Winston rode South-East for a day before swinging onto a road that lead straight south and into the continent's interior. The desert vegetation started to thicken as the temperature dropped and by the time Winston crossed his third zone-border the desert had turned to grasslands dotted with trees and streams. He brought up his interface and checked on online map. His brother was camped out near a forest in the zone and it took him a bit to find it.

He turned his camel off the road and headed west skirting a few wheat fields and sheep pastures. He and the animal had reached an accord of sorts. He’d managed to get to Novice II in riding and although his awkward reclined position wasn’t comfortable it was at least mostly stable. He pulled up to the edge of old-growth forest that skirted the edge of a decent sized river that ran East to West across the zone. A few logging camps worked around the outskirts of the forest and Winston had seen more than a few players working the trees with axes in hand.

Winston found a decent trees away from everyone and tied his camel to it. He wasn’t sure what to do with the animal now that he’d bought it. He supposed he should just find someone to sell it to. It wasn’t really a great mount for most of the game-world.

Then again, maybe he could evolve it like Bog if he found the right food. Then he could have a super-camel. The thought made him laugh and he stuck his back against a birch tree while he waited for his brother to message him.

Argus Thunderbelly: Hey Bro What’s up?

Win Mills: Your name is stupid.

Argus Thunderbelly: Your name is stupid. I on the other hand am an awesome dwarf.

Win Mills: Whatever. Where are you? I’m camped out on the edge of the forest.

His interface chimed with a group invite. Winston accepted and used the small arrow on his interface to guide him towards his brother. He found the group camped out a good mile into the woods near a massive oak tree. The group hadn’t been content with a few tents. Instead they dug a fire-pit, split log for seats , and created sturdy shelters with sticks and canvas instead of simple tents.

“Pretty nice right?” Said a blonde dwarf with his brothers trademark smile. He was wearing a heavy armor, a mix of plate and chainmail with a metal round-shield and hand-axe. “Kevin’s got Apprentice in Camping. He whipped this place up in like an hour. It’s pretty sweet.” Camping was one of the more obscure skills on Otherworld. Useful, but often ignored. It provided some solid bonuses to wound recovery and regeneration and could even give buffs at high levels.

“Let me introduce you to the gang.” Josh said in his normal cheerful voice. He waved at the five other people in the small camp. “This is Chad, Kevin, Rob, Levi, and Noah.” They all sat around the fire eating what seemed to be a bear. They all wore armor and carried weapons.

“Are you guys all fighters?” Winston asked.

“Nope, I’m a Defender, Kevin is a Fighter, Rob a Barbarian, Chad is a Duelist, Levi is a Battlemaster, and Noah is a monk” Josh refuted. Winston blinked at him.

“I mean you don’t have any casters, or priests, or even an archer. You have five physical melee classes?” Winston reiterated.

“Of course. What’s the point of using the game for training if your not mixing it up on the front lines?” Josh asked. Winston opened his mouth to tell his brother he was being an idiot but stopped. Josh wasn’t playing the game to be good. He was playing the game as a form of exercise and training. Telling Josh that he was making the game way harder on himself than he needed to would be pointless. Josh already knew that. Winston closed his mouth and shook his head.

“Point.” Winston said finally. “So where’s this dryad I’m supposed to be healing.”

“It’s over here.” Josh said as he walked away from the tent. It was only about fifty yards before Winston saw a massive oak tree. It’s bark looked old and gnarled but the trunk was at least ten feet wide. A section of bark was missing on the side of the tree closest to the camp. A hole was driven deep into the trunk and black veins of some foul poison crept outwards, poisoning the tree.

Winston learned close to the wound and sniffed lightly. His vision went fuzzy and three red debuff icons popped up on his interface as he stumbled backwards. The black crud smelled like turpentine but it seemed to stick in his nose as he collapsed backwards and wheezed.

“Ok, not very bright.” Winston coughed as he tried to catch his breath.

“Can you heal it?” Josh asked.

“Not sure.” Winston said as the poison debuffs wore off. He staggered to his feet and pulled out his priest staff. Then he started to channel some of his faith towards the tree. The black veins started to sizzle a bit and the hole in the tree started to heal but the black poison didn’t disappear.

“Didn’t work?” Josh asked.

“No, I’m not sure what this poison is. It’s obviously supernatural but it doesn’t feel like faith. Something this dark would have clashed with my faith and they would have nullified each other.” Winston said. At least, he thought so. The priest he had fought in Kishik had been near his level. He wasn’t sure what would happen if he pitted his faith against someone at a much higher level than he was. That wasn’t what this felt like though.

