Winston’s feet padded across the hard-baked earth as he trudged across the desert land-scape. The West-Empire was only about 25% desert. It had eighteen zones, 4 were desert but only one was ‘deep desert’. The rest looked like the scenery in New Mexico or Arizona. It was desert but with plenty of cacti and scrub brush.

It was an odd area of the game. The West-Empire was the only continent connected to the starter-zone by land. That meant the majority of guilds had rushed in and started to set-up guildhalls there, but there were few real cities. It made for a continent with a rather high-player population for somewhere so far from the games ‘frontlines’, but few players actually quested in West-Empire. It was mostly filled up with gathers and craftsmen from the various guilds.

He nodded to an she-elf who road by on some sort of scaled horse, then gave a half-wave to a bear-shifter who was mining a large rock-formation. It was odd to see so many players around. He was used to Kishik and Lunari where there might be a dozen players in each zone instead of hundreds.

The zone with Ruger and Brad’s guild was at least three zones over from where he’d teleported to. It would be a long boring walk, but at least he had messages to keep him company. Troll had heard about his troubles and was taking a week off gaming, but he’d sent over an itemized list of the items he’d sold in Chronopolis.

[Sales by Item]

[Oranges - Std: 5 bu * 80g 400g]

[High Quality: 17bu * 130g 2,210g]

[Superior Quality: 8bu * 220g 1760g]

[Oranges Total: 4370g]

[Apples - Std: 12 bu * 40g 480g]

[High Quality: 14 bu * 90g 1260g]

[Superior Quality: 6bu * 260g 1560g]

[Apples Total: 3300g]

[Pears - Std: 10 bu * 30g 300g]

[High Quality: 18bu * 75g 1260g]

[Superior Quality: 9bu* 180g 1620g]

[Pears Total: 3180g]

[Ginseng - Std N/A]

[High Quality - 4 * 25g = 100g]

[Superior Quality: 12* 109g = 1308g]

[Spiked Doom Ginseng - Std N/A]

[High Quality - 5*375g = 1875g]

[Superior Quality: 3*519g = 1557]

[Golden Fate Ginseng: - 2365g]

[Ginseng Total: 7205]

[Coffee - Std Qty 3lbs*60g = 180g]

[High Quality - 20*140g = 2800g]

[Superior Quality: 2*300g = 600g]

[Coffee Total: 3580]

[Chocolate - Std Qty 8lbs*130g = 1040g]

[High Quality - 33*204g = 6732g]

[Superior Quality: 7*490g = 3430g]

[Chocolate Total:11,202]

Gross Income: 32,837

AH Cut: 4925g 6s 4c

Transportation Fees: 2500 +(5% Gross) = 4141g 11s

Total Profit: 23,768g 6s 10c

Winston frowned at the number. With the cost of the portal he hadn’t really made that much money, but since his cut of the guild raid had been something close to 26,00g. The entire sordid affair hadn’t cost him much besides time. He still felt annoyed about it all but it was time to make a fresh start.

He had a but over 74,000 gold in the bank and that should be plenty for starting up a new farm. He hadn’t done a great job with his last one. He’d never felt safe enough to start pouring in money and he supposed his fears had been validated. On the other hand, he should have just gone to Ruger and Brad’s guild to start with. He supposed he’d wanted to be closer to Trish in game, but that had backfired spectacularly.

He wasn’t sure where Trish had gone in game. She’d told him she quit and left but she hadn’t said to where. He supposed she’d turn up eventually. Maybe she was working on a high-level class quest or something.

Winston saw an interesting cactus off to the left-side of the road and walked over to grab a fruit off the top. The cactus was fat and short, a bit like a blue-myrtle cactus but with three stalks around a slightly shorter middle stalk. The fruit on the three outside stalks was a bright blue, but the center stalk was a deep purple. Winston thought it might be worth it to extract some seeds.

The stalks were covered in spines but the fruit weren’t. Winston carefully moved around it and grabbed the purple fruit in the middle.

[Purple Wave-Cactus Fruit]

[Food, Regent, Standard]

[The central fruit of a wave-cactus. The fruit has a sweet and tangy taste.]

Winston sniffed the fruit. Then bit into it. The insides were fibrous but surprisingly juicy. It tasted like an odd grape-fruit. Not overly sweet, but not unpleasant either. Winston spat out a few of the seeds and stuck them in his pack before eating the rest of the fruit.

He turned to had back to the road when his interface beeped.

[Incoming Message]

Winston raised his eyes. It was a voice message instead of a normal text messag.

“Hey little bro what’s up!” Called a cheerful voice. Winston smiled, but he was surprised.

“Josh? I didn’t think you plated otherworld too much? And how did you know my ingame name?” Winston asked.

“Had to ask Jessica. And I do play, just not as much as you. Me and the guys get together one or twice a week to beat up some monsters.” Josh said.

“So, what did you message me for? Wanna go grab lunch or something?” Winston asked.

“I actually need your help. You said you were a farmer in game right? Do you have any skills that can heal plants?” Josh asked, sounding a bit awkward for once.

