The transition from the shooting range to inside my rented room at the inn was a bit disconcerting. Even though it was the second time I had done it. The room was just big enough for the bed, and that was it. Cost five silver for the night. However, it ensured the safety of my items while I was offline.

Though the others had grumbled the first night over the expense of renting a room, after hearing what had happened to other players, they had no problem with paying for the room afterwards. Because your avatar did not disappear when you logged out, a few players had been robbed during the first night, when they had logged out in the middle of the street. The guards dragged them into alleys, or otherwise out of the way. And someone had taken advantage of that, a couple of players had been killed.

Before leaving the room, I checked my progress over the last day, just to get an idea on what skills to focus on.

Name

Tier

Level

XP

Observe

Beginner

0

860/1000

Lesser Transmutation

Beginner

0

0/1000

Greater Transmutation

Beginner

0

0/1000

Imbue

Beginner

0

665/1000

Message

Beginner

0

200/1000

Meditation

Beginner

1

1548/2000

Butchery

Beginner

2

1686/3000

Gem Cutting

Beginner

0

343/1000

Alchemy

Beginner

0

542/1000

Cooking

Beginner

2

129/3000

Unassigned XP: 0

Upgrade Points: 0

I had made major progress over the last day ingame. I had gained four skill levels, meaning I had levelled my character up to level 2, and was only one skill level away from becoming level 3. The attribute points from becoming level 2 was invested the same way as when I became level 1. One point in Strength and two points in Endurance and Dexterity. If I continued in the same way as the day before, by focusing on Butchery and Cooking for the poor of Blackport, I would level up a skill at least another two times. And Meditation and Observe was close to levelling up as well, which would put me halfway to level 4.

As I stepped out of my room, I saw Ed waiting at the top of the stairs. That way he could not miss anyone leaving. As soon as he saw me he walked over, “Good morning.”

“Good morning Ed, what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I’m running out of manastones, I only got two stones left,” he informed me with a frown.

“I see, well after you guys are done training this morning, we’ll be going on an expedition. Need one last ingredient before I can make the solution needed for elemental manastones,” I explained as I moved past him and started down the stairs.

“What do you need?” he asked as he followed me.

Looking around downstairs, I saw a few NPCs, but no players. It was almost dawn in game, or midnight in the real world, so it was to be expected that most players would not login until later. Absentmindedly I answered his questions, “Sour joys.”

“Aren’t those the quest item for one of the starter quests?”

“Yup,” I confirmed as I weaved my way through the tables to get to the front door, “It’s also one of the plants that can be made into the acidic solution needed to create manastones.”

“Okay, where are these plants?”

Stepping out of the front door I found the rest of the guild waiting outside, in the main square of Blackport. I made a motion for Ed to follow me, as I steered towards the inn’s open-sided stable, “In the plains. You’ve seen those large swatches of blue flowers?”

“Yeah, there’s no rabbits immediate next to them from what I’ve seen. But they’re all pretty close to the forest, meaning it’s where we can run into level four and five rabbits.”

“Correct, why I need an escort.”

“What’s in it for us?”

“Well for you, you get access to elemental manastones,” I answered as I found my cart where I left it, “But I see where you’re coming from. Since I’m going to have to take Herbalism to get it, which means I’m going to incur an XP penalty, we might as well collect a lot of the flowers. I’ll give each of you a sack of flowers, or enough to turn in the quest ten times. Can’t remember if it’s two hundred or two hundred fifty flowers to a sack.”

“Are you sure there’ll be enough flowers for that?”

“Yeah, we might need to visit one or two patches of flowers, but they’re small and grow very close to each other,” I said the last part as we rejoined the others.

“What are you talking about?” Robin asked curiously. The others did not seem to care much. One-Eye and Blaze was making a plan for dealing with the harassment of the Bears. Kira was looking around, as if looking for something, or someone. The discussion during our first logout had had a remarkable effect on all of them but Ed. Ed still seemed suspicious of everything I did. Blaze and One-Eye coasted on with an air of ambivalence, while Kira had become my biggest fan. Robin still had a lot of questions, but they were part of her normal curiosity, not of distrust towards me. At least that is how I read them, I could be wrong.

