Logging back in, the system asked me if I wanted to respawn at my last spawnpoint, which was Blackport’s main square. The question was only there to ensure that no one was caught unaware of what was going on. Since I had been logged in at my death, it did not show a recap of how I died.

After I accepted, I felt the twisting, sickening feeling of being teleported, and I found myself in the main square as expected. What I did not expect was that all of my guildmates were waiting there.

“Finally you’re back, why did your respawn time take so long?” Ed grumbled. It did not feel like he was grumbling at me, but the situation.

“I’ll tell you away from prying ears,” I said.

Robert stepped forward, “Was it one of those Bears killing you? Let’s go rip their throats out.”

“I highly doubt it was one of them, they usually gang up on you, and aren’t very cautious. I think it was one of Dawnguard’s assassins,” I said. “But we’re not going after them just now.”

“Why not?” Blaze protested. “We can’t just let them kill us without consequences.”

“And if we hunt them down, we’re just going to be paying more fines or harsher penalties,” Robin countered. I nodded my agreement to that.

Adding to it, I said, “We need to be smart about it.”

“What’s the plan then?” Ed asked.

“First we need to reorganise the parties. Kira you still have a skill slot open?”

She gave a nod. “Of course, been saving it for Leadership. Even though I really wanted to pick up some throwing knives and get some poison from you.”

“Good, it’s time you get your own party. First we need Petals to disband the temporary party, and then Kira and One-Eye will leave Ed’s party.” I waited for a few moments as their eyes glazed over while interacting with the interface. “Petals, by my count you and Marion have run the Sewer Dungeon fifty times?”

“You’re right,” she said.

“Good then Ed can invite the two of you to his party.”

Ed decided to voice a concern, “Damian we just lost two party levels because Kira and One-Eye left, we’ve lost our mana regen bonus while in dungeons.”

“I know it’s not optimal, but it was going to happen sooner or later. Better that it happens now. Robin and Marion will leave your party at some point as well,” I said. “Also, the mana regen bonus is good, but you should pick the perk that gives bonus to the roll determining time dilation. Being ensured a better time dilation is one of the best perks of a Dungeon focused party. Next after Escort of course.”

“Okay, done. Let me guess, you want me to invite my brother, Robert and Elize?” Kira asked.

“Right you are, and then we need to register your party.”

“We do that at the Association, right?”

“Not this time. Well Philmore is heading there to register his new party. You’re going to the Temple,” I said.

“Why the difference?” Elize asked.

“Because Kira is going to register a special party. An Inquisitor party. It allows for hunting down Travellers with Tainted auras.”

“Tainted aura is what players receive if they do something like killing other players outside of a guild war and so on,” Robin explained to the new people who had a confused look on their faces.

“How do we know who has a Taint?” One-Eye asked.

“At first it’ll be mostly guesswork. Kira’s Inspect will be changed a bit. It’ll get a secondary function with a one hour cooldown. When she Inspect people, they’ll be tagged with a symbol she can see if they have a Tainted aura. When you level up the party you can take perks that extends that to Observe for everyone in the party and so on. Even one that reveals how many Tainted auras that are within a certain radius.”

“That’s pretty cool,” Marion said. “So when she has tagged them, we can all attack them inside of town?”

“No, only her party can, otherwise we just get another fine, or worse.”

“Darn it, I wanted to kill some assholes too,” she complained.

“Sorry, but we need a full team for repairing the nodes,” I said with an apologetic smile.

“I know, but let a girl complain. But besides killing them in town, what good does it do?”

“When a Tainted player is killed by an Inquisitor party, they drop a piece of their soul in the form of a crystal. When the Inquisitors brings it to the Temple, the priests and Gods will pass judgement on the Tainted player. Just like on the Bears the other day. The player needs to undergo a penance quest, or receive a pretty hefty curse,” I replied, and the conversation petered out.

