Might as Well

Not long after his dramatic entrance, they stood next to the lead wagon, with the obviously relieved head of the caravan falling over himself thanking Sam for coming to their rescue, while their target, SummerRose stood awkwardly with her adorable little drones hovering around her.

Clarissa was going around healing the living members of the caravan while Dan, with the help of the few remaining NPC guards, hauled the corpses of monsters into a giant pile. Katie simply prowled around the caravan to prevent any sneak attack, still a little in her battle high. Though with Sam’s impressive senses, there was little chance for that. However, it never hurt to be careful, plus he felt that Katie wouldn’t be the best at comforting NPCs who just suffered a horrific attack.

The girl was already in the process of composing a song about the battle…

“…once again I can’t thank you enough for coming to our aid, noble adventurer!” said the elderly man in travel clothes, bowing deep.

Sam reached out and put a hand on the man’s shoulder, forcing the man to straighten out.

He smiled at him. “Don’t worry, my good man. We were in the area, so as people with a moral compass, it was our duty to help those in need!”

The caravan leader’s eyes shined with unshed tears at hearing that response. “I see! Thank you! How can I repay you?”

Sam simply waved his hand. He wanted to get back to Ironwood as fast as possible. “Don’t mention it, good sir. Instead, how about we gather the people and escort you to the city of Ironwood,” he declared. He thought for a moment, then decided to fib a little. “I’ve heard there has been an increase in attacks on caravans in the area, so it would be prudent to hurry.”

The man instantly nodded, no doubt not wanting to lose the protection offered by Sam’s group. “Then I shall thank you for your offer, noble adventurer. I’ll see to my men, and then we can continue our journey…” he said a little sadly. No doubt some of the dead NPCs were his friends.

Sam nodded solemnly. “My condolences…”

“Thank you.”

The leader of the caravan nodded, then turned around and began walking towards the congregation of people that were gathered next to a few bodies covered with tarps.

Sam watched them a little, then turned toward the streamer.

“So, what do you think about the welcome party?”

“Huh?” came the confused reply as the girl took in his statement. “Did you know we were going to be attacked?” she asked, starting to look angry as she took the wrong conclusion from Sam’s statement.

“I mean, it’s a given,” Sam stated, trying not to sound condescending. “You are in a video game, traveling with a caravan. Which part of that made you think you wouldn't be attacked?”

The girl opened her mouth, no doubt to retort, but no word came out of it. Finally, she closed her mouth and sighed despondently. “Alright, that was on me…” She took another deep breath, then looked at Sam. “What now?”

“We escort the caravan to the city, then you to the company. There, we can finalize things and have you situated.”

“Why not just take me with you and leave the caravan?” came the expected question.

“Did you get a quest for traveling in the caravan?”

“Yeah?”

“That’s why. I don’t want you to get a bad reputation. Plus, I already told them we would escort the caravan,” he explained to the listening streamer.

She nodded in understanding. “What do you want me to do?”

“The same thing you’ve been doing so far. I don’t want anyone to know we came here just for you.”

The young woman looked back at him with a raised eyebrow. “Why?”

Sam reached over and patted her on her shoulder. “Money, of course. You represent a lot of money we invested, and there are people out there that would like nothing more than for that investment to go up in flames.”

She swallowed a little, then nodded.

Sam smiled at her, then headed over to the caravan leader to organize the entire thing.

Not even half an hour later, after burning the monster bodies and making the area look a little presentable, as in removing debris from the road, they were on their way.

Their target was safely ensconced in the wagon that was in the middle with Clarissa sitting nearby, continuing to heal those who were too wounded, mostly the game way to make the journey harder now that there were stronger people to guard the caravan. Though seeing as several player guards had died or run off, Sam felt it was a little unfair, but then he shrugged it off, chalking up to life being life.

Personally, he felt that their adverse reaction to the death penalty was a little silly, but then Magic Unbound was a hard game, and people without his specific (and rather unfair) knowledge would feel that dying wasn’t really worth the possible or promised rewards from the quest. He understood that, but he really didn’t think those players who fled thought this through. With the caravan not dead, their deeds would be recorded and their reputation, at least in a few specific circles, would plummet. After all, nobody liked flaky guards.

Dan and Katie were walking alongside the convoy, Katie because she couldn’t really sit still long enough for them to reach the city gates, and Dan because apparently, it was good exercise.

Sam was sitting with his legs hanging off the side of the roof of the lead wagon, keeping an eye out for any troublemakers, while his senses were dialed to the maximum. Now that he and his team joined the caravan, he expected rather bigger trouble than a small-ish band of goblins and orcs.

However, to his eternal surprise, nothing untoward happened during the rest of the trip.

Sure, a few monsters from the forest tried their luck, but they were quickly taken care of by a hit of Dan’s burning club or a swing of Katie’s greatsword while she danced around the poor beasts. Sam saw that the leader of the caravan was progressively getting more and more sweaty every time Katie stepped up to take care of an issue.

Sam couldn’t help but reassure the man.

“Don’t worry, she is harmless!” he said cheerfully, completely ignoring the squeals of distress coming from the Rock Bear that decided to come down from the mountains to get some snacks.

“R-right!” came the stuttering reply from the visibly uncomfortable man. Then they watched in silence, or in the man’s case, in abject horror, as the small shadowy kitty jumped down from Katie’s head toward the mutilated corpse of the bear monster, then its head grew several sizes, while its body stayed the same petite size. Then, with a tearing noise, it began to munch on the monster while Katie simply cheered it on. “R-r-right!” repeated the man nervously while pulling much tighter on the reins, trying to encourage the horses to drag the wagons faster.