I told Robin what I had told Ed, when a flash of light from the fountain announced the arrival of a new player. Looking over I saw it was a young woman, fairly short, thin and with long blonde hair. She was dressed in a practical, but well fitting, peasant dress in a light blue colour, with brown trim.

As soon as Kira saw her, she let out a squeal and ran at her. The new arrival managed a short meep, before she was enveloped in a bearhug by Kira, “Damn it’s good to see you Nise.”

“Put me down, please,” the new arrival, Nise, protested in a weak voice as Kira spun both of them around. Taking the time to Observe her I saw that her name was Nise Brighteyes.

Finally putting her down, Kira led her over to the rest of us, “Guys, I’ll like you to meet our newest member, Denise, or Nise.”

“Oh, really?” I asked, slightly amused and a whole lot confused.

“Yes, she’s willing to sign the contract, and she’s already paid for the first month herself,” Kira grinned. A grin that made me feel like I was starting to get a headache.

“You could’ve run it past me first,” I muttered, before turning my attention to Nise, “Hi, the name’s Damian. And I guess a welcome to the guild is in order.”

“Kira, you said they already knew,” Nise groaned, “Uhm, well, yes. Hi, I guess. I’m Denise, but you can call me Nise. I’d very much like to join your guild if that’s okay.”

“May I ask why? Sorry to put you on the spot, but Kira told us nothing about this,” I looked around at the others, “At least not me.”

The others shook their head, confirming that they did not know either. Nise looked down, blushing a bit, “Uhm, I met Kira years ago in group therapy, before they cut the funding you know. I was blinded four years ago, and Kira said she was going to get new legs by playing this game, so I asked if I could earn enough money for regrowing my eyes—”

“And let me guess, she said you could by joining us?” I asked with dread.

“Uhm,” Nise just groaned, but nodded her head. Kira at least had the decency to look embarrassed.

“It’s not impossible, but I can’t really guarantee a timeli—” I started.

“She’s willing to sign the same contract we did, not the more loose one like Robin has offered everyone who contacted me to join,” Kira interrupted me, and explained in a rush, almost stumbling over her words.

Taking a deep breath, I did some mental calculations. It would not be impossible, but would definitely set back the growth rate of the guild. It was not a small investment. With a sigh, I gave my accept, “Fine, you can join. But Kira, no more promising surgery for prospective members without running it by me first. While I would love to do both, making sure people are not forced into comas are more important than regenerative surgeries for the moment. Understood?”

She frowned, before mumbling, “I understand.”

“Sorry about that,” I turned my attention to the new member of the group. I mentally ordered my pod to sent her the contract. It would be waiting for her when she signed out. I then invited her to join the guild, “Despite the little argument right now, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Same,” she mumbled, and shyly took my proferred hand.

“May I ask what skills you took?”

“Uhm,” she looked to hesitate for a moment.

Kira immediately answered for her, “What Robin said you recommended for crafters.”

“A crafter?” I asked surprised, “What would you like to do?”

“Something with, uhm, plants and animals,” she answered. I noticed she was topping often as if to search for the word she needed. She clearly lacked confidence.

“Animals?”

“Yes,” she whispered, as if it was not an acceptable answer.

“I see,” I started thinking about the possibilities, “And you’re okay with butchering them as well?”

“Not really,” she immediately answered, then looked aghast, “But I will if it’s necessary.”

I could see that she really did not want to, so to get a better understanding, “Would you be okay with me butchering them?”

She gave a hesitant nod, appearing more and more frightful with each question I asked. Luckily the others had stayed out of this, but I felt bad for this girl. Having gotten the answers, I had an idea for a build, but I would have to see if she was interested, “How about we start you out with some Farming and Herbalism, then we’ll get around to animals later. They’re expensive to rear, and if you’re not that interested in rearing them for food, it’s going to take a lot more time and resources to make it profitable.”

When she heard that, she nodded eagerly. I turned to the others, “Go ahead and go training. I’ll take care of Nise. And get her started.”

