Emily walked in to work and logged in. While her computer was booting up, she walked down the hall to the break room. Thanking the gods of computers and conscientious co-workers, she proceeded to pour herself a large mug of coffee. Mondays were terrible, but at least she didn’t have any emergencies over the weekend. She made her way back to her cubicle and logged in, sipping the piping hot heavenly beverage in her oversized mug. Checking her email, she was mildly surprised to see one from Marty. “No way in hell he has found another bug.” She muttered as she pulled it up, then read it a few times as it was just odd enough that things didn’t quite penetrate her brain the first time.

Emily,

First, this isn’t a bug report. I’m not sure if you have any control over this or not, but several of us were wondering if you could pass this request to whoever would be in charge of it. While we enjoy the Café Oblivion when we are logged off the game, it seems lacking. We were wondering if someone could enable us to feel mildly inebriated while we drink. We don’t want to be falling down drunk, but you really can’t beat the lassitude of a long day better than having a few beers and letting your cares float away.

Thanks,

Marty, Jon, Phoebe, and Derrick

Huh. The more she thought about it, the more his request made sense, she just didn’t quite know who would be in charge of that. Would it be a separate additive for the nutrient packs, or would they simulate it via the pod. Either way, she had no idea how to pass it along, so she did what every good minion did, and forwarded the email to her boss.

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

I woke up and stretched away the last lingering bit of sleep. I had forgotten to set an alarm, but still managed to wake up by 9 am. I should probably feel bad for sleeping in on a Monday, but since I had theoretically been working all week I didn’t. Besides, I wasn’t anywhere near feeling burnt out as the game was rather engaging. Before logging in, he made a simple breakfast of a few basted eggs and some toast with jelly. “Mmhmm” I mumbled as I took a bite, “Nothing beats dunking your toast in runny egg yolks.” Smiling at the childhood memories of doing this, I savored my breakfast before brushing the crumbs from my hands and walking to the Oblivion door. “Time for work.”

Sitting up in my bed in my inn room, I took a quick inventory before heading downstairs. I still had a handful of mushrooms to turn into potions, but I could do that after Djarleen showed me how to use the blood extraction kit. Hmm, I should probably check to see if there is a book of useful alchemy bits that can be obtained from low level creatures. I could head up and see if Dharkiss had some pikes for cheap, but if Derrick was right then buying them would be a waste. I could probably just make some from stone anyway. I also needed to head to the military compound to check in with Khaliss and turn in the rat quests.

Introspection done, I headed downstairs. “Good morning Alnoss, what’ve we got for breakfast today?”

“Morning Angus! How does eggs, sausage and toast sound?”

“Like a perfect start to the day.” She disappeared, and left me to drum my fingers on her tabletop for a few minutes. She came back with a plate heaping with food. Three eggs sunny side up, two sausage patties the size of my palm, and two pieces of toast. It smelled divine, and I dug right in. “Delicious.” I said between bites. “What is the sausage made of? It tastes a bit gamier than what I’m used to.”

“Oh, it’s a mix. Rock hound is the gamey part, and the fatty part that holds it all together is rat meat. I made the recipe myself.”

“Hmm, never would have thought that rat meat would taste so good. Is it regular rat meat or monster rats like the vicious cave rats?”

“Regular rats. I can never get a good supply of the monster rat meat, but it would be nice to experiment with.”

“Well, I’m heading down to the barracks later today, want me to talk with Khaliss for you? He gave me a quest to kill some of the rats, and it seems like something they constantly work on, and they might be willing to send the rat meat your way for cheap.”

“I. . . I never thought of that before. Would you be willing to do that for me?”

“I wouldn’t have asked if I wasn’t. In fact, I happen to have 19 vicious cave rat meat from my outing the other day, why don’t you start experimenting with it? If you get it to work with your recipe, share it with me?”

“That recipe was going to be the reward for your other quest though. I don’t want to give you a substandard reward, that wouldn’t be right.”

“Well, you could give me both. That way I could see how monster meat compares with regular food animals. Having that knowledge would be worth it so that I could modify recipes easier.”

“If you’re sure….”

