I wasn't being disingenuous, but I was a little happy at the thought of recovering from a bad situation and turning it into a rather successful endeavor. For now though, I didn't want to appear too happy, less she mistook that, as me taking advantage of her.
"I would have to see the terms, but I would be more comfortable with a contract," she stated with some seriousness, her confidence seemingly having returned.
"Yup, we can lay it all out in the open, take a day to sit on it," I followed up. "As far as my interests are concerned, I make slightly more money this way and get access to new goods without having to personally travel through the Northeast. The profit margin should be fairly agreeable for you as well, I think?"
"Oh, Sigurd, you already know your pricing is more than reasonable, you ass," she retorted with a sad smile as she crossed her arms underneath her chest. "Just, when you said a big shipment, you could have explained what big was… that shit is relative you know? Giving a girl a stroke here, making me worry over this."
After a few more minutes had gone by, I changed the subject slightly while my crew of NPCs decided to explore the local territory. Ellieby and I ended up relaxing against a tree as we continued to go over some smaller details.
By the end of our discussion, there was only one hitch.
They didn't have a trade master, and their campsite was only that.
It wasn't a village, and none of the guild members had access to the NPC-Recruiter.
Well, I knew the way to fix that.
Unfortunately, it meant putting in a little physical work, to aid a guild that wasn't exactly on friendly terms with me, outside of two of their members. Though their dislike for me didn't really bother me, since it was mostly born from misunderstandings as they thought I was an elitist asshole.
I admit to being cocky at times, confident most of the time, minus the days when I get randomly depressed, and I definitely consider myself an intelligent person on average but I didn't really think of myself as better than any other person, individually, as a human being.
We all had flaws, and I had plenty.
There was a separation there that some found hard to see. In order for there to be a positive, there must be a negative… or something like that. If one person is right in an instance then the alternate is likely true as well, with one person being wrong.
Maybe my delivery was suspect, as my patience for explaining things to strangers had long run out. But, elitist really wasn't the right term for me, so I found that somewhat disagreeable.
The main issue, was that the hunter wanted to lead his party but his strategy didn't work that well. He wasn't very flexible, and I had to take matters into my own hands. If that makes one an elitist asshole, what of the stubborn leader that fails to lead?
Meh, disagreements and misunderstandings were bound to happen.
That was life in general.
Everyone had an opinion, and very rarely did they all match up.
Well, despite that, I liked Ellieby enough that I didn’t mind helping her and her guild out. I had only interacted with five members from this guild, and the guild contained around thirty members to my knowledge.
So, if three disliked me, so be it.
I was going to build them a public lodge.
And in turn, take this campsite to the next level, as a named village, with a functional NPC-Recruiter amongst other things.
Sure it benefited me, but I didn't have to do it.
Even if they wanted to call me an asshole, I really wasn't that mean spirited.
Chapter 59: Foreign Construction
(Sunday, August 15th Game Day / Wednesday, March 17th Real Day)
An in-game day had passed us by as the warriors and I continued to chop down trees in preparation for the lodge. The hours went by rather quickly despite the monotony of it all. Roughly half of the time was spent chit chatting with the NPCs, while the other half was with the few guild members that wandered by.
All of that happening, in the middle of the logging process, of course.
Chopping and hacking down trees, only to roll and carry them off.
What a wonderful life, I was living.
It really wasn't the best use of my time, and I couldn't find a positive from it all, but it was mostly out of good will to help a partially friendly guild. Maybe it was selfish in some respects, what with it benefiting Ellieby, which in turn could guarantee me a slight profit over time. Yet, even so, I was wasting two whole days… and at least twenty four hours of my life, working at hard manual labor in order to get this done.
That was fairly generous, in my mind.
Especially when one considered that the work was being done for random strangers, plus two online acquaintances that I hardly knew.
Oh well.
I wanted to start construction as soon as possible, but lacked a few necessary tools to start, seeing as I wasn't expecting to build anything. I mean, it's not like I traveled around the continent with the intention of building homes for strangers, as if I were some TV host on a do-it-yourself channel.
Well, my lack of preparation led to Ellieby making a quick trip to a local NPC village to pick up a drawknife, so I could trim and shape the logs to fit.
She was running behind schedule, though... by about an hour.
Meanwhile, in an attempt to bide my time, a few of her fellow guild members gave me a hand with the dragging of the logs since they weren't as proficient in logging.
My skills were top-notch now after felling thousands of trees.
I was a one-man deforester, only lacking the title to hang above my head.
They could make a documentary about me, and how evil I was.
Hah aha hah… I laughed in my head, attempting to entertain myself.
I was incredibly bored now.
And then, as if right on cue, Ellieby's voice reached my ears.
"Hey Sigurd, will this do?" shouted Ellieby as she finally returned with drawknife in hand. "I had to go to another village since the first one didn't have anything."
Wiping the sweat from my brow and then setting my axe down, I gave her a nod as I eyed the tool in her hand. "That's the right one," I replied with a smile. Relief somewhat hitting me as we were now one step closer to finishing this project.
"Did you guys pick out a clearing to erect the lodge?" I asked with sincerity.
Ellieby smiled as if she had found the perfect spot, and simply waved at me, beckoning me to follow. Doing as the lady instructed, I grabbed my axe and headed off towards the destination.
"Lovely spot ain't it?" she stated more than questioned as she stood proud.
Eyeing the spot, I replied casually, "I think it'll work, yeah, should be good."
A large pile of oak wood had been stacked for me to begin working on, as I immediately sat down on a stump and tried to envision what exactly I would be making.
The oak lumber was considerably denser than most woods like pine, which meant it was not only stronger but heavier, too. A two-story building would take me quite a while by myself, but I had some help here from the others.
It seemed like a fun experiment, anyways.
"Alright, Roald, let the men know to bring over another fifty logs or so, then we'll be good to go," I instructed to the trade master who was busy chatting up the female guild members. The man had no discretion, even as an NPC, he hit on any female, whether they were an NPC or a player.
I guess, that added to the realism.
Though, I wish he was more productive instead.
Setting my workspace up, I began the steady process of debarking and shaping the logs to fit. Taking the drawknife and running it along the edge, a simple pull sheared off a small slice of wood. Repeating the process dozens of times per log, after a few minutes I had one clean, ready to use log.