Logging into the game on the morning of the 24th day ingame day, was a little weird. Instead of setting out at once I had to wait for Mia to finish her character creation. Ed had promised to take care of explaining the basics to the newbies. To pass time I visited Fillard’s.

“Morning Damian, been a couple of days since your last visit,” he said as soon as I stepped into the store.

“Good morning. Yeah, I know, been busy and had to handle some problems in my own world,” I replied while stacking up the jars of blood I had collected.

“I hope all is well, but please don’t share any information regarding your world.”

“Don’t worry, I know that the Gods will punish you if I share specifics,” I said with a frown. It was funny that the AI was preventing the minor AIs from realizing that they were AIs. I remember having seen an interview with Ken Masters on the subject. He said the reason why the AIs controlling the NPCs could not know what they really were, was to enhance how real they felt.

“Good. So just the usual, some new glass jars?” he asked as he eyed the items I put on the counter,

“Sure, but me and the rest of the guild might come by later or tomorrow and pick up a lot of camping supplies. We’re going for a three day trip into the forest.”

Fillard stopped what he was doing, and looked up at me with worry etched into his features. “That’s dangerous territory, it was so even before the Rupture. However, it has become much worse since then. Especially around the old castle ruins.”

“I know, but if we stay here the rest of my guild will never become strong enough to help fight the Invaders,” I said and was just about to add “and the Titans”, but managed to catch myself from making that slip up. No one knew of the three end bosses, better known as the Titans. At least not yet.

“Are you just going to hunt in the woods or?”

“I heard there were a dungeon at the old castle ruins, I think that might be the optimal destination.”

“Then you be needing some holy ointment,” Fillard said with conviction.

“So there’s undead there?” I asked, purposefully playing dumb. I already knew that there were undead there.

“Aye, there be a lot of undead there.”

“I guess I can make holy water and ointment with Alchemy. I’ve plenty of horns from white rabbits, but I need the other ingredients, like snowberries or something like that.”

“You should go talk to Old Millie, she grows some in her backyard, but she’s a cranky old bat,” Fillard advised.

“Thanks, I’ll do that,” I said and scooped up the coins he had placed on the counter while we had been talking. Just to keep up appearance of not knowing too much, I asked, “Where does she live?”

“Her house is near the cliffs in the south eastern part of town, you can easily find it. The house is barely a shack, but the garden is well kept and the biggest in Blackport,” Fillard said.

Saying my goodbyes I headed towards Old Millie’s place. Though she was fondly known by the townspeople as Old Millie, she was really Lady Milabelle, the aunt of the Lord. She was also a skilled horticulturist and alchemist, but she did not like to sell just to anyone.

Faction

Reputation Points

Reputation Level

Needed for next Level

Blackport (Overall)

139

Accepted

225

Blackport (Lord)

330

Liked

450

Blackport (Guard)

92

Accepted

225

Blackport (Rich)

92

Accepted

225

Blackport (Middle)

92

Accepted

225

Blackport (Poor)

92

Accepted

225

Looking up my reputation for Blackport I saw that both overall and for the rich faction of the town, I had reached the level of Accepted. If not for the lowered threshold, I would not have reached the level just yet. I just hoped it was enough to get her to sell to me. I frowned when I looked at the poor faction. For all I had done so far, I had not gained a single reputation point, most likely because it was all for the quest.

First I had to stop at the Alchemist Supply Store and see if he would sell me the recipes. Since they were not poisons, for humans, he should be willing to sell them.

It took me a few wrong turns before I finally found Old Millie’s place. Not because it was hard to find as such, just my memory of the exact location was a bit hazy. Thought I remembered a shortcut that was not there.

The shack was not that large to look at, in fact it looked worse than the houses in the poor section. Then again it was not where she slept, it was just her garden. Nevertheless, the Locals referred to it as her house because she spent more time there than in the Lord’s Manor.

Even though it was only shortly after dawn, I could already hear someone humming inside the garden. I stopped one step inside the garden, and called out, “Excuse me.”

“Be with you in a minute,” the voice of an older female came from behind a couple of large bushes. The tone brokered no discussion, I would either wait or not be received at all. I already knew she had a habit of making people wait, so I just stood there and waited.

After two minutes, and with a bit of rustle from the bush, Old Millie stood up, barely taller than the bush. I could only see her forehead and her white hair. It was completely white, not a single strand of grey in it.

The frumpy Lady came out from behind the bushes. If I did not know she was actually a Lady, I would assume that she was a poor old woman, barely able to feed herself. Her clothes were worn and dirty, dirt on her hands and a few streaks of dirt in her face.

“What can Old Millie do for you, boy?” she asked, looking me up and down.

“Hello, I was hoping I could buy some snowberries. My guild is planning a trip to the old castle ruins, we heard there were undead there,” I said in a respectful tone.

“And what good will snowberries do you there?”

“Snowberries, also known as ghostberries, can be used to create what most call holy ointment and holy water, together with an elemental catalyst, like the horns of the white rabbit,” I said.

“Well, you’re not completely stupid,” she said and took a closer look at me. “I don’t normally sell to people I don’t know. Your reputation shows that you’ve been doing something worthwhile for the town however. So I’ll allow you to buy some snowberries if you accept this quest.”

