Cora stood on her little step stool and dusted her blinds. She hated dusting. Her friends teased that it was because she had a certain methodology that included dust wipes, feather dusters and wet wipes. It all depended on what was being cleaned. The blinds needed first dust wipes and then a quick swipe with the wet wipes to make sure all the dust was gone. The walls needed to be swept with the long-handled duster, especially the living room that held the patterned walls that she'd fallen in love with.
Cora could say with absolute certainty that she only loved the walls when she didn't have to dust them.
Furniture needed the dust wipes. Then the polish wipes if they were solid wood. The bookcases needed both the duster and dust wipes.
All told, it could take her anywhere from two to three hours to dust her entire house.
She blamed herself. She'd left the windows open to catch the early morning breeze before hopping into her capsule. Cora hadn't remembered that she'd left them open until she emerged, wondering about the temperature in her house. It had been more balmy than cool, probably because all the A/C had flowed out through the open windows.
Plus, she wasn't that high up, only on the third floor. It still baffled her that so much pollen made it into her condo. If she wasn't so adverse to getting a maid, Cora was sure that she wouldn't care as much.
Still, as she stared at the last bit of yellowish dust decorating the ornate finials of a chair her Great-Aunt Jerry had left her, she wished that she didn't mind the invasion.
Her mother hadn't gotten her hands on it that one time simply because Cora had sent it out to get professionally cleaned. Heidi had accidentally spilt a bit of soy sauce on the creamy fabric that covered the chair while lounging. Cora was still to this day convinced that she didn't want to know what Heidi had been eating that day.
Her phone rang. She paused, glancing at number and frowned. Savannah?
She answered, still frowning.
"Yes?"
"Cora! We need updating!" Came a familiar voice with a strong Southern accent.
"Andreas?" Cora put down her dusting materials. "What do you mean by updating?"
"I bought a capsule, and it doesn't work! Not enough electricity!" Andreas sounded frantic.
"Calm down, Andreas. Let me think," Cora soothed.
She remembered Andreas. When her Aunt Addy had first started her real estate empire, she'd been a young admin scanning websites for a potential house. What she'd stumbled across had been an ad for a rooming house in Savannah that had been posted on the HUD website.
It had sounded too good to be true. The ad had even stated that it was partially filled with tenants. Addy had been suspicious, but as she told Cora when she'd asked as a teen: "What's life without risk, and I had no life then, so what risk?"
She'd submitted a bid for the house that had been accepted. When Addy had gotten to Savannah, she'd found that the house wasn't on a nondescript little street, but a mere block away from one of the more popular tourist traps in Savannah.
It had taken her four years to turn it into a deluxe B&B. She'd offered the current tenants rent-controlled contracts, and most had accepted. By the time Cora had posed her question, there had only been four or five left, the rest lost to time, careless relatives or disinterest.
Currently, there were only two of the originals left, one held by the grandson of the original holder, Andreas Culpepper and the other by Gretchen Sanders, a woman who'd gladly purchased the lease from a not-so-grieving batch of relatives. Cora was happy with Gretchen, a free-spirited woman who ran an online souvenir shop. Cora hadn't been able to figure out just how that worked, but it gave Gretchen enough to pay her rent.
It could be considered a deal since the rooms came with unlimited utilities and three squares a day. Over the years, renovations had also granted them ensuites of varying sizes depending on the tenants.
Andreas' room occupied half of the sizeable attic space, giving the artist unlimited, fantastic light. He was usually in a painting frenzy so him mentioning a capsule was particularly intriguing.
"Why do you have a capsule?" Cora asked as she rummaged in a side table, looking for her Savannah contacts.
Strictly speaking, she had a management company that handled these things, but they also handled most of the properties her Great-Aunt Addy had left her. Andreas' request had most likely fallen through the cracks, especially since he paid a pittance in rent.
"There is a renaissance going on! A renaissance!" Andreas raved. "This game! World of Glory! A renaissance!"
Cora fought back a laugh. As usual, everything Andreas said or did had flair.
"Oh, really?" She teased back. "What sort of renaissance could it be?"
"The best kind! It's a virtual feast for an artist's soul! Plus, you can sell your works for money! Real money!" Andreas paused. "There's this girl who sold the most marvelous scene of a fish market. It sold for so much, Cora! You would not believe it!"
"So, because of that, you bought a capsule?" Cora frowned. "Andreas! Do you even have that much to blow?"
"Bah! I sold a few things lately, so I did," Andreas said evasively.
