overly horny.  It took just over four days to approach our first asteroid, 230 km wide.  It took six hours to scan it with sensors, we tagged it with a beacon.  Herb said it was a good asteroid but not ideal.  It took about 2 hours to reach the next asteroid, 4 hours to scan the 130km big asteroid and tag it.  This went on for 13 days, 58 asteroids scanned and tagged!  Each time Herb said the asteroid was not ideal after the scan data was returned.  On the 13th day we finally got a hit that matched the mineral content Herb said was close to ideal.  The asteroid was 78km long and would take 5 years to mine completely based on my designed setup.  I needed to decide whether to set up here or continue searching.  I decided to keep scanning until we reached 100 asteroids.  I was actually having fun with the girls.  Combat training, watching movies, playing board games, reviewing the scan data.  We hit pay dirt on asteroid 87.  It was 295 km in size and had more than ideal composition.  It had tons of rare metals and enough mass to last 27 years.  We stopped scanning and We landed on the asteroid.

In my space suit I went the surface and opened the terminal door.  I started with buying deep space scanners and mini thrusters.  The thrusters would control the rotation of the asteroid and slowly move it to our #2 target asteroid taking over 11 years.  Next was the processing factory and container manufacturer.  This building would build large containers to hold processed metals.  I then made 120 small drones with heavy grav thrusters.  These drones would be responsible for collecting small asteroids that would impact our mining asteroid and maneuver them to merge with our mining asteroid safely.  The cargo bots were next, 17 of them.  They were help bring refined materials to the cargo containers and stack and merge the slag from refining.  Next was the large mining bots, 5 of them.  They were pretty big and designed to contain debris and bring it to the processor.  The main processor was the biggest structure was next.  It would have to be assembled in sections.  It would take, me, Bruce, the crew and cargo bots four days to assemble and anchor the structure.  I got the girls space suits as well and they joined us, not really helping but enjoying the space walk.  When the structure was completed the internal equipment started to function and the mining bots started delivering loads.  Herb said we had to wait 3 days for the first cargo to be ready if we were to take it.  It would be enough to make 5 million cell phones.  Herb also notified me 4 of the phones I had already sold had melted, it was a self defense from the phones AI if someone tried to break it open.  Two were by the US, one by China and one by Japan.  Thirty-seven other phones had been stolen by various governments and tech giants.  The phones AI had passive sensors so Lucus knew they were stolen.  Hmm, I told Lucus to put a message on the phone screen with a countdown timer of sixty minutes requiring a retinal confirmation to make them panic.  At the end of the countdown melt the internals.  I wasn’t surprised as the tech was pretty alluring.  I figured the US would require a patent or something so they could get their hands on the tech.  I would just manage as best I could.

Back to the mining base.  I added a repair facility next, taking a day to complete.  Next was a minor transport starship.  It would take 8 months to reach Earth but I could use it to shoot containers at Earth or get them prepped in space for pickup, reducing pickup times.  Next on my list were the defenses.  I added 14 stealth space combat drones in hidden hangers and six imbedded missile launches around the asteroid.  The final structure was a habitat.  I had the subterranean habitat built on the dark side of the asteroid.  It would have accommodations and hydroponics for 240 people.  This was a last minute addition as my original design was for just 12 people but this was a safe location if aliens ever attacked Earth.  I know I was just being paranoid but I also scheduled lead coatings from the future mining to diminish emissions.  This last project took six days and I ordered 11 bots to maintain the habitat.  Finally we were off with a full cargo hold.  I was missing Thanksgiving and called the parents and told them I would see them at Christmas.

It was more than an entire month but it was worth it.  As we approached Earth I sent out a notification that Beta testing was ending.  There was a game reset coming in 144 hours and would be shut down till launch day.  I sat in the dining room on the Angelica and Lucus had twenty eight promos prepared.  He had created an internet advertising blitz, he created 15 separate 3 hour movies using advance CGI that were very Game of Thronesesk.  The movies definitely had adult content that gave superb backstory for the game world.  We started releasing the movies one each night, a 15 day countdown to the game launch was started.  Now I opened up the phone order site, $1200 for the phone, $10 month for each character in the game and $20 month if they switched their phone number and service to us.  The phone could connect to computers if you wanted to play on a larger screen.  The hype was insane and we had over 8 million orders in 12 hours!  Well 6.2 million valid orders since I had a hold on shipments outside of North America.   I didn’t want to have to make phones using the system.  Ok we needed to get the factory up and running.  The factory would cost 680,000 and make 4 million phones a month, shit.  It wouldn’t matter if the factory was bigger as raw materials were the problem.  I had enough for 13 million phones currently.  I stopped ordering the rare materials as I was now getting from asteroid mining.  I had Herb forecast and I could fulfill 18 million phone orders by the launch day.  I put a backorder notification after phone 10 million though.  I did double capacity and spent 72 hours getting the factories up.  We could produce just over 250,000 phones a day.  Although the factory was producing phones and chargers I had to get the packaging from the system, a pack of 5 for 1 credit!  It was a significant expense when we were talking millions of phones. 

I had my remaining 8 robots boxing the phones and shipping them next day via Fed Ex.  We started shipping 11 days before game launch.  Fortunately I had made it clear we only expected 2.5 million devices to be in hand at game launch, people were still going to be pissed even though the number was going to be closer to 5 million.

The game would officially go live Saturday December 17th.

The movies were a global hit…frigging free blockbuster quality movies!  Lucus was a genius, well he just absorbed popular material and spit out plots and graphics that struck with audiences.   Lucus wanted to branch out and do other movies but I put a hold on that.  The chatter on the internet was extremely positive.  The testers had made it out of their tutorial instances and their minds were blown at the size and scope of the world.  The game was going to be called Aether World.  This was my final decision.  The space game was going to be called Aether Universe.  I told Lucus he could start teasing that new game and he sent out a trailer two hours later.  I face palmed…I had meant after Aether World was released.  There were a lot of very unhappy people out there too, game studios, phone companies, tech companies, governments and more. 

I already needed to make another trip for raw materials.  Herb said the government was nosing in our business as well.  I wasn’t sure if I could afford to leave for 8 days and where were the girls?  I had the Angelica serviced in the terminal room and sent her off with Bruce on a material run.  I returned to the terminal and the dwarf city.  Domir met me.  The battlemage with the girls had sent a message a few weeks ago.  The skiff was attacked and grounded by a black dragon.  Everyone was alive and they had made it on foot to the Bresnay Village with a few packs of food.  They were hunting dangerous tundra beasts for food.  Domir didn’t want to send any of his skiffs north due to the dragon.  Ok fine.  I found a hover bike I could take apart small enough to get through the portal and reassemble.  I modified it for top speed of 680 kph.  Six hours later I was racing north.  Herb had locations on their suits which were in low power mode.  I didn’t see the dragon as I got to the village 3 hours later.  The girls and dwarves looked dejected.  I wasted a terminal anchor to get the girls back to the terminal room.  We brought back enough food for the village completing the mission and receiving 60 aether ice crystals.  The dwarf battlemage, his high guard and five other dwarves were there.  I got them supplies for a month and 4 swivel gun emplacements and told them we would be back for them with a new skiff. 

In the terminal room the girls were down.  I told them dragons are bad ass and I was glad they were alive.  I told them once Bruce got back he would get a new skiff for them to get the dwarves.  I took a long shower unfortunately alone, ate 3 bacon cheeseburgers and went to sleep, alone. 

I spent my morning starting to disassemble a new skiff.  My heart wasn’t in it and took breaks talking to Lucus who was growing on me.  I decided to have a charity auction for 10 phones.  The winners would get the phones immediately and a 48 hour head start on Aether World.  The funds would all go to inner city sports programs.  As I worked I watched the 24 hour auction and was absolutely stunned, the winner was tech CEO for 8.9 million dollars! 2nd through 10th averaged 1 million dollars.  I gave the winner a 72 hour head start because damn he really wanted it.  The ten phones went out highest priority, 7 were international.  Although I had said the game wasn’t ready for international release the satellites would make it work fine.  They all got their devices in time.  The winner had a stream going when he launched and he had 29 million people watching!  I had to order 10 more bots to get the skiff through the door without Bruce.  I just left the thing on the other side on a roof in the dwarf city.  The game launch was too important.  Bruce returned with the cargo and I set him to assembling the skiff.  The other 9 all had streams going too the next day, five were Asian, one English and one german.  It was now a race for your own countries pride!  Dominate the new game!  I checked…I had 15 million North American orders, 22 million international orders!  I had Lucus notify the international queue was now active!  50,000 phones would start shipping daily in 72 hours.  There was a ton of talk on how the game worked without a required internet band width.  To stop rumors I answered them, 14 satellites.  I wasn’t going to tell them I had 600! 

I set up my holo cube with a neural interface and started my own adventure in Aether World when the 9 other winners started.   I sent 5 million dollars to 5 different city sports programs, divided equally between boys and girls sports.  Lucus said I could use my original char but I started new.  For the game I choose a human mage with plans to take the battle mage advanced class.  My chosen name was Einri.  My tutorial area was a mixed elf and human village on lands harassed by gnolls.  I ended up playing 19 hours straight and getting to level 3.  I had the advantage that the holocube VR setup allowed me to use my actual skills so I was basically a mage swordsman.  Tired I went to sleep after a shower and meal. 

The girls were off to take the skiff north as Bruce was getting close.  I returned to the game.

