“Okay, but she’s still a kobold. And she said four traits. That was only three traits. What’s the fourth one?” Violet demanded.

  The reddish hue on Ainsley’s face lightened as she grew deathly pale. “I promise not to use it. Don’t worry. Don’t drive me away.”

  I wanted to comfort her, but common sense dictated that I needed to know what was getting her so worked up. “Don’t worry. Just tell us the truth.”

  She stared at the ground before finally answering, “My fourth trait is called Life Drinker.”

  “Oh great. Not only is she a kobold, but now she’s a freaking vampire, too,” Violet said.

  Part of me wanted to groan at Violet’s theatrics, while another part of me wanted to laugh. She was just out there and didn’t hide anything. “Um, maybe you should tell us about that one.”

  “It just means that I can drink blood like a vampire. It increases my physical power for a limited amount of time. I can also Heal myself using it. Supposedly at higher levels of it, I may be able to gain some of the target’s abilities for a limited time,” Ainsley said reluctantly.

  Then she blurted out, “But I won’t drink your blood. I promise. You saved me. You and my pretties are the only ones who have done anything nice for me since I got here, and my pretties have to do whatever I say.”

  “Okay, okay. I believe you until you do something to break my trust, but there are no second chances if you betray me. You have to swear not to do anything to harm me or Violet unless we attack you first. Agreed?”

  She nodded vigorously, then slashed one of her claws across the palm of the other hand. As the blood dripped to the ground she said, “I swear by my life’s blood that I will serve you faithfully. You saved me, and I won’t hurt your pet gnome either.”

  My hands snapped out with all the speed that my nearly one hundred Agility could muster, and I still barely managed to catch Violet as she charged at Ainsley. She was so determined that I felt like she was gonna pull me over; so while I knew she would hate it, I lifted her up off the ground.

  She was still kicking her feet as she screamed, “Let me down, Frank.”

  “Not till you calm down.”

  I looked back at Ainsley, “Violet is my friend and companion. She is our teammate. She isn’t my pet. Got it?”

  I was almost sure that the kobold hybrid was hiding a smirk, but she laughed at the oddest times as it was, so it was hard to be sure. An instant later, her face was the perfect image of contrition. “I’m sorry, Frank and I’m sorry, Violet. I just want to be part of the team. It was a poor choice of words.”

  Whatever Violet was muttering under her breath was not fit for repeating, so I ignored her as I asked, “There, she apologized. Now what do you say, Violet?”

  At least she stopped squirming, which I initially thought was a good thing. She turned her head to look back at me. “Cause you saved me, I’m gonna let this go. This time. But don’t you ever pick me up like that again. As for the kobold, fine I forgive her. Just tell her to stay out of my way.”

  This team was off to a great start. I shook my head. At least it wouldn’t be boring.

  Chapter 12- No Place Like Home

  We ate and then hit the road right away. I was anxious to get back to the village. I mean, who knew what havoc they had wrecked while I was gone. The sooner I finished the quests, the sooner I could leave the village behind me for good. Now, I just had to balance the quest to build the ogres into a respectable force with the quest to be friends with the kingdom of Belchor.

  As we walked -- or rather, trotted -- along with Wolf Spirit speeding up our movement, I kept trying to think of ways to finish both quests and get double the rewards. I was pleased to find out that between her wings and graceful form, Ainsley was almost able to keep up with me. Violet, on the other hand, was slower. She could keep up by running hard for a limited time, and her stamina was impressive, but it was obvious she wouldn’t be able to maintain this pace till nightfall.

  I had to stop thinking about advancement options as I tried to come up with a way to broach the subject with Violet. The strained look on her face was obvious, but every time she noticed me looking at her, she forced a smile and then winked at me. I knew she was trying to prove herself; I just didn’t know why.

  Probably because she had needed me to save her, but then again, I was twelve levels higher than she was. I wanted to just pick her up and carry her. She barely weighed anything and wouldn’t slow me down at all. We might even be able to go faster then. But she had made it perfectly clear that she didn’t want me to pick her up again.

  Ainsley seemed content to follow a few feet behind us, but anytime she got close to me, Violet would nudge up even closer. It almost seemed like the little gnome was jealous. I had heard about relationships which started inside games; everyone had. It was one of the best ways for people to connect in the modern world. It had just never worked out for me. Based on her behavior, I was beginning to wonder if Violet had a crush on me or something.

  The thought made me laugh. I didn’t know how that would work. I mean, I didn’t even have a body in the real world. It wasn’t like people didn’t have hook-ups and even marriages within games. Legends of Selmia was too new for most of that, but given the extreme degree of realism in the game, I had already heard about brothels which had opened up in most of the player race home cities. The idea was strangely unappealing to me, which was shocking in its own way. It felt like it would be impossible for me to have a real relationship here while I was an HI and the people I wanted to connect with were humans playing a game.

