Marwell Manor

[Crosscheck]

Okay, so this is a bit random. I’m a big player of strategy games, especially those from Paradox. Now, one thing to know is that those games have a thriving subculture of the “AAR”. There are entire forum sections On PI’s site devoted to AARs. Since I recently started playing FS19, and got semi-addicted fairly quickly, I started to do the same thing on a whim. Below is a bit I wrote while I sitting in the sun, socially-distancing from reality. I’m not sure if I will continue with the next segment, but I thought I would post this anyway. Keep in mind that I write, well, to pay my bills. Continuing to put in the time and effort on this will depend, I guess, on the reaction I get here (if any)...and on my continued addition, of course:

I’m a new player to FS19. As I sit down to write this first “chapter” of an AAR for the game, I have played exactly one map (Sussex Farms) for one in-game “year”. I still don’t know what the hell I’m doing, to be honest. But, hey, if I have to learn and make things up as I go along, then why shouldn’t my protagonist, as well?

At any rate, a bit of fun storytelling where I (try to) recount just how badly I can screw up at something I enjoy but know very little about...



Chapter 1 — Uncle Vic, Is That You?

Did you remember that one relative? You know the one I’m talking about, the one who scared the hell out of you as a kid?

For me, that was my great-uncle. I met the man once, when I was nine. We went to his farm in England, to pay our respects, as my father put it, to our family, and to the old family home. My great-uncle — Uncle Vic, to my Dad — met us at Heathrow. He smelled like pipes and old socks...and that is, honestly, pretty much all I remember. Well, that and the fact that he looked a lot like Freddie Krueger. Thank God for my GameBoy.

Fast forward, then, twenty years.

I’m still as single as I was when I was nine, but the money is a hell of a lot better. I build bridges, you see. Well, I don’t “build” them, I just design them. It ain’t glamorous, no sir, but it does garner enough to pay for a nice condo, a nicer car, and the odd bit of travel to far-more-interesting places.

The bell ringing at the door, then. Me, still in bed and without my first of cup of coffee. It took a few minutes to figure out to work the deadbolt...

“Sign here,” the man ordered, proffering a fancy clipboard. His voice was serious. His suit was serious. stuff, he was serious.

What the hell?

I signed, of course.

A huge file he handed me, all wrapped up in a heavy envelope. I’m not sure what was worse: my confusion, or my need for coffee. Screw it, when you can’t decide, you work on both at the same time.

A deep gulp, finally, of that lifesaving brew and I opened the envelope to pour its contents onto the counter.

Papers. Certificates. Bills. Deeds. Even some heavy, weird thing I could barely read...a Letter Patent, it called itself.

Wait...

What the hell?

A letter I found, finally, under all the detritus I couldn’t understand. A note from a law firm in London. Lawyer, solicitor, *censored*, whatever you choose to call them, they’re the same everywhere in the world. You always read their stuff — carefully — but you never, ever trust them.

Blah...blah...Hamphire, UK...blah...blah...Marwell...even more blah, blah...wait, go back a bit. Skip the lawyerly blah-blah stuff, what the hell did that one paragraph say?

Baron Marwell. Of Marwell Manor.

Huh?

I build bridges, for Pete’s sake!

I read the letter again. And again. And yet again. Then I checked the deeds. Then I read it all again. There was a note, even, from Uncle Vic, in a spidery, struggling hand that was all-but impossible to read.

“...resuscitate the manor...succeed where I could not...better at selling the manor than working it... Congratulations, Baron Marwell. Now get to work.”

I don’t remember a damned thing from the next couple of weeks. A leave-of-absence from my job. A renter for my condo. Some stupid rom-com on the flight. A big Land Rover to pick me up from the airport, and a man who took the “serious” thing and turned it up to eleven. More papers to sign, more people to see. A flurry of names and faces, of facts and figures, and not a single bit of made it through my skull.

No, I can’t remember a damned thing from that frantic, hectic period. All I can remember is waking up in bed to the ringing doorbell, and then...

And then...

Here I stand, in this muddy, wet yard, surrounded by rusting sheds and looming machinery.

What the hell do I know about farming? I build freaking bridges!



Chapter 2 — Wait, What The Hell is A Combine?!

*pending*

[Deadeye]

Interesting idea. Look forward to reading the rest of your "story". I found it quite entertaining.

Don't forget, if you every get *really* stuck, and just can't figure something out, give us a holler on the forum. There's plenty of people more than willing to help. Welcome to the forum by the way.