I managed to get out of the tutorial area at level 4, completing the character quest line.  I entered a massive human city.  I started on a story quest line and logged out after a 15 hour play session, reaching level 5.  My sword skill had actually improved a little.  After food and sleep I played some more and the German player found me.  She asked how did I get here so fast and I replied honestly, I was the games creator and I had started playing when the game went live but I was using a VR interface instead of a phone.  Which of course went viral since she was streaming.   The hype was split between the fact I was the games creator and I was testing a VR system.  The player was very nice and we chatted for a bit.  She asked about Aether Universe and I just said it was in process, no release date.  What about the VR system, I told her it was currently cost prohibitive, but worked.  I said it cost about 10 million and required a hard line to the server.  Where was the server, she would move.  I laughed and didn’t answer her.  She asked to party with me for a bit and we spent 4 hours questing before I thanked her and logged off.  I checked the forums.  The big story was the free form attacking I had done with the sword and casting mage spells.  I decided I had to get back to the real world. 

I checked the stats.  5.19 million players, 32+ million in the queue.  I was shocked that 22% of players already had two accounts!  1.9 million had transferred their phone lines so far.  Bruce walked back into the terminal room.  I asked him if there was anything he wanted in terms of an upgrade.  He asked for a personality and memory expansion.  I gave him an optimistic pleasant base personality AI upgrade with the memory.  We needed to get another cargo load for the phones.  I also decided to double phone production before we left.  The building addition took half a day with the extruder and construction bots but brought production to 542,000 phones a day.  As I drove up there were four men in black suits. 

They asked me to come with them and I said no and drove past.  They put their flashing lights on and came onto the property.  I stopped and got out with Bruce.  They got out and it was a standoff.  They identified as FBI and said I was determined a cyber security threat to national security and they had questions for me.  I said ask away. Apparently it was their boss who had questions.  I said he could come here and I could give him five minutes of my time.  I had Bruce record and send the video with each FBIs personal info to the web during the standoff.  They eventually drove down to the street and sat in their cars.  My phone factory had a crap load of advanced tech and nano machine printers.  I went through and set up the new factories.  I brought the bots in the factory up to 50 and gave them the skill for martial combat.  I restocked the packing warehouse with 50 million boxes.

How should I proceed?  There was a narcissistic asshole in the White House.  Herb said the communications with the FBI was with the president.  He obviously was trying to get a piece of the multi billion dollar pie I was making from the text messages Herb hacked.  As I was getting ready to leave in my spaceship six SUVs came tearing up to the building.  Eighteen smug agents got out.  A leader stepped forward and said I was under arrest.  I asked for warrant and he said he didn’t have a copy.  I said an electronic document would be fine.  Herb deleted the document on the agents phone and said it wasn’t legal anyway as there was no evidence.  His face started turning red as he couldn’t find it on his phone.  I said to the agents they were trespassing unless they presented a warrant.  The assholes tried to arrest me anyway.  Me and Bruce made it quick while Herb jammed the transmissions.  We packed all the agents in the factory storeroom.  I was going to have to pay the fucking president a visit.  I got my battle suit on and headed to the white house on my sled. 

Two hours later I had the prick alone in a room.  Herb cut comms and silenced the walls so he couldn’t call for help.  I basically threatened him and his entire family with extinction.  I told him I had been responsible for a few of the happenings around the world and the more I told him the paler his orange face became.  Then he tried to get me to do him favors.  I told him he could collect his FBI stooges and if anyone bothered me again I would end his family’s line.  I then showed him live video of all his kids and grandkids which Herb had sent drones after.  I cloaked and returned to Virginia.  I had to wait two hours before someone came for the FBI agents.  They were not smug anymore.  I had Lucus take an active role in keeping the government under wraps.  He was given all the drones from the Iraq operation to track and spy.

The president had a meeting and was spit balling ways to put pressure on me indirectly.  I sent him a text, you keep this up and he could just have a fatal stroke.  When he tried to show the text to his meeting members it was already gone.  I told Herb to put a massive campaign of negative press against him so he would always be on the defensive.  Herb said it was a 78% probability handled.  I hoped so.

I finally got on board the Angelica.  Since it was two days to Christmas Eve I went to my parents first.

They were excited to see me and we had a great reunion.  I told them I was very busy and doing extremely well.  I spent the night and knocked them out.  I tattooed them and brought them to the terminal.  I cured them and gave them rejuv treatments.  Bringing their ages from mid 70s to mid 50s.   When they woke they were shocked.  I said it was part of their Christmas present.  I spent 3 days up till Christmas Day.  For Christmas I gave my parents, sisters, niece and three nephews cell phones.  The kids immediately knew what it was and were floored.  It was the hottest item out there!  I left wishing everyone well and said they should visit the farm.

The trip to the asteroid was relaxing.  I ended up playing Aether World, eating junk food, and sparring with Bruce.  I made level 7 by the time we arrived.  I brought a bunch of precious metals to the terminal recycler not needed for the phones and generated 57 million credits!  I bought a two sister ships to the Angelica and named them Avalon and Athena.  I got each a skilled android crew of 7.  They would be making the runs back and forth.  I also added a dry dock for starship maintenance in a hollowed out part of the asteroid.  It was big enough for a 250 meter long ship and could hold all 3 ships if needed.  I added 40 androids to the drydock staffing and linked the drydock to the habitat.  I bought an expensive gravity field generator for the habitat as well.  It would only be used if humans lived there though.  I added 48 heavy wrangler drones to add mass to my asteroid base, bringing in other asteroids actively instead of the ones who were passive to avoid impacts.  I added a separate maintenance building and 8 more mining bots.  In all I spent 9 days on the asteroid.  I also had an active slow expansion of the habitat, just 7 digger, 3 fabricator, and 2 construction bots. 

Herb and Lucus concluded the government had backed off.  I was very happy about that.  I checked the current game stats.  11.26 million players, 41+ million in the queue.  19% of players already had two accounts.  4.8 million had transferred their phone lines.  People were finding the phone coverage was better and internet connection better.  Herb said some of the people in the queue just wanted the phone. 

We returned to Earth.  Lucus had released a TV new series based on the game.  It had a 30 minute episode Mon, Wed, Fri and Sat.  He also released a twenty minute clip of gameplay for Aether Universe.  Lucus said there was an expo coming up and if we wanted to put an exhibit in.  I said sure.  I ended vegging for a few days watching Herbs movies and TV series.  We would bring 12 VR cubes.  People that had characters in Aether World could play them in VR, 50 minute sessions.  The expo started in five days, it was a gaming expo in Las Vegas.  We dropped off the cargo in Virginia and flew out to Las Vegas.  I had to create 3 cargo trucks in the terminal to haul the VR cubes.  I used some basic bots to setup my exhibit.  The 3 day expo was open for 12, 12 and 6 hours, giving me 360 slots for testing.  I went online to our page and posted a lottery system for the slots.  The German player sent me a PM in the game asking for a slot.  I said if she missed the lottery then she could come the day before the exhibit opened and try it.  She was on a flight that night.  The cubes were a massive success.  They linked to brain sensory input and gave a full VR experience.  The first group that went was stunned, their live gameplay was on screens outside and it was just nuts.  People were clamoring to try, people were offering thousands of dollars for a slot. The expo runners let us run 24 hours, adding 144 time slots but 24 of those slots went to the expo runners.   I had investment offers, offers to buy the cubes, tech whatever…!   The cargo bots were a hit too.  I had them doing dance moves.  I avoided sitting on any panels or answering questions.

The German showed up on the second day of the expo and it was a blonde woman.  I was caught off guard and wondered why Herb didn’t say anything.  She was apparently a famous influencer and gamer.  An admirer had bid for her early access.  We had dinner and she wanted to try the VR cube.  I brought her to the trucks.  I went inside the terminal, made a new cube and added the cube to the truck.  Then I let her in.  She could play as long as she wanted. 

I drove to the starship parked in the dessert.  In the ship I started looking at bigger and better starships.  I liked the stellar carrier class.  It was 324 meters long.  Had a jump drive good for 0.5 light year jumps.  The ship carried 40 space fighters and 6 combat shuttles.  It had good defense and low offense.  Cost was 7.1 billion!  And that didn’t include the fighters!  I had a long way to go.  Herb said I could build a hanger near my asteroid and build my own starships.  Interesting.  I spent a few hours sketching out the steps, the first step was to bring a 158 km asteroid and meld it to my mining asteroid.  The 158km would be partially hollowed with construction berths for 8 space ships under 350 meters.  I sent out my wrangler drones to get the target asteroid.  They were currently bringing an asteroid that was 7 km big but had 230 tons of ice.  Not important right now.  Herb put up the projections, 3 months to get the asteroid close and eight days to merge them.  I would have to get out there again to add some special bots for the merging process.  I had to decide what ships to build.  I selected two of the Stellar Carrier Class, next was two 302 meter long Explorers which had a 2.9 light year jump drive.  The last was two Heavy System Defense craft at 320 meters.  The defense craft could jump 2 light minutes and had a vast arsenal for space combat.  Next I looked at space fighters because I would need 80, no 160.  I would have an 80 fighter wing on the asteroid.  I penciled in 20 Light Interceptors, 80 Heavy Space Fighter and 60 Atmo-Space Fighter Hybrids.  For the shuttles I penciled in 24 combat STS (space to surface) drop shuttles, 24 space boarding shuttles and 24 VIP shuttles.   Herb put up a timeline that had the first small craft being completed in 2 years adding 1 fighter and 1 shuttle every 10 days after.   The first large space ship completed in 7 years with a new one launching every 10 months.  Herb said the German girl was exiting the cube.  She had played 11 hours.

