[You Have Entered A New Zone]

[Wraith Harbor]

[Haunted Coast]

[Kishik]

The world shifted as Winston headed through his third portal. The smell of the river vanished and was replaced with the smell of salt and damp air. The sound of the surf and the cry of gulls surrounded him. Winston turned to see a wide harbor filled with ships, and a long wharf along a sandy beach. The harbor was filled with galleons from the 10 kingdoms, as well as junk-rigged merchant ships from the Serpent Isles or the Mistlands. There were smaller fishing boats and pleasure craft as well and although the city was smaller than others Winston had been to, it was lively.

The temperature was the only thing bugging him but his new shit seemed to be combating the heat. It at least made things bearable.

“Now where do we go?” Troll asked as he looked around at the small harbor town.

“Well, that way is West.” Winston said pointing towards the bay. We need to head East across the zone to Jogdwa. That’s the next zone. It’s mostly empty jungle aside from monsters and a few lizard people NPC villages. The Bloodhounds, that’s my girlfriend's guild, use it as a noobie training zone so the monsters are usual fairly manageable unless a big dungeon or something spawns. They’ve got an outpost there and I’m supposed to set up my farm nearby. I checked out the maps last night and the roads are pretty good. Unless we get ganked by players it shouldn’t be too dangerous.”

“East it is.” Troll said as he flicked the reigns and his trolls took off at a brisk walk.

***************************************************

Jason Masterson, or Orinoco as his new character was called, swung his massive battle-axe at the small tree in front of him. He’d debated on the name for a while. At first he’d wanted to go with a sexual pun using Big Croc but hadn’t been able to frame it well enough. So he’d decided on Orinoco instead. It sounded cool, was a river, and a reference to a nearly extinct species of crocodile only a few people would get. It suited him better all around.

Sparks flew as the steel of his axe impacted the bark and Jason frowned. The tree was an odd charcoal color but was only maybe nine inches in diameter. The coloring had caught his eye as he’d been looking for trees to chop. He’d thought at first the tree had been petrified or something, but the bark felt like bark and not like stone. It was apparently just really REALLY hard.

Rain poured down on his head but he’s gotten used to it. It rained at least twice a day in this zone, if only for ten or fifteen minutes. It made everything wet and the humidity had to be at at least 90%. It felt good on Jason’s scales. They got itchy if they dried out too much.

Jason paused and set the axehead on the ground for a moment as he looked at the tree. He didn’t really need to chop this-one down but he was expecting a solid skill boost if he managed it. It had to be rare so it should be worth decent money as well. He debated a few more seconds if it would be worth the hassle then reached into his pack and pulled out a whet stone. He let the rain wet it before running it over the edge of the axe.

[You Have Used: [Sharpening]

The axe gleamed in the wan sunlight shining through the rain clouds. Jason put the stone back in his pack and then spit on both his hands and rubbed them together.

[You Have Used: [Spit and Polish]

It was one of the more ridiculous skills he’d gotten so far in game but he’d need to pull out all the stops for this one. It was time to take this tree down.

“Heavy Blow” He said aloud and the axe started to glow with amber light. Then he raised the axe and swung. The axe crashed into the tree with the force of a slow-moving vehicle. The axe blade notched but the tree made a cracking sound as loud as a gunshot before it fell with a surprisingly heavy thud.

[Your Lumberjack Skill has Increased]

[Current Rank: Beginner II]

A small glowing figure flew out of the tree and hovered in the air in front of Jason’s face.

“Hey, Listen!” the tiny ball of light called.

“You can’t be serious.” Jason said in disgust. “That joke is so twenty years ago. Don’t developers have better things to do?”

“Please, you have to help us. Please Help my people. We’ve been trapped for so long. You Have to free us!” It begged.

[You Have received a Quest!]

[A Fairy Trap]

[Help the smallfolk escape their tree prisons]

[Trapped Fairies: ⅙]

[Rewards: 5000xp, ???]

Jason frowned at the quest but he didn’t have anything better to do. Then again, he needed to cut up this tree into usable chunks. His skill wasn’t a high enough level to even tell what the wood was, but it had to be something decent.

Jason looked down at his axe and sighed. He stuck the damaged axe into his pack and pulled out a saw. “Fine I’ll do it.” Jason said to the small fairy as it circled his head. He got to work on the tree and ignored the fairy’s antics until it flew away. It took him nearly an hour to cut the tree into a usable shape. It would still need some more processing but he could at least move it now. He lifted the tree onto the hand-cart he was using and set off into the jungle. It was going to be a long weekend.

*******************

Winston picked through his lunch with a gimlet eye as the cafeteria filled up with students. It had been a boring weekend. He’d been trapped on Troll’s wagon and hadn’t gotten to do anything. The long trip and the rain had chased him out of the game and he’d managed to get most of his econ paper done, as well as all his chem homework. It had been very productive and very boring.