“At least one, possibly another that could do it indirectly. Why do you need to heal a plant?” Winston asked.

“Well, we and the guys found this quest but the NPC that gave it is a dryad. She’s been poisoned by something and nothing we do seems to help. Then I thought of you. Do you think you could heal her?” Josh asked.

“It’s possible. Where are you guys? Traveling around isn’t exactly easy.” Winston said.

“Justice-Hold in the West Empire. Jess said you were leaving Kishik and would probably head to west-empire when I walked to her. Are you close by?” Josh asked. Winston brought up his interface and searched for a decent map. He was fairly close, but heading towards Josh would take him further away from Ruger and Brad. Then again, Josh didn’t ask him for favors often.

“Alright, I’ll head that way. Probably three or four days walk from here.” Winston said as he headed back to the road. He needed to keep going to the same direction until he came to the next fork. Then he’d need to go right instead of left.

“Four days? Don’t you mount. I thought you were rich.” Josh asked incredulously.

Winston grimaced. He’d always planned on making Bog his mount but her body wasn’t really shaped for it and neither was his. He’d have to get some sort of special saddle made to be able to ride her and he didn’t think he’d much enjoy being a mount either.

“I’m a farmer. I usually just stay in one place.” Winston muttered. Josh had a point though. The fact he’d be traveling for days should have at least made him buy a horse or something. Josh just stayed silent on his end.

“Fine, I’ll go buy a horse. There should be a few guild halls around him. Someone should be able to sell me one.” Winston said finally.

“Perfect.” Josh said happily.

Winston sighed.

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

“So what do you want to buy?” Asked a tall tanned-skinned player. He was build broad, like a foot-ball player but he spoke in a soft voice as he showed Winston around the stables. “Most of these belong to the guild members, but the ones in this row are the guilds shared mounts, you can pick any of these.”

Winston had walked for another few hours before logging out the day before to get some sleep before school. He’d searched online and found this small guild-hall which was nearby. The guild only had a couple dozen members and Winston had decided to stop and ask if they had any mounts for sale.

He’d been lead back to the stables and met Fred, the stablemaster. Winston walked down the row. There were two horses, one looked like a cart horse and was tall and powerful, the other looked more like a racehorse but Winston didn’t bother with either of those. His legs were too short compared to the rest of his body. There was no way he’d be able to sit a horse.

There was also a chocobo-type creature but again, Winston didn’t think he’d be able to mount it properly. That left him with an odd sort of lizard-creature. It looked a bit like a crocodile, but with a higher-slung body and longer legs. It had a wide-flat back and that was what Winston needed in a mount.

“I’ll take the lizard. Do you have a saddle for it that would fit me? It’s tough mounting when your legs are as short as mine are.” Winston told Fred.

Fred looked him over for a moment then nodded and lead him back through the stables and to a storage room. The walls held racks with saddles draped over them, but off to one side was a sort of platform with a chair on top. It looked almost like a throne or a palanquin.

“The guildmaster bought this for a war-elephant mount he wanted but the monster was killed before he could capture it. It’s been sitting in here for months, but if we reworked it a bit, you could use it on that sand-runner.” Fred said.

“And how much would that cost me.” Winston said warily.

“Two-thousand, plus another thousand for the mount.” Fred answered quickly.

Winston just stared at him. 2000 for reworking the odd throne thing wasn’t a terrible price, expensive but not over the top. The mount though, that couldn’t be worth more than 200 or 300 gold. Mounts were pretty cheap unless you wanted something really good like Trish’s boar or a flying mount. Those could sell for hundreds of thousands of gold but a normal horse was only like 100. Even if the lizard was better and faster 500 would be pushing let alone 1000.

“There’s no way I’m giving you more than 2500.” Winston said.

“That’s a top-tier sand-runner. It’s the best mount for this area” Fred argued.

“If it’s the best mount, why are you selling it.” Winston countered. He was sure he was getting the bottom of the barrel. He wasn’t going to get ripped off for no reason.

Fred opened his mouth to say something else but Winston just shook his head. “Don’t bother.” He said as he turned and left.

As he was leaving the guild-hall a player rode in on a two-hump camel. The player turned towards the stables but Winston flagged him down.

“I’ll give you 300 gold for your mount.” He said, before the player could ask him what he wanted. The player blinked at him a few times then shrugged.

“Alright.” He said, and hopped down, handing Winston the reigns. Winston sent the player the money then tried to get on top of the beast. It was a struggle, but eventually he used the wall of a building and climbed on. He couldn’t sit properly, but he could sort of lean back against the camel’s hump and balance there.

Winston give the reigns a gentle flick and the camel set off at a slow walk. The motion was awkward but Winston could hold on. Once he started moving with the beasts motion instead of against it his interface beeped.

[You Have Learned the Skill Riding]

[Current Rank = Novice I]

As soon as he got the skill his balance became more steady and he tried to get the camel to speed up. It sped up into a sort of loping jog. Something smoother than a horses trot, but slower. Winston didn’t really care. It beat walking although he had a feeling his back would be killing him by the time he made it to his brother.