“That does not look natural.” Jason said, his voice a bit odd.

Wiston whistled softly but didn’t speak up. Whistling had been a hard trick to learn with the shape of his character's mouth but he hadn’t had much else to do as he toiled in the fields.

“It’s like a chick who went way over the top with a boob job. Had she stuck with the D’s she might have still been able to sell it, but instead she skipped right to the F’s.” Jason continued.

Winston looked away from his orange trees and gave his friend the side-eye. “You really put a lot of thought into that didn’t you.” Winston laughed as he looked back to his trees. He hated to admit it but Jason did have a point.

The orange trees were all only around seven or eight feet tall, but they were packed with oranges. So many, the branches were being bent down by all the weight. Jason’s comparison wasn’t too far off though. It just looked unnatural. Winston realized his yield calculations had been a bit off.

“I suppose this is the result of picking a production class in a fantasy game. Other characters get to hurl around lighting and break the laws of physics. I get to plant orange trees that grow unnatural amounts of oranges.” Winston said thoughtfully. He checked his character sheet and his eyebrows went up. It was no wonder. With his latest skill upgrades, his new gear, and his blessings this batch or oranges was getting +108% yield.

“Makes sense. It’s like, just because a 90 pound elf girl has 300 strength doesn’t mean she can lift boulders or punch down city walls. She still only weighs 90 pounds. Physics doesn’t work like that. If a person with superhuman strength punches a city wall the person goes flying and the wall stays there. If they can cheat it only makes sense you should get to.” Jason added in agreement.

“Well, if characters added mass every time they upped their strength it would really cut down on the sex appeal and no game company wants that. What’s a fantasy game without girls in poorly thought out armor designs?” Winston added as he carried a wooden ladder to the first orange tree and climbed up.

He leaned over and looked down at Jason. “You wanna help, or you just board chopping down trees?” Winston asked his friend.

Jason grimaced. “A little of both. You know that fairy quest I got a couple weeks ago?”

“Mmmmhmmm” Winston mumbled as he filled his pack with oranges.

“Well, I found the fifth fairy yesterday.” Jason explained. “Now I’ve got a quest to enter a dungeon, but no group to go diving with. Brad said he’d be getting here tomorrow to work on wards for you. With him I might be able to swing it. He is level 50.”

Winston grunted as he reached way off the ladder to grab an orange on a high branch. “If you’re getting him to smash through a low-level dungeon take me with you. Dungeons always have rare resources for miners and herbalists. Maybe I could find some rare seeds. I’ve also got a dungeon quest, but I don’t know if it’s the right dungeon.”

“If your hanging out here go get the barrels out of my hut. We’re going to need a butt load of them.” Winston added. Each barrel held about 3 and half bushel, or around 200 pounds of oranges. Winston was expecting to get maybe 30 bushels out of his trees, but with the ridiculous amount of oranges hanging off them he was going to end up with something like 90 bushel. That was way more than he was expecting. He was going to run out of barrels. He’d only bought 30 of them. He’d get by with the crates, but he was going to need restock when Troll got here.

It was a good problem to have, but it was still a problem. He’d have to get Troll to see if he could find a NPC cooper to make him some casks in pipe or hogshead size.

That had been another rather informative trip down the google rabbit hole that Winston had run into when he first decided to buy barrels. At first he’d just been seeing if he could make casks and barrels himself, but after learning everything involved in coopering he’d quickly written the idea off. It had however let him find out about different types of coopers, the various standard sizes of barrels and casks, and American beer taxation in the 1860’s.

The information hadn’t been very useful or relevant, but it had been interesting. Winston had found a lot of information like that since he’d started farming in Otherworld. Jason wandered back over with a barrel over each shoulder and Winston quickly climbed down and dumped out his pack into one, before climbing back up and continuing to pick.

“Where’s your apprentice at?” Jason asked as Winston kept picking oranges and occasionally moving his ladder.

Winston pointed a few trees away were the lizard girl was picking oranges. She seemed to have shanghaied his golem into carrying barrels for her but she was working at a decent clip. Winston sighed slightly. With her picking instead of the golem Winston would be losing out on a good chunk of XP, but the girl had pitched in on her own accord and it was best not to stamp that out.

Winston dumped more oranges into the barrel. Then waved to Jason who stuck on the barrel cap. Lucky the game had simplified the process and instead of having to loosen the barrel bands to get the thing in, Jason just had to put it on and twist and the barrel sealed perfectly.

The large crocodile man picked the barrel up with a grunt and hosted it over one shoulder before he staggered towards the hut. Winston kept picking. His Fruit Sub-skill hit Beginner III by the third tree and Winston smiled happily. With all the fruit trees he had planted he should hit Apprentice rank by friday. Then he’d see what interesting skills the game had to offer him.