I told her if she wanted to continue she could move to Virginia.  Her name was Emma.  She didn’t even have to think and accepted.  I loaded the cubes after the expo and had the trucks headed to the games headquarters…which currently just housed the server.  Herb had the builder bots start an expansion.  So far Lucus had handled everything, it was time to add some human staff.  I decided on 29 staff for Lucus to manage.  Herb altered the expansion to hold 29 staff.  The call went out and applications started pouring in.  I took the spaceship home.  After some rest I would check out the town.

In the morning I went to Gerry’s for breakfast.  There was a lot of activity, we had 27 interns now, 15 staff members and 3 kids and 6 dogs.  It was organized chaos and I spent I few minutes getting reacquainted and introducing myself to new employees.  After breakfast I went to Outdoor Life.  The store was awesome.  I started in the bike shop, we had a mechanic and two salespersons.  It was three levels and had the mechanic, rentals, and mountain bikes on the first floor.  Rentals?  Apparently we had been allowed to make bike trails in the Appalachian Mountains.  We had five trails of 3, 7, 8, 10 and 17 miles of varying difficulty.  They were apparently going to be a huge attraction.  The second floor had road bikes and racing bikes.  The third floor was bike accessories and clothing.  The bike shop had a two story parking garage with 120 spots.  The main store was impressive.  A new sub basement had equipment for making our brand of freeze dried meals.  I was a little surprised but Herb said it was a natural industry for me.  The other three floors were impressive and I spent 3 hours walking around, we only had 6 salepeople so far.  The restaurant in back was just doing lunch and I got a burger.  Out back was the AT hiker hostel.  It was just mid January, too early for hikers.  There was a 36 bed bunk house with free showers and washing machines.  There were also 10 private rooms for a small fee.  Thru hikers could also get a free burger, fries and shake.  I was shocked to see the path back to the trail was paved with stones.  Herb said we had a lot of rocks.  Next I walked through the orchard, Kaylee was supervising the planned planting of the trees.  I walked on to the horse ranch.  I had 3 pastures and a large stable.  Kyle was there and said I had 7 stallions, 13 mares and 8 fillies coming.  I had room for 40 horses.  That was enough.  Ditching my truck I saddled up and rode to the cheese shop.  It was functioning and they had some samples for me.  They were buying milk right now but my cows, sheep and goats should self sustain operations soon.  Next was the chickens, sheep and goats.  Everything looked good.  The dogs were still training but getting there.  The greenhouses were functioning with produce going to the supermarket.  I was super impressed and happy as it had fulfilled my vision.  In late afternoon I took and got all the farm trucks into the terminal room and upgraded.   The large mechanics building was functioning.  I saw Thor driving a lawn mower.  I rode the horse across the street.

The school was looking great!  It looked like a preppy college campus.  Herb said it would be ready to open in the fall semester starting at the beginning of August, so far we had 73 teachers and 19 coaches hired.  There were a lot of sport fields and courts on the campus.  Since all sports practiced at the same time each team needed their own facility.  The boathouse was fabulous, it was probably the best facility in the world, 3 stories tall, 7 bays that were all two eights deep, two 16 person rowing tanks, two separate weight rooms, two 60 erg rooms, two 90 athlete locker rooms, eight 45 person visiting team locker rooms, and a large function room with a balcony toward the race course.  It was perfect and I walked down to the dock.  The water was only 2 meters deep as work was still progressing on the water body.  I spent a few minutes alone on the dock thinking.

Eventually I rode to the other buildings.  A police officer stopped me and said I couldn’t ride a horse on the sidewalk.  I got off and walked to him and introduced myself.  He took a minute to process then apologized, of course I could do whatever I wanted.  I asked him how living here was.  He said it was going well, his wife loved the house and recently they were pregnant.  A new store seems to open every day.  He suggested the pizza shop for my dinner.  A slice was a quarter a pie and only $2.  I thanked him and toured the emerging town.  Herb said we were 36% staffed for the commercial and food industry.  We had 1780 homes built and 62% occupied.  Well actually 49% occupied, the other 13% hadn’t arrived yet.  Everything looked great, it was a modern picturesque small town.  I went across the lake and down the residential streets.  The houses were gorgeous and I saw at least 4 moving trucks.  I talked to kids and adults.  As it got dark I rode back and returned the horse.  I drove home and complimented Herb on what he had accomplished.  I took the hospital off hold so Herb could start staffing it.  I told Herb anyone in our county could go to the hospital for free.  I had Herb select a few advanced medical machines that I could buy in the system for the hospital too, mostly diagnostic equipment.

In the terminal room I found the girls, they had returned triumphant.

Bring Food to Bresnay Village so they can survive the winter.  Reward: 5,000 credits, +2 stat points

Completed: 5000 credits, +2 stat points

Bring 200 Aether Ice Crystals to the Glowing Sand Dessert.  Reward: 5,000 credits, +3 Channeling, +2 Skill Points

Completed: 5000 credits, +3 channeling, +2 skill points

My bonus stat points went to speed.  Mephelia was injured and I hadn’t noticed until we were eating dinner.  I got her into the med pod.

Mephelia

Strength

58

Constitution

65

Stamina

72

Agility

96

Speed

78

Intellect

48

Aether

61

Channeling

49

Charisma

80

Her stats were very impressive.  I healed some tissue damage from scorpion venom and 17 other ailments.  I then raised all her stats by 3 points since I had plenty of basic credits.  When she got out she was very happy and I knew I was going to have a great night of sex.

It was a lot less aggressive than our first coupling.  In the morning the girls were hanging out in skimpy clothes in the kitchen.  I had the computer in front of me.  The girls asked what I had been up to.  I ordered 3 holocubes for their bedrooms and got them to try the Aether World game.

I was making nearly 600 million dollars a day from phone device sales.  I was so flush with cash I didn’t know what to do.  I ignored the negative publicity and focused on game feedback.  Very positive, Lucus had global events planned every Wed and Sat, lasting 48 hours each.  It was an open world game and people were going everywhere.  Highest level player was 11.  My character was only 8.  The next step was to get Aether Universe into a Beta test.  Ok time to round out this game.  I bought a server twenty times the size of the one for Aether World and there was space in the subbasement for three more.  This game was going to be a space race game.  Six races in their own home solar systems at the beginning of space exploration.  Ships could max jump .5 light years to start with a eight hour cooldown on the jump drive.  Advances in technology would create better ships but all 6 races would start equal.  The races: humans (pop 14 billion) who were in sol system with colonies on Mars and Europa, elves (pop 3 billion) with an earth like planet and two habitable moons orbiting it, a saurian humanoid (pop 20 billion) with a marsh like super earth, orcs (pop 7 billion) with 3 habitable worlds but harsh environments, feline humanoids (pop 2 billion) with a jungle like planet, and lastly the Asir (pop 1 billion) that looked humanish but light blue skin with just a ring space station around a dead planet.  With this Lucus could make a ten episode series for each race showing the culture, language, architecture and disposition of each race.  The episodes would be an hour long each.  Lucus was already starting on the movies.

Next we took the real galaxy milky way stars as a template and placed the races.  We made the solar systems as 10% chance of having planets with life.  We added the prototypical gates from an ancient races to discover.  The goal was going to be a race to find and appropriate this tech from ruins, derelicts and ancient space stations.  Each race would find their first gate to a central nexus with a massive station under control of surviving AI from the ancient race.  It would be interesting to see this vision come to life and evolve.  I could see players trying to rule the universe but NPCs would be flexible and grow too.

As races explored systems they would be added to the game.  New races, threats, technology…I was getting excited.  

The sleep deprived girls wobbled blurry eyed into the kitchen.  I was fine tuning some game mechanics with Lucus.  They started talking excitedly about the game.  They had spent 20 hours and all had made level 2.  I left them to eat and drove to the new game head quarters Herb had built.

It was a large building off the road 5km southeast of the farm.  There was an entrance to an underground garage.  I pulled in and the trucks from the expo were there.    The bot drivers were still in the cabs.  Huh.  I walked to the building.  It was 120 meters by 70 meters and was 25 meters in height.  The building was covered in smart glass that was tinted.  Inside was like an empty hotel lobby.  I walked to the elevator.  There were 4 sub basements and 4 floors.  I went down to the second sub basement and used the terminal portal to install the Aether Universe game servers.  I ordered 10 maintenance bots for the sub basement and left them there.  Back on the first floor I walked around.  One third of the floor was the lobby.  The rest was unused space.  Herb had just built a big building to hide the servers.  The only finished room was the lobby.  I turned into an architect/interior designer.  Half the first floor would be a cafeteria with doors out to a garden.  The remaining space would be for security.  I decided on 12 security guards with 24 hour coverage.  So I had 60 lockers added.  Next I went up to the second floor.  Half the floor was tagged as a massive gym with a pool and running track.  The other half the floor would contain game cube rooms.  Basically 5x5 meter micro apartments with game cubes.  I put 60 such apartments in.  Now that German gamer, Emma, would have somewhere to play.  I had Lucus create a contest in game to use the holocubes here for 30 days.  I went to the third floor.  I decided to make this floor offices for people that Lucus could work with to improve the game.  Lucus had already hired 19 people but they hadn’t started yet.  I divided the floor into four equal sections/departments.  The departments were, Game Content, Publicity, Concept Art, and Management.  Herb and Lucus could hire 12 people for each department, with concept art getting 48.  Herb said we had space for 10 times that many.  I said we didn’t need more.  The fourth floor matched the 3rd floor but was for Aether Universe with twice as many employees.