Brad was already at the table fiddling with his phone as he spooned the odd mushy vegetables into his mouth. Ruger and Jason showed up a moment later plopping down with dramatic sighs.

“You guys look full of life.” Winston said.

“Late…… Night.” Jason said around a yawn. “Stupid quest, spent all weekend wandering around the damn jungle and cutting down these super-trees.”

“I’m just getting in tonight. Speaking of which. How would you feel about some paid work. I need you to help me cut down some trees and build a palisade. It should only take…. a thousand trees.” Winston said. He’d actually done the math. The two acre farm patch he was planning should have a perimeter of 1180 feet. Which would be 1180 trees that had a 12 inch diameter.

“A thousand trees? You have any idea how long that would take?” Jason said.

“Like.. two days?” Winston said.

“More like twenty days.” Jason said. “It’ll take weeks to even cut down that many trees let alone, move, haul, and build a wall out of them.” He was whining and didn’t seem very excited. Winston would need to sweeten the pot.

“I’ll pay you 5000 gold.” Winston said.

“Alright, I’ll be there tonight.” Jason replied instantly, his demeanor completely changing. “I’ll bring my log cart and we’ll get to chopping.”

“We’re getting the band back together.” Winston cheered. It had been months, but he’d finally get to play Otherworld with his friends. “I’ll bring the hot dogs and the banjo’s. Ruger you bring the buns and the mandolin. Jason, you take the potato salad and the dobro”

“I always saw myself as more of a fiddle player. “ Jason said.

“Jew Harp.” Brad added.

“If we’re suddenly part of a made-up band why does it have to be bluegrass? Couldn't we have a rock band? Or at least blues?” Ruger asked, in the tone of someone who knows he’s going to get a stupid answer.

“If we made a rockband someone would have to play bass. Which none of us would want to do. If we make a bluegrass band we can all have cool instruments.” Jason said.

“Well, Brad and I aren't gonna be there anyway. So you and Win can make whatever kinda band you want.” Ruger sighed.

“That’s not very sporting of you.” Winston told Ruger, than turned to Brad. “What do you charge for you’re wards by the way?” He asked his quiet friend.

“Depends on the size and complexity of the wards.” Brad replied.

“Well, it’ll be two acres but it doesn’t need to be that powerful. The area is mostly sub-twenty monsters from what I hear and I doubt I’d be able to fend of any sort of determined attack anyway. So basically just a big arcane keep-away sign should be fine. Bonus money for anti bug and pest wards. Double bonus if you can add on any sort of stamina buff.” Winston said.

“Can’t do buffs or debuffs, that’s Witchcraft. It’s a whole other branch of magic. Uses pentagrams and symbolic circles instead of wizard runes.” Brad said.

“A witch actually might be better for your needs anyway. They are better at subtle stuff. Wizard warding is all about impenetrable bastions for force, or calling down lighting or fire on anyone that tries to break in. Witches are better at more mental effects like obfuscation or fear.” Brad said, in one of the longest sentences Winston had ever heard from him.

“Well, that would be all fine and good but I don’t know any witches. So i’ll take a friend specialized in defensive wards over some random witch. Unless she’s hot, then you’re out.” Winston said to Brad. Then he looked around nervously to make sure Trish was in the library again. “After paying Jason, I’ll have 5,000 gold left. Will that cover it?”

Brad nodded and went back to his lunch, while Winston did the same. He had a plan now. It was time to get this project started.

**************************

Troll’s cart rumbled past the Bloodhounds base a little after seven. Winston waved to a few of the guards but didn’t stop to chat. He wasn’t a bloodhound. He didn’t work for the bloodhounds. They weren’t even his landlords. They were the decato rulers of the zone but Winston’s land would be his own once he claimed it. Then again, it might be in his best interest to pay a few bribes in the form of rent to keep the relationship civil. Winston knew the guild could just come and take his land if they really wanted to.

The cart rolled down the road a bit further, pastthe wall of the Hound’s base and Winston looked around for a likely place to hang his hat. The land wasn’t quite a jungle. It was more of a secondary jungle. The plants were mostly thick ground cover with a few mid-sized trees poking up. Deeper in the zone was the true multi-canopy jungle but the Hound’s had made their base in a less forested area.

Winston picked an area around a mile from the Hounds base. It was mostly flat, but with a largish rock formation on one side. It was full of thick undergrowth made of green vines and large fronded plants in a half dozen varieties, two dozen trees broke through and reached for the sky. Winston sighed. Trying to clean all this up into a real farm would take forever. Burning it all down seemed the fastest way but he’d need to dig a fire trench or risk it spreading wildly out of control.

