In the Endless Isles, he had a damaged ship on the shore of Tourney Isle, coordinates South-10 on the vast ocean map. Tourney had a good arena on the mesa that filled the island''s center, and a market, but what it didn''t have was an endlessly respawning wilderness that could be strip-mined every day. He hopped off of his boat and frowned at its stricken hull, then headed inland and uphill to get the rest of his stuff.


    The ruler of Tourney had a one-room house of bricks next to the fighting ground. After some incidents involving a meteor and then an over-enthusiastic battle tournament, he''d rebuilt his home mostly underground with just his "parlor" above it. Seven flags snapped in the breeze behind the bandstands: Stan had learned them as the seven banners of the nations that had ruled Texas, most recently the American Free States.


    Stan went to the brick building and knocked.


    After some fumbling somewhere below, the door opened. A tan-furred rabbit named Davis stood there, ears lifting up when he saw his guest. "Stan!" Davis was one of the stars of Oops! Universe Repair Crew, a comedy show about AIs gone wrong. It was a popular side business for him besides being a character within Ludo''s game.


    Stan said, "Hello, sir. Sorry to keep storing things at your house, but I need my axe and pick."


    "Come on in."


    Stan passed the entry room, which still had nothing in it but a storage chest, and went underground to a bunker with dirt walls reinforced with wood. A basic wooden bed, table, weapon rack and chest were all of the furniture. Stan said, "I thought you''d have done more with the place." It was quite a change from the mansion Davis once owned full of furniture fancier than you could actually build through the crafting system.


    "I will; just busy is all. Need a better room for entertaining for one thing. Suppose you''d like to help setting that up?"


    Stan said, "I''d be happy to. I managed to get my ship beaten up already, too, so I need lumber for that. Want to go woodcutting?"


    The bunny gave a bucktoothed grin. "Back when I first learned about boats, there wasn''t any way for them to take damage, so you didn''t have to worry about fixing them." He blinked. "Am I really reminiscing about the good old days, already?"


    Stan grinned and hit a button to emphasize that he was speaking a command to the game. [Pat him on the back.] Aloud he added, "I''m trying to get used to my new home myself."


    "The sea apartment? I warned you it''d be small. Too bad you can''t just dig a hole in the ocean to expand it. But... I kinda envy you getting to solve problems like that. If there''s any way I can help, lemme know. And yeah, I''m up for a forest trip."


    Davis put on a suit of shining armor, plus a sword that Stan had forged for him. They went down to the docks. One thing that Tourney Isle didn''t have a lot of was lumber, so the easiest way to get it in large amounts was to sail elsewhere. "Guess you need me to bail while you sail?" asked Davis, looking at the hull.


    "If you don''t mind. Unless you can lend me some money for lumber."


    "You want to get wood, so you can fix the ship to get wood to fix it better? Is this how your banks work out there?"


    "I think they''re more complicated. It''s tough to get started with no resources."


    They hit the market for lumber. While he was thinking about the chest he''d ruined, Stan took a moment to use magic again: his spell elements for "Create" plus "Metal". When he swirled the right icons into place, a drop of copper swirled into existence and congealed on his palm as a coin-sized lump. "I could start making coins this way, but it''d feel like counterfeiting."


    "Why?" said Davis. "It''s real copper. Stamp it flat and it''s as real a coin as this." He held up a shiny one with a fancy braided design.


    Come to think of it, Stan had seen a few other patterns. He grinned. "Then I''m going to sell custom coins. Your choice of design, for an inflated price."


    "Ha! I''ll take a carrot one."


    Stan was working on the hull repair, a mix of actual carpentry and a tangram-like puzzle, when a voice from another world startled him. Stan looked up from the game screen to see the real world. He was facing a mother with two kids, who''d entered through the front. "Are you open?"


    "Yes; sorry. Come on in and someone will be right with you."


    "They let you play games on duty?"


    "They encourage it, ma''am."


    She snorted and walked in. Stan supposed the policy was an advertisement among other things. He made sure nobody else was following her in, then returned to his repair work. "It''s going to be awkward working and playing at the same time. How do you balance your work with your adventuring?"


    Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    Davis said, "You mean the cartoon I do? We have regular meetings to plan the episodes and act them. And the Lady is understanding about me needing to get pulled away for serious business once in a while."


    At last the hull was as good as new, without the melded-on treasure chest. He scavenged some of the material from that for spare parts. Time to set sail!


    Island South-11, just south of Tourney, was a hilly place with a forest of high quality wood. Stan made it there with Davis easily and hopped out with a hatchet to chop down some trees. The bunny went plant-gathering. Stan claimed the island with a flag, as many other adventurers had done.


    "Good morning!" said another customer.


    Stan was jarred out of the game to see the man facing him in the real world. He was dressed in that tunic-style outfit and carrying a waterproof tablet. Stan welcomed him and got him a seat and a menu. Stan went back to the game, but minutes later some corporate gal showed up. And then three tourists. It was hard to get a chopping rhythm going on the fantasy island while he kept getting interrupted! Even so, he''d soon felled a small trunk and started on a larger one. At last his co-worker Dahl peeked in from the dining room. "I''m set up over here. If you want I''ll take over the front, and you can get started on the pods."


    Stan groaned. Duty called, but he was in the middle of something. "Ludo, I''ve got a little problem."


    [I see], Ludo sent.


    Since Ludo wasn''t volunteering a solution, Stan said, "I can abandon the wood, but can you at least put me safely back aboard and get Davis a teleport back home so I''m not jerking him around by leaving every five minutes?"


    [Good reaction. I''ll have Ocean arrange it if she approves.]


    "Isn''t Ocean one of your sub-programs?" She was the lesser AI who managed this part of the game world. Stan wondered what here relationship to Davis was.


    [Yes], said Ludo, [but the Isles are her show and it''s her decision.]


    Stan sent Davis a quick apology and logged out, thinking, I''ve got to find some better arrangement than this. I look like an idiot, switching back and forth.


    Dahl handed him an ID badge and said, "Thanks, and good luck."


    He headed upstairs and stood in front of a supply closet, realizing he had no key for it. The door clicked open. Right; cameras. He grabbed a heavy toolkit and said, "So, just do standard maintenance on them all?"


    It was Sonia the boss who answered, as a ghostly voice from the speakers. "Yes; everything seems to be working, but check on each one. Give them a standard cleaning while you''re at it."


    Pod #1 had its own little room like the others. Stan used a weirdly-shaped key from the toolbox to open up the panels of electronics inside. As a customer, he''d seen the pods as simple devices, but when he was kneeling like this in front of fans and circuitboards and multicolored wiring he began to remember what amazing devices they were. Each one contained a graphics card rendering two stereo images at once, plus other sense feedback, plus more input than a typical keyboard-and-mouse setup normally allowed, and it had to whirl the pod around in various ways while keeping within certain safety limits. All of that complexity applied to built-in programs like the rollercoaster sim. On top of that, the Fun Zone''s pods were hooked up to the Thousand Tales game worlds and their AIs and the uploaders and wherever the main computer centers for them actually were.


    "Penny for your thoughts," said Sonia, looking at him from the wallscreen.


    "A heck of a lot of work went into designing and building these, even aside from Thousand Tales."


    "There''s a story behind every part. The motors, the graphics cards, the circuit breakers."


    "I know a little about the last one." He looked over a maintenance checklist again and shined a flashlight into a dim panel.


    He kept at his work. It was straightforward until pod #6 which had a broken strap to replace, and #8 which had a motor that''d need to be replaced soon. As he moved down the hall he sometimes heard customers coming in to use the pods he''d checked, and to sweat up the padding he''d just sprayed down. Fortunately most of the parts that''d get dirty were washed regularly.


    The nearest screen lit up with Sonia again when he''d finished the eighth and final pod. She was in a dress now and eating in a dim cabin by lantern-light. "You''re done for the moment. Take fifteen and then come back to help with the lunch rush."


    Lunch already? This was an easy job so far. He''d get in some uninterrupted gaming soon, too.