  Then it dawned on me. I had just the approach. I edged over closer to Violet. “You don’t want to give her the satisfaction, do you?”

  She wheezed as she tried to ask me what I meant.

  “I just mean, she thinks we are going to have to stop.”

  Her eyebrows raised that time but it was enough to tell me that I had her attention. “She thinks you can’t keep up.”

  Violet coughed and then sputtered, “She said that?”

  “Not in so many words, but you were kinda rough on her earlier. She is probably dying to get one up on you.”

  Violet nearly stumbled but caught herself at the last second. She tried to hold her head up high, but after a few more steps, I saw her shoulders slump. I didn’t want her to lose hope or feel bad about herself. “Would it really be that bad to let me carry you? You’re quite beautiful and very petite, so it’s not like it would be unpleasant or difficult for me.”

  I hated playing on her emotion, but I could see her thinking. Finally, she nodded. That was all the consent I needed as I scooped her up. A few minutes later, after she had caught her breath, I knew I might be in more trouble than I had planned for as she leaned in and whispered in my ear, “You really think I’m beautiful?”

  For some reason, the plaintive tone of her voice made me even more nervous than when she had been angry with me for carrying her earlier, but I had to man up. “Of course. I’d be blind if I didn’t see it. I’ve had a great deal of fun with you for the last few hours, and I hope to spend a lot of time with you in the future. Thanks for trusting me to carry you.”

  She smiled again but didn’t say a word as she pressed her head up against my chest. I felt, more than heard, her sigh. Then she relaxed against me and I knew that, at least for the moment, the crisis was passed.

  That night we stopped and rested. They both enjoyed my cooking. Ainsley relaxed a little more than before but continued to mumble to herself a great deal. When she ate, she acted like she had never eaten anything before. Violet logged out but promised to meet up with us in eight hours. She must have asked three times for me to promise we wouldn’t leave before she got back.

  The next problem was setting up a watch. I needed some sleep, and the duration on Brother Wolf was not long enough. Even with the bonus from my Pack Caller Affinity, the spell lasted less than two hours. The second concern was that I didn’t know how I felt about leaving Ainsley on guard duty. She simply wasn’t that stable.

  Her solution was for her to animate a pair of undead. She explained that her animations weren’t permanent yet, but would last about twenty-four hours. The only requirement being that she needed a relatively intact corpse or skeleton to make it work. As unnerving as undead creatures were, somehow, I felt like they would make more stable guards than the kobold hybrid.

  With that in mind, I went out and hunted for an hour. It wasn’t that hard for me to find and kill a couple of monsters. The first was some type of massive hound. It was only level twenty-two, so I got a whopping 1 XP for it. The second wasn’t any better but was a goblin, actually three of them. They were all under level ten, so I obliterated them with a single Polluted Breeze. I figured one of them would be good enough. I didn’t want to start an undead army, at least not yet.

  Ainsley animated both the corpses of the hound and of one of the goblins. I could feel the touch of spirit magic in what she did, but not how she did it. It was like she animated their corpses with magic that acted like the spirit of a living being but wasn’t actually a spirit. Maybe that was another reason that her spell lasted so much longer than Call Brother Wolf. My spell actually summoned the spirit of a wolf to serve me and created a body made of mana for it to use. What did I know, though, was that this was all supposed to be a game. Still, I paid attention to the details.

  As soon as Ainsley had animated their corpses, she bent over and caressed the goblin’s face. “My pretty. You will be good, yes? Keep watch. Protect me and Master. Warn us if monsters come.” She was only maybe a foot taller than it, but the image was one of a mother instructing a child, if that child was an unnatural abomination. She did the same with the wild dog zombie, petting its fur as though it could feel anything.

  That was the disturbing image that made it difficult for me to fall asleep. Exhaustion finally won out, and I drifted off. When I woke the next morning, the sun was already halfway past the horizon. I wondered once again that I hadn’t seemed to dream at all. I wondered if that was even possible now. What woke me was a bit more disturbing, though.

  Ainsley was leaning over me. Her face right above mine. I nearly jumped out of my skin but caught myself. Showing weakness with the crazy necro-girl probably wasn’t a good idea, even if she was just an NPC.

  “Good morning, Master. You said you wanted to get an early start today.”

  “Yes, and you don’t need to call me Master.”

  “But you saved Ainsley. Ainsley, I mean, I need to be respectful. My life now belongs to you. Besides, Master is strong and will keep Ains, uh… me, safe. Master is kind. I like that.”

  I wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that, so I kicked the can down the road. “Okay, if it makes you feel better for now, but I’d prefer you called me Frank or even Oog.”

  “Yes, Master. I started a fire for you. I am not much of a cook, but I might be able to boil some roots or something.”

  Then I laughed. “Now, I see why you want to stick with me. You just want me to cook for you.”

  The red hue on her face deepened just a bit. “I would never take advantage of Master like that, but I admit that I like your food very much.”