A few minutes went by, with the others greeting her and welcoming her. Blaze of course made her blush by his inappropriate comments, nearly scaring the girl into running away. When they were on their way, I turned my attention back to Nise, “What did you buy at creation?”

“Just this backpack, boots and the dress,” she nervously picked at her dress.

“Okay then, let us get some basic down first then,” I said and went on to teach her how to use Message and Observe. Next I taught her Meditation and took her to pick up the starter quests.

The important parts came next. Equipping her, and unlocking a few more skills that would be useful to her. First we got her the tools she would need for planting crops. Next we had to hunt down some seeds, the price of which surprised her.

“How can a pouch of carrot seeds be that expensive?” she gulped at the two gold price tag.

“Because seeds are not dropped, you need to use Lesser Transmutation on a bunch of carrots or their tops, to create seeds,” I explained.

“The young man is correct,” the storekeeper said. Fillard was his name according to my memory and Observe. Never waste an opportunity to train the skill, “Have you heard of the Rupture?”

Unfortunately for me, Nise shook her head, which made Fillard launch into a long explanation. Since I would either have to be very rude, or listen to what I already knew; I decided to listen, while sorting through my items. I was running low on funds and needed to sell and restock anyway.

“In ancient times, there were no humans. There were the Nine Great Races, or the Ancient Races as we call them today. One day, portals to another world, an evil world opened. Invaders most vile swarmed the lands. The Ancient Races fought against them best they could, even the Deities joined in the fight.

“But it was all for naught, the Invaders and their nefarious Deities was too powerful. When the war was won, the Ancient Races was almost wiped out. No race had a large enough population to repopulate. Cross-species breeding was the only way for the races to go on. Through the ages, the bloodlines of the Ancient Races became thinner and thinner. And you were left with us humans.

“Not long ago, the Rupture started anew, and we’re powerless to stop the Invaders, which is why the Deities have summoned you to fight for us,” Fillard explained in a creaky voice.

“What does that have to do with the seeds?” Nise asked confused. I noticed a few other players had entered the store, and was standing there impatiently, waiting for Fillard to finish. It took me a moment to recognize Petals’ two friends. They had been joined by the barbarian stereotype.

“Young people,” Fillard muttered before answering, “Well you see. The magic released by the portals to the other planes or worlds. Wherever the Invaders come from has messed with a lot of things. We Natives can no longer be resurrected. Some beasts have become twisted. And crops no longer drop seeds. We can only rely on natural spawning plants, or we’ve to use Lesser Transmutation to turn the full plants into seeds.”

“Uhm, I don’t really understand,” Nise said.

Before Fillard launched into another explanation, I quickly said, “It’s the way this World works, I’ll tell you the details later. We shouldn’t hold up the queue.”

She looked behind her, and saw the other players. Blushing she mumbled a “Sorry!”.

Turning my attention to Fillard, I started putting items on the counter from personal inventory, and a few sacks I had dragged in from the cart, while he was talking. Even when I had been outside, I could hear him droning on. As I put the first sack on the counter I said, “I’ve a lot to sell, and then the young lady will be buying some seeds. Two separate transactions.”

“Very good, let me see what you got here,” Fillard looked at in the three sacks first, “Let me see, five rabbit furs of poor quality. I’ll give you seven copper for each. And then we got one hundred and thirty two of below average quality. I’ll give you ten for each.”

“What?” one of Petals’ friends exclaimed, “How come he has so many below average quality? I’ve only seen poor quality drop.”

“Hey, isn’t it that guy that buys rabbits from us?” the other of Petals’ friend asked.

“It is,” the barbarian confirmed.

“Because even for the Beginner tier in Butchery the normal quality, unless I’m unlucky, is below average,” I answered without looking back. Not that it was any of their business, but it was not like it was a big secret. That made them pipe down, and they started discussing if one of them should pick up Butchery.

Fillard had ignored them and moved on, “And then we’ve nine jars of one liter of rabbit blood, plus one jar with zero point seven liters. All below average quality. I’ll give you one gold for each liter of blood, and fifteen silver for each of the jars.”