Four hours later Jason, Winston, and Kisha sat sweating against the outside wall of the hut, soaking up what little shade the wall behind them offered.. Twenty-six barrels now sat inside the hut. Each one packed full of oranges.

“Do you work like this every day?” Jason asked, still puffing for air.

“Pretty much. Although once you get into the groove it’s not too bad. It’s the humidity here that’s brutal. At least in Lunari it was dry.” Winston complained.

“You’ve been to Lunari?” Asked Kishia.

“Just left there. It’s dry, and sorta crappy.” Winston said. “Well, I guess it does have a sorta stark beauty.”

“I’d love to see another continent.” Kishia said.

“If you work hard and find yourself a profession. I’ll take you to another continent when your apprenticeship is over.” Winston promised. “Welp…” He continued, standing up and brushing off his fur. “I’ve got trig to work on. Last test before Winter break coming up on Wednesday.”

Winston waved to the other two, went into the hut and logged off.

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

The next day was apples and pears. The apples trees hadn’t done well. Winston wasn’t sure if it was some actual real life reason or if the game had just decided apple trees didn’t grow well in a jungle. The trees didn’t look sick but they weren’t as full and lush as the pear trees next to them.

In contrast to the apples the pear trees looked great. Each pear was plump and seemed to glisten in the afternoon sunshine. Winston smiled as he inspected one and saw it was high quality. The apples on the other hand were mostly standard with a bit of low quality mixed in.

Winston got to picking. Grimacing at the amount of pears he was pulling down. He was so screwed. He was going to be piling fruit on the ground if this kept up. He really needed to build some sort of storage. Then again fruit really didn’t store. It was good for about a week, two at the outside. Even if he whipped up some sort of refrigerator that wouldn’t help. Lots of fruits spoil faster in the cold. No, he would need to muck about with time to make a true storage building.

That was possible but he’d need a very high level enchanter. Then again… Winston looked from his trees and to the distant road where a wizard in a black robe rode on a pale-green horse. The horse was sprinting down the road at an incredible speed as a dust cloud rose from behind it. Winston smiled. Seems his farm was going to get more crowded. He hopped down off his ladder and walked towards the road to meet his friend.

“And lo’ a pale horse.” Winston said with a grin.

Brad, or Erithor level 52 Runic Wardmaster, looked down at his mount. The horse was a rather bizarre green color, it looked a bit sickly with the glowing silver runes on its sides.

“Yeah….. The runes will probably kill it in a few days. Even with Professional IV in magical runes I still can’t get them to stick to anything alive without killing it or warping it into a monster.” Brad said, in his normal impassive voice. “Still, buy a twenty gold horse, slap some endurance and speed runes on it and you’ve got an epic mount, at least for a week or so.”

“As cold and practical as always.” Winston said, shaking his head.

Winston pulled up Brad’s info and dropped 5k gold into his account. He still had about 78,000 in there, with the Swords recent deposit.

“Alright, lets see what you’ve got Mr. Runic Wardmaster.” Winston said.

Brad looked around my orchard and my mud hut then looked back to me.

“How am I supposed to ward your walls when you don’t have any walls?” He asked.

Winston opened his mouth to respond then froze “That’s… a very good question.” Winston said, suddenly feeling very silly. He too looked around not really sure what he could do to solve the problem. His palisade was still weeks out, and now with so much fruit to pick it would take even longer.

Brad looked at him and let out a chuckle. “Well, as long as you’re prepared.”

“Let’s say that a wall is out of the question for the moment. What could we use as a back up?” Winston asked.

“Well, lots of things really.” Brad said, scratching his wizard’s goatee. He looked like the evil wizard in an old play, all black robes and sharp goatee. “A few large gemstones, a stone wall, a few magical artifacts, if none of those then I at least need a few big chunks of stone. We can surround the property like Stonehenge and I can rune those up into some wards."

Winston looked around at the jungle and his eyes landed on the large rock formation. It was huge but if he was to smash it up a bit and move the rock chunks he might be able to get it going.

Then he looked at the trees still mostly full of fruit and sighed. It seemed sacrifices were going to have to be made. Looks like he’d been missing out of some more xp. He commanded his golem and new apprentice to keep picking while he moved over to the rock formation to take a look with Brad and Jason.

“So something like this?” Winston asked, pointing out a large knob of rock.He had climbed up on the huge formation and was dangling off one side, pointing to a chunk of rock the size of a garbage can.

“A little bigger would be better.” Brad said. “Stone doesn’t hold magic that well so you need a lot for a ward foundation.” He said. "That's why walls work so well. Even if each brick only holds a fraction of a point a mana. It still takes millions of them to make up a wall." Winston adjusted and found a larger outcropping. It was the size of a small yard cart and had to weigh three tones. Winston had no idea how they’d move it once he knocked it off.

