“Did this morning really happen?” Amanda asked later while Felix rubbed her feet. “Did our son tell us that we were such great parents that he wanted to lend us to someone with bad parents? And then did he only play for twenty minutes before logging off and vanishing to hang out with his friends for the afternoon? When he would usually have been online all day on a Saturday?”
“Did our son really ask me to record more videos for the internet…”
“That too!” Amanda wiggled her toes, laughing. “If I’d known all it would take to make Nick leave his cave and stop being a gremlin was to play games with him, I would have done it a long time ago.”
“Would you have?”
It was said so seriously that she sat up. Her husband—still handsome, no, more handsome after years of marriage—was giving her one of those looks that had so arrested her when they’d been dating. The ones that challenged without triggering her need to be defensive. How did he do that? He’d only gotten better at it with age. So she flopped back onto the couch and made herself think about it while watching the lazy rotation of the ceiling fan blades. She remembered Nick as an infant, staring up at them in fascination, remembered trying to imagine what he’d thought of them, with no memories and no knowledge and his fuzzy, imperfect baby eyes.
Nick wasn’t that baby anymore. She’d had years to enter into his interests fully, in whatever way she’d been capable. But it had always been easier to assume that either he wouldn’t want her involved, or she’d be… what? Bad at it? Bored? Her cheeks colored. “Obviously not, because until this moment I haven’t really. I could have been more engaged with him. Cared more about what interested him.”
Her husband resumed his massage. “Don’t go overboard. You attended the school plays and the basketball games. You went to the spelling bees, and the poetry recital contests, and the archery lessons. You’ve been there for him, and when work’s allowed, so have I.”
“Yes, but when we notice we could do better, we should.” She paused, laughed a little. “And I did! I’m an Omen Galaxica player now!”
“A famous one,” he said, grinning. “With a streaming channel and everything! ‘PonyMom Cooks’!”
Amanda raised a pillow so she could hide her face in it. “Oh God, I haven’t even looked at the channel.” She peeped over the edge. “Besides I’m not the only famous one, apparently.”
His grin softened, but he looked excited, amused. “Never thought my random crazy interests might gain any traction with the internet hordes….”
“So that’s your Saturday afternoon sewn up.”
“My Saturday was already sewn up. I have a pregnant wife to pamper.”
But there was a restlessness quickening his movements that meant his mind was elsewhere. And she was glad, because she wanted him to have fun and do things he enjoyed, and how often was that possible for him? “Your pregnant wife has a streaming channel to feed, along with a village of centaurs and refugees.”
“You want to play? By yourself?”
“Nick will be along at some point, I’m sure.” She made a shooing motion. “Go plan your lecture series.”
He laughed and leaned over to kiss her brow. “All right. Don’t get into any trouble.”
“If I do, I’ll make sure it goes viral.”
So she was cheerful when she donned the headset and zoned into the village, which had (fortunately) not experienced any fresh setbacks in her absence. In fact, the inn now had three walls, and if those three walls were describing the entire first floor, prior to any sectioning into separate chambers, that was still better than being exposed to the elements. She assumed there were elements in the game, but come to think of it, she hadn’t noticed anything like weather. Would there be storms? Snow in winter? She didn’t love severe weather, but she’d miss a gentle rain, especially if it made the fields smell fresh and floral.
What to do? Oh, yes. There was a quest now, and one of the chapters was assigned to her.
WORLD QUEST: From the Ground Up
After suffering the depredations of marauders, Donner’s Beck is in need of restoration! Find a novel way to participate in the rebuilding of this starter village to earn unique, one-time rewards.
Current Chapters and Progression:
Heart of the Village: The inn is in shambles. Rebuild it to restore vital village services.
As much as she preferred to make her own choices, she had to admit that sometimes having your task list set out for you was relaxing. “No cooking today,” she said. “Hauling! Probably!”
That was what she ended up doing. It tickled her fancy to buckle a harness onto her pony half and go to work moving rocks. Pregnancy made her feel fragile, and she hated that; hated the dread of her body failing on her, and on her unborn child. Her pony self was a sturdy as she remembered being in college, when her husband had admired her for her endurance and strong arms. And when an hour into her efforts, the game informed her that she’d learned a new skill (‘Hauling’) and increased her strength and constitution by ‘a significant amount,’ she laughed. That was all she’d been missing: specific feedback!
All around her, the centaurs and remaining humans of Donner’s Beck were laboring, clearing the detritus from the road and the center of town where the tree was. She stopped beside it, pleased to see it a little higher, and glowing. Even the arrow stuck into the ground alongside it satisfied her, because it was evidence that KillzYourFase hadn’t destroyed everything. She turned in place. Nick had said something about improving the town, not just restoring it to its former state. She glanced at the stone she was dragging, which had a flat surface and a triangular bottom. She wondered…
About ten minutes later, she finished pounding the stone flush with her hooves and started as a dialogue box interrupted her vision.
Do you wish to designate this area a plaza?
“I don’t know,” she exclaimed. “Should I? Are there benefits? Other than avoiding mud. That was what I was thinking. That if there’s rain in the game, using the street must be gross.”
A plaza allows the following bonuses:
Increases in traffic
Increases in trade
Increases in town attractiveness (affects tourism, relationship with crown)
Happiness boost to residents
Unlocks town benefit: Upgraded Well and Fountain
“Nothing about that sounds bad,” Amanda said. “What’s the downside?”
Additional stone must be procured. Existing stone supply is not sufficient to paving a plaza.
“And I bet nowhere near enough to do a road, too, and a wall, and we’re going to need a wall.” She tapped her back hoof, decided that this much thinking needed a stove. And a walk. She could combine the two into a search for materials for something… probably a stew. If all you had was a cauldron, every meal looked like a soup. Amanda tangled her fingers in her barbarian necklace and rattled it. She was the ferocious pony mother. She could surely brain a few rabbits with a spoon. She wouldn’t go far. Besides… she had that rock from the stream head that she hadn’t figured out what to do with. Maybe she could find a place nearby to set it? Make a little shrine? Setting it directly in town felt weird—it was a thing that belonged to the woods. Putting it at the border between the settlement and the wilderness made more sense.
Amanda unsheathed her ladle and sallied forth.
