Workin' on the Dock of the Bay

Goldenblade is, as most in this area know by now, directing traffic for many of the Eas expansion projects. The homesteading has been planned, and the shipyard and Naval Academy are well underway. The Water treatment plant is closeby, and if it's a bit more magical than she understands, so were the water treatment plants in RL, and they worked just fine. She is, by now, getting the first part of the boardwalk-type structure built. Wooden and solidly built, she nevertheless inspects all the fittings with a careful glance to make sure none of the workers skipped steps. Goldenblade approaching with a clipboard is a message to Landers that some serious inspecting will be going on.

The Lander laborers weren't the only ones hard at work. Shiruba was here as well, though her efforts wasn't on the basic construction. Her woodworking skills were being applied to some of the more intricate needs that required carving or crafting beyond the cutting to size and fastening together. Guide rails, directional signs, basic chairs and containers for the to-be buildings, that sort of work. She's humming to herself, and thankfully not trying to actually sing while she works, because she's terrible at it. But the rhythmic swish swash of her tail is there, keeping her cuts and carvings at a steady productive pace.

Goldenblade nods to Shiruba as she comes by to check on progress. "Hey," she calls out. "How're things going?" She's greatly appreciative of all the players putting in effort on these projects. "Keeping up with things? As the game wears on, we're starting to lose more and more players as they go native," she observes. That has clearly not happened to her. "Do you need any supplies for your projects?"

Shiruba glances up as she hears the familiar voice, and smiles. "Hello Goldenblade." She makes a few more shaves, then sets the plank she was carving on aside. The start of directional arrows and 'DOCKS' and 'STORAGE' have already been cut into it. Another sitting near by is clearly a WARNING, likely to be posted outside one of the forest areas that still have more monster than they're comfortable with non-Adventurers venturing into. "And we seem to be doing well enough at pace. The more intricate work like this isn't a constant flow of tasks like the general construction is. But we are covering several projects over a large area so people need to know where to go." She nods at the WARNING sign. "Or not to go."

Goldenblade looks over Shiruba's work and nods approvingly. She smirks about directing workers where to go, and says, "That's true in any large project with a lot of moving parts. This is a lot of individually smaller projects, but it amounts to the same thing: Lots of moving parts that need to be kept moving. Glad to see you've got this under control." She smirks about telling people where not to go. "If people would apply some sense to things," she complains, "but I guess common sense isn't so common or more people would have it, right? The thing is, consider the average worker. Then realize that half the people in the world are dumber than that. It's the definition of average, but it's still a striking observation."

"Common sense is an oxymoron. Like military intelligence," Shiruba adds with a chuckle. Then considers a moment. "Trust me, with being a Guild Moderator I've become quite familiar with how people can be... not necessarily dumb," she gestures with her hands like trying to indicate two seperate groups, "but even the intelligent ones can be gun-ho and less concerned with their own well-being over other objectives."

Goldenblade nods gravely. "It's all about objectives," she agrees. "Military Intelligence can be as smart as they want, but they get given their marching orders by guys whose qualification is not having screwed up egregiously and gotten caught at it." She shrugs. "When I was seven, generals who didn't win nearly every battle were benched and others who did were put in their place. That's how we kept winning. Then when I was a teenager, they'd keep a general in place no matter how well he did. It's like his feelings, or maybe the public perception of our faith in him, was more important than winning. That's how we kept losing." She sighs.

Shiruba nods her head a bit. "Yeah, I've heard a lot of those kinds of stories from the likes of Kaydon and other former military people. Usually as examples what not to do as a leader." She pauses to lean down and pick up her water flask, taking a drink from it. Throat tends to get dry when you have to deal with a lot of sawdust and shavings. "I just try to be a good example, and not expect people to do things I wouldn't be willing to do myself if I did have the skills to do them."

Goldenblade hrms, nodding about Kaydon. "Yeah, and the kids don't really know any other way. As I say, the old way happened when I was seven, and I just read about them in the newspapers. And this isn't like real life, either, not really. There's an understanding of gamer psychology in the game design, I assume, that's why it takes a few weeks to build a building instead of a few years." She chuckles. "Not that I'm complaining about -that-. But we have to treat this place as a bit different."

