Chapter 11 – Promotion

Logan removes his portable FIVR Helmet.

A small trickle of sweat makes its way down his forehead.

“Shit. That was close…” He mutters.

A door at the end of the room slams shut and a familiar female voice speaks up. “Logan! There you are. I’ve been looking all over for you. What on God’s green earth are you doing in the server room?” She asks him. “And you’d better not be hiding away from your responsibilities again. There is a whole stack of documents you have to get through today.” She comes to a halt right next to him. Her eyes look him over once before they linger on the helmet in his hands.

“Why do you have…” She mutters lowly.

“Nothing! I was just… checking my emails.” He quickly deflects while shoving the helmet to the side and out of view. Kelly narrows her eyes. She doesn’t buy it. She has known Logan for far too long to not notice he just did something he shouldn’t.

“What. Did. You. Do?” She asks him through gritted teeth. Her icy stare causes a chill to crawl down his spine.

Logan hesitates for a moment, carefully contemplating his response. There aren’t many things in the world that Logan finds terrifying, but a mad Kelly is among the top choices on a very short list.

He shifts uncomfortably in his chair and does not dare make eye contact.

“Nothing really. I just prevented a little existential crisis. No biggie.” He mumbles. Catching a sideway glance at Kelly in the process. Her nostrils are flaring and a thick vein is throbbing at the side of her forehead.

“What?” She she says through gritted teeth.

“...”

“WHAT!?” She yells, throwing her arms out wide.

Logan studies his feet as he lets out a long sigh.

“I sort of… used my admin privileges to momentarily take control over a V.I. unit to prevent a psychological meltdown in one of the contestants.”

“You did WHAT!? Are you insane!? You can’t do that! What the hell is wrong with you!?” She screams at him.

“Hey! I had to! It was a company emergency!” He jumps to his feet.

“Emergency? What Emergency? The only emergency in this company is you and your idiotic adolescent actions! What were you thinking interfering in the game like that? Do you know what would happen if anyone found out?” Her face reddens.

“The Avenger Storyline! We nearly lost it. I had to save it. It’s too important. We can’t afford to lose it!” His volume increases.

“The Ave… What does that have to do with anything? What on earth could have happened for you to attempt to shove your own head up your arse!?” She shouts.

“He nearly quit damn it!” Logan throws his arms out wide.

“...” She stares at him dumbfounded.

“So what?” She asks.

“So what? SO WHAT!?” His arms drop and his facial muscles loosen. “We would lose viewers…”

“Oh bullshit.” She snaps at him. “You couldn’t care less about losing viewers. What are you really up to? The kid is too unstable. If he keeps at it like this, we will have a PR nightmare on our hands.”

Logan makes a shooing gesture.

“Tssk, that’s nothing we can’t handle. It will be worse if we forcibly eject the most popular player from the game. We wouldn’t just get bad press, but we would lose millions in revenue. The investors would have a fit.”

Kelly glares at him. “It will be worse if the kid really has a meltdown inside the game. We could be forcibly shut down by the government if this gets out of hand.”

“It won’t get out of hand. I have the situation monitored. As I said, he only needs a little time. The A.I has been monitoring his mental state over the last few days. He is gradually improving. The A.I estimates he will function as normal in about nine days.” He scratches his beard.

Kelly still frowns.

“Seriously, Logan. Why bother? Why are you so focused on this damn kid? What makes him so special?”

Logan sits back down and deflects his eyes. He lets them linger on the FIVR helmet lying upside down on the floor next to him. He takes a moment to think it over.

“There’s just something about that kid.” He mutters. Hardly audible to Kelly.

“What?” She presses on.

Logan exhales deeply.

“I’m not sure… But it has to be something great. I can feel it.”

Kelly rolls her eyes.

----------

“Hrmmmfnng” I groan.

Blergh. How come when I’m completely digitized, I still have to go through the excruciating process of waking up?

…

Right. That whole catching a break thing.

I groggily get up and find myself on my favourite tuft of grass. The sun is starting to peak between the treetops and most my goblins are still fast asleep. Their loud snores rumbling all around me.

…

Annoying creatures.

I blink tiredly a couple of times and soon notice a blinking icon in the bottom right corner of my vision. Focusing on it reveals the [Magnificent Blue Window of Terrible News].

Hungry

You are hungry due to lack of eating. Your stats are reduced by 30 percent per day you haven’t eaten. Death will occur after three concurrent days of not eating.

Current debuff: -30% to all stats

Uh. Okay. I suppose that’s the game's way to tell me it’s time for breakfast.