I had Herb add the elevator to the roof and add a small office for me and make sure the Angelica could land there as well.  I added 12 human looking androids to work as custodial staff.  Since I had the funds I decided to add more servers.  I added one more large server for Aether World and six more large servers for Aether Universe.  Lucus said the servers should last 20 years of game evolution. 

Emma was calling, she was 30 minutes out in her rental car.  Herb had me go to the terminal room and get the security equipment.   I also updated the 12 androids to train the staff and work as temporary security.  Emma arrived and I gave her a tour.  I had a pass card printed for her that was linked to her biometric data for using the doors.  I had the androids move one of holocubes from the expo trucks to the second floor.  Emma could use it while renovations went on.  Emma asked about  the staff.  She wanted to apply for a job in game content.  Herb went live on the game web site with job postings I decided on.  I told Emma she could apply.   She started touching me seductively asking if there was anything she could do to bypass the application process.  She was attractive and I thought what the hell.  We had sex right there in the empty 2nd floor.  It was short, just 5 minutes.  I then left Emma to her gameplay. 

I left the game center and drove to the pizza place the officer had recommended.  The pizza was good.   Very good.  Herb said he had found the top 17 dining establishments in the country, got their cooking methods and ingredients.  This pizza was 99.7% similar to a top pizza place in new York city.  Well we had to do staffing for the game company so I got my phone out.

60 security

18 food staff

6 reception desk

84 Aether World

168 Aether Universe

A lot of people that were not really necessary.  I added an expo team, 12 people.  Herb said we had 1,280 applications in just 2 hours.  Really the only people that could help Lucus were the artists.  I had Lucus put up a competition for artists applications, submit four drawings.  Pay for every position was $72k, full health, dental and $7,200 401k, no housing for this group but bonuses based on contributions to the games and fixed $2k annual raises.  I reduced the management staff to just 6 for each game, and added the 18 freed jobs to concept art and content.  I went to the sushi place next to the pizza place, it was good, next was the ice cream shop.  Finally full I drove to the farm mansion.  The two Persian teens were there with Betty.  I told them they would start school in August and were free to work on the farm until then.  I went to the terminal room and reviewed the high school.  Herb was only getting 36% of the people he wanted.  I told him to move the base salary from $36k to $48k for everyone and he had the flexibility to go up to $60k.  We would also start pay immediately and start date was August 1st giving them a few months of pay without working.  Annual raises were fixed at $2500.  Herb had done tons of research trying to get the best instructors.  He expected he could now get 78% of his targets with payroll changes.  Hmmm, I told him if he found someone that was really good he could offer $72k but that they would not be eligible for annual bonuses.  Next Herb said we had no students.  Well we would have a few from employee kids in town.  Ok time to offer scholarships.  I told him 960 academic full scholarships with a $50 weekly stipend, there was a lot of poor kids out there that were very smart.  Then 960 athletic scholarships with the same $50 weekly stipend.  The athletic teams would be traveling all over the country for the best competition and I wanted a culture of winning.  Herb asked which sports should be the focus.  Hmm.  Soccer, Ice Hockey, Rowing and Swimming.  I didn’t go with basketball or football but I assumed they would be successful.  Herb began sending out invites to tour the campus.  Herb said that left only 80 beds for paying students.  Looking at the campus in a holo scape it was very well laid out.  I couldn’t find anywhere to add new dorms that wouldn’t disrupt the layout.  I pointed to a small area, I had Herb add six mini-dorms here.  Each with 24 rooms.  Each house dorm would be for a different honor society.  Then I added six more in another location.  That was another 288 beds.   Herb made some increases to staffing projections.   Herb suggested I assign a new AI to manage the school.  I created one and his name was Franklin.  He took Herbs data dump and continued the work.  I breathed deep.  My next step was to build a college.  Then I could start grooming people for my space fleet.  I told Herb to start acquiring land, it would have….hmmm….15,000 students?  I decided on…14,000 undergraduate and 6,000 graduate students.  Everyone would get housing and full tuition as scholarships.  They would be responsible for food.  Designing the campus would be something fun I could do in my free time.  Franklin would start…I told him to build the campus around the football and basketball arenas and focus on having a tram system…keep cars off campus.  The 65,000 seat football stadium and 12,000 seat basketball were target sizes.   This brought me back to my hockey league.  Herb said I needed more machines to begin construction.  I got 7 sets of machines sent out of the terminal.  I bought so many bags of extruder concrete mix they made a mountain on the farm.  Herb had used everything in my storage rooms and was contracting out regular concrete when I fell short.  Extruder concrete was just starting to be produced locally.  I had the Avalon add some gold to its cargo next trip specifically to buy the extruder mix.  It was about time to head back and finish some missions.  The girls were in their holocubes.  I checked and Vivian didn’t have anything in the mission queue.  I did have 16,500 system credits to buy stuff but held off before selecting a mission.  I found a mission reward I had been waiting for.

Kill the Aboleth in the Dwarven City of Tellanum Sewers, Reward: 4000 credits, Tier 2 Realm Portal Expander, +1 Intellect

A portal expander!  A tier 2 expander would double the width and height.  I found two more missions in the city of Tellanum that I liked.

Defeat the Swordmaster of the Tellanum War Academy, Reward: 1500 credits, +2 long blades skill

Eliminate 20 Green Slimes in the Tellanum Sewers, Reward: 1000 credits, +1 stamina, +1 constitution

I went to see Domir and Denterra.  I asked about the city of Tellanum.  It was 270 km to the west at the edge of the kingdom.  It was an old human city the dwarves now occupied.  Domir said an Aboleth was a dangerous creature.  It affected the mind and could control people.  Domir said I should get some mental defenses.  If I had nothing he could commission a magic artifact to help.  I asked Denterra about the swordmaster at the Tellanum Academy.  She knew him and could help me prepare to challenge him.  We sparred for a few hours and then went to dinner at my inn run by Jakob.  We were in a private room and I was surprised to see the 9 young mages.  Domir said they were progressing well and introduced them. 

The first was Lilia, she had affinity for Water Magic and Dark Magic and a synergy with Healing magic.  Domir explained an affinity allowed mages to learn and advance spells twice as fast.  Synergy not only allowed faster learning but also reduced the required Aether to cast spells by 20%.  Synergies were rare and affinities were uncommon.  Having more than one was very rare.  Lilia was a thin blonde girl with freckles and light brown eyes.  The next was Fraya.  She had synergy with chaos magic and fire magic.  Fraya had silky black hair and dark eyes but a bright smile.  The last girl in the group was Ophelia.  She had the extremely rare synergy with space magic and air magic.  She was also blonde but had blue eyes, she was Lilia’s twin sister!  Identical except the eyes were different.  Domir said their magic affected their eyes.  The boys had been well behaved, waiting.  The first was Atwater.  He had affinities for fire, water, air and earth magic.  Domir said he was an elementalist.  Atwater had black hair and seemed really fidgety.  The next young man was Trayon.  He had affinities for air and fire magic and a synergy for enchanting magic.  Trayon had unkempt red hair and brown eyes.  The next mage at the table was Drake.  He had two synergies, healing and force magic.  Trayon was very tall and had short black hair and black eyes.  The next two boys were twins as well Hyde and Garyde.  Domir said twins usually had a higher chance of magic.  The two boys had the same affinity, Destruction Magic.  The boys were small, and the youngest in the group with dark brown hair and brown eyes.  Inuon was the next mage.  He had dark skin and hair and some partial pointy ears.  He was half elf.  The boy had affinity for Light magic.  The last mage was Ponder.  He was very handsome.  He had two affinities, Shadow and Charm magic. 

Lilia spoke for the group at dinner.  They all wanted to swear loyalty to me for saving them.  I said that after they finished their training we would talk again about it.  I had Herb do passive scans on all the mages.  Not good enough for a battlesuit but good enough for some basic gear.  The meal was pleasant and Domir helped me strategize.  Denterra said I should train with her at least a week before challenging the sword master.  Domir said he could help raise my mental defenses.  I planned to go get a mind resistance skill from the system and hopefully level it up.

I returned to the terminal.  The girls were still in their cubes.  I had Herb find an ability that suited my needs.  It was called Fortress Mind and gave resistance to magic, tech and psionic mind control.  I got the skill and raised it to Beginner-1.  I then spent some time getting meals prepared for the next two weeks.  I needed to also spend my 16,500 system credits.  I decided to raise my agility from 74 to 93.  It was against my goal of only using credits for skills but the agility would greatly enhance my parry, dodge and swordmanship.  Bruce came with me as well as fourteen small combat drones.

On the other side of the portal I settled into the guest quarters.  It took about two hours to get used to the higher agility in my first session with Denterra.  She was shocked as we were mostly equal now.  I couldn’t land a blow but Denterra could only land glancing blows because of my control and speed.  After six hours we stopped.  Both sweating.  Domir and Ponder then took over my mental training, using mind magic and coaching me through resisting it.  I slept and ate then repeated this over the week.  I went to the terminal room to see my progress.