Cora frowned. She made a mental note to have someone check the local auctions in Savannah to see if anything of note had been sold. While the rooms were rented furniture free, that didn't include the fixtures and various random wall pieces.
"Sounds intriguing," she told Andreas while she rolled her eyes. "I can have someone there tomorrow to see about the electricity."
Cora made more soothing sounds as she reassured Andreas and got him off the phone. Then she paused. That was a good idea. Perhaps.
Cora sat down in front of her computer and searched for vacation getaways. As she thought, very few offered capsule capability. The thought made her smile. Logins were restricted to one's DNA profile, something you tended to forget until the weekly cleaning of one's capsule happened. You could technically use any capsule to check your account from anywhere. You weren't restricted to just one specific capsule.
Cora always figured it was because they were going to keep offering better and more expensive capsules once the game company got you hooked. It made decent business sense to her. Still, being able to use any capsule to login was something she hadn't thought of in a business sense.
She drummed her fingers on her computer desk. She'd never considered upgrading her resort properties before. Cora ran the numbers for the low-end capsules and then the higher ones.
Cora hummed to herself. The idea was forming quickly. She picked up her phone, dialing the number she'd found on the internet.
"Yes, do you offer bulk purchases?" She asked the woman who answered.
"A bulk purchase?" The woman sounded startled.
"Yes, about two hundred, I'm thinking," Cora continued. A smile curled her lips. "You can ship them all to a central location, right?"
*****
"You seem happy," Blue said as Cora examined her field, humming cheerfully.
"I am happy," Cora admitted. She called up her mayoral menu, thoughtfully looking at the numbers. There was a (6) behind the lone 1 for a change. "I have people almost here, and I have plans to coax some more."
"Are you talking about that town guard?" Blue asked. She was lounging in her favorite old oak tree.
"I'm thinking that maybe I can get him to come if he knows I have serious things for him to protect," Cora said. "I won't use the dryads, though. I haven't thought about how to explain that."
"You shouldn't bother," Blue told her. "Dryads are special. If he knew that there were some here, he would just come. It would be considered cheating according to the terms of the agreement. He wants you to have a population first."
"I do have a population. You," Cora protested.
"More than me." Blue yawned. "I don't count. I'm merely the groundskeeper."
"Groundskeeper? Really?" Cora looked around her surroundings pointedly.
"I don't have to do upkeep. Not in the job description," Blue replied. It stood up and stretched lazily. "So, what's your plan?"
"I'm going to see if I can find a miner to come. I can't keep mining for all the stone we need to fix everything." Cora glanced around the area surrounding her field. She could see the back of City Hall which wasn't as badly damaged as the front. Aside from that, most of the buildings were in various stages of disrepair. The one in the best state was the building fronted by Blue's oak tree. It was an open fronted building that had most likely been some sort of stand.
The front counter only had a few gouges in it, being made of a sturdy grey stone. There were empty holes cut at regular intervals that reminded her of a hot table. She gingerly went into the dilapidated store and peered behind the counter.
There were the remnants of small braziers underneath the empty holes, long gone to rust and dust amidst black cinders. Cora looked up at the still intact ceiling. The whole building looked as if it'd been carved out of one single boulder. Perhaps that was why it was still in somewhat good condition.
"And where are you going to find one of those?" Blue asked.
"I'm going to have to go further afield, maybe?" Cora returned. She straightened up. "The dryads will wake up soon. After they do, I'll use the teleportation circle again. Perhaps this time, I'll wind up near the beginner villages."
"As long as you send people back," Blue said. Then she yawned. "I need a nap." Blue stood up. "Have fun on your journey."
Cora smiled as Blue sauntered away. She was vaguely certain that Blue was really going to try to hunt some of the rabbits that infested the warehouse area. She was surprised to find that there were so many of them.
Plus, the rabbits were more aggressive than she'd ever expected. Several had tried to ambush her the last time she'd gone to deposit stones in the warehouses. Cora had been surprised but had managed to escape by dint of scaling a broken-down house and waiting for them to disperse.
Cora wasn't proud of the fact that she'd run from a bunch of rabbits, but to her credit, they were level 280 rabbits.
Cora stared at her field of red clover. She'd realized that the reason the rabbits hadn't eaten her crops was Blue. Blue was probably using it as bait for easy meals.
Whatever the reason, she was happy that the rabbits hadn't denuded it of all vegetables while she was away. She made a mental note to let the herd know that she had clover for trade. Cora didn't really want anything for it, but if they offered, she wasn't going to say no.