“I’m sure. Hopefully you will have some luck with the monster meat, and might even get a dish to give some stat bonuses.” Leaning back in my chair, I patted my belly. “That was a fantastic breakfast. Thanks a bunch Alnoss.”

“No, thank you Angus. I’ll get you that second recipe.”

Groaning a bit as I got up, I headed out to get my errands done for the day. The first stop was see Djarleen for some training. Blood always makes a great reagent for alchemy, and properly harvesting it will let you maximize the amount you are able to collect. While the easiest method would be to obviously hang the creature by its feet, put a bucket under the head and slit the throat, you would also be exposing the blood to a lot of air. More often than not, anything reactive in the blood you harvested would have already reacted before you could bottle it, making it useless.

I was the only one in Djarleen’s shop, which wasn’t surprising at this time of day. “Morning Djarleen, how are you today?”

“Angus, just the kobold I wanted to see. Ready for your blood drawing lessons?”

“Yes ma’am!”

“Excellent. Follow me back here. So I have an eel to practice on, but first we need to go over your equipment. First, we have the syringe. It has a large bore needle, since you are presumably taking blood from something already dead. It won’t complain. You will be able to get enough in this syringe to fill five vials of blood. Next we have the vials. Since we are looking to fill about 2/3 of the vial with blood, we can’t have a sealed vial. The pressure would destroy something. Instead we have these rubberized caps. You will peel back a small portion, that will let the air be expelled as you put in the blood. Speed is key here, as soon as you get it filled to the proper level, pull the syringe back and reseal the vial. Any questions so far?”

“No ma’am. Seems simple enough. Before we go farther, how do you recommend cleaning it? I can’t begin to think what would happen if you tried making a potion from contaminated blood.”

“That’s why I like having you as an apprentice Angus. You ask good questions. Water rinse several times to clear it out, you can do it one of two ways. Draw up into the syringe from a bucket of water, and spray it into the disposal is the easiest. You can also remove the plunger, fill it with water, and put the plunger back on to force everything out. I don’t like this because you can’t get the bottom of the plunger very well. Another trick is to draw up half a syringe of water, fill a bit more with air, and hold it needle up and swirl it around to clean the barrel. After you have cleaned it with water, you can wait for it to dry. If you are like me and get a little impatient, use an alcohol rinse. It’ll dry faster.”

“Huh, that tip about alcohol will help a lot. Ok, I think I have everything so far. Now, how do I draw the actual blood?”

“The easiest way is to find an artery. There’s almost always going to be a large one in the neck. When you draw the blood out, it will fight you a bit. You will have to draw at a slow and steady pace to prevent the artery from collapsing. If it does start, push the needle a little further into the artery. Unless you are trying to draw from a creature that has been dead for a while you shouldn’t have issues with thick blood. Now, let’s test it on this eel.”

“Um, not that I’m questioning your methods, but why an eel?”

She smiled deviously. “Because it is going to be tough. They have a tough skin to punch through, their skin has a bit of slime on it to make it hard to hold, and their bodies resemble an elongated neck. If you can find a shallow artery, it will be like taking from the neck of most creatures.” Finishing her explanation, she whipped out a dagger from somewhere and slammed it through the top of the skull of the creature. “Ok, its dead. We are going to give it 30 seconds for the heart to realize this and stop beating. When that is done, we are going to feel along the neck for an artery.”

“Great, and what exactly does an artery feel like?”

“You will feel a slightly squishy tubelike structure. If it feels taut and won’t compress at all, you most likely have a tendon.” As she explained, she was feeling around the base of the jaw. “Here, feel where my fingers end. Can you find the artery?”

I reached out and started feeling where her fingers had just been. It took a few minutes, but I finally found it. “Ok, now that you have it, the next step is to trace the artery back towards the heart. You won’t get any blood if your needle punches through the artery.” Slowly feeling around some more, I traced the artery back for about an inch. Grabbing the needle, I placed it at a shallow angle and slowly added pressure until I felt the tip start to pierce through. Of course, as soon as the skin broke my needle immediately pushed in half an inch. I managed to stop it before it went in too far, but lost track of the artery when I was doing it.