“What the fuck?” one of them muttered.

“And lastly we’ve two jars with fifty rabbit eyes. All of them are below average quality. That’ll come to one silver per eye and forty silver for each of the jars. Are these prices acceptable?”

“Sure, if my calculations are correct that should come to one platinum, eight gold, two silver and fifteen coppers,” I replied immediately, having long since calculated the value, just waited for the old man to catch up.

“Correct, will you be buying anything?” Fillard asked eagerly.

“Sure, I need two new glass jars with the solution for the eyes. And another ten normal glass jars. Let me get forty sacks and five hundred wooden skewers. Do you have any clay jars for manastone solutions?”

“Yes we do, they go for five silver each.”

“Okay, give me eight of those.”

“That’ll be five gold for the two glass jars, ten gold for the normal glass jars and two for the clay jars,” he recited as he started stacking up everything I had ordered, “The skewers comes to ten silver coins, as does the sacks. For a total of eighteen gold coins. Is this trade acceptable?”

“Yes, it’s acceptable,” I started packing away the items. Luckily they did not weigh a lot, so they easily went into my personal inventory. I also pocketed the remaining ten gold, two silver and fifteen copper coins. Still not as much as I had paid for all the rabbits, but I had not factored in the meat, bones or horns, which was also worth quite a bit, especially processed. Unfortunately I had to take a loss on each glass jar. At least they paid seventy percent, or there about, of the value back when I was selling the blood and eyes.

The players behind me stared at me. It was probably more money than they had earned. In fact I was pretty certain that was the case, because I had been buying most of the rabbits they had killed, and thus providing most of their income.

We spent another few minutes buying seeds. It was mostly for crops like carrots, potatoes and sugar beets, as well as some cooking herbs. In the game they would have a grow time of between three and five days. Which was somewhat manageable starting out. I also instructed her to buy seeds for thyme or another herb like that as well as a lot of sacks; she would need them.

I spent another five gold for another table, before heading towards the east gate. I saw the guard that had shot Iron Bear patrolling on top of the wall, reminding me that I had not yet bought him that ale. Cursing myself, I swore that I would remember.

At the gate, I stopped and addressed the guard there, “Greetings, my friend here was wondering if she was allowed to plant some crops near where I set up my stall?”

“For ten silver a week per plot, we can allow it,” he said with a greedy smile. It meant that probably half of it went to the guards. If not more. However, having obtained legal permission, they could not come after her. She handed over twenty silver, because she was only able to plant one plot at level zero. She would have to reach Farming level 2 before she could plant another plot. The second plot was for planting thyme which went under Horticulture.

As we moved out of the gate, she got her first look at the battlefield in front of the gate. Her eyes were large as she took in everything. Chuckling, I led her over to my usual spot, “Wait until there’s more than a handful of players out there. Then it’ll be a regular fireworks display.”

“Really?”

“Yup,” I grinned, “Now listen, you wanted to grow things, which will take time. Days, in fact. So I recommend you plant them as soon as possible, I can grind some bones into fertilizer and in the meantime you can practice Observe and Meditate. Not really riveting, but it’s something to do. Later we’ll go out to gather some flowers with the others.

“To alleviate your boredom, I’ll make you a proposal. Most of the players are or will be level five soon. That means they’ll need to fill their satiety. I’ll cook the skewers, if you’ll sell them. You keep half the coins of any food you sell for me. If you’ll act as my clerk and buy the rabbits they come to sell me.”

“Uhm, I guess that’s okay,” she answered hesitantly, “What’s satiety?”

I explained the satiety system, as I set up the tables. The front table would be for the grill and Nise, while the other table would be my work table. When I had explained the satiety system to her, I guided her to a nearby spot where she started by removing the grass, then hoed the plot before finally planting the carrot seeds and unlocking Farming. The plot was one by one meter, not big, but should provide up to 160 carrots or so. Next she cleared a plot a fifth that size for thyme, and soon after unlocked Horticulture.

