Homesteading in a fantasy world

POV apprentices

Emma looked around the sauna's resting room, it was too cold to stay out on the porch so after a session in the heating room they were all sitting on the bench in the resting room. Today was a difficult day for them as Arthur finally was able to talk them into going to the dungeon. “What do you guys think Rich is doing right now?” Emma asked in a tired voice.

Arthur perked up as soon as he heard those words and spoke in an enthusiastic voice. “Well, he is in a war so I suspect he is either fighting or perhaps the war might already be over. I hope he comes back quickly and continues to teach us.”

“I can’t wait for us to develop even more. I mean getting level 10 in our class so fast is incredible and getting free points, amazing. And so many, incredible. I hope you have saved them all until Rich gets back.”

Both of the siblings nodded at that and they knew that Arthur was correct Rich seemed to know so much even though most of the time he seemed clueless about things that everyone knew.

George was rubbing his shin. He was the only one that got hurt in the dungeon as one of the rabbits almost caused his leg to break. He tried to bring up the question that had been shut down before; hoping that after experiencing the dungeon and seeing how hard it was, they would see reason.

“Can we please discuss Rich and who he actually is? We know that he can’t be normal, and he seems to be growing quite quickly, he must be younger than us and he never answers that question or he just stays quiet. Same with a lot of other questions about his past.”

“There has to be something wrong and I think he might be like Dave from our village. You must see it?” As he finished George looked around expectantly, hoping to see agreement in his sibling's eyes.

He was met with turned heads and while Emma was completely silent and seemed content to not answer, it seemed that Arthur finally had enough. “Why does it matter to you? So what?” He said a bit defeatedly.

“Of course, it matters. It means that he's lying to us, and who knows what he will want from us in the future” George’s voice was now quite heated and as he wanted to say more Emma starts to speak with a clear and steady voice. “Rich has actually never lied to us and while you might think that not answering is a sort of lie I do not.”

“I saw how he handled the adventurers, and he was willing to lie to them quite easily but even then, he bent the truth more than anything else. He has never done that with us.”

“I’m quite certain that he is hiding things, but he doesn’t lie to us about the things he is hiding he just does not answer and I’m guessing that if we kept pressing the point, he would have given us the answers we want. But I must agree with Arthur, so what, I honestly don’t think that he has any bad intentions towards us.”

“And if he is similar to Dave and not of this world, so what, the crafters guild was happy enough when they discovered him and took him as an apprentice. Wait, George, is that what you’re really afraid of that the adventuring guild will come and take him away?”

It was now Georges's turn to avert his gaze and to stay quiet as Emma and Arthur sat up straighter and begin to understand their sibling a bit more. They were all quiet for a time until Arthur had enough and brought up the biggest problem they were facing.

“So, the roof. Do we really have to make rock shingles, or do we have any other plans because even with my ability it will be a hard job to cut the rock and then how will we get them to stay on the roof and not fall off with the first wind?”

Both siblings were happy with the topic change, and they kept discussing the roof and other jobs needing to be done around the farm while they went for another session in the heating room.

They also complained about the animals, especially the wolf puppies that are beginning to overwhelm their abilities as they constantly tried to play hide and seek with them.

But overall, the three were quite happy with the situation and hoped that Rich would come back soon and that no powerful organization would come and try to take their saviour away no matter who or what he actually was.

POV adventurers

Richard and Meredith had just finished giving a preliminary report on their interaction with Rich Dirt in the first guild-controlled city they visited. The report will be sent to the guild headquarters of this area by mage mail so the leadership can start to formulate their response.

Richard but mostly Meredith was happy to have reached civilization again and it didn’t take them long to find an inn to stay in. And while Meredith went upstairs to unpack, Richard made a beeline to the bar to see if he could find an even worse beer than the last one he drank in this overcrowded city.

The number of people here was even higher than when they last passed through, and it didn’t look like the stream of people coming here would be ending anytime soon, especially not before the winter started and snow began to cover the land.

And while Richard was enjoying his mostly watered-down beer, he happened to see an old friend that he quickly waved down. His old friend seemed happy to see him, while being a bit surprised to see Richard. “Hey Tom, long time no see. What has brought you to this place?” He asked as soon as Tom was close enough to hear him over the packed inn.

“Escorting our trade caravans and bringing in refugees and some dungeon clearing,” he answered quite jovially. This was quite a surprise to Richard as he had expected the escorting duty but not the chance to clear dungeons.

Before he could ask, Tom started laughing, “Don’t look so surprised, your guild is paying us to clear them. It seems that they are quite short on adventurers right now.” Richard nodded to that as his mind started to work, “So the companies are no longer barred from working for the adventuring guild, I guess we are living in times where old grudges must be buried," Richard ended the sentence with a sigh.

