Chương 51: Colin

Day 88 Dydd Sul Arturos 6th (Sunday July 6th) My ride back to the homestead was long and boring. Brendan and I didn't roll into the homestead until after 9 p. m. and I was ready to go to sleep immediately. I helped re-saddle the other two horses so he could get everything back to his place without another trip with his wagon. Once he had them on a lead rope, he was on his way back home. I had wanted to ride back on my own. It would have allowed me to sort out my thoughts and emotions.

But Brendan wouldn't hear of it, and it was a twenty-five mile journey after all. I was riding his horse, so unless I wanted to walk back and piss off my neighbor and new friend, I had to roll with it. Luckily, Brendan was a tactful man, and a Homesteader who was used to a fair bit of solitude himself. We talked on and off the entire trip, but there were long stretches of silence where I could think as well. He joked with me about my betrothal and eventual wedding night, but mostly he was serious.

He gave me some great advice about what I should do with my prenup contract. In this world, everyone signed a prenup. Thanks to the ease of a System prompt, they had been ubiquitous for hundreds of years. Even the poorest couples signed one. If Colin agreed to it, I would adopt him and make him my heir. That alone would be a clause worthy of taking quite a bit off the bride price I'd be expected to pay.

It would be one of the few things that I could do that would truly be meaningful, considering our current circumstances regarding the homestead. Aside from that, I'd probably be expected to promise her some new clothes or something along those lines. I'd also be able to cancel the work contracts for her and Colin. At first, I was concerned it would hurt their own XP growth, but Brendan explained that Emily would receive XP for actual Homesteader quests that fit her support-style skills.

Colin would get some XP from farming-type stuff once I adopted him, but his focus was going to be hunting and trapping from here on out. I was hungry, but I figured this late dinner would have been put away a couple of hours prior. I decided I'd better just head to my cabin and go to sleep. Just because I was betrothed didn't mean I was going to start going into Emily's cabin without being invited. That thought actually made me laugh out loud.

I had lived with my ex-wife during our senior year in college, and then right up until we got divorced. I wasn't going to spend a single night with Emily before we were married. I didn't quite know how I felt about that, but I figured things would sort themselves out. I couldn't believe it had only been a few months ago that I thought I was going out to plant potatoes for maybe the last time ever. I was a thirty-five-year-old divorcé who had no idea what direction his life was heading.

Suddenly, I ended up in a portal to a fantasy world, and I now had a homestead and was about to get married to a woman I had known for three months! Just as I was about to open the door to my cabin, I heard Emily's cabin door open and saw light flood out. I turned around and saw her smiling at me.

"John, you want to come inside and have something to eat? There's stew on." I smiled back and said, "Sure. I'm tired, but I could definitely use some food." I followed her inside her cabin and saw Colin sitting in his usual chair, cleaning his gun. That sent me into a fit of laughter. Colin was confused, so he asked, "What's so funny? Is there something on my face?" That made me laugh even more.

Once I'd stopped laughing, I finally explained to him, "In my home country, there's always been this portrayal of the first time a boy goes to take a woman on a date, the dad will be in a chair polishing a gun. It doesn't really happen very often, of course." Colin looked even more confused at my words. He looked to his mother for help, but she just shrugged too. I sighed.

"I'm not explaining it very well. And, I know you all don't do a whole lot of dating. In my world, well at least my country, people usually date for a long time before they get married. In my part of the world there aren't arranged marriages where you meet and then get married right away."

"Oh hell," I said.

"I'm getting sidetracked. The dad holding a gun menacingly in the corner is supposed to be the dad's way of saying, take care of my daughter or I'll take drastic action. Seeing you in the corner there cleaning your gun right after your mother and I got betrothed just made me think of that." The look on Colin's face showed that even if he now understood, he didn't think it was very funny. Emily did smile, but I couldn't tell if it was a pity smile or genuine.

I sat down next to Colin and waited for Emily to bring me a bowl of stew. The stew was great. It had elk, barley, carrots, and the earliest of the fresh pole beans from Emily's garden. It was heavy on the garlic, as usual. Luckily, Emily loved garlic as much as I did. That could have been a dealbreaker on the marriage all on its own! I wasn't quite ready to speak with Emily about things, so I decided to ask Colin how he was feeling now that he had a class.

"So bud, did you go hunting the last couple of days?" He grinned and nodded.

"Sure did! Thanks for the new belt. It's great. Holds my knife real nice too."

"Shoot anything?" I asked. He frowned, but nodded.

"I'm still not seeing any tracks of anything on the other side of the river. But I got up real early this morning and went north on this side of the river, close to where the tractor is. I shot a good sized turkey." Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"Ha ha, nice," I said.

"Did you see any big game tracks?"

"Yeah," he said.

"But still way less than I did last year. I know they sent out scouts to look for more wargs and didn't find anything, but there's still a lot less game out there than I think there should be." I nodded along with him. When he was done speaking, I said, "I know. I asked Hari and Glenn about it when we were doing drill. They almost never go over the river since there's so much other free land between Weston and Riverton, but they said we shouldn't worry. They were on the team that went over.

They said there were only tracks for maybe three or four wargs." Colin looked skeptical.

"Three or four would mess with game that bad?" I shrugged.

"That's what they say. They said they didn't see any signs of any goblins with them. And they found tracks of three wargs leaving towards the mountains. They spent a whole week out there and ranged fifty miles north and south."