"Still, it takes a lot of hands to get the jobs done, faster than 'real world' or not. And keeping all that organized." Shiruba sets the flask back down, and retrieves her woodworking tools. It's not hard to tell the Blades of Zahab are more than your standard carving utensils, they have that subtle presence that many Relics do. Even when not using their special abilities. Right now they just have an advantage in not wearing down and needing resharpening as often as more stock blades would. "But it's good to keep people busy. Especially good for the ones that have decided they don't wish to be combatants." Or herself, who just has enjoyed learning new skills and hobbies to be useful.

Goldenblade chuckles, "Oh, it does, it definitely does. Again, if not as many it'd take in real life, with a world population in the billions. There's only a fraction of that in the game world, so I assume everything is scaled down. It makes sense. And yeah, keeping busy gives you something to think about so you don't brood. A lot of the brooders have already gone native or given up on the game, it seems like. I haven't seen Proteus in forever, for instance, and she used to be a big deal in my Alliance. She almost got me to switch Alliances, because she didn't like me, but my guildies talked me down."

"Yeah, haven't heard from her in a while either, despite having a shared interest in puzzles and exploration. Maybe not the same objectives to such, but you know what I mean." Shiruba gives a little shake of her head. "But if people have found other things to make themselves happier in the meantime, I guess I won't really fault them. Would be nice for some to keep in contact though. At least I know when and how to find Arashi if I need her, even if she doesn't like 'big groups'." Another shrug, and Shiruba picks the sign she was working on up to resume carving while they chatted. "Estelle has buried herself in the library ever since we got Shibuya back and I haven't seen ear or tail of her much after. Must be a librarian thing."

Goldenblade nods slowly a shared interest. "I guess that's a good thing, too. I was never in too many social organizations back in real life. My life revolved around work, and the coworkers I was friends with. We'd go out drinking sometimes after work, that sort of thing, but no one to really hang out with, like hanging out like you kids do." She shrugs, then ohs, "I remember Estelle, she got sent to the goblin moon somehow once, right?" She can only shrug about Arashi, she never met her, or doesn't recall it. If she did, it was ages ago.

"Yeah, with that weird mirror." Shiruba gets to work on carving the rest of the letters into the sign. "My parents were really strict and old fashioned, so I didn't have a lot of social circles outside of Gwen's family and the small cafe I worked part-time at. And my brother, but he was always getting stuck with more and more work himself." She chuffs softly at the family topic. "At least here I can do and be what I want, and not have to deal with them trying to press old ideas on me." She pauses, remembering who she's talking to. "No offense, Goldie, about old ideas. But you also don't try to stifle with them like they would."

Goldenblade ahhhs about the mirror, nods as she recalls that bit. She ohs about Gwen's family, and says, "I suppose they at least support gaming, since they're here. But yeah, I grew up without any games even remotely like this. If we wanted to stab bad people, I had to go to the rough part of town and take my chances. Let me tell you, we didn't do that sort of thing." She shrugs about old ideas. "Well, I'm here, so I guess I'm a little open. I've probably got more game time than my son," she chuckles. "-His- son got him in and suggested bringing in his grandpa because then they wouldn't have to spend three hours on a train to come visit me."

"That was a nice thing about online games like this, if you could get other relatives and friends to play with you. No need to travel to spend time together." Shiruba pauses, squinting one eye as she checks her work, then resumes carving away. She helped survey the area and the layouts for the projects so she knows which direction needs to lead wear. That and she made plenty of maps if she needs to double check. "Thankfully we've been able to establish places like Shibuya and Arcadia so we can have places not entirely reliant on the Lander Kingdoms. But keep working with them as necessary to make it a better place."

And be nothing like the Palace Land leadership and their stupid cursed crowns.

Goldenblade nods vehemently about not being like the Palace Landers. "Talk about how not to play the game. They lost it in the first weeks, it seems like." She nods about the places we've established and says, "Speaking of which, I need to go inspect a couple other things, so I'll move along. But thanks for helping us out. And thanks for talking, that means a lot to an old man." Even one wearing the body of a twenty-five year old woman.