Winston walked slowly back towards his farm and took the time to look over his messages. He was especially interested in his racial upgrades. As his skill ranks had climbed his small boost to crop quality had been getting more and more useless. Back when it doubled his quality he’d been pretty happy about it, but now he had somewhere between +30 and +40 percent without his passive or blessings, his meager +15% from his race wasn’t much compared to that.

Winston fished around in his menu before he found was he was looking for.

[Racial: Improved Greenthumb]

[+10% crop yield]

[+25% crop quality]

[Racial: Improved Digging Claws]

[Claw damage is double, Digging Speed Increased]

Winston frowned slightly at the messages. They were upgrades sure but flat increases weren’t that interesting. He was hoping to pick up something fun. Still, boring didn’t mean useless and a practical upgrade was often more useful than a flashy one.

Winston waved the windows away and headed towards his farm. He didn’t see Jason or Kishia anywhere so he went into his hut. Jason was asleep, or logged off against one wall while Kishia was leaning against the other. She had her arms wrapped around her legs and tears were streaming over her lizard’s snout.

Winston felt terrible for her. She’d been used as a bartering chip by her own tribe. Now she was stuck here with him and he didn’t even have a room for her. All he had was a mud hut with no bed, clothes, or real food. She’d been taken from everything she’d ever known and dumped here with a stranger. She was an NPC, but still. Winston’s heart broke a little.

He walked over and sat down beside her, not saying anything for a while and letting her cry.

“I know this isn’t what you wanted.” He said when she seemed to have calmed a bit. “I’m not going to tell you things will be ok. I’m not going to tell you your life will get better. I will tell you however, that you can look at all this in a couple of ways. You can think of it as a temporary grounding. Likely you’ll reach level 10 in a month or two and you can go back to your village, or somewhere else all together.” He said.

“Or you can think of it as a second chance. Had you stayed in the village you’d have always been there. You’d have grown up into a woman, found a mate, had children, and died in that village. Now can choose to go back, or go somewhere else all together. The main thing is finding something for you to do.” Winston explained, trying to lighten things up a little.

“You’re not very good at cheering people up.” The lizard girl replied sourly.

“I’ve been told that before.” Winston said with a laugh. “Apparently I’m too pessimistic.”

The girl snorted, then rubbed at her eyes as she took a deep breath. “Alright, what do we do first?”

“That’s up to you, really. Figure out something you want to do with your time. You can work for me. I’ll pay you, and you can order things to be brought here from Wraith’s Harbor. You can get clothes, weapons, armor, jewelry, magic, whatever. First though it seems like we’re going to need some furniture for this place. You should at least have a bed to sleep on. I’ll have to message Troll and have him buy one.” Winston said thoughtfully.

“As for what work needs done… Well, we need a small garden. I’d like to try and plant the berries from the ginseng although I’m not sure we can get it to grow. We also need to start growing some corn, Bog needs something to eat and I’m basically out of all my grains. Unless she feels like eating fruit all the time we’ll need to supplement her diet with something.”

“That’ll prolly be it for today. Tomorrow the oranges should be ripe, then we’ll be rotating through the various crops as they mature.” Winston said as he stood up.

Kishia stood up as well and the two headed back outside. The rain had let up and the sun was out, baking the moisture out of the ground. Winston pulled up the ginseng from his pack and plucked off the berries. The root was the valuable part, but the berries would let him propagate them.

“Alright, Farming 101” Winston said in his best professor voice. He didn’t really care if the girl wanted to learn or not. He’d teach her as much as he could, for the sake of his reward if nothing else.

“First step is to find a soil suitable for your plant. In this case it’s not a huge problem because we picked this a few miles from here. That means the soils are basically the same, at least in terms of climate and basic composition.” Winston started his lecture as he released his claws and started to dig. He dug a small garden, maybe five feet by five feet and planted the ginseng berries in it.

He continued to explain about soil moisture and various types of loam as the girl mostly tuned him out. He was trying to figure out how to explain the concept of ‘Ph’ to a lizard girl who lived in a bronze age tribe when she interrupted him.

“What is that?” She asked, pointing to the animate scarecrow as it carried another load of plants and tossed them into the compost pits.

“It’s my golem. It’s a scarecrow animated my magic to follow basic commands. It does basic farm work for me. Winston said.

“Isn’t that what you want me to do?” The girl asked.

“No, I want you to find something you want to do. I mean if that’s farming then great. The more people I have working the more I can expand and the more money I can make, but it doesn’t have to be farming. I’ve got money again now, so if you want me to buy a forge and tools for you to start blacksmithing I can do that. Or you can learn pottery, or fishing, or glassblowing, or half a hundred other occupations. You can become a priest of Runa, or you can learn magic. Honestly I just want you to find something you’ll work at.” Winston explained again.

Kishia got quiet after that and Winston left her to think it over. She’d have to make up her own mind.

Winston needed to send Troll a new supply list. Now that he had money again, he’d need to buy some more supplies for his farm. He needed bricks and mortar to build more shrines. He also needed some furniture for his hut. Not only did it being empty annoy him but giving it furniture and making it more ‘comfortable’ would improve its ability to restore his stamina and hit points. It wouldn’t be a lot since it was pretty shabby but every little bit helped.