I get up on my feet and start my trek towards the pile of resources. I take a few steps before my foot slams into a soft black rock, causing me to stagger forwards.

“Elves and damnation! Who dares!?” A drowsy voice shouts from beneath the weird black rock. A pair of glowing red eyes appear at the edge of the rock alongside a big warty green nose which points in my direction.

His eyes lock onto me and a angry scowl overtakes his face.

“You insolent little…”

In my exhausted state of mind, I didn’t really register what’s happening until a long brown staff rapidly approaches my head.

*Thump* *Smack* *Thump*

“OWW, FUCK! Stop that you little freak! It fucking hurts.” I yell while grasping the top of my head. A trickle of blood runs down my nose as I wait for my stun effect to end.

“Do you have to be so fucking violent all the time? It was an accident! Fucking sociopath.” I shout at him. I’m getting real tired of having my head bashed in several times per day. By my own so-called minion no less. What’s the fucking point of playing a god damned strategy game when my own minions are the ones trying to do me in? God. Fuck.

All I receive in return is a low growl. Or maybe it was a sneer. Hard to tell with this little bastard sometimes.

“Well a good fucking morning to you too.” I say in the most sarcastic manner possible. I don’t bother waiting for the continued growling to end and quickly get back on my feet before I stomp my way over to the pile of resources. I can hear Gut getting to his feet and following me. Mumbling a few inaudible curses under his hood.

As I reach the pile of resources, I start moving things around, looking for the baskets filled with meat. It takes a few minutes for me to realise there isn’t any. It’s all gone.

“What the hell happened to all the bloody food?” I shout, twisting my head to stare at Gut.

“In the larder.” Gut says, staring at me like I’m some sort of idiot.

“In the what now?” I raise my eyebrow.

“Grnnf.” He raises his right thumb and points behind him. I follow his thumb with my eyes and soon locate a shabby looking hut with a roof made out of thatched grass, built atop a few short wooden poles sticking vertically out of the ground.

“The fuck is that?” I ask while knowing the answer. “So it’s done already.” I answer before giving Gut the chance to further condescend me.

I quickly walk over to my building and inspect it.

Granary

Basic storage hut for food. Prevents food degradation by 50%.

Current stock of food: 82 (54 Meat, 28 Forage, 0 Fish, 0 Produce)

Estimated Food Supply for Tribe: 2 Days

Oh? Well I’ll be damned. Finally some decent information to be gained. I secretly cross my fingers behind my back. It’s a bit superstitious of me I know, but I just don’t think I could handle getting a surprise slap in the face by the game system at the moment.

I waste no time opening the Granary and grabbing myself a nice juicy piece of meat. I do manage to keep my head cool for long enough to inspect the thing before I shove it down my throat.

Cooked Meat

Consumable Food. Meat type. Increases morale by 5 for 24 hours when eaten (effect does not stack with same food type).

Degradation: 4 Days (+50% if stored in Granary)

All Right. That answers that question. It would appear I didn’t really need to build the Granary first after all. Tssk. Doesn’t matter. It was a logical and necessary choice.

As I keep munching on my breakfast, the rest of my little tribe starts to stir. They appear to all wake up at roughly the same time. Their green little faces all look tired, but they don’t really loiter around. They all just spring to their feet, stretch and yawn a little before they proceed to head over to their assigned jobs. They may be insufferably stupid and inattentive, but at least they have a pretty good work ethic.

Oh, which reminds me!

I can summon three more delightful little spawns of solidified stupidity! Good morning to me too!

I have already contemplated quite a bit to decide what sort of goblins I should summon this time around. I throw all hesitation aside and summon myself a [Gatherer] goblin to collect grass. A bright shining light hides the arrival of my new goblin. He looks around with vacant eyes before a jolt of pain sends him flying. The flying part was due to me giving him a good old kick while snapping a few commands for him to go gather grass and place it at the pile.

Scared out of his wits, he bows his head slightly and starts running into the woods. I know I’m supposed to feel bad about that, but I’m really not in the mood. I’ll let him have a sip of Gut’s wineskin later when I start feeling bad about it.

As for the last two goblins, I hesitate a little bit. I really want to get myself a blacksmith and a leatherworker, but they would be next to useless without their crafting stations. Alas, while I wait for that day to come, I should make preparations. The brief flash of light comes and goes, and I soon stand face to face with a couple of goblin [Miner]s. Their makeshift stone pickaxes resting comfortably over their shoulders.

“Right. You two… What do you know about metals?” I ask them.

The goblins both stare at me with round eyes. They look at me as if I just declared I’m the god of goblins or something. It’s not really a complicated question… Is it?