  “Fair enough. Let me see what I have left to cook. Maybe a few eggs and some bacon.”

  I wasn’t even done cooking breakfast before Violet reappeared again. She wasn’t hungry and said she had eaten before returning. That of course raised the question of what the relationship was between her physical body and her avatar. The questions were definitely mounting quickly.

  We ate and then headed out after making sure the fire was out. I honestly didn’t know if a forest fire or something like that was possible here, but I wasn’t going to take the chance. With any luck, we’d reach the Ghazban village just before midday.

  The first promising sign occurred when we were still an hour away but I got a notification.

  Updates available to the Village Interface.

  Ghazban Village

  Population: 485/491 (68 caster, 423 melee)

  Level 20-39: 39

  Level 10-19: 404

  Level 1-9:48

  Energy: 12,734 (Daily:1,012)

  Morale: Tolerable

  Crafts:

  Cooks: 39

  Woodcutters: 55

  Miners: 44

  Alchemists: 1

  Butchers: 24

  Skinners: 27

  Herb Gatherers: 10

  Hunters: 31

  Carpenters: 5

  Laborers: 105

  Artificers:1

  Blacksmiths:1

  Materials:

  Iron Ore: 8,312 units

  Lumber: 17,114 units

  Buildings:

  Longhouse: 7/11

  Chief’s Hut: 1/1

  Storage Hut: 1/2

  Dining Hall: 1/1

  Alchemist’s Hut: 1/1

  Forge: 1/1

  That made me far more confident. Apparently, not only had the village survived during my absence, but it had thrived. The population was up almost a hundred since I had left, so they must have decided to make more ogres, even without me there. I felt the oddest twinge, like a voice in the back of my head asking how dare weaker ogres pro-create when I was so much stronger than the rest.

  I shook my head. I had no idea where that thought came from, but it was part of a disturbing pattern lately. I was just glad that we were almost to the population mark of five hundred. At that point, I could select a special building for the village. Hopefully, it would be something which would improve its prospects.

  It also looked like they had been busy both leveling and building. There were far more past level twenty than before, even if you counted me, Ainsley and the four players in that group. It also meant that the players wouldn’t have quite the same upper hand that they had before. We might have to make a concerted effort to level them some more.

  Overall, I couldn’t help but be thrilled. We also had a huge number of points to work with. We would be able to create some higher-end craftsmen. It was exciting. Violet saw my reaction and asked me about it.

  “I just got a notification about upgrades the village has been making while I was away. They have come a long way in only two weeks.”

  After I told her more details, she got skeptical. “Not to burst your bubble, but didn’t the kobolds have a bunch of level twenty to thirties?”

  “What’s your point? They were in a dungeon, and even you said the dungeon might be reacting to my level.”

  “Maybe, but those were kobolds. Shouldn’t ogres be far more fearsome than kobolds? It just seems like your village is really under-leveled for what I would have expected.”

  Something about her words made me take them as a challenge. If she wanted to see the village grow, then I would just show her what I could do. “Just wait and see.”

  “You said that the village has an Artificer now, right? Do you think they can teach me anything?” She asked.

  I chuckled. “The Artificer is you, my pretty little gnome.”

  “Oh, you mean because I joined POP?”

  “I guess so. I don’t know how all the rules work, but it seems likely.”

  Any further conversation was interrupted as we came upon a group of ogres that were busy field-cleaning what looked like a small herd of bounding bucks. They all stood with weapons at the ready as we walked into the clearing. Then when they saw me, one of the ogres remarked, “Elder Ooglie is back.”

  A couple of the other ogres snorted. I had to guess they were new ogres that had been created since I was gone. I assessed them all. The lead ogre who recognized me was level 22, while the other two who snorted were level 11. After spending the majority of my time for the past two weeks with players, it was a bit annoying to have to start acting like an ogre, yet there was a part of me that growled within.

  I raced at the two and slapped them both before they even had a chance to respond. Their Agility was likely single digit, so they didn’t have much of a chance. Both were melee types, but even then, with the level my strength was at now, they were both sent sprawling.

  “You want to challenge me for my position as Elder?” I screamed as I beat against my chest. I didn’t even bother with my spear. It wouldn’t be necessary for this.

  One of them got up, “Wez no know youz.”

  Wrong answer. Another step closed the gap between us, and I punched down before he could raise his hand to block it. “Ogre way is strength. Either stand up and fight, or you obey me.”

  The ogre who had recognized me stepped back. At the same time, I saw the second ogre getting up to come running at me from the side. I cast Corrupted Vines. He screamed as the thorns pierced his skin as the tendrils wrapped around him. I purposely lowered the mana content to make the poison aspect weaker. Instead of sending toxins into his veins. it simply spread out across his skin. Weeping blisters began to spread on his two arms and leg that were captured by the vine. It was less deadly but more painful.