Skills (5), 20 Skill Points Available

Ballistic Firearms: Hang Gun                             Novice-1

Dodge                                                                    Novice-5

Short Blades                                                         Novice-2

Persuasion                                                            Novice-1

Martial Combat                                                    Novice-4

Mercantile                                                             Novice-1

Long Blades                                                           Apprentice-2

Teamster Wagoner                                             Novice-1

Horsemanship                                                      Novice-1

Swimming                                                             Novice-1

Cooking                                                                  Novice-1

Gambling                                                               Novice-1

Parry                                                                       Novice-9

Laser Weapons: Rifle                                          Novice-1

Pilot: Battlesuit                                                    Novice-2

Starship Systems: Gravametrics                       Skilled-1                

Starship: Mechanic                                              Beginner-6

Wrestling                                                               Novice-4

Starship: Pilot System Scout                     Beginner-1

Abilities/Traits (1)

Improved Self-Healing                                        Novice-2

Ice Bolt                                                                   Novice-2

Fire Bolt                                                                 Novice-1 (+3)

Healing Hands                                                      Novice-6

Fortress Mind                                                       Beginner-9

They had been great teachers.  My sword skill had developed leaps and bounds.  My mind now had awareness when it was attacked.  I could put up barriers and react.  It was a great start.  Denterra said my speed and quickness would make me a match for the swordmaster.   I had 20 skill points but thought I should try my hand at the quests first.  Bruce and 10 honor guard dwarves took the skiff to Tellanum with me. 

The city was a sprawl and on the coast.  We flew around and found a sewer exit by the coast.  Ok.  We landed and had to meet the city magistrate, have a diplomatic dinner with high dwarven citizens.  It was pretty boring.  I did find an Elf diplomat that was useful.  He said the sewers had a slime problem. Normally a few slimes were ok to reduce the smell but they were getting out of control.  Dwarf culling expeditions had started disappearing.  I thanked him and after the banquet went to a sewer entrance.  I sent the drones in with a mapping program and had them eliminate slimes when encountered.  They eventually found the Aboleth lair.  The thing was big and it had 13 dwarves under its control.  I pulled out the drones.  I would enter the sewer tomorrow with Bruce and the drones.  I would use Bruce to draw out the beast then attack with all the drones at once and myself.  I couldn’t afford to let it swim away. 

During the afternoon I challenged the swordmaster.  Denterra had prepared me well.  If I hadn’t practiced against his style I probably would have lost.  I did win after 20 minutes.  The swordmaster then relinquished his position to another dwarf.  That done I headed to the sewers in my combat armor.

The sewer was pretty gross but I stoically sealed my suit helmet.  I started moving fast on the best pass with Bruce in front.  We found some of the dwarves standing guard and Bruce went in alone, disarming the dwarves.  They should be mentally released if we killed the Aboleth.  The Aboleth took the bait and attacked Bruce physically.  The stealthed drones fired and I attacked from a distance with my rifle.  I felt a very brief mental attack before the beast died.  That was probably too easy.

The dwarves regained their senses and thanked me profusely.  I left the sewer and had Bruce drive us back on the skiff.  I returned to the terminal room and get Bruce and my armor cleaned.  I ate three dinners after a shower and slept.  On waking I was excited to review the missions.

Kill the Aboleth in the Dwarven City of Tellanum Sewers, Reward: 4000 credits, Tier 2 Realm Portal Expander, +1 Intellect

Completed: 4000 credits, Tier 2 Realm Portal Expander, +1 Intellect

Defeat the Swordmaster of the Tellanum War Academy, Reward: 1500 credits, +2 long blades skill

Completed: 1500 credits, +2 long blades skill

Eliminate 20 Green Slimes in the Tellanum Sewers, Reward: 1000 credits, +1 stamina, +1 constitution

Completed:  100% bonus, 2000 credits, +2 stamina, +2 constitution

I now had to decide if I should use the portal expander on the Farseer portal or connect my other realm portal and use it on that one.  I needed the size increase for bigger tech like spaceships.  What to do?  Could I use my realm portal in my realm?  I went to the blank door in the terminal room.  I hadn’t done anything with it since I had received it as a reward for completing the terminal tutorial.  How do I link it?  Herb?  He starting searching and I could not link it my universe.  Ok then try another random realm.  Next was how to select a location in this realm.  Herb said it was a mental search on my part.  I linked to the portal and had billions of stars in the door I started with one star and searched the system, no life.  This would take too long to find a good planet with life.  The window popped like a bubble and different inhabited planets started on a slide show.  This was like tinder app for planets.  I managed to restrict the planets to humanlike populations.  Then I selected space faring civilizations.  I went and got a comfortable chair as I had already been standing for over three hours.  I needed to narrow the pool of options.  I choose just species that looked human so I could wander unnoticed.  I eliminated civilizations that had really hi-tech, worried I might get caught.  But I wanted civilizations that were on the cusp of interstellar travel and had multiple planets.  That brought my choices down 6 solar systems.  I was able to scan each one in the mirror door.  I watched the people and started eliminating options.  The first was a very militaristic society, out.  The second was a matriarchal society, out.  The third was a heavy gravity world, out.  The fourth had polluted their planet and were racing to colonize moons, out.  The fifth had three habitable planets in system and they were all at war, possibly.  The sixth was looking good.  One earthlike planet.  One language, population 5 billion.  They had small colonies on two moons around their planet and three large space stations.  They had spaceships exploring their system and were in the process of attempting to mine asteroids.   They didn’t have jump drives or sublight travel.  This meant there ships were accelerating slowly and then decelerating.   I started spying on individuals.  I confirmed they had sex like humans.  They looked to be about equal level in terms of computer tech but had furthered mechanical engineering.  Now where to set the portal.  I decided on a large capital city.  I eventually found a university that focused on space technologies.  I searched the university and in the propulsion tech labs watched the group.  I tried to grasp the language from the group.  I was able to get the language from the system, Merrion.  I added it at Beginner-1 and was able to mostly follow simple conversations.  They were working two projects, improving fuel efficiency and solar array collectors for fuel conversion.  I identified a female scientist that was very hot and followed her home.  She was single with two cat like pets.  I watched her and thought she would be a good target to make inroads.  I set my portal in her kitchen.  I then used the system to generate a pamphlet that had 79 pages and showed a new fuel that was 5 times more effective than what they were using.  The pamphlet had details of making, storing and utilizing the fuel.  I roughed up the papers to look like they had been read dozens of times and dropped them on her table.  Ok I would let this simmer.

Vivian, Celestial and Mephelia were all eating when I was done.  They had seen me and waited for me to finish.   The girls were doing well in the game.  I asked if they wanted to get back to the real world and do some missions.  Instead they asked me to join them in the game for a bit.  They were a level 12 Ranger Tracker, level 11 Chaos Wizard and level 10 Stalwart Fighter.  The holocubes made playing much easier allowing them to level quicker.  Lucus said the highest player level was currently level 14.  So the girls were racing for dominance in the digital world.  I decided to join them.

I had Lucus create a tiny cheat item for me.  It was a black coin that allowed me to use city teleporters for free.  It released all roadblocks as well allowing me access to all game content.  I was able to port to the city where the girls were.  They were disappointed I was only level 8, close to 9, and hadn’t reached level 10 to select an advanced class.  I spent the next four days in the game.  We cleared some minor earth elementals led by a stone elemental and got a key to the earth elemental plane.  We joined the Green Knights in an assault on an ogre camp.  We fought dark spiders in the forest and recovered the body a dead villager.  We unmasked a vampire in the city.  We found an entrance to the underdark and fought some dark dwarves.  I enjoyed it all and was happy to get to level 10 and went through the mini chain quest to become a Spell Sword.  I reluctantly pulled myself away from the game.  It was really addictive.  I found to my shock that my Long Blades skill in real life had increased one point!  Talking with Lucus I learned that neural active learning was possible in the game.  He was working on creating a database of skills.  He even said he could do time accelerated learning, downloading skills eventually.  He was working on creating skill databases from players using the cubes and internet.  I needed more players in cubes.  I left the terminal and went to the game headquarters. 

Things were hopping.  Lucus then updated me, staffing was at 78 with 7 more people flying in.  I walked through, the staff was very ethnically diverse and very competent according to Lucus.  The staffs were not a well oiled machine yet.  I went to my office on the roof.  I started by using the terminal room to get all the computer screens, tablets, cell phones, and office tech that was more advanced.  I had it on the roof and had the 12 androids deliver it over the next few hours.  I added 120 holo cubes to Aether World floor and 240 to the Aether Universe.  This made things a little crowded on the Aether Universe floor.  The cubes had a footprint of 2 meters by 2 meters but stood just under 3 meters.  I decided to build a small wing on the building.  The wing was 24 meters by 48 meters.  The first floor of the wing had a storage bay.  The second floor had 27 more mini apartments for players.  The 3rd and 4th floor had the cubes for the employees.  The roof now had two shuttle pads.  Herb said the extruders could build it in 2 days and it would take 24 hours to do basic interior work. 

There was an interaction system in each cube so they could do their jobs virtually as well.  The bots and androids had been doing all the construction work so I added 12 more androids.  I had a receiving dock on the first floor wing and would sell the holocubes from this mini warehouse.  All the holocubes needed to be purchased in my terminal, the sale price was $12 million.  I made a few modifications to the standard holocube.  I hard sealed the internals, put a compatible power input and removed the HD batteries.  I made it tamper proof and put a minor AI in the cube database to melt the internals if it was tampered with.  I had Lucus start the promo for selling the cubes.  I figured the warehouse could hold 400 cubes.  So selling 100 cubes a week for now would be the target.  The first 400 units would be $12 million each, then a break and the next 400 would be $11 million each.  As demand waned each 400 units would bring the price down $1 million dollars until they were selling at $1 million each.  I figured dropping the price as demand dropped was a good idea. 