"I guess," Colin said. He definitely still looked doubtful. Emily finally spoke up and said, "Hari and Glenn have the right idea though. You should stay on this side of the river too." Colin frowned at her but didn't say anything.

"Did you get any cool new quests?" I asked. He nodded, "Yeah, there's one to trap ten beavers that gives 20 XP per beaver, then another 10 per pelt. I also have a 10XP per pelt for anything I turn in as long as the pelt quality is at least Fair. If it's in Excellent condition I get an extra 5."

"That's cool", I said.

"What skills did you get?"

"Here", he replied, "I can send my screen to you." His eyes flashed blue, and I saw his stats and skills for his Woodsman subclass. Name: Colin Lloyd Age: 16 Main Class: Homesteader Level 10 - You may farm up to 200 acres per year and have access to Tier 1 crops in the Albion Shop Interface. (Note, as a Woodsman you only gain more farming plots at level 10 & 20 and are capped at 300 acres. But you do not have to farm those acres directly.) Perks 10% off any goods determined necessary to improve your homestead in the Albion Merchant Shop. Your garden crops will yield 10% more produce. Easy XP - Gain 10% more XP doing Woodsman-related quests. Bartering - 10% off any goods determined necessary for your Woodsman subclass. Subclass: Woodsman Level 10 XP: 65/596 Skills: Tracking - You have a natural ability to find animal tracks and tell how old they may be.

You must still identify what animal made a track, but once you have, you will always know any tracks made by that animal. Skinning - You have the innate knowledge on how to properly skin any animal that you come across. Any hide or pelt you create will be at least Fair condition. Trapper - As long as you have the proper materials, you are able to construct traps of at least Fair quality. Once I was done looking at his stats I smiled. Sometimes this world could be really cool.

"Well, whaddya think?" Colin asked.

"Hmm," I said.

"It's really cool that I can just see that stuff. Coming from a world with no capital S skills, I'm always amazed to look at my own skill sheet. Your Woodsman skills seem more active than my Farmer ones do."

"Yup," he said.

"It just depends on the class. But Woodsman is more of an active class than Farmer if you think about it." I had to agree.

"Very true, boyo." He gave a small laugh at my words.

"John, I'm no longer a boyo in the eyes of the System."

"True," I said, "But I'm still calling you boyo." Emily had sat down after getting me a bowl of stew, and she was sitting facing Colin and me. She reached forward and squeezed his knee before saying, "He's probably going to be gone more now with his class."

"Ma, not more of this," he groaned.

"You knew it would have to happen. I don't have any quests to grow crops with this subclass. It's honestly weird that it was included in the Homesteader Grand Quest. Seems like it should have been on its own." That actually reminded me, I had seen that you could only have 1 class active at a time, but could he have both a Farmer and a Woodsman class? When I asked the two about it, Emily shook her head and answered, "No, sorry. You can only take one subclass on each class.

Now, you can have militia, and then an actual Soldier class in the army. That would give you XP for both classes, and you could swap between them if you wanted to for some strange reason. But you cannot choose Cavalry and Infantry, and get XP for both. What you would have to do is drop the Infantry if you wanted to go to Cavalry, but then you'd lose all of the XP you had already and would have to start from scratch." I pulled my lips back in a grimace.

"Yikes, so if I wanted to become a Woodsman later I'd lose all of my levels in Farmer." Emily and Colin both nodded solemnly.

"That's too bad," I said.

"Do classes ever change over time? I don't mean class evolutions." Emily nodded and said, "They do. Obviously not often, but it happens. And as you have probably seen, even your Ranged subclass has what seem like obvious rifle skills."

"That's what I thought, and hoped for," I said.

"I'm hoping for something tractor-related when I evolve."

"Will you evolve with me Emily?" I asked.

"Seems like you'll get a lot of XP with me at the end of the year if we get married." She shook her head sadly.

"Unfortunately not. I will not receive your XP for this year. We weren't married when the crops were planted. I do hope to level up to 20 next year, though. If we become large landholders, I am hopeful that it will only be two or three more years before I am able to evolve. One of the very few known paths to evolving is overseeing a large landholding. 500 acres seems to be the magic number." I rubbed my hands in anticipation, just thinking about that.

By the time I left the cabin, it was close to midnight, and it would be daylight in less than six hours. I could try to sleep in, but the rooster would no doubt disagree with the plan. I needed slightly less sleep at level 20 than I had on Earth, but it wasn't like I was some true superhuman who didn't need sleep anymore. I still liked to get eight hours of sleep whenever possible, but my body was okay with six. Emily promised that the two of us would have a picnic the following day to talk things over.

According to records, the three-subclass system has existed as long as the System has been in place. You can theoretically hold as many classes as you are able to attain. You must remain in an active class for a minimum of twenty-four hours before you can switch to another class. You may receive XP for performing a quest for as many classes as would qualify for XP. It is not necessary to have a class active in order to receive XP. Simply change to a class to claim your XP for completing a quest.

You can also gain XP for actions taken before you gained a class. The only time you will lose XP is if you choose to drop a class, reacquire said class, and then choose a different subclass. Excerpt from How to Game Classes and Level Quickly, by Robin Goodfellow. This book is not available in the Albion Trade Guild shop, but it can be purchased by special request.