“Nice save. You managed better than I thought. Remember, when you are working on something with tough skin that the underlying muscle has a lot less resistance. You won’t have that problem with creatures with thin skins like humans or elves. Now, another trick if you find yourself in the same situation, pull the needle almost all the way out, leaving the tip just inside the skin. Find your target again, and then push the needle into it.” Following her instructions, I found the artery again and slid the needle in. Or at least tried. I kept feeling the needle tip slide off the arterial walls. Djarleen noticed my struggle. “Needle sliding off? You need a deeper angle so the tip can bite into the artery.” I increased the angle by about five degrees, and felt the needle slip into the artery. After I felt it pass through the slight resistance, I immediately lowered the angle again so that I was traveling along the artery and not puncturing through it. “Excellent, you managed to correct your angle without blowing out the other side. Go ahead and slowly pull back the plunger, going deeper into the vein as you do.” I started to pull the plunger back, shocked at the initial restraint. With shaking hands, I managed to draw it back about halfway before I started feeling resistance. Slowing down wasn’t helping, so I stopped drawing and slid the needle closer towards the heart. That fixed the issue, and I finished with a syringe full of eel blood. I wiped the sweat off my brow as I saw a new popup.

New Skill Acquired!

You struggled, and managed to successfully draw a syringe of blood. Further practice will increase your mastery.

Blood extraction beginner level 1

Extraction speed increased by 1%

“Did you get the skill? Great. Time to practice bottling.” Djarleen handed me a bottle, and I looked it over before trying. It was simply a large test tube with an odd rubber cap. The lower part of the cap fit inside the tube with a small amount of room to spare, while there was a raised lip on top that folded down over the edge of the tube. This had to be stretched just enough that it would seal around the vial and hold the seal in place. It was tricky getting only part of the lip to flip up and still having a hand free to use the syringe, but I managed after a bit. Once I had my system down, the rest of them weren’t too hard to fill up.

“Well done. Now, you get to practice cleaning up ahahahahaha!”

“The joys of being an apprentice” I mumbled as I spent about twenty minutes cleaning up. Once everything was cleaned and dried properly, I placed it all into my inventory. The nice thing about the sets from the alchemist guild was that everything only took up one inventory slot. I had 500 empty vials, so I wouldn’t run out of them anytime soon. “Thanks Djarleen, before I go do you have any books on magical monsters that I should be collecting blood from?”

“Sorry Angus, there isn’t any book like that to my knowledge. Most monsters I wouldn’t bother with, but if you come across any variants their blood will be worth it.”

“Oh, that’s ok. Do you have anything for low level regents to collect from monsters?”

“There is one for the Overworld, but the Underdark doesn’t’ really have anything. You will most likely need to see what drops from the monsters. You are going to have the best luck with variants. Another thing to look for would be if the variant matches somehow with local flora. Another good one is bright colors or anything flamboyant. The Assassins’ Guild also has a standing order for venom from certain creatures, and will pay rather handsomely. Keep that in mind if you find something venomous.”

“Roger that. Last thing then, where can I go to learn more about creature anatomy?”

“Creature anatomy? What’s that?”

“Hmm, anatomy is the study of structures in the body. Part of it would be knowing the bones and muscles of a creature.”

“Why would you need to know that?”

“Well, you would also know where the venom sacs of a scorpion are located. If you know where the major arteries are, a simple cut can kill the creature in seconds.”

“I suppose it could be useful, but I have no idea. Try either the assassins or the military. Both put a lot of stock on where to hit something to do the most damage.”

“Alright, thanks again Djarleen. I’ll see you later.” Waving, I headed out the door. I made my way to the lower levels, after deciding to skip going to the weapon shop. It would be better in the long run to make the temporary pikes out of stone and boost my mana excavation skill rather than buy weapons.

The barracks seemed to be business as usual when I got down there. There was a squad practicing spear works off in one corner, while some of the archers were taking aim across the way. I looked around but couldn’t pick out where Khaliss had gone to.

“Friend Angus, how are you?” A familiar voice shouted at me. I turned and saw Shrik waving at me from next to the archers.