Kira’s new party headed for the Temple, while the two Phils headed for the Association. The rest of us set out for the east gate; me and Nise to set up our stall, while Ed’s party was going to kill some rabbits. I checked my inventory to see what I dropped, and while it was a bitter pill to swallow, I was happy it was only a platinum I had dropped on death and not my Lucky Charm.

Next I checked my event log, since it was after nine, my chamomile should have matured to the point of being harvestable.

>One plot of Chamomile, Below Average has matured.<

>Rolling for outcome: 67.<

>Flawed Success - Quality has decreased to Poor.<

>Awarding 1,050 Horticulture XP.<

>Horticulture has risen to level 1.<

>1 Skill Point has been awarded. Acquire 2 more to level up your Character Level.<

It was not the best, but it would have to do. Instead of using Lesser Transmutation and get some Very Poor or Poor seeds out of it, I decided to stop for a moment just buy a new set of seeds to plant. With Horticulture at level 1 I was still only able to plant one plot at the time, needed to get to level 2 before I could plant two plots at a time. Unfortunately that was at least 6 ingame days away, since I needed 2000 XP and the maximum XP I could get from one plot planted with Below Average quality was 1575. It was a slow skill to level up in the start, but once you had more than one plot planted at a time, it would quickly grow from there.

“Nise, I wonder if I could bother you to Harvest my chamomile?” I asked after leaving Fillard’s store where I had sold all my gains from the previous day and bought new seeds and containers.

“Sure, but don’t you want to pick up Harvest yourself?” she questioned with a bit of confusion in her voice.

I nodded. “Eventually, yes. Not now, since I’m going to pick up Brewing, which leaves me without any empty skill slots until level 15. And I really don’t want to take an XP penalty again.”

“Ah. That’s good, then we don’t have to waste as much money on beverages to get rid of Exhaustion,” Ed commented.

“Great, even more dependence on our fearless leader,” Blaze said, sarcasm dripping thick on the fearless part.

“No, you’re welcome to spend coin buying from someone else, instead of just spending contribution points,” I said. “Your contract doesn’t prohibit you from buying from someone else. Just states that the guild has first right of refusal on anything you want to sell.”

“Whatever.” Was Blaze’s brilliant repartee.

Ed ignored Blaze’s grumbling, and asked, “Now that we’re away from prying ears, why where your respawn timer that long?”

“Hidden feature of my class, I get to keep all my XP, but my respawn timer is two hours instead of thirty minutes.”

“That’s pretty good,” Robin said.

“Yeah, especially now that Shadowguard is here, and are not afraid to attack inside the town,” I said wryly. “Guess the Gods didn’t tell about that feature as a test of sorts. See if the person has it remains true to the no violence path.”

“I can see that, I just don’t understand how you can still butcher all those rabbits and still get the class,” Marion pointed out.

To that I could only shrug. I did not know the answer to that. “Maybe it’s something about I didn’t kill it, but it’s not against the pacifist code to process that which is already dead? To be honest, I’ve no freaking idea.”

“Of course you don’t,” Blaze harrumphed.

We all just ignored Blaze and his complaining, even if it was a bit grating. At least he had stopped being a creep as far as I knew. We were almost at the gate when Nise broke the silence and asked, “Should Phil and I take Pacifist as well?”

“That is up to you. However, I think you should consider not to. The Pacifist class is good for someone with a lot of different crafting skills, but if you focus on a specific kind of crafting, like say farming slash ranching. Well then you would be served with a class like Farmer. Everytime you craft or grow something with a class skill you get a percentage of that XP as free XP.”

“Okay, so if I really want to raise pets, I should take a class that resonate with that.”

“Yeah, though as far as I know you might get a few extra skill slots as a Pacifist, though I’m not sure about that,” I said.

“That sounds pretty attractive,” Robin commented.

“It is, but while you all have a skill at level twenty or close to it, my highest skill is Butchery at twelve. And I’m no longer getting XP from level one and two rabbits. And every time I level up I get diminishing returns from butchering any creature with a level lower than my Butchery.”