“So here? Cause I’ve got other crap to do and if I’m not out of here in an hour I’m charging you another 1000 for this.” Troll said. He sounded snippy but they’d been stuck together for nearly a week now. Winston didn’t blame the guy. He was ready to be out on his own again too.

“Well. I don’t have anywhere to store all this crap. So I’ll have to whip something up. For now Let’s just get it all unloaded. I’ll get some planks down and we can pile it all up ontop. Then I’ll have to try and make a pavilion to at least keep the rain off everything.” Winston said.

The two started working and Troll unhooked his trolls to help with the heavy lifting. In the end they ended up with everything in a big pile on the timbers Winston had bought. That would keep it all off the wet ground. Troll headed out, leaving Winston and Bog standing in the fading light with a pile of goods and no roof over their heads to speak of.

He needed a roof. He had the planks and the tiles. That would get him something waterproof. He just needed posts and beams to prop it all up. The problem was that the tiles were heavy. He’d need some pretty solid foundation to hold them up.It might be easier to dig down. Then he could just use the poles to make a roof with the tiles without needing to build everything up.

The problem with that plan would be keeping the ground out. As much as it rained here and as wet as the ground was any hole in the ground would likely collapse. It would also be a wet muddy mess. Winston popped open a browser and started reading up on building in the tropics. The results surprised him. Apparently the goto building material was dirt, he figured with all the wetness it wouldn’t work that well. Then again, he was just a high-school kid. He’d been wrong before.

Winston decided he’d dig down two or three feet to start with.That would give him a good deal of dirt to build with as well as bring everything down a bit. That and he was a mole. He might as well embrace it. His supplies should be alright for a day or two even with the rain. Everything was inside of barrels or crates accept the wood, the heat and humidity might warp it a bit but Winston wasn’t even sure the game would work like that. It might not bother with wood warping or rotting boards. Likely the wood would just take a few points of durability damage.

Winston summoned his farmhand, handed it a shovel and the two got digging. The digging went fairly quickly. Winston had five ranks in mining and with his digging claws he made excellent time. He kept looking at building options as he dug and finally found a plan he liked. He stuck it to the side of his interface as he worked. It was called an earth lodge and seemed to be a hexagonal earth building built around six internal pillars. Once the initial digging was done Winston started working on the walls.

That was harder work. It was difficult to keep the dirt propped up and compact enough. Then he decided to try a bit of magic. Magic wasn’t supposed to work for things like building because the game would undo any magical earth moving, but what if he only used magic to assist and reinforced the change by hand. Winston didn’t know, but this seemed a decent time to find out. Worst case he’d be out a few hours of work and he could fix it all tomorrow if it collapsed.

Winston started to compact the dirt with his claws and a shovel as he started to pile it upwards.. The building plan called for the outside to be a sloped wall that would eventually cover the entire building. The roof would start out as beams, get covered up with more dirt, then have plants grown on top so the roots would help hold everything together. Winston would then have himself an environmentally friendly house with a negligible carbon footprint according to the website. At least until Winston decided to burn down two acres of jungle so he could plant an orchard

Winston fought with the retaining wall for a while. Then started pouring out some magic. He only had one rank in earth magic so his control was clumsy and his power was lacking. Earth magic was one of the simpler types. Unlike water and air it didn’t take as much control. Instead Earth magic was mostly about stubbornness. The Earth didn’t like to move. So using magic on it was a constant fight. You also had to pour in a decent bit of magic to get things moving.

Winston logged off two hours later, tired, wet, and filthy. His base now considered of a hole in the ground with a rough wall about two feet high. It was a start.

***********8

The first thing Winston did on Tuesday when he logged in again was realize what an idiot he’d been being. He only had four real abilities and he’d forgotten about one.

“Burn down the jungle indeed.” Winston muttered as he shook his head. What an idiotic plan. It would have taken two days to even dig a fire ditch big enough to keep it from spreading. Instead he took out his staff, raised it, and shouted, “Clear the Land!” as he thumped it on the ground. The earth rippled and then snapped as silver light washed over it. Trees toppled and stumps popped out of the ground. Plants flew widely in every direction as they were ripped up. Holes were filled in while small rises leveled out.

Winston was now level 14 and had 285 faith points. That was a lot, so he could know wipe out all the plant life in a half acre swath with one cast. He could only do it once every 12 hours or so but it would still save him a great deal of time. He’d just cast it once a day until everything was done.

Winston pointed towards all the scattered plants and trees. “Clear all that off.” Winston shouted at his golem. “No wait.”

He was going to have a lot of plants to dispose of. What he really needed was some compost pits. He hadn’t thought this out very well. He was doing everything in the wrong order. He’d never worked on this large of a project by himself before and he seemed to have planned for all the wrong things.