“This feels like some sort of dark nature magic. Maybe witchcraft, or a dark druid or something.” Winston said thoughtfully. He wasn’t even sure if a person could be a dark druid but Otherworld was pretty open about such things. “And this is a tree. I thought I was healing a dryad.”

“I am the tree, and the tree is me.” Said a soft voice.

Winston looked up and saw a femanine face pressing out of the tree. It was rather bizarre. Sort of like she’d just pressed her face against the inside of the tree and made it bulge outwards.

“Hello Moonoak.” Josh said.

“Hello young dwarf. Is this the healer you have brought? He smells of earth and growing things.” Said the dryad.

“He is, although his healing doesn’t seem to have worked.” Josh said, shooting Winston a look.

“Calm down.” Winston told him. “I’ve only tried one thing. Although I don’t have a skill for this it should be fine.”

“What do you mean.” Josh asked.

“I mean, I’ve noticed a few things about the way magic and faith interact in this game. Magic is, on the whole, a lot more versatile than faith. Take a fire sorcerer. They can compact fire into long range attacks, just pour it out as short range AOE, they can create weapons and armor with it, they can shape it into creatures and imbue them with semi-sentience, and those are just some of the options, and sorcerers are one of the least versatile magic classes.

“Faith on the other hand has a much more narrow scope. I can make a shield because Runa has a very heavy emphasis on protection. I can make armor, but that’s just a different shaped shield. However, my shields are a good deal stronger than a magical equivalent would be, because faith is more absolute than magic.

“My plant healing power isn’t a real skill, it’s just a side-effect of pouring out Runa’s faith in its most basic form. However, curing a plant of a poison or disease should be exactly the sort of power and agricultural deity would have. Although, it would probably help if she was a fruit tree ,or something edible.” Winston explained. There was an offended gasp and Winston looked up at the tree ruefully.

“So you can heal her?” Josh said.

“I’m at least 90% confident.” Winston said. “You owe me for this though. I’m thinking a triple cheese-steak burrito.”

“How can you eat that crap.” Josh asked disgusted.

Just because I’m not fat anymore doesn’t mean my eating habits changed. It just means I actually get exercise now. Winston walked around the tree and took out his staff. Creating a new ability wasn’t easy but as long as it matched up decently with Runa’s domains it shouldn’t be impossible.

He cleared his throat and started to summon up his power.

“Runa, Goddess of the walls and fields your servant calls upon your power.” Winston tried to sharpen his will and what he wanted to happen. If Runa was a nature goddess he’d have tried to purify the poison or change it into something non-poisonous, but Runa was a goddess of civilization. His best bet would be to just expel it. He had to work within the boundaries of her power. That got his thoughts going in another direction.

It would probably be more Runa-like to attempt to make the tree resistant or immune to the poison rather than trying to expel or purify it. Runa was all about defense, about construction, about fortifying oneself and one’s people against external aggression. Her power of agriculture was just an extension of that. Agriculture was the most basic and fundamental necessity of civilization. It was what allowed people to live together, to stay put, and to build lives. Yes, Runa seemed more like her followers would have asked to have their fields blessed to prevent things like disease and fungus rather than try to fix them after the fact.

Winston let his power drain away and coughed awkwardly. He needed to approach this differently.

“Problems?” Josh said dryly.

Winston ignored him and got himself ready again. This time he skipped the speech and just focused. His goal was to give the tree a boost in resistance so the poison wouldn’t spread and the dryad could fight it off. He wanted to enhance the tree as well as create a sort of barrier around the poison. He raised his staff and gathered his faith, willing the world to change.

“Fortify Plant!” He called as he tapped the tree with his staff. Silver colored power flew from his staff and the tree started to glow. Winston watched the tree as the power took hold.

[You Have Learned a New Skill]

[Fortify Plant]

[Blesses plant to increase it’s fortitude and resistance]

[Rank: Novice I]

[Duration: Three Days]

[Cooldown: N/A]

[Cost: 200 Faith]]

[Effect: Increases resistance to disease, poison, fungus, physical trauma, and pests by 500% while active.]

“Did it work? Did you heal it?” Josh asked.

“Didn’t try to.” Winston told him. “I just gave the tree a boost. Although your dryad should have some magic of her own. She should be able to heal the tree herself now that she’s not fighting off the poison.”