Tom looked over his old friend and former party member while he was still a part of the adventuring Guild. “Yes Richard, all the guilds that still operate are now hiring companies to help them run the places they find themselves ruling. It’s quite bad everywhere.” To that, they both drained their mugs. While Richard seems to like this drink Tom certainly did not and expressed that to Richard which makes them both laugh.

“So, Richard what has the guild been making you do?” He asked him in a bit more serious tone. “Nothing much, just running dungeons and checking up on the pockets of survivors that are further away. This reminds me if I remember correctly your company has some builders and traders that work on construction. Am I correct?”

The question came as a complete surprise to Tom and derailed his thought process. “Yes, Richard why do you ask?” Richard scooted in a bit and lowered his voice, “Well you see I just found out about an interesting new building idea and I’m looking for someone that could help build it for me and help with the financing.”

Seeing the doubtful look on Tom’s face he quickly added. “I have a lot of money saved up and I have some favours I can also use; I just need some extra help.”

As Richard kept explaining, at first Tom was quite curious in this sauna that was different from the bath houses and seemed to be quite suitable to build for the company as well. But as usual, as Richard kept speaking, he kept making mistakes and the odd pauses in his story, obviously trying to cover something up. It made Tom's curiouser and curiosity blossom into full interest, but knowing Richard he knew that he couldn’t be too direct with him.

So, over the course of a few hours, Tom kept buying Richard drinks that were now filled with a lot more alcohol than they usually would be.

Tom was clever and he smelled an opportunity, so he didn’t bring up the sauna and how he came to know about it directly. He just kept asking general questions to see if there was any better way to find out exactly what Meredith and Richard were doing.

During the course of the conversation, Tom found out that Meredith seemed to be keeping a journal of their travels and interactions. Richard kept bitching about how the fire would keep him awake when he was trying to sleep.

So now Tom knew how to find out more, but he needed to talk to his company members so they can make up a plan on how they could steal the journal without raising too much suspicion with Richard and Meredith.

Tom quickly bid his goodbyes to Richard when he had nothing more to gain from his old friend. Richard happily kept drinking in the common room while Meredith was none the wiser about what took place.

She was in the room hoping Richard wouldn’t bother her for a bit longer because she had finally finished her inscription so she would be able to communicate undetected with her mistress.

“Princess, can you hear me?” Meredith asked quietly and hopefully as she had not been able to speak with her mistress for a while now and she hoped that nothing bad had happened. A cold and calculated voice came back from the other side of the spell formation. “Yes Meredith, I can hear you. Why have you contacted me, is something wrong?”

Meredith sighs out in relief at the sound of her mistress's voice. “Yes Princess, I have some important news that might interest you.” And so, Meredith spoke about the adventurer’s guild and what they were doing as well as about her latest mission to investigate a seemingly simple farmer that turned out to be nothing of the sort.

The communication was quick, but the cold tone of the Princess changed to one of curiosity while the calculating tone still remained. “You have done well Meredith, as you always do. This might change our plans a bit and we might be reunited quicker than we both hoped. Stay with the adventuring guild as long as you can. It was hard enough to get you that position, there is no reason to throw it away so quickly.”

“Yes Princess, I will do as you say, goodbye.” The last word was said with longing and sadness as Meredith watched the connection end. She quickly started to clean everything up and was quite pleased that Richard had not bothered her for this long.

But it was starting to get late, and she still wanted to get herself cleaned up as best as she could, so it was time to go and find Richard and visit a bathhouse. Hopefully, he can make the sauna because it was better than the bathhouses around here.

Meredith found Richard quite drunk in the common room which was quite out of character for him. This time she had to drag him with her into the bathhouse to get themselves cleaned up for the road tomorrow.

When they were done cleaning up and walking back, she was quite tired of Richard's drunken stumbling as she had to support him all the way back. But when they were close to the inn the street became filled with people. It didn’t like long for Meredith to figure out what had happened.

It seemed that some sort of a fight happened in the inn, and it turned out that it was just a distraction because during the fight every room was broken into and everything of value was stolen.

This news sobered up Richard enough and they quickly run into the inn pushing through the crowd of people and flashing their guild badges to get past guards. They moved to their room to see that everything valuable had been stolen. Meredith almost lost her cool and burnt down the entire inn, but Richard was able to calm her down enough.

After a bit of calming down, they went and explained to the guild what was taken to get replacements so they can continue their mission, but their personal belongings were still missing. And a chance to catch the thieves was almost at zero because they were surprisingly good at what they did.

On the other side of the city, a group of people were in a room as Tom looked over the journal with quite a lot of interest. “Why did we do this? You mentioned the adventurers went to the Grass Sea so is this about finding Bert?” Asked a tall woman. “I hope we find him. I miss him, his hugs are the best.” Said a small girl that was hugging her knees. “Perhaps.” Answers Tom as he sipped expensive brandy.