“Dig three holes five feet wide and two feet deep over there.” Winston pointed off towards the East corner of his new claim. Winston walked that direction as well. While the robot dug Winston made the extracted dirt into a short walls on three sides of the pit. They wouldn’t need to be as good the building he was working on, but they’d at least give a little structure and maybe he could snag a point of construction before he went back to his new house/storage.

When the pits were dug he’d have a place for all the plant debris. Then he’d be able to really clear the land. That would let him get his first trees planted and he’d be able to concentrate on his building while the trees grew.

His new plan made, Winston went to help his Golem dig.

“What are you doing?” A growling voice said from behind him an hour later. Winston turned to see a giant crocodile man standing over him. Where Winston’s character was only a little over five feet the crocodile man was closer to 7 feet tall. He wasn’t wearing armor but a series of belts and straps criss crossed his body. A half-dozen axes in various sizes hung from the straps and a single larger axe was strapped to his back.

“JASON!” Winston shouted in relief. “Thank Runa you’re here. Everything has gone to hell.” Winston said as he wiped at his sweating face, smearing even more mud into his already cacked fur.

Jason looked around at the mess of dead plants laying in piles, the pits of dirt, and mud,the unfinished house foundation, and the stack of supplies. “Maybe you should just work on one thing at a time. It seems you’ve got three projects started and none finished.”

“I tried that first, but every time I got started I realized I needed to work on other stuff as well. Just help me with these real quick.” Winston said.

He’d gotten most of the pits dug and the short walls built by working with his golem. He hadn’t done a great job but they were just pits. It wasn’t like he needed expert craftsmanship for a hole to hold rotted plants.

“Whatever, you’re the boss. As long as your paying I can chop trees, dig holes, or battle monsters.” Jason said virtuously.

“For now, just hold this up for a second.” Winston said. The two worked for a quarter hour before they finally finished off the rough walls for the pits.

[You Have Learned A New Skill]

[Construction: Novice I]

[Construction is the skill to build lasting structures, from walls, to towers, to houses, or palaces. It all begins with this skill. Unlocked by creating a basic structure. Ability to create more stable and complex structures will increase with skill rank.]

“Finally…” Winston muttered as he cleared away the message. He was hoping for Novice II in construction but Novice I was at least a start. “Alright, that’s fine for now.” Winston said to Jason.

“So man, what have you been up to? I love the croc by the way.” Winston asked his friend as they moved away from the pits.

“Not much man, just chopping down trees, hunting a few low-level mobs. Made a few thousand gold already from all the wood I sold to the Hounds.” Jason said.

“Very nice…” Winston said. “You ready to get chopping? Cause I need a ton of trees. I’m gonna need six standing poles for the floor around seven feet tall. Then I’ll likely need around ten to twelve for the roof.”

“Yes boss.” Jason said with an exaggerated salute. “I’ll start tomorrow. It’s already like 8:30 and I’ve got homework.”

“Alright, have fun. I’ll be here where you get back.” Winston said.

Jason’s character collapsed to the ground as he logged out and Winston shook his head and pointed at his golem again. At least with Jason here he had an extra set of hands. Maybe he should have hired someone to do the building. It would have been more expensive but possibly a better option. He shook his head. It was too late now.

“Alright, start moving all the loose plants over and toss them into the new pits.” Winston told his golem as he walked over to his supplies. He grabbed one of each of the fruits and nuts he’d bought and started to wander around.

The soil here was odd. It was inconsistent. Some areas had good nutrients and other has poor nutrients and were too acidic. It was likely all the rain. It leeched the soil of nutrients but all the plants growing and dying revitalized it places. Winston would have to keep adding compost to cancel that out. It was a long term issue but one he’d have to keep an eye on. At least the jungle was full of plants he could use for compost. Other than that things weren’t too bad. The soil here was basically the opposite of what it was in Brethren Plains, but it was at least a minor step in the right direction.

The second problem he found was that the soil wasn’t great for any crops he tried. Maybe the pears, since they seemed to be able to handle the high acid better. Everything else would grow, they just wouldn’t be optimal. He’d have to get some lime and start messing with soil composition if he wanted to get any crops above high-quality. He might be rocking standard quality again for a while. At least until he got a few harvests under his belt and bumped up his fruit skill a few more ranks.

Winston started planting. He only had about 3/5 of an acre and he started with coffee trees. He used a rope to mark off forty feet and placed a seed at each end. It didn’t take long and twenty minutes later he had 16 coffee trees planted.

With his first trees planted Winston went back to working on his hut. He’d only have an hour or so to work on it tonight, but some time was better than none. At least Bog was enjoying herself. She seemed to like chasing the small animals around. There was a weird sort of frog/rat hybrid thing she loved to charge at as they hopped away from her. Winston got back to work.