The next big issue for his farm was getting some things ready to start processing the coffee and chocolate. Selling those weren’t as simple as just picking them. The coffee needed to be fermented to get the coating off the beans, then they had to be dried, have the parchment layer removed, then roasted. The game might let him skip the fermenting and the parchment but the roasting would have to happen.

Winston didn’t have the tools for any of that. Then there was the chocolate. That was an even bigger problem. There were dozens of ways to process chocolate. He still needed to do more research there.

He popped open his interface and opened the auction house. Then he checked out the price of oranges. In Wraith’s Harbor oranges were worth 75 gold/bu. That was extremely low. Then again it was right next to a massive region of jungle. Players likely picked them in the wild and sold them there. Winston scowled at that price. It wasn’t bad exactly, but it wasn’t particularly good. Without the massive quantities he’d been pulling down of grain, he was going to need to do better than just 75 gold. Winston started opening the prices of other regions.

In Westriver oranges were going for 125. That was the best price in the Ten Kingdoms but that was a noob zone. Noobs were always running around questing and were too poor for real food. They lived off grilled meat and stew until they got their feet under them or joined a clan. Why spend 12 silver on an orange when you could buy a dozen pounds of meat for the same price.

The players most likely to want things like oranges and coffee were the hardcore players. They spent most of their lives in game and would pay out the nose for a glass of OJ to go with their breakfast. Winston changed his filters and looked up Chronopolis, The Eternal City. It was the city of the archmagi and the largest city in the game, at least in the American sector. It was located on Vlakeon which was basically on the exact opposite side of the world from Kishik if you used the Ten Kingdoms as the center of Otherworld. It wasn’t really the center, but Other World currently had about 60 confirmed continents and over 5000 zones. To capture it all on one map you needed to make the scale so small everything was tiny dots, or you needed a map the size of a room.

Winston pulled up the auction info there and grunted. Oranges were going for 160/bu in Chronopolis. That still wasn’t great, at least compared to wheat, but it was progress. Coffee was selling for almost 10 gold a pound, but coffee trees only produced five to ten pounds a harvest. Still that should be north of 1000 gold a week for all he’d planted. He searched for chocolate and whistled softly. For raw beans he could get nearly 100 gold a pound. Then again, from what he was reading online a cacao tree might only produce a pound a year. He frowned at that and kept digging.

A website on the chemical changes that occured during roasting and the difference between cacao and cocoa distracted Winston for a solid hour before he got back to his search. There was the problem. Beans processed into cocoa were worth nearly three times as much on the auction house as the raw alternative. Most players likely didn’t really know the difference and those who did were happy to buy cheaper and roast it themselves. Well, Winston would have to do the roasting. He already needed a giant roaster for the coffee beans so no surprises really.

Looked like he was going to need a giant oven as his next project. He was going to looked that up online but noticed it was already dark out. Sighing, he logged out of the game. Seemed he was going to need to send Troll on another shopping spree.

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

“You want, four tons of bricks, a ton of sand, a ton of clay, 100 pounds of quick lime, a ton of powdered limestone, two bushel of corn, a bushel of cloudberries, two beds, two mattresses, A stool, one giant metal cauldron, two giant metal pans, and 3 silver braziers.. That it?” Troll asked in a flat voice.

“That’s all I can think of for now.” Winston said honestly. “Oh wait, I need another ladder, and some of those giant burlap bags everyone puts coffee beans in.” He added. “See if you can get a logo put on them too. Hmmm, I don’t have a logo yet.”

The line was silent for a moment before Troll exploded. “How the hell am I supposed to get all that in my wagon?!”

“Just get another wagon and tie it behind, or buy a few mules or those weird lizards people always use to haul things.” Winston said. “I’ll pay you for it.”

“Thats…... “ Troll sighed. “Fine, whatever, but this is going to cost you.”

“Everything always does.” Winston agreed. “Another thing, you know when the next portal out of Wraith Harbor is happening?”

“This friday, as far as I know.” Troll replied.

“That’s a bit too soon.” Winston said. “I’ll have to get ahold of the Swords and see when they’ve got a portal open from the Ten Kingdoms to Chronopolis. That or I need to start trying to cultivate some buyers on Kishik. What major cities are even around here.” Winston asked.

“You could try Daggersport. It’s pretty popular among players with seagoing races, or those that like to do the pirate thing. It’s not as huge as some other places but it’s got a solid player population.” Troll said.

“Hmmm, well might be something to look into. Trying to move my goods from here to Chronopolis would take at least two teleports, most likely three, unless we get lucky and someone’s opening a direct line. That would cost at least 5000 gold and we’d still have to get you back here. Which means I’d have to fill about four of your wagons to overflowing to make it worth it.” Winston said. “ Well, That’s a problem for another day. I’ve gotta have product before I can worry about where to sell it.”

“You could send it by boat. It’s only about a week from Wraith’s Harbor to Daggersport by ship. It wouldn’t be that hard to find a Captain to haul it for you.” Troll said.