“Shrik! Good to see you again.” I said while heading over his way. “I was looking for Khaliss, have you seen him around?”

“He is home with his family. Even the captain gets a day off once in a while. I’m in charge when he’s gone, what can I do for you?”

“Well, I have a few things if you don’t mind. I have two quests to turn in for starters.”

“Already? Wonderful! What have you done for our city?”

“Slew 10 vicious cave rats. I also happened to collect 18 of their fangs to turn in.”

“Ah, the standard starter quest. I can give you your rewards for those, one second.” Reaching into a bag he had strapped to his waist, he pulled out a rock tablet. “Touch this, it will register your completed quest and let me know what you get for your rewards.”

Quest Completed!

You have slain ten vicious cave rats for Khaliss.

Reward: 10 silver

Quest Completed!

You have turned in 18 cave rat fangs. This quest is always open, and will remain in your quest journal until you manually remove it.

Reward: 50 copper per fang (9 silver)

“Perfect, your rewards are 19 silver.” He handed me my money and called over his shoulder, “DRAKIEN! Run these fangs up to Dharkiss for new spears.” Turning back to me, he continued, “Those fangs make spears with superior piercing, there isn’t much a rat’s fang won’t go through. Anyway, was that all?”

“No, I’m in a little bit of a bind. I’ve got a weird request, and I hope you don’t think less of me for it.”

“Come over here then, if it is sensitive we shouldn’t talk about it in the open.” He led me to a small office next to several weapon racks. Heading inside revealed a Spartan desk with a chair in front of it for a single guest and an armor rack in one corner with some well used armor. Though it was scuffed and had some minor dents, it was still in great shape. “Ok, now, what is your odd request?”

“I need a way to study dead bodies.”

“Careful. I need to know why, and if you answer wrong there could be serious repercussions. I consider you a friend, but there are some serious taboos that one can come across in dealing with the dead.”

Nodding at how serious he had gotten, I continued. “I want to study them. Hopefully to gain a skill called Anatomy.”

“I’ve never heard of anatomy before, what is it?”

“The study of how bodies are put together. If I learn enough, I will be able to determine where to strike a creature to deal the most damage. Where can I cut to slash through a ligament to disable a limb, can I strike a point in the neck to cut through the artery supplying the brain with blood, things like that.”

“And what will you do with the bodies afterward?”

“Honestly I haven’t thought about it that much. Am I doing anything taboo if I cremate everything?”

“No, cremation should be fine. I’m glad that’s all it was for, and that you didn’t lie to me.” Shrik said as he placed a stone on the desk, he had palmed it sometime during our conversation. “If you had lied about anything, this stone would be glowing. Since it isn’t a taboo like necromancy, there are two places you can go. The first is the Assassins’ Guild, but I wouldn’t recommend that. They tend to focus on sapient targets, and from your description I take it you are looking to perform this on monsters as well, right?”

“Yes, monsters as well.”

“Ok, then I would suggest the temple of Thanatos, God of death. They have greater latitude with things that may be. . . distasteful, to some. Especially since this seems like a way to become more proficient at dealing death, they will probably be interested.”

“That sounds great, thanks Shrik.” I smiled. “Now I just need to figure out where the temple is. Got some directions for a friend?”

“Ha! Of course I do. The temples are located in the third tier. Take the main staircase up, and to the left is the majority of the populace. The temples and royal palace are to the right. You can tell the temples apart by the color of the flames by the gate. Thanatos has a deep purple flame.”

“Thanks Shrik, you’ve been a wonderful help. Before I go, is there anything I can do to help you out some?”

“Well, if you do manage to get your Atanomy skill, come train us sometime?”

“Heh, its Anatomy not Atanomy. But yes, I would be more than happy to drop by and give you guys some pointers. OK, I’m off to the temples. See you later.”