Winston and Josh watched curiously as the tree continued to glow. After a few seconds a drop of black poison was pushed out of the tree and ran down the trunk. About a minute later another drop was pushed out.

“See, she’s got it now.” Winston said smugly.

Josh looked a bit skeptical but shrugged. “If you say so. So we just wait now?” Winston shrugged.

“I guess, I’d say give it a couple hours then you should complete whatever quest your on.” Winston said.

The two headed back to the camp and Winston was given a wooden plate and fork and handed a slab of the roasting bear meat by the barbarian Rob. Winston nodded his thanks and dug in. It was good and Winston was happy to listen to the football thugs chat and badger each other.

“This is good he said finally. Did you cook this?” He asked the dark-haired barbarian.

“Yep, I’ve got Apprentice level cooking, and I specialize in roasting meat.” Rob said proudly.

Winston nodded at him and lead the conversation to where he wanted it. “What spices did you use on this?”

“It’s just a basic dry-rub. Salt, paprika, a bit of ground mustard seed. Would be better if I had some brown sugar or pepper but that stuff expensive.” Winston nodded. He might try his hand at sugar-cane when he got his new farm going. “Besides that some decent onions or celery seeds would be good as well. Why, you into cooking?”

“I’m a farmer, I just wanna know what people use and can’t get.” Winston said. He wondered what some superior quality onions and celery would be worth, or he could do mustard. That was basically just a weed but he could grow it

“A farmer eh? Never heard of anyone doing that.” Rob said. “What quality plants can you grow?”

“Highest I’ve ever gotten was excellent and that was on a ginseng I raised with my class skills and the blood of a rare-animal.”

“Excellent? That had to be worth a ton of gold.” Rob said sounding surprised. “With excellent ingredients that I could get my skill up to practiced no problem.”

“It was worth about 2 and a half grand, but it was rare quality.”

“Damn, your rich. I’d kill for 2000 gold. All my gear is low-level crap.” Rob grumbled. Winston shrugged.

It was around an hour later when a dryad walked into the camp. She looked a bit like Trish but blonde and more petite. Her skin was pale in the setting sun with a discolored patch the the right of her stomach. It looked like a freshly healed scar.

“I am healed.” She said with a slow smile and blue light flashed in the clearing as three of the guys leveled up. “And much of it is thanks to you.” She said turning to Winston. “I gift thee with a few of my seeds. May you help them grow as you have done with me.” Winston held out his hands and the dryad deposited four acorns.

[Mystic Acorn]

[Uncommon, Regent]

[Oak seeds given to the player by a dryad. It’s rare for them to grant their seeds to humans but if they find someone worthy they will part with some in the hope that they will be planted in distant places and cared for so that the species may spread beyond its mother's forest.]

Winston wasn’t sure what he’d do with them, but you couldn’t beat getting a quest reward for a quest he didn’t even have. Winston bowed his head. “It was but a small favor.”

She nodded somberly. “Thank you all again. I must return to my tree.” She said as she walked away.

“Finally.” Josh said after she had left. “We’ve been working on this quest chain for two weeks.” The guys gave sounds of agreement as Winston stuck the seeds in his pack.

“Where you guys headed next?” Winston asked them. If he was going to do his class quest he’d need to recruit some muscle and these guys would be perfect thug power.

“Not sure yet. That was the end of the chain so we’re free agents for now. Why you need some muscle?” Josh asked, his eyes sharp.

“Possibly. I’ve got a class quest. I’m guessing it’s going to be a hidden dungeon but it might take quite a bit of hunting around to find it.” Winston said.

“That doesn’t sound fun.” The big barbarian said. “Why don’t you go find the dungeon than call us. What zone is it in?”

“The River-Lands. Its only two zones from here.” Winston told them.

“What’s in it for us?” Asked Kevin, their fighter. He wore some splint mail and had a huge claymore strapped to his back.

“Dungeon loot? Hidden dungeons always have better loot than normal dungeons.” Winston said honestly.

“We want paid.” Said the big fighter.

“Then I’m keeping the loot.” Winston said. The fighter frown and stepped forward but Josh pushed between them.

“Let’s all calm down.” Josh said camly. “We can work something out. It’s getting late anyway. Dinner will be ready soon RL and I’m sure my real body is starving. We’ll let Win find the dungeon and then we can decide if we want to help.”

Winston sighed and nodded. He wasn’t really in a hurry to finish the quest. He still had three levels before he could even take his class upgrade but if he had the man-power now he might as well use it.