It wasn't until I was having lunch with my girlfriends like planned that I realized what I had done. When we were discussing our week and I told them of the guy I had met… they said the way I replied to him about having a prior engagement and walking away could be seen as a bit rude.
I thought it was perfectly punctual and appropriate, but they disagreed.
"Mm. Yeah, I'm told that the way I declined his lunch invite could be misconstrued as rude… I only spoke the truth, that I had a prior engagement."
"Ohhhh, that guy? That guy was Brent? Why didn't you say so last time? Ahh why do you always get the good ones…."
Well, I didn't mention him the last time since I had known Em was interested in him.
I thought it might be rude of me to bring up that he had invited me to dine with him, when she had been pining for him for quite some time. Angering a friend over some man I just met would be tantamount to idiocy.
I also couldn't quite understand what she was talking about.
My luck with men has been atrocious.
Not willing to give in to her silly ideas I decided to speak honestly, "Whatever do you mean Em; I never get the good ones."
She had started laughing lightly before finally replying to me, "Hah! You kid yourself girl. You get great guys; you just don't realize it because you're too picky!"
Continuing where she had left off, Emily started talking as if she were in a daze, "You're so lucky Val, I wish he invited me to lunch… he was always such a gentleman compared to the others."
"I don't understand your infatuation with him, what's so good about him?"
"Ah! You're so mean! I told you how he was the only one who noticed whenever I got a haircut or changed my accessories… he would always compliment me with a sincere smile."
Oh, is that so….
So he said you had beautiful eyes and that your newest hairstyle accentuated them.
Sounds like a player to me.
Of course I wouldn't say that out loud, she had an image of him and I had no intention of being the one to shatter it.
My friends had such poor taste in men.
I wish they could see the light.
Well, I've never seen it either so I suppose I can't be too critical.
Intending to change the subject I decided to ask a question, "Ah, Em are you going to be on tonight? I was thinking of heading to the Dwarven area."
I had grown bored of the Middle Kingdoms and hated the overcrowded areas with a passion, filled with some of the worst people I have ever met. If it weren't for Emily, I would have never started there.
"Are you heading out late tonight? I'll be on in a few hours; I still have some work to do here."
"Mm. Yeah, I can wait for you. You said there might be an event in the North soon, right?"
"Shh! That's a secret Val! You can't talk about that!"
While walking out with Emily leading the way, I couldn't help but think about the guy I had previously met. Even though I didn't want to shatter her image of him, I had to admit that I was kind of expecting him to ask for my number the last time. I was a little disappointed when he didn't… but I would have declined if he had asked anyways. I would have thought about it for a second or two, though.
* * *
Chapter 35: Bad Motivation
(Tuesday, May 11th Game Day / Saturday, February 13th Real Day)
I was in a persistent bad mood and moved about with general anger floating through my mind. The fact that the same presenter that had given the crowd my name while saying I was experienced in the North, had now showcased my territory as being exceptionally advanced compared to the rest....
I couldn't understand what she was thinking, if she was even thinking at all.
She painted a gigantic bulls-eye on my back and through the discussions everyone in that room was well aware that the territory was mine. That I was one of the few users in the whole damn region and the only one in the freaking far North.
Initiating the login sequence only moments after I had returned home, having finished wolfing down a burrito mid-drive, I was ready to put things into motion. The lights dimmed and with myself strapped in nice and secure, I closed my eyes.
Opening my eyes to the darkness of the night, I quietly grabbed my gear and made my way out into the forest. Far out of earshot from the sleeping NPCs I drew my axe and started to take out my aggression on the trees.
Smashing, chopping, hacking, slashing… I did it all.
Furiously felling tree after tree, I was pacing at damn near two trees a minute. Picking up my pace I was able to get it down to three trees a minute until I collapsed to the floor from exhaustion.
With only the moon at my back, I had felled 446 trees in the three hours of darkness. That was enough to start working with, but not enough to finish everything that I had in mind.
Looking up at the slowly vanishing moon, I soon found myself staring at the sun.
The day had finally turned over.
Jogging back to the village where the NPCs had started to shuffle about, I rounded everyone up and decided to give another on-the-fly speech. Making sure everyone was awake and at attention, I then started, "Good morning everyone, I hope you all enjoyed the festivities the day before and were able to adequately rest.
"I had made mention of wanting to develop this village into a place where everyone would be comfortable and would have ample opportunity to succeed. But in order for any of that to come to fruition we need to work together to build up the infrastructure first.
"We need buildings for the crafters to perform their work: a blacksmith, tanning station, spindle house for the weaver, trade post, and a shipyard. There also needs to be a barracks for the warriors, along with a palisade around the border to provide protection from monsters. These aren't easy tasks, but for now I will need everyone's assistance."
Finishing my lousy mini-speech, I quickly ushered everyone forth.
First, I directed the warriors to pull trees, with the idea of having them work in teams of ten to haul logs back on their shoulders. Next were the woodworkers, who were immediately set to working the logs I had already prepped.
Without delay I also instructed all of the able-bodied men to assist in clearing the excess branches to the side. Selene and Katherine were in charge of providing food, while those who could not physically work were left to gathering fresh drinkable water for those who could.
The children were free to play at being fishermen along the river bank, with some supervision of course.
In the meantime, I started digging once more.
I had a lot of buildings to dig for …and a lot of digging to create a proper palisade. There were also the two parcels of land I had cleared for farming along the other side of the river bank; that would need to get started immediately.
There was simply a lot of work to be done.
As the hours passed and the day began to wind down, I stopped to look at what had been accomplished. Along the riverbank the kids continued to play, having managed to catch a few fish they were all beaming with pride.
Down the way, the shipyard had started to take shape with a basic outline to mark the land. Across from the lodge, the craft workshops had already been erected and would be finished by the next day. Behind, the beginnings of the makeshift barracks was starting to come together, essentially three 30'x30' small log cabins similar to my own.
The digging had progressed incredibly quickly once I conspired with the woodworkers to fashion forty wooden spades, no longer would I be the sole digger in this village.
The palisade had even begun to take shape, as the ditch had been partially dug out around the two-thirds of the village that would require it. With the mountain behind, there was a natural wall already.
Having in excess of sixty hands to help move things along was a huge bonus.
My anger had dissipated as I no longer felt that I would be in such dire straits if someone were to attack, 44 Combat NPCs sufficiently developed would be a force to be reckoned with.