As I waited a few days I worked on the college layout.  The sports and recreation fields were in the center of campus.  I ended up with a domed football stadium with a 65,120 seat capacity and an additional 24 luxury boxes added 480 seats.  Surrounding the fields were the academic buildings.  They were all 3 story buildings with a basement.  Surrounding the academic buildings were the dorms.  The dorms were 4 stories, square with courtyards in the center, and housed 960 students each.  The center courtyard of each dorm had a large pool.  Each dorm room was a suite with 4 small single occupancy bedrooms each with a private bath.  The suites had a large common room that had a kitchen, dining and living room.  It would be the best college accommodations in the country.  I needed 36 square kilometers for my brain child.  There was a tram that circled the campus between the dorms and academic buildings.  There was a massive underground tunnel network for delivery trucks.   I had a subway as well that ran from outlying parking lots and dropped off at the stadium and tram station.  Since all students were given housing for free there shouldn’t be an issue.  All classes would be between 8am and 3pm.  No academic classes after 3pm.  All transportation was free on campus.  The above ground would be bikes and walking and the tram. 

This all took a lot time and the wing of the game center was finally done.  The waiting list for the cubes was 4280 people long!  Freaking insane, no need to reduce the price just yet.  I stocked the warehouse with the maximum 409 units and we started shipping the cubes!  The 409 units were moved out in 48 hours and I restocked the warehouse with another 409 units. 

Herb said it was time to head back to my asteroid mining operations to prepare it for the merger so I took the 4 day trip with Bruce.  The Athena and Avalon were doing a great job, we had a surplus in material for the phones.  Herb wanted to increase production but I nixed that.  We had over 1500 kg of platinum and 14800 kg of gold in storage on the asteroid.  I was going to turn that all into credits.  That was over 26 million basic system credits in gold and over 75 million basic system credits in platinum.  I started by planning for the incoming asteroid for the construction docks.  This took 4 days of buying bots and equipment in terminal and sending it out to the asteroid.  I cashed in 29 million more worth of rare metals before heading back to Earth.  I was now on the path to building spaceships.  Everything would be automated with completed ships getting parked on the dark side of the asteroid.  If I ever died humanity might find dozens of ships in orbit out here in the future.

I had managed to get my game character to level 11 by the time we returned.  Back in Earth’s orbit I decided to add two more ships to my fleet, the Arcadia an Argonaut.  These were the same basic design as my ambassador class but had some weapons and improved shields and better atmospheric handling.  The ships cost more, 18 million, compared to 11 million.  These two ships would be my escorts from here on out.  I got each a crew of 15 highly skilled androids.  I thought about ripping out life support, crew cabins and food synthesizers but left them.  I did spend 2 million more on each ship adding advanced HD batteries and fuel tanks in the tiny cargo bay.  I added 24 combat robots to the crew quarters as well.  If I ever got into trouble I could land the two ships and have 48 combat robots…hmmm…I upped the numbers to 48 robots for each ship.  The robots looked like humans in combat armor with pulse lasers on their forearms.  I added 12 of these combat robots each to the Athena, Avalon and Angelica.  Herb ran some quick sims, these bots were basically invincible units on Earth.  I also decided to add 240 of these combat robots to a future sub basement of my mansion and 240 to the subbasement of the game head quarters and 120 to a future subbasement of the phone factory.  I added another 120 to one of the old storage rooms in the terminal I had used for extruder concrete.  Herb had patented the extruder mix and it was being made outside of Nashville for a relatively high cost but the supply chain wouldn’t rely on me.  Herb said I needed a space station in Earth’s orbit to service my fleet. 

There was already a big deal as my ship had been removing junk objects from orbit.  Apparently NASA tracked these and the disappearances had meant another country or alien was responsible.  A new space station would freak the entire planet out.  Well I could make the station have good stealth capabilities.  Herb came up with a modular space station that could be assembled.  21 million credits.  It would have 87% of Earth’s gravity with its generators and have life support and housing for 240 people.  It would have 6 docks for space ships, two story design, triangular structure.  It would be visible for 7 hours to NASA before stealth would be engaged.  We started the construction and predictably NASA found it and took pictures before it stealthed.  I added 42 androids to staff the space station and bought supplies for it.  I might have to go public soon.

In the shipping dock at the game headquarters I added 409 new holocubes to sell.  818 cubes had been shipped and delivered and the waiting list was up to 7,956.  I had Herb schedule to build an underground warehouse with an elevator access to the holocube warehouse.  This new warehouse would be specifically designed to hold 2,400 holocubes.  Herb pulled in a few constructor bots and prioritized the addition, he said 9 hours and it would be done.  I walked to the floors and checked on my game staffs, put up with a few presentations and ran into Emma.  She had one of the gamer apartments and I got a quickie out of the deal. 

I spent the rest of the day filling orders for advanced technology in the game headquarters from my terminal.  Then I had Lucus present the Aether Universe game.  I played it for 8 hours, going through a tutorial area, well I made level 2 anyway.  I kept the character name Einri and planned to play a smuggler role as a pilot of small transport ship.  I really liked it and gave the green light.  Lucus put out a massive campaign with a game launch 48 hours away.  This created a huge media event.  There was an immediate increase in demand for the holocubes and the phone.  The waiting list for a phone was 194,347,020 worldwide!  China was banning the phone as a threat since it couldn’t control internet access.  Holocubes demand increased to over 10,000 in a few hours!  Ok maybe I did need to increase phone production.  The best method might be to set up production on the asteroid.  With Herb I ran through a few possible set ups.  The best option would be to set up a 2 million a day production on the asteroid with the 522k locally that meant I would still need about 100 days to catch up.  I also found an intersystem cargo ship for 5 million credits.  It had a small size and was designed to attach to large cargo pods.  So I could use it to get the cargo pods to the new space station.  I had just returned from the asteroid and wasn’t looking forward to going back. 

I walked through the town before I left.  I sampled some restaurants, a Thai place, Sicilian and French.  Herb had set up 7 very fancy restaurants and had excellent chefs running them.  I was recognized and just had to order and the food came out ASAP.  It was good to be the owner.  The town was filling out, people were moving in and getting to work.  Herb had 2866 houses built and 82% occupancy.  The school had teachers moving in and was 92% staffed.  Franklin had 1060 students so far for August.  Athletics was a slight issue, we had head coaches lined up, but support staff was still in process.  We had 89 assistant coaches, 35 athletic trainers, 18 strength coaches, 9 sport psychologists, 24 game and field staff and 3 nutritionists.  Herb said 96 more support staff yet to be hired in the next five months.  The best news I got was the lake was done!  Herb was pumping in water and it would be full soon.  I also had 9 underground aquafers with 4,500 million gallon capacity.  They were only 11% full but should avoid any drought concerns.  The whole town sewage processing plant was also underground and automated.  This allowed a reclamation of water flushed in buildings.  Herb said the womens hockey league had gone public and hiring had begun.  The headquarters would be done in 4 months and the arena rinks in about 7 months.  Our robot builders were getting national attention having started work on the rinks.  So far hired security had kept things safe but Herb worried the government or a corp might try to seize them.  The college campus was being graded out.  It was 1 mile south of the lake.  This meant that I would have to add another boathouse.  I had Herb copy the current boathouse and build the college one next to it.  Herb had ordered 8 wakeless launches but they were delayed.  I went to the boathouse and just bought 16 wakeless launches on trailers with electric motors and left them in the bays.  The rowing coaches were up stairs setting up the ergs and I was fortunate that I had all the launches out before they found me.  I talked to the group for a while, there were 6 of them and they were super excited.  We had 24 top line new shells being built in Canada that were due in the summer.  The coaches only had 13 women and 9 men recruited so far but they were top junior rowers in the country.  I asked if they had recruited international rowers yet.  Herb said no.  Well get on it!  I wanted the best junior rowing program in the world!  They asked about the launches and I said the launches had just been delivered and they asked what brand they were…ummm…they were a new company.  Herb asked if he should cancel the 8 launches already ordered, no, we would store them in a warehouse…maybe we could have a sailing club in the future at the open end of the lake.  It was good grounding for me to talk to the coaches.

I headed back to the farm mansion and boarded my spaceship and entered orbit with my two escort ships.  I wasn’t too happy to have to return to the asteroid so soon.  During the trip to the asteroid I worked on refining the college and played the Aether Universe game.  I wanted the best professors for the college so I was going to have to steal them.  The base pay would be $240,000 for a professor.  Franklin could go as high as $480,000 to convince them.  Each professor would be given either $120,000 research grant or two grad students…or both!  There would also be an annual $250 million research slush fund.  Professors would also each get a $6,000 annual budget for travel and professional development.  There would be a flat $10,000 for a 401k, no scaling for variance in pay.  This 401k contribution would cover all fulltime employees from professors to custodial staff.  Herb and Franklin and Lucus worked in concert to identify the best candidates.  The college would cover all the majors and Lucus said I needed 2,680 professors to keep class sizes where i wanted them.  The medical school would need another 142 professors and researchers.  Campus police would have 282 personnel, facilities staff at 322, dining staff and the campus grocery store 488, campus fire department 68, athletics staff 498, admissions 20, administration 18 and finally support staff 288.  A sum of expenses for staff and operations was running over 3 billion a year.  I wasn’t worried as I was making about 500 million a day from phone sales.  I would need some income though from the college.  Originally I had planned to waive tuition and housing.  I decided to charge $200 a month for housing.  This would generate 45 million annually. The dorms were more like apartments similar to the high school but bigger.  Each had four bedrooms, each 3 meters by 4 meters with a full bath.  The four rooms shared a common room that was 4 meters by 16 meters with a kitchen, dining room and living room.  I had to make the dorms 6 stories tall to fit the population in the space planned.  The top 5 floors were housing, the bottom floors varied from dining, fitness centers, intramural courts, swimming pools, bookstore, grocery stores, mail rooms and all other non-academic operations.  There were 24 dorms in total, each with 1,000 beds.  There was an underground tunnel system for all campus deliveries to keep surface traffic to a minimum.  I had Herb and Franklin make sure there was campus jobs for students who were low income to help pay for housing and food, all jobs would be 16 hours a week at $15/hour.  Food was also going to be difficult as most meal places offered meals at around $7, meaning a student needed $620 a month for food.  I thought that was too much.  I set the 8 dining halls to serve all meals at $5 each…$450 a month if a student ate all meals there…I felt ok with that especially since every student had access to a kitchen and could cook.  The college endowment would eventually be 80 billion, twice the largest endowment of the next college.   