With her manning the booth, though she struggled a bit talking with so many strange people, I could easily manage to do three rotations of butchering rabbits per hour, instead of the normal two. I had the time down to a minute per rabbit, which was pretty good. Even if I had to go and cook some food, I was still butchering at least eighteen rabbits per hour.

A couple of hours, an increased skill level in Observe and character level later, the rest of the guild came out of the gate. We spent a few minutes packing up, to the frustration of the players who wanted to sell rabbits or buy food. Blaze was immediately trying to hit on Nise, but got bodily dragged away by an irate Kira.

“Where are we going?” Ed asked.

With a grin I told him,“I’ll leave that to you guys, there’s a patch of flowers over there, or there. You’re the party leader, you know better what your group can handle than I do.”

He shot me a glare, before taking in the two patches I had pointed out. While he was looking over the possible routes, Robin stopped next to me, “We’ve had a lot of people interested in joining the guild, but they think that the contracts are too harsh. Having read over a few contracts from other guilds that have been leaked, it does seem quite draconian.”

With a shrug I gave her my reply, “I know, but I don’t want to change the contract. Even the one you wrote up for existing players to join is too lax.”

“Too lax? If not for you promising to pay for her eyes, I don’t think Nise would’ve joined with my contract, much less your contract.”

“In time, people will accept the contract if they want to join us. And to be frank, I don’t really want people to join the guild, unless we pull them out of the coffins.”

“Why not?”

“Because we’re not a normal guild. We’re not going to get involved in guild politics if I can help it. We’ll remain neutral, and focus on one goal. And that is to get as many people as possible out of those damn coffins.”

“But from what Ed told me, we need to grow fast and become big to be able to compete with the other guilds for resources.”

“That’s not true. If we grow too fast, we can’t ensure a solid foundation, and we might end up pulling people out of the coffins for one month, and then have to send them back. A more measured growth is more sustainable. And if we focus on people like you and the others, with long term contracts, we can sustain a steady growth for a long time. And look around, besides the Bears, we’re the only guild here at the moment. All by design,” I finished saying, when Ed finally had decided on a direction.

“I’ve been wondering why there’s so few people here?”

Ed answered before I could,“The Islands as the string of islands are affectionately known, was scored very low by the beta testers, because of the lack of transport. Long distance teleportation doesn’t work on them. You’ve to sail one week ingame in either direction to reach one of the continents. Cobble that with few quests and dungeons, and you get an unpopular destination.”

“Exactly,” I nodded, “That means very few guilds will be interested in the location. A perfect spot to build up a new guild.”

“The new continent would be better, according to the testers,” Ed countered.

“True, if you want to be embroiled in the fight over resources. Which I’m not,” I stated once again. I could not very well tell them of the importance of Blackport and the other Islands in the future. If I claimed it was my beta testing friend, they would ask why none of the big guilds were here.

We fell into silence, as the five combatants cleared the way for me and Nise. Ed was reduced to fighting with his staff, wanting to preserve his last few manastones. Ten minutes later we had arrived at the first patch of flowers. Even though I had been prepared, the stench still hit me. An almost rancid sewer smell.

“What the fuck is that?” Blaze managed to squeak out between gags.

“The sour joys,” I gasped, trying to breath through my mouth.

“That’s nasty.”

“A defense mechanism. See how there’s no rabbits coming near this place?” I explained, “Nise, don’t pick any flowers at the edge. It might be of higher quality than in the middle, but if we pick all of the flowers, the rabbits will take over the spawn, and with the high quality flowers, you’re almost certain to fail. The stench is stronger the more of them there are next to each other.”

“Why would flowers smell this bad?” Robin asked, while pinching her nose, giving her voice a nasal quality.

“They look like flowers, are called flowers, but they’re actually a weed,” I answered, and then turned my attention to Nise who stood looking confused.

“Uhm, what do I do?” she asked when she saw me looking at her, “Do I need my sickle or?”

“No. That would be overkill, just bend down and pluck the flower. Takes no time nor any stamina.”

She did, and the flower just grumbled into motes of lights as soon as she did. Looking at me with confusion in her eyes, “Why did it say I have a zero percent chance?”