Sam just chuckled a little. “Okay, she is harmless to us…”

They said goodbye to the caravan at the gates where the guards of the city took over their job and began herding the wagons to the proper path, while intently listening to the report about the goblin army that was exterminated.

The guard captain, in charge of the shift that received them, stepped closer to Sam as they watched the guards inspecting the wagons.

“Thank you for taking care of the goblins.”

“No problem, sir,” he responded, wondering which direction this conversation was going to go.

“Good to hear, but I’ll need to hear a complete record,” the guard captain stated with a flat face.

Sam just sighed. “Allow me to instruct my comrades and we can talk…”

The captain just nodded and motioned for him to get on it.

Five minutes later he was in the captain’s office with a few other officers describing the events of the goblin fight, after giving Dan instructions about escorting SummerRose back to the company, with a quick message sent to Lucy to expect them.

As the guards began to pepper him with questions, he resigned himself to staying there for a while.

A long time later, he was finally allowed to leave after the guard captain seemingly managed to wring every little detail about the fight from his head.

The moment he stepped over the threshold of the guard station, he shot off toward the company headquarters. He ignored the crowds, or if anyone was looking at him.

Not long after, he was walking up the damned stairs, nodding to the workers that greeted him, while his mind was wondering how SummerRose was. According to what he remembered, she was one of the most famous streamers in his inherited memories before her untimely death. Sadly, Sam had no idea what caused her death, as the woman was notoriously tight-lipped about her personal life.

Though, with the way things were going, he hoped that being her savior in more ways than one would allow him to save her life. He noted that the secretary was not at her desk, which was laden with a lot of documents, neatly organized into piles.

He knocked on the door leading to Lucy’s office and after hearing a quiet ‘Come in!’ he opened the door and stepped in.

Lucy was sitting behind her desk, while SummerRose was sitting on one of the chairs in front of it. His friend was in the middle of explaining something when he entered and immediately fell silent upon seeing him. Then she sent a small smile at the younger girl and nodded at him.

“Sam, allow me to introduce Liz.” She turned to the streamer and her smile widened a little. “Liz, this is Sam, who is the leader of our combat team.” They agreed previously that in the presence of most people, they would put out a polite fiction of Lucy being the leader of the company, just in case.

“Hello…” came the slightly hesitant greeting from Liz. “Thanks for coming to the rescue!”

“No problem,” he answered, then walked up to the desk and leaned against it while crossing his arms.

Lucy glanced at him, and he gave her a subtle nod. She cleared her throat, causing Liz to look at her.

“So, Liz. Thank you for accepting our contract, and welcome to AFK Company!” she cheerfully declared, while gathering a few documents from around her.

“You’re welcome?”

Lucy nodded and continued. “Now the most important question is: what do you want to do?”

This caused Liz to look at them, bewildered. “What do you mean, what do I want to do? I stream…”

“Naturally,” agreed Lucy, while Sam simply listened. “The question is, how do you want to stream…”

“Ohh…”

“We can set you up with an in-game studio and can work towards a real-world studio too in the near future. According to my information, you have a crafting class, as much as this game has classes… right?”

“Yes, I mainly focus on crystal constructs,” she explained and with a small motion, an equally small drone flew out of her jacket and dipped up and down as if bowing to Lucy. “But I’m capable of combat.”

“Do you want to fight?”

“I mean, it’s good content…”

Lucy looked down at her papers as if checking something, but Sam knew that she had everything already memorized. “How about we set you up with a proper workshop to allow you to build up your arsenal, then when we have more battle-ready troops you can go out and stream to your heart’s content?”

Liz looked at Lucy while taking a few glances at Sam and, after a few seconds of consideration, she nodded. “Makes sense. Though I expect you have a few requests for me to craft?” she asked with a sardonic smile.

Lucy nodded in agreement. “Well, yes, and no. We have a few things we hoped you would take a look at, but otherwise, you’ll have free rein on what you want to build.” Lucy tilted her head to the side a little, then continued. “And of course, you’ll be paid for your time when you’re working on company projects.”

The streamer considered this, then nodded. “That’s fair. What would be the first project?”

This time, it was Sam who spoke up. “An elevator for this building.”

Lucy snorted and continued. “As well as cleaning drones for here, and for Heavenly Forest.”

“I would also like a holdout weapon, if you have the time,” spoke up Sam. “I saw your rifles on the stream, so I was thinking about some kind of pistol or something equally small.”

Sam knew that the moment Liz debuted the first crystal magic rifle was the moment the arms race began. As soon as the major guilds knew that it was possible to create new weapons, they would spare no expense in developing them. By the time the other Sam died, bows were basically considered ancient weapons.

Liz looked at him with a thoughtful look and then nodded. “I think I can put together something. But if you don’t have my skill with crystals, then you’ll need some insane mana control to operate them. Do you have that?”

Lucy and Sam shared a smile, then he nodded. “Sure do!”

The streamer nodded, and Sam could see that she was already in the zone, trying to figure out how to build the weapon he requested.

Suddenly, the door to the office opened, and the secretary strode in, nodding to Lucy. His friend spoke up, bringing out Liz from her fugue. “How about my secretary escorts you to your workshop-slash-room and you can get familiar with it?”

Lucy’s secretary gave Liz a warm smile as the young woman stood up and bade goodbye to her new bosses.

Sam waited until the two women left the room and the door closed to turn around and look at Lucy.

“How are the preparations?”

“We’re good. We have enough food to last through a protracted siege and even our water reserves are growing by the day.”

Sam nodded a little relieved, then Lucy continued her report. While he was listening to it, he was internally going over his plans for his combat team, and where he could take them for a little more practice before the Fracture happened.