The campus would be built in about a year and open next January.  Mostly it was finishing the interiors as Herb was contracting that out but the construction bots from the hockey stadiums would be returning in less than a month.  The football stadium was a domed stadium in the center of the campus and was going to be called the Oculus, it had evolved to 72,000 seats and if I had a good football team I could generate some good income.  The rest of the sport teams would have elite world class facilities as well.  The other sport facilities were located a half mile south of the main campus with the exception of the 9,800 seat ice hockey rink and 8,200 basketball arena.  Lucus asked for a budget on coaches and athletics staff.  Head coaches minimum salary was $196,000 no matter the sport and up to $480,000 to get the best coaches.  Assistant coaches would be between $72,000 and $144,000 based on needs.  Football was set at $10 million for the head coach with a $5 million pool for his assistant coaches.  Mens Basketball and Ice Hockey was set to $4 million with two assistant coaches at $500,000.    I was just as excited about the college and sports as I was the Academy.  I needed a name for the college.  I had tossed names around but finally decided on Stellar University.  Not great but I was looking to staff my space exploration spaceships with graduates so I tentatively penciled it in.  The university colors would be Black and Gold. 

I was approaching my asteroid base and got to work.  I started with getting high value surplus materials to the terminal recycler and bought factories for the cell phone production which could be converted to produce 144 holocubes daily once production caught up.  Next was the cargo ship purchase with some minor upgrades it could drop a cargo pod of 24 million cell phones every 12 days.  I then began getting the construction bots for the incoming asteroid purchased.  I bought another 160 small asteroid wrangler drones to add to my fleet.  I then took my ship to the incoming asteroid that was going to be my massive dry dock.  I dropped off more construction bots to begin the work.  The release date for the Aether Universe game was set for two days after the first delivery of cell phones, 13 days away now, Sunday March 12th.  That would have 3600 holocubes and over 70 million phones out there.  I decided to put up a charity raffle for 100 holocubes, tickets were $50 and all proceeds would go toward Clean Water Project.  Herb guessed I would get around $200 million from the raffle.  I was amazed as people started pouring in the money.  I ran a running account on the website.  After two days of work I was making the four day trek back to Earth.  By the time I reached Earth the raffle had earned $332 million.  I put the raffle countdown at 24 hours remaining when I landed.  I went and restocked the warehouse with 2809 holocubes holding 109 for the raffle.  I spent the day in the game offices.  The Aether Universe floor was hectic and I didn’t know why, Lucus was doing all the work.  I had planned to get a quickie from Emma but Herb said she was involved with two other guys in the building so I passed.  The raffle reached $494 million by the time I closed the tickets.  I went live on the website and passed on a check for $494,678,050 to the water charity.  Then I began drawing names.  Two different people won two cubes by the time I reached the 100 mark.  I made a production of saying this was unfair and I would draw 9 more winners!  Of course one of the nine had won a cube already but oh well, Herb said the three people who had won 3 cubes had all spent over $100k on tickets so it made sense.  I then announced cube production was getting more streamlined and I was reducing the cost to $11 million in 30 days. 

The local police force was getting stressed with out of towners and trouble makers.  I had Herb double the police force.  I found out the dairy farm had been moved.  The college was taking the land.  Herb had 620 acres a few miles north for the dairy farm.  It would have 12 grazing fields to use in rotation.  We would be producing milk, heavy cream, butter, mozzarella, ricotta and cheddar from 320 milk cows.

I took the day off.  I was in my mansion and watched some TV, played board games with the Persian girls and sampled the local restaurants via delivery.  It was getting hard to walk in town as I was getting recognized.  I was also very horny and was disappointing getting turned down by Mephelia, she was playing the game.  Apparently she was in one of the top guilds with the other girls and they were trying to control a major city.  Huh.  I went to sleep watching porn in the mansion.

When I woke I went to the terminal and sat down looking at missions.  I had a red flashing mission!  I quickly looked at it.

Mandatory Mission Failed: Penalty -1 Mission Cap, All system credits zeroed out, System Store closed until next mandatory mission completed

What the fuck!  Why?  How?  It took a few minutes to find the mission had failed 30 hours ago.  Shit it had required the freeing of 1000 slaves, not a difficult mission.  Herb said he couldn’t view missions unless I opened them so he wasn’t aware.  Vivian could view them because I gave her permission but she had been locked in the VR cube playing Aether World.  This was a major fuckup.  And it was my fault. 

Ok fallout.  Number 1 was I was down to just a 2 mission cap.    Second I lost some system credits.  I wasn’t sure of my balance so not a big deal.  I still had my basic credits, a little over 78 million currently.  The big hit was the inability to buy items.  That meant no more holo cubes, no more machinery, no more spaceships, and no more bots until I completed a mandatory mission.  I went to the girls rooms and got them out of the game.  They were in just a bra and panties.  And all three rooms were a mess, clothes, food plates, and feminine products.  I think they were embarrassed as this was the first time I had been to their rooms.  In the kitchen they sat in robes and I explained the situation. 

Vivian apologized as this was her job to make sure this didn’t happen.  I had been angry for just a few minutes but it had been directed at myself.  Vivian didn’t know anyway to accelerate a mandatory mission so I had to wait 30 to 90 days.  Shit.  Ok did I have the capability to switch the asteroid phone manufacturing to the holocubes.   Herb said yes but it would take 6 days to retool the factories.  Production would be 144 daily.  Damn. Ok after we finished the first shipment of 24 million phones we would switch over 72 holocubes and 1 million phones daily, splitting production.

I needed to return my attention to missions.  The girls would need to start spending less time in the holocubes.  After discussing we decided they would complete one mission a week.  Also Vivian would check daily to make sure the mandatory mission fiasco didn’t happen again.  I found a mission for the girls.

Collect Twenty Night Panther Pelts from the Velvet Jungle.  Reward: 3000 credits, +1 strength

The jungle was a two day trip on the skiff.  So overall the mission would take them over four days.  They would then have 3 days to play the game.  The girls told their guild in the game they were out of reach for a few days.  After getting suited up they left.  Now for me I looked for something with a good reward.

Make Contact with a new Civilization.  Reward: +2 Charisma

This seemed easy.  I had dropped off the fuel plans in that female scientist’s kitchen.  Ok I accepted the mission then went to the new realm door.  I was suited up in jeans and a tee shirt.  My dimensional storage was packed with my battlesuit, weapons and my survival gear.  I walked through.

It was dark out and the woman was in her bedroom sleeping.  I went to her fridge got what I thought was a beer.  It was an apple-pear tasting alcoholic beverage.  A little sweet but good.  I sat at the table and waited.  I made some noise after a while and then went to the batroom.  While I was peeing she finally woke and came up behind me, with a gun.  I didn’t have a great grasp of the language so I asked her to slow down.  I asked how the new fuel mix was working out, she lowered the gun and looked at my exposed penis.  I asked if it was ok to zip up, she blushed but nodded.  We sat at the table and a few minutes later the police came and were sent away.  I was a cousin who had surprised her.  She hit me with questions and my story was I was a stranded alien and was looking to get home.  I had more knowledge for her…well not knowledge right now, just a device.  I opened my pocket space and pulled out a plasma pistol.  It was an extra one from when I bought gear for the girls.  I told her I would like to establish relations with her government.  I would come back tomorrow to her kitchen and she could bring one person to meet me in her kitchen.   I then slipped into my portal back to the terminal.

I spent the next day with Herb.  He caught me up.  The administration for the women’s hockey league was complete.  All head coaches were hired.  The draft for the league was happening in a few months.  I inquired about player interest, about 600 players from 6 countries for 212 spots on the pro teams.  Excellent.  I questioned how many quality players of the 600, Herb estimated about 300.  That was good.  I could expand the league to 12 teams if it was successful.  Next was the politics going on in the real world.  We were being pressured to release financials and go public with stock options.  If we didn’t we were being threatened with monopoly legislation.  Herb guessed we had maybe 3 months before it came to a head.  Ok we needed to have a big reveal before that happened.  The high school was pretty well staffed and student was at 78% capacity.  The college had just started filling staff, a long way to go.  The farm and town were doing extremely well.  I did some clerical work, made decisions on new buildings and had to fire 9 employees of the town/game center.  Six had stolen gear, one had molested a women and the last two Herb found were spies.  I was actually impressed of the diversity of the hiring Herb had done to date.

I took a four hour nap then went back to make first contact.  I brought a pepperoni pizza and a six pack of quality beer.  Entering the kitchen there were three people.  The woman, a man in a suit and a guard.  I set the pizza on the table and sat. the guard had a gun but restrained himself from any action.  The suit introduced himself as Terrance, a regional representative for the world government.  We talked for over four hours.  The woman scientist was mostly quiet but I learned her name was Natalia.  My story was my ship was non flight capable and my transporter was locked to Natalia’s kitchen.  The final agreement was I would deal with Natalia only and get pieces of technology from my ship.  I said there was a slight amount of emergency damage and my remaining crew were working on repairs.  They needed another month to assimilate the fuel advancement I had already given them.  Eventually I left and in the terminal cleared the mission.