“Because it was of average quality or better. Stick to below average or poor. Even very poor will be fine for handing in the quest,” I instructed her and bent down to pluck a flower of my own.

You’ve unlocked the skill Herbalism, do you wish to learn this skill at this time?

WARNING

If you learn this skill, you’ll exceed the skill cap and incur an XP penalty. The penalty will be: 11%

Do you still wish to learn this skill?

Yes/No

I knew that was coming, but accepted anyway. I would need a lot of herbs moving forward, so Herbalism would be a necessary evil for me. The flower turned to motes of light, a failure. There was not a lot of technique or skill needed to pluck flowers. Just reach down, then a quick pinch and twist of your wrist, and you had the flower. Even without being frantic, you could easily pluck five or six flowers every ten seconds.

“How are the percentages calculated?” Nise asked after a few minutes.

“Since you’re getting an ingredient and not a finished product it’s a little convoluted. The success rate is the hard one, the flawed success and failure is easy,” I pulled up an overlay just to be sure I had the right figures.

Sour Joy

Herbalism Level: 0

Quality: Poor

Rarity: Common

Possible Outcomes

Failure - 46%

Flawed - 36%

Success - 18%

Base experience: 2 XP

“Flawed success is the double of a normal success, while failure is a one hundred minus the two others,” I then stopped for a second, “Of course if Success becomes over thirty three percent you can’t fail any longer, and Flawed become one hundred minus your Success rate.”

“Okay, I think I get that, but how is the Success rate calculated?”

“Here’s where it gets dicey. Every material, ingredient, reagent and so on have a Quality and a Rarity rating which determines the total crafting points of the material. Quality is a flat number of crafting points. Very poor starts at five, poor has ten, below average has fifteen and average has twenty five. There’s a total of ten quality ratings that ends at perfect. With me so far?”

I looked at her, and when she nodded, I continued, “Rarity is a multiplier. Common is one, while Uncommon is three and Sparse is six. You’ve a total of seven different Rarities. So a material with average quality, but is just of Common rarity will be worth twenty five crafting points, while a poor but Uncommon material has thirty crafting points. Ten times three.”

“Uhm, I think I understand, but what has that got to do with the success rate?”

“Now we’re getting into the hard math. If you were crafting the end product, you would have three more degrees of success. Exceptional, Brilliant and Masterwork. For every five percent chance you’ve for a normal Success, you get one percent chance of an Exceptional Success. For every four percent in Exceptional you get one in Brilliant. And for every three in Brilliant you get one percent chance for Masterwork,” I stopped and looked at her. She had confusion written all over her face.

“Let us say you have fifteen percent chance of getting a normal Success, how many would you have in Exceptional?”

She had to think for a bit, “Uhm, three.”

“Exactly, and if you had twenty?”

“Four,” she answered immediately, looking expectantly at me. When I did not reply immediately, she started looking fretful, before quickly adding in a rush, “Oh, and one percent in Brilliant.”

“Exactly. Now to find the Success rate you start with twenty five, and minus that with the highest number of crafting points used in what you create. So let us say I’m crafting something using a poor Common material. The crafting points for that combination is ten. Twenty five minus ten is fifteen, an—”

“And then you got three percent chance for an Exceptional Success as well as the fifteen percent for a normal Success,” she eagerly added.

“Correct.”

“But why does it say eighteen when I look at a sour joy of poor quality?”

“Because there’s only Flawed and normal Success, the three other kinds of successes get rolled into Success,” I explained and waited to see if she got it on her own.

“That means fifteen for the normal Success plus the three for the Exceptional Success for a total of eighteen?” the statement was a bit hesitant, and was more of a question, but correct nonetheless.

“You got it. Of course as your level increases in a skill, so does the success rate, meaning that you can tackle higher qualities or rarities. Beginner tier increases the chance by one for each level,” I smiled, and went back to picking flowers. With more than half the flowers we picked turning into lights, we would need to visit quite a few patches of sour joys. After you got used to the smell, it was not too bad, but I still longed for a long warm shower or bath to get rid of the smell.