I headed straight up to the temple district, only stopping at the top of the stairs to catch my breath. I didn’t know how they managed it, but each temple had a different flame in front of it. The purple flame of Thanatos was off to one side, all by itself. Carved out of a dusky stone, it was rather intimidating. The gate was flanked by two incredibly lifelike carvings of robed figures. The hands furthest from the gate held lanterns of purple flames in skeletal fingers, while the archway was made from massive scythes carried in their other hands. The courtyard was barren of all life, but several stone shrubs seemed to be growing. Somehow, probably due to the flickering light from torches set into the wall of the church itself, the shrubs seemed to be hands breaking through the ground and reaching upwards in agony. Steeling my nerves, I headed through the archway and into the church itself.

The inside was even creepier than the outside. There were no pews, only a large open space with a drain in the middle of the floor. A stone altar was maybe ten feet in front of the far wall. The base of the altar had several depictions of the hells that awaited the ancient Greeks. Hands thrust out of waves toward a robed figure in a boat, desperate for him to help. Others showed the dead pushing stones up a hill, but none ever reached the top. The last panel I could see on the front had bodies frozen in place, nearly horizontal icicles coming off their bodies from the frigid winds. The worst part of these were the eyes frozen open in panic. Above the altar, a grinning skeleton was coming out from the wall. Purple flames danced in its eyes as the subtle play of light lead you to believe he was grinning manically at you. One hand held a scythe and the other held a heart.

“Mmmmmmm, welcome adventurer. I can tell, you have been steeped in death, and have even had the pleasure of tasting our lord’s embrace. How can the servants of Thanatos help you today?”

I nearly jumped out of my skin as a pitch black kobold materialized from the shadows. Even his eyes were black, save for gold irises. “Hello, I was referred here by Shrik, he thought you would be the best to help me with an issue.” Before I could explain, I felt a cold wind sweep through the church. The purple eyes gained sickly green flames, and the atmosphere felt like an abandoned graveyard on a moonless night. Even though the flames seemed to have grown, and gained immense depth, the amount of actual light they were giving off seemed to dim as time went on. The kobold beside me immediately bowed. Not wanting to piss off a God of death, I turned towards the altar and gave a deep bow as well, keeping my eyes averted.

The priest’s voice changed to a raspy voice, almost a whisper. “Welcome adventurer, to the house of death. I’m intrigued by your plans. You wish to study dead bodies, to improve your killing abilities?”

“Yes. That is one of the things I hope to improve.”

“Tell me, then. Of all the things you wish to improve, and tell me how allowing your study will improve your killing abilities.”

“Of course my lord. From anatomy in the world where adventurers come from, I know that a human’s heart is located slightly to the left of midline. A three-inch blade is long enough to pierce the heart, provided that it finds the gap between ribs. The blade needs to be aimed left of the midline as well, so it avoids the sternum. As to other uses, I am an alchemist. If I study the bodies of variant animals, I can see where their mutations have changed them. If I come across similar mutations, I can infer what will have changed. Say a mutation caused a monster to grow a mana stone in the chest below the heart, allowing for the use of magic. I could target that location in a similar creature and possibly break the stone, crippling its magic capabilities. Venomous and toxic animals also need a way to keep their poisons from killing themselves. If I can find the sacs containing these poisons, I can use them to craft my own potions and poisons.”

“Very well. I approve of your plan, you have a week to show me results. First though, you must pledge yourself to my church.”

Divine Mandate Accepted!

You have been given a mandate from Thanatos: Join my church and further your plans to study the art of death. This quest can’t be turned down.

Requirements

Rewards

Failure

Become a neophyte in the church of Thanatos. In order to do so, you must slay a champion type creature or stronger, and present its heart to the High Priest

Entrance to the ranks of the church of Thanatos

Materials needed to create Anatomy skill

????

Banishment from the church of Thanatos

Death penalties will be doubled

“Do not disappoint me. Though I am tough on failure, I am equally giving with success. Climb high enough in my church, and the blessings you may obtain will make others pale at your strength.” With that final sentence, the priest started to collapse. I caught him before he could completely fall, and he started blinking at me.

“Congratulations, adventurer. Not many draw the personal eye of our lord, time will tell if it is for your good or ill. I would hurry on your way, time is fleeting.”

“Thanks, I think I’ll head out now. I know just the creature who will be giving me its heart.” With a final look to make sure the priest was ok, I headed out the door and down towards the Underdark. I had a rematch scheduled with some hounds.