“Why would they design it like that?” Ed asked with a frown.

“Because as my chance grows, so does my profit. It’s designed that way to keep you challenging yourself with new creatures, or at least those of higher level.”

“Would it be better if we sold the low level rabbits or just looted them?”

“Nah, it’s okay. I can always use the loot, even if the money is less than what the Dusts pay for them. Anyway, I should consider getting an assistant,” I said as we arrived at our usual spot.

There had happened nothing extraordinary the rest of day 18, but the next morning I was on pins and needles, scanning the horizon for a sail. I was feeling desperate for an influx of cash, and the ship I was scouting for had the answer. It was carrying all 540 trophies I had managed to buy at the auction.

That would be enough for 90 attempts to create magical trinkets. With a success rate, including Flawed Successes, of 44% the statistics should have me able to create 39 or 40 trinkets. However, it would cost me not just a lot of time, but also a lot of manastones. Each attempt required 6 manastones, so that meant a total of 540 manastones. I did not have that many, not even with a little help from Phil.

The crafting attempts would have to be spaced out as manastones became available. Which would also give me a chance of earning some more free XP that I could invest in Greater Transmutation and level it up, bettering my chances of a useful item.

I would not be selling them for the five platinum the system said it was worth, instead I would sell it auction. The uniqueness of the item would attract a lot of NPCs. The Locals had a lot of money on their hands, and something like the Lucky Charm that improved all crafting chances, no matter the tier, would be greatly valued. If any of the first hundred Lucky Charms to hit the open market sold for less than 10 platinum, I would be very surprised.

Instead of standing at the usual spot I took up refuge at the docks, collecting rocks, making manastone and Imbuing like crazy. It was not until close to noon that the ship came in, and it was an excruciating twenty minutes before I saw the guards from the auction house come to pick up their shipments. Of course they also had a lot to drop off, so I had to wait another twenty minutes for them to exchange goods.

I followed them back to the auction warehouse, where the larger doors to the warehouse was open. Going inside, I was immediately greeted by the same woman who had been at the desk the other times I had attended the auctions. She was standing behind a lectern. “Hello, how may we help you? Here to register an item for auction?”

“Hello. Not yet, but soon. Right now I’m here to pick up, Damian Heosphoros,” I said with a smile.

She looked down at something for a brief second. “Sorry, we’ve just picked it up, they’re still unloading. It might be ten minutes before I can release your wares.”

“That’s fine, I’ll wait right here,” I said, even though I wanted to demand that she hand over my trophies right away. It was closer to eleven minutes than ten before I finally got my items. Then I had to spend time transferring them into my personal inventory. Too valuable to keep elsewhere.

It was almost one when I found my way into the crafting hall where I paid nine gold to have a private room for the rest of the day. I had time enough for 22 attempts and to take a break for cooking food for myself and the poor people of the town. The first Charm I wanted to try my hands with was the heartwood of twiglings.

Twigling Heartwood Charm

Greater Transmutation Level: 2

Recipe Used: No

Effect of Lucky Charm: +1%

Effect of Titles: +1%

Combined Crafting Points: 90

Highest Crafting Points of the Materials: 15

Possible Outcomes

Failure - 56%

Flawed - 28%

Success - 14%

Exceptional - 2%

Brilliant - 0%

Master Work - 0%

Base Experience: 90 XP

Mana Cost: 45

The first attempt was a Failure with a roll of 73, followed by a Success with a roll of 4. Excited I pulled up the customizing options.

Item Name

Crafting Points

Effect 1

Unlock Effect 2

Twigling Heartwood Charm

90

N/A

100 points

Heartwood charms’ specialty was damage reduction, which would be useful for any tank out there. The first point of damage reduction cost 25 points, while the next cost 50 points. Meaning One-Eye would be getting a Protective Charm, reducing the damage he took by 2 points. Though it was not the only item that could reduce damage, it was unique in that it was a magic trinket that could do it.