“We find shiny brown rocks. We smash it. Bring you rocks. Yes?” One of the goblins pipe up. He’s the shorter of the two goblins, and he has a small potbelly which sticks out to such an extent it’s really putting a strain on his loincloth. I silently renew my praise of how the game keeps such details on a decent level.

“Brown rocks?” I raise my right eyebrow.

“Grr… I think he means copper, young one.” Gut cuts into the conversation.

“Copper? Really? I don’t need any copper. What the hell am I supposed to do with copper? I need iron. Can’t you get any of that?” I ask the pot bellied goblin. All I receive in return is the same confused looking face from earlier.

Damn simpleton…

“Oh for fucks sake… Just go bring me those damn brown rocks.” I snap at the two goblins. They jump to and rapidly scurry off, dragging their pickaxes behind them.

I turn around and face Gut.

“Let me guess. There is some restriction or some other bullshit designed to make things harder for me?” I sigh.

“Grr... Yes, young one. The minions will have to gain proficiency in mining lesser metals before they can move onto stronger ones. This is the same for most resources you gather. The order of the metal grades ranked from lowest to highest is-”

“Yeah I figured. Thanks.” I interrupt him. Of course there is some restriction. I probably pissed Gut off again by cutting him off in the middle of his lecture, but I can’t really be arsed at the moment. He will probably tell me that stuff later anyway. Probably.

Ignoring the hostile glare from Gut, I walk over to a small congregation of workers gathering near the makeshift eating area. As I get closer, I recognise it’s my builders.

Damn. They finished the Granary, didn’t they? I have to assign them a new project.

…

What was it that I wanted them to build next?

I open up my buildings tab and quickly browse through the long list. I don’t recognise any new building options yet, but I expected as much seeing as I haven’t really gained anything new in the ways of resources or technology, but I was secretly hoping the fabled altar would make its appearance. No matter. I still have a lot of priority buildings.

My decision falls on three different buildings.

Cooking Fire

Basic building for processing food

Allows for basic food to be made. Cooked food increases morale by 5 per unit.

10 Pinewood, 5 Grass

Longhouse

Basic cramped living quarters for your Goblins. Eliminates morale deficiency due to lack of housing. Provides housing for 30 Goblins.

90 Pinewood, 40 Grass

Blacksmith

Basic crafting building for Metal.

60 Pinewood, 20 stone

All three buildings seem to have good merit. The cooking fire seems like a decent choice to get considering I have a lot of uncooked meat in my granary. It shouldn’t take long for me to make either. It would require me to recruit a cook though. And I can’t summon any more goblins today. It would be a waste to burn daylight on it.

The longhouse feels like the wild card of the bunch. I want this building because it’s reasonably cheap and quick to build. It also highlights another unknown factor for me which is impossible to determine the meaning of at the moment. Morale. I know my goblins probably have a huge debuff due to morale hanging above them, but I can’t know how bad it is. Do they get a minus ten percent productivity? Maybe minus twenty? More? I don’t know. It could be anything. And the unknown factor is annoying the hell out of me.

It’s pretty much the granary and food degradation scenario all over again.

The food degradation turned out not to be a big deal for me at the moment, and I don’t really want to mess up my priorities two times running.

…

So what about the blacksmith? It’s probably going to be one of my most important assets this early on. But yet… It’s still a no go. I don’t have any metal, and I don’t have a smith. There is just no value in making it yet.

So where does that leave me? The longhouse?

…

I guess so. I feel a budding urge to bury my face in my hands. This is going to bite me in the ass again… I just know it…

Biting my tongue, I order the builders to start constructing the longhouse. I tell them to start building it at the center of the location of where I’m planning to build my goblin settlement. This places it a little ways south of my granary, and a couple of dozen meters away from the tiny lake, but still a little ways away from the mountainside. It’s always best to put the biggest buildings at the center, or so I’ve been told. Keeps the traffic flowing.

Right.

With that whole ordeal done, I’m starting to feel a little better. Good enough in fact that I don’t grimace when Gut is stomping his way over to my side.

He definitely listened in on the conversation and he doesn’t seem to disagree with my reasoning for choosing the longhouse.

“We have a lot of things to do today Gut…”

“We do indeed, young one.”

We start heading towards the training area of my fighters. Gut walks by my side. When we are about halfway there, I turn my head and look at him.

“Say, this has been bugging me all day. Why are you suddenly calling me young one? What happened to youngling?”

Gut lets out a quiet growl. “You killed your first enemy. You are no little fledgling anymore.” He grunts.

...

Did I just get some sort of promotion?