Make Contact with a new Civilization.  Reward: +2 Charisma

Completed: +2 Charisma

I waited for the girls to return.  Herb said there was an incoming shipment of 24 million phones in transit and the Aether Universe game was going live two days later.  I walked my farm and stopped into Rae’s vet building.  I admired her compassion and natural beauty.  She was busy but we talked for a bit.  I used my Aether healing on a few of her patients when she wasn’t looking because I felt bad for the two injured dogs and a cat.  She was very happy and a bit shocked.  She worked her vet practice Mon, Wed and Fri and the farm the other 4 days.  She usually rode a horse on her farm days and didn’t have a lot to do.  Her grandparents were settling in well and keeping busy.  She was impressed with the town.  I got her to go to lunch with me, Brazilian BBQ.  At a private booth I asked her opinion about exploring the universe.  She was taken aback.  Would she explore the universe if she could?  She asked if I was an alien and I said no.  I said because I was currently exploring the universe and if she wanted a tour.  She laughed and said yes thinking I was joking.

I took her to the cloaked Angelica and we took off.  We circled the moon and returned to Earth.  She was super impressed with the ship and tongue tied.  Then I produced the tattoo paper.  If she wanted to see new worlds just transfer the tattoo.  She eventually did and I brought her to the terminal room.  The tour took 6 hours.  The girls returned and I introduced them to Rae.  I checked off the mission.

Collect Twenty Night Panther Pelts from the Velvet Jungle.  Reward: 3000 credits, +1 strength

Completed: 3000 credits, +1 strength

Hmm no bonus.  I told the girls Rae was a new recruit and would be my partner for doing missions.  We spent time getting acquainted and they all seemed to mesh well.  We talked and I browsed missions.  I finally chose a mission for each group. 

Bring 100 Aether Aqua Kelp to the Merosa Sea and plant them. Reward 5000 credits, +2 Aether

Bring the ingredients for 200 minor Aether potions to the Seer in Granitefist. Reward 1500 credits, +2 skill points

Rae, myself and Bruce would take the skiff to do the first.  The girls could find the seer and go looking for the potion supplies.  I told everyone we would leave after the Aether World release.  The girls asked if there had been a raffle for early access again.  No.  Hmmm.   I had Herb and Lucus put together something on the fly.  Just a 24 hour raffle for 100 spots for a 72 hour head start.  We sat and ate Chinese food watching the bids come in on the wall screen.  Rae said she had to get fresh clothes, let her clinic know she was traveling, tell her grandparents she was travelling and get clean.  I let her out and she returned to the terminal two hours later.  The girls showed her the apartments so she could pick an empty one.  The girls went and played Aether World and I was left with Rae.  Rae asked why her and my response was I liked her a lot and hoped for a more intimate relationship.  After some conversation I got Rae to the bedroom.  The sex was good and she showered and asked what the girls were up to.  I made the mistake of letting Rae play Aether World with my cube.  It was addictive.  I sat and ate pancakes with butter and maple syrup.

The wall with the bids for 100 spots were going up.  1st place was 1.8 million and the 100th place was at 190k.  Hmm last time I gave the proceeds to charity.  I had Herb do a search and decided on a charity, American Humane Society.  I got some sleep and made a bunch of decisions presented by Herb, Lucus and Franklin.  The auction finished, 1st place winner was 2.6 million and the 100th place winner 224k.  The total amount was just under 60 million dollars.  I gave the winner immediate access and added 5 more people every hour.  Once the last winner was added a 72 hour countdown would start letting the game go live for everyone.  24 million cell phones were going to be delivered in 15 hours from the asteroid base!  I went out to the factory to watch the action and stopped by the game HQ first.  The staff on the Aether Universe floor were upset with the auction.  Blah blah blah.  I raised 60 million for animals in a day.  I spent three hours on each floor.  Aether World content was growing daily and gamers reviews were 97% positive.  I was surprised to learn a player had reached level 25.  That was pretty fast, level 10 was the range most players were at.  I looked at the data, six players at level 22, all were 3 levels behind the leader.  I decided to watch gameplay on the level 25 player, Amos.  He was in a zone with level 28 gnolls and doing a great job soloing groups of 3.  He was obviously playing in a cube…which he had won in the raffle.  He was a 17 year old South Korean.  I knew they loved games but this kid was over the top.  Herb gave me the rundown.  He bought 10 raffle tickets, got the cube and was making money off his stream and selling junk gear.  He was a solo player.  I had Herb send him a job offer to work at HQ where he worked just 4 hours a day and had the rest of the day for personal use.  He accepted.

The Aether Universe crew were still trying to cope with travel between stars.  Who wanted to sit on a ship for two weeks to explore a new system?  There were gates but not everywhere.  I felt there was plenty of branching play paths.  They could work on developing another character while their primary was in transit or play Aether World.  After leaving HQ I went and met the cloaked ship landing at the factory…20 million phones equaled 20 billion dollars!  Herb said we had some 6 billion in tax liability he planned to pay and I green lit rather than manipulate the taxes.  The phones were unloaded and brought in trucks to UPS, FedEx, USPS and DHL sorting facilities.  The volume was too great to go to one place.  There were about to be a lot of very happy people.  I returned to the farm and then the terminal.

330 employees, 87 cubes, 3000 system credits

79 days for asteroid

Angelica, Avalon, Athena…11 million credits each    Arcadia, Argonaut…18 million credits each

Einri, level 10 mage spell sword

240 x 4000 (60=240,000)  60 left to scan, have 60 scanned but dwarves need gold to buy

16500 credits

______________________________________________________

__________________________________

1/1        1            bees                    Leo – Beekeeper from CA

2/2        2            agriculture         Kaylee – agriculture from NC & Vanessa – agriculture from CO

2/2        1            livestock             Kate and Dave (KY) – livestock have 4 year old

2/1        1            cooks                  Gerry and Vilma – cooks from TX

3/2        2            horses                 Rae (vet), Nima and Pyrisa (Persian teens)

2/2        2            cows                   Steve and Kyle cowboys

2/2        1            cheese shop       Markus and Tanner

0/1        mechanic

0/1        grounds                            Thor and Loki

0/16      interns 

Camilia

Drydan – Merchant who I travelled with and sold a tent

Grinshot – jeweler and trader in luxury items in Arywyn

Malli – 17 year old clothier sales clerk in Arywyn

6 icons, 1: Catalog, 2: Trash Can/Recycler, 3: Personal/Physical, 4: Skills, 5: Worlds, 6: Missions

Mercs  Caleb and his wife Beatrice, Calab’s two brothers:  Ansom and Ansel, and Caleb’s army buddies Fanz and Currat

Herb is AI phone, Bruce combat dummy, Betty is cleaning bot

Skills (5), 20 Skill Points Available

Ballistic Firearms: Hang Gun                             Novice-1

Dodge                                                                    Novice-5

Short Blades                                                         Novice-2

Persuasion                                                            Novice-1

Martial Combat                                                    Novice-4

Mercantile                                                             Novice-1

Long Blades                                                           Apprentice-5

Teamster Wagoner                                             Novice-1

Horsemanship                                                      Novice-1

Swimming                                                             Novice-1

Cooking                                                                  Novice-1

Gambling                                                               Novice-1

Parry                                                                       Novice-9

Laser Weapons: Rifle                                          Novice-1

Pilot: Battlesuit                                                    Novice-2

Starship Systems: Gravametrics                       Skilled-1                

Starship: Mechanic                                              Beginner-6

Wrestling                                                               Novice-4

Starship: Pilot System Scout                     Beginner-1

Abilities/Traits (1)

Improved Self-Healing                                        Novice-2

Ice Bolt                                                                   Novice-2

Fire Bolt                                                                 Novice-1 (+3)

Healing Hands                                                      Novice-6

Fortress Mind                                                       Beginner-9

Languages

Language: English                                                Skilled-7

Language: Spanish                                               Novice-1

Language: Elf                                                        Beginner-2

Language: Caldonian                                           Novice-3

Language: Persian                                               Novice-10

Language: Ancient Dwarf                                   Apprentice-1

Language: Common Dwarf                                Apprentice-4

Language: Merrion                                              Beginner-1

Neophyte (5) – each rank equals 20 hours of knowledge, 10 x level system credits per rank

Beginner (10) – each rank equals 100 hours of knowledge, 100 x level system credits per rank

Novice (10) – each rank equals 200 hours of knowledge, 1000 x level system credits per rank

Apprentice (10) - each rank equals 300 hours of knowledge, 2500 x level system credits per rank

Skilled (10) - each rank equals 400 hours of knowledge, 5000 x level system credits per rank

Expert (10) - each rank equals 500 hours of knowledge, 10000 x level system credits per rank

Renowned Expert (100), Master (100), Grand Master (100), Legend (100), Mythical (100)

Age: 43 (30 physical age)

Strength

85

Constitution

89

Stamina

76

Agility

93

Speed

91

Intellect

92

Aether

28

Channeling

30

Charisma

85

Stat

% of Population

1-5

.01%

6-10

.09%

11-20

1.0%

21-30

6.0%

31-40

10.0%

41-60

66.0%

61-70

10.0%

71-80

6.0%

81-90

1.0%

91-95

.09%

96-100

.01%

CELESTIAL

Strength

50

Constitution

60

Stamina

60

Agility

50

Speed

55

Intellect

71

Aether

30

Channeling

62

Charisma

101

Mephelia (30)

Strength

61

Constitution

68

Stamina

75

Agility

99

Speed

81

Intellect

51

Aether

64

Channeling

55

Charisma

83