It looked like six different coloured branches, one for each of the four base elements and white and black, had twisted themselves into a piece of rope, not the prettiest, but the effect was pretty darn good.

While Petals as the other tank would also need one of these, I chose to equip people in the order they had joined the guild. Which meant that Kira was up next. Grabbing the corresponding number of rat tails I prepared to fail. A lot. Even if the chances were the same. Three failures had to go by before I managed to get a Success. Definitely on the low side of the law of average.

Item Name

Crafting Points

Effect 1

Unlock Effect 2

Rat Tail Charm

90

N/A

100 points

The main attraction of the rat tail charm was the stamina drain. Unfortunately it cost 50 points for the first point, and maybe a hundred for the next. The chances of applying the effect was 1% per hit, and it started a countdown that drained stamina after 10 seconds. The more stacks that were on a target the better. If you only had one stack it would drain 5 stamina, if you had two it would drain 20. Three stacks would drain 45, with four draining 80 and so on. It was wasted on anyone but fast hitting melee combatants, at least until I could make one with a higher chance of applying.

Robin was next on my list, and for her I would need the paws of the horned cats. This time four failures ensued before I got a Flawed Success.

Item Name

Crafting Points

Effect 1

Unlock Effect 2

Cat Paw Charm

68

N/A

100 points

Even if it had been a normal Success, I would not have been able to buy more than the first tier of the paws’ special ability. A short term Vanish spell. For a second you turned invisible, but could not attack. However, it was good for dodging attacks, or repositioning to a blind angle. The drawback was the five minute cooldown. The cooldown could not be lowered, only the duration could be raised, but I did not have the points for it.

Last up was the tail feather from the horned owl. With two dedicated spellslingers, a summoner and a healer, it would have been nice if I had more than just ten attempts to craft four charms. Nevertheless, I started and hoped for the best.

I got a Flawed Success on the first try, which was more than fine, since it cost 50 points to unlock the special feature.

Item Name

Crafting Points

Effect 1

Unlock Effect 2

Charm of Clarity

18

Mana Regen: 1 per minute

100 points

The mana regen might not seem like much, but it was a godsend for adventuring for two reasons. The tick happened every minute no matter what you did; fighting or resting it did not matter. Secondly the regenerated mana by the Charm did not generate Exhaustion.

When the next attempt turned out to be a Flawed Success, I got my hopes up. It was followed by a Failure and then another Flawed Success. In just four attempts I had crafted 3 of the 4 charms needed, which meant I had six attempts to craft the last one. Which should be no big deal.

Just thinking that made the Gods laugh at me, and I ended up with five failures in a row. With sweaty palms I nervously attempted the last attempt I had with the tail feathers. It turned into a Success.

Relieved I looked over my results while meditating. So far I had attempted 21 times and only succeeded 7. Around 33%, much lower than the 44% it should have been. Nevertheless, I had gotten all but two of our combatants equipped with Charms. Just needed one for Petals and Robert. A Protective Charm would be the best option for both of them.

‘Oh. I just broke my promise of making it in order of them joining. Hope this last attempt works out for Petals, so I don’t become a total liar,’ I thought as I put the six trophies in the middle of my transmutation diagram.

>You’ve finished trasmutating: Twigling Heartwood Charm.<

>Rolling for outcome: 46.<

>You have Failed. Awarding 42 Greater Transmutation XP.<

‘Fuck. Something about telling your plans to the world, and the Gods pisses at you, or something,’ I thought a little bitter as I packed up for the day. The rest of the Charms would have to wait for a few days, until I had built up a stockpile of manastones. Nevertheless I still had plenty of time, the great monthly auction would not happen until the 30th, which would be the best setting to earn ridiculous sums of money. Maybe I would sell a few charms on one of the weekly auctions, just to create some hype around it.

That was however a decision for another time. For now it was time to log out, and receive my daily dose of torture at the hands of Kira.