There was nothing for it. Winston went to get his pickaxe and started to chip away at the massive boulder. It took hours to make any progress and it was nearly 9:30 when the rock fell the fifteen feet to the ground.

[You Have Learned a New Sub-Skill]

[Quarrying]

[Current Rank: Novice I]

Jason had been a step ahead and had gathered up the logs he’d chopped down earlier to make some rollers. The two grunted and sweated as they moved the stone to where Brad indicated. It was directly north of the Shrine, which marked the center of Winston’s territory. The next two days passed quickly as Winston worked himself and his helpers to the bone.

He hit Beginner IV in fruits on Thursday as he harvested coffee cherries and tossed them into random crates. He and Jason managed to get the South and East stones placed as well. Brad had decided on eight stones and spent his time carving bizarre runes into the massive rocks and pumping in buckets of mana.

Friday was chocolate day, but that went pretty quickly. The chocolate trees seemed to be alright, but they just didn’t produce much. It only took about an hour to strip the trees of their fruits, then crack them open to get out the cacao beans.

That put the focus on the stones Brad wanted. Jason and Winston were hacking at the rocks to free a second big stone when Troll pulled in. He really had bought a second wagon and a few land lizards to pull it. Both pulled up next to the hut as he freed his trolls to start unloading.

Winston climbed down from the rock formation and went to help unload. There were piles of bricks, lime, mortar, and sand. The quicklime had to go inside out of the rain, but the rest could handle the weather. The barrels and crates of oranges, apples, and pears went onto Troll’s wagon. He let Winston take his crates but he had to order a lot more. Winston would need hundreds on hand to keep up with his use.

“So what do you want me to do with all these?” Troll asked, as he waved to all the barrels and crates of fruit.”

Winston sighed. He’d been dreading that question. It wasn’t that it was very complicated. He just hadn’t made up his mind. “The problem is fruit just doesn’t keep. If we managed to ship the fruit to Chronopolis we’d clear something like… 17, maybe 20k if we got lucky with buy orders and someone really wanted some high-quality pears for some reason. That’s 8k more than just dumping them in Wraith Harbor but fruit only keeps a week or two.

Otherwise I’d stick them in a warehouse for two or three weeks until we had a huge load. It would probably cost us 3 or 4 thousand to port to the 10 kingdoms from Wraith Harbor since its out of the way and firmly in the Hounds territory. Then it’s 1.5ish to Chronopolis from the kingdoms and I’d make at least 50 most likely.” Winston said. “That would be pretty good for three weeks wages. I wouldn’t make that much with a college education and a decent job.”

“Well, there are warehouses with time dilation.” Troll said. “They are expensive but if you can move enough you can afford it. You’re pretty rich for a player.” Winston raised an eyebrow at that.

“Well alright, for a normal player. I mean it’s not like there’s much money in dungeon running unless you get something really rare. Even top raiders are usually poor unless they play for a clan with a good benefits package. Crafters, merchants, and streamers leave you in the dust though.” Troll said.

Winston laughed. Yes, he’d managed to carve out a decent little job for himself but he was the Otherworld equivalent to a low-level salaryman. The top crafters might spend a month making a single sword but when they could sell it for half a million gold they were still playing in a league way above his.

That suited Winston just fine. He was still in highschool. If he started pulling too much money out of the game he’d start attracting attention. His parents would be mad enough when they couldn’t claim him on their taxes this year.

“Well, look into it for me, and see what the teleport from Wraith Harbor will cost us. For now, just dump these on the local AH. There’s no reason to start adding complications until I get the chocolate and coffee going. That’s where we’ll make our real money. Then you can start charging two or three times as much for multi-leg trips and I’ll still be making more money. A rising tide lifts all ships after all.”

Troll grunted and pulled out two large flat metal pans. They were easily eight square feet each. “And what are these for?” He asked as he put them down inside Winston’s dirt hut.

“Roasting pans. Need to roast the coffee and chocolate beans. That’s why I had to buy all that other crap. I’m gonna have to make a big oven for them.” Winston explained.

Troll looked from the pans to the giant pile of various materials. “Have fun with that.” He muttered before he hitched his trolls back up to the wagon. “Don’t forget the beds. They’re in that crate.” He said, nodding to one towards the back of the wagon as he hopped into the driver's seat. “Well, I’m out. It’s three days to Wraith’s harbor and three days back. So I wont be getting much rest.” He said.

Winston and Jason grabbed the bed frames and mattresses as Troll pulled away. Winston watched him go and looked down at the piles of various materials. It was going to be a long night.