“Same problem through, I’ve still gotta have someone to buy it on the otherside.” Winston said. “Anyway, just bring that stuff. I’ll likely only have some oranges this week. I didn’t realize how much processing I’m going to need to do for the other stuff.”

“Doesn’t matter to be. I get paid regardless.” Troll said happily. “I’ll be there friday.”

“Yeah, Yeah.” Winston muttered and ended the call.

Winston stepped out of his mudhut and into the rain. It was one of those odd days where the sun was shining and it was pouring rain at the same time. The place smelled of wet earth, oranges, coffee, and chocolate. It was bizarre but nice.

It was then he realized he didn’t really have anything to do today. He supposed he could plant some sugarcane or black pepper but without breaking in a whole new field the quantities really wouldn’t be worth it. He guessed he could start on his well but that seemed like a great deal of work and something he should make his golem do.

Kisha was near Runa’s shrine and seemed to be looking at the silver flowers growing below. Winston wandered over towards her, wondering what was so interesting.

“I still have no idea what those are.” Winston said as he approached.

“They’re called Silver-Bloom Moon Lilies.” The lizard-girl said confidently.

“They don’t really look like lilies.” Winston said. They looked more like tulips to him but what did he know about flowers. “Besides, how do you know what they’re called? I doubt they grow around here.”

Kishia thought about that for a while then shrugged. “Don’t know, but that’s what they are. I used to help the medicine woman look for different flowers maybe that’s why.”

Winston thought about that. Did that mean the girl had a high herbalism score? Did NPC’s even have skill levels, at least what players thought of as a skill level. They had actual levels but did they know what their levels were? He’d never thought to ask.

“What level are you?” He blurted out.

“Three… Why?” She asked as she turned to him.

Winston thought that over. So she knew she had levels and knew what it was.

“What about your class?”

The girl looked at him confused. “What do you mean?”

“Nevermind.” He said. So it was levels but no classes. Maybe NPC’s just got classes based off of whatever they did, or maybe they had the same underlying skill system that players did. It would be sorta stupid to build a whole skill system then give the NPC’s something else, but Otherworld was an odd game in a lot of ways.

“Well, would you like to hunt herbs for me? You seem like you’d be good at it, and I’ve got plenty of space here to plant different things.” Winston said.

The girl thought about that, then shrugged. “I guess I could. I’m not sure what else I’d do around here. Playing with dirt and planting things all the time does not sound like fun to me.”

“It’s up to you. I’m just trying to find something you might like. You can take Bog with you for protection. I’m sure she’s bored running around here all the time.” Winston said.

“I might go later, it’s still early.” She said with little enthusiasm. Winston shrugged and wandered off. The girl was going to have to figure her own life out.

He was wandering what to do next when his com chimed. It was Trish. Winston smiled and picked it up.

“WAS IT YOU !?” She shouted over the line as soon as it opened.

Winston winced, then replied. “Was what me?”

“There’s video all over the internet and gaming news of a giant bamboo-shoot pulsing with lava and I’ve got eye-witnesses in Trika saying they saw some mole in overalls come out of a portal and fly off with the Flaming Valkyrie.” She said, still shouting.

“That depends. Are you asking as Trish my girlfriend, or Triska Treesinger head of the Bloodhound’s? Cause if it’s the later than I have no idea what your talking about. If it’s the former then yes, it was me.” Winston replied.

She groaned over the voice-chat. “Do you have any idea how much trouble you caused? There was a coalition of at least two dozen guilds working to keep the Swords out of Cloud Kingdom. Now they’re all looking for you.”

Winston shrugged. “They could have raised someone up to the right level in two or three more days. All I did was accelerate things. You guys had to know they’d get around you eventually, even if you didn’t know the details.Everyone will be too busy fighting in the new zone to bother much with me. Sure, I might get PK’d a few times, but that’s life. Worse-case scenario I just delete my character and start over somewhere else. It would take me a few months to get things moving again, but it wouldn’t be impossible. In the end it’s just a game.” Winston said.

He’d be mad if he kept getting PK’d but he doubted he’d really delete his character. He’d just join Gold and Steel if it really came down to it. He had a high enough level in a crafting profession they’d likely take him in, and they did not allow people to kill their crafters. He could also run into the middle of nowhere and just hide.

Trish sighed again. “I don’t think my guild has figured it out yet, but they might. What are you gonna do if they kick you off their land? Or PK you back to level 10.”

“I’ll go somewhere else. I never really expected this place to be my permanent home. It was just somewhere to hang out in relative safety while I built up my skills. I could use all the money the Swords gave me and get a teleport to the Oceanic Cluster. I can go hang out with the Aussie’s and New Zealanders. They speak English and their woman have hot accents.” Winston said.

“Do you want me to hit you.” Trish asked. Winston laughed.

“Fine, I’m not gonna tell them but I’m not sure how much I can cover for you if they find out.” Trish said worriedly.

“It’s fine. I don’t expect you to chose me over your guild. It’s why I didn't join when you offered. Keeping a line between our professional lives and personal ones is a better decision all around.” Winston told her.

“Love you….” He added.

Trish growled and ended the conversation. Winston smiled as he walked back towards his hut.