Quest Offered

Type: Repeatable

Use Only

‘Old Millie’ does not trust you enough. Her garden contains many dangerous plants. You can buy from her, if you promise not to sell or give the plants to others, nor are you allowed to turn them into seeds.

Reward

None

Penalty for Failure

-1000 Reputation with ‘Old Millie’.

-100 Reputation with the Lord of Blackport.

Do you wish to accept this Quest?

Yes/No

While I had hoped for better, I knew that she was not one to trust easily. I accepted the quest without hesitation.

“Good, how much do you want?” she asked as soon as I accepted the quest.

Pulling up the recipes for the holy water and holy ointment. Holy water required five horns for each attempt to create ten bottles, while the holy ointment required ten attempts to create five bottles. I had already checked my inventory earlier, and had 68 white horns. With a bit of luck I would be able to get the number to 70.

“I need enough for twenty five ointments and forty bottles of holy water,” I said after doing some calculations.

“I can accommodate that, not much use of my plants these days, with everyone staying inside the walls,” she said and motioned for me to follow her. We went to the back of the little shack, where she weaved her hands in a series of complex gestures. As soon as she stopped, the ground seemed to open up in front of her, and something that looked like a thick root came out of the ground carrying a small package.

She grabbed the package and turned around to me. “That’ll be a total of twenty one gold.”

I knew it would be expensive, but there was nothing I could do but grit my teeth and hand over the platinum I had gotten earlier at Fillard’s, plus an extra gold. “Thanks, I hope this will protect my guild.”

“It should, unless you screw up making them,” she said and started walking away. Clearly I had been dismissed. Together with the ten gold I had spent earlier on the two recipes, I was starting to feel poor. I only had a bit over one and a quarter platinum left to my name, and I would still need to buy bottles. Sixty five bottles would come to another six gold and ten silver. Leaving me with less than a platinum.

I had one last stop to make before I rejoined the rest of the guild: The crafting hall. I did not have a lot of manastones, only enough for five attempts, but we had two new crafters that could use the luck. I would settle with one Lucky Charm for Mia, but I reckoned we might as well improve the chance for Blaze’s mom as well.

Fortunately it had only taken three attempts to craft the two Lucky Charms. I had admonished both of the recipients to keep mum about the charms when around non-guild members.

Afterwards we had made our way to the usual spot where Nise helped Blaze’s mom with her limited skill set, while I took Mia under my wing. The first thing I did was change my mentee from Elize to Mia.

“Did you take the skills I mentioned?” I asked her.

“Yeah, Observe, Message, Leatherworking, Weaving and Tailoring,” she replied. I had advised her to take other skills than the usual, since she knew nothing of the last three skills. She could perhaps learned by watching instruction videos, but this was quicker. We also had plenty of people with Lesser Transmutation, Greater Transmutation and Imbue. Nise, the two Phils, Blaze’s mom and I all had those three skills. Which should be more than enough to cover us for the moment.

Also since she was to be my assistant, I would be nearby to take care of using the different ritual spells. The reason I had not asked Philmore to take Carpentry as a starting skills, was because Phil had told me that he and his dad had spent a lot of time with simulators building boats. A way to keep the family tradition alive.

“Good, and did you buy all the tools? Including a butcher knife set?”

“Yup,” she replied with a bright smile.

“Good, then it’s time you learned Butchery,” I said and started transferring all the seagulls and level 1 rabbits to her.

“Okay then, the first thing you do is—” I started to explain the process of butchering a rabbit.

“Ew, it’s kinda disgusting,” she said when I peeled the skin off the rabbit.

“In the start it might be, but you quickly get used to it,” I said with a smile. “Remember it’s only a game, and you don’t need to clean its guts. The truly horrifying part, as far as I’ve been able to find when watching instructional videos from the twenty first century.”

“That helps a bit,” she muttered.

“Okay, now you go ahead and skin these rabbits. The guild will, or rather I will buy the bones and meat if they’re above average quality or better. The guild will buy any quality horns, and I’ll buy any quality feet. The rest you should keep or sell as you want,” I instructed.”

“I’ll try to do my best, I don’t like that I’m already in debt with regards to contribution points,” she said with a frown.

“It’s better to pay contribution points for the rabbits than money.”

“I guess,” she said and looked at the rabbit on the table in front of her. “When am I going to plant the seeds you had me buy?”

“We’re leaving the town tomorrow in game, and they have a three day growth cycle, so we’ll plant next to the camp we’re setting up.”

“Okay. That makes sense,” she said and hesitantly picked up the knife from her set. Smiling, I turned my attention to a boring but necessary job: Making fertilizer. Since we would be gone for a few days, I would need to create a lot of it for the others.

A unit of bones, or more precisely half a kilo, went into the large mortar. Grabbing the pestle I started crushing the bones. A prompt asked me what plant I was making fertilizer for, and what size the field was. The plant was the only thing I should pay any attention to, since none of us had Farming or Horticulture skills at Apprentice or higher. Only when you had reached the higher tiers could you start making larger sized plot.

Fertilizer for Tiny Corn Field

Alchemy Level: 6

Recipe Used: Yes

Effect of Lucky Charm: +1%

Combined Crafting Points: 15

Highest Crafting Points of the Materials: 15

Possible Outcomes

Failure - 46%

Flawed - 34%

Success - 17%

Exceptional - 3%

Brilliant - 0%

Master Work - 0%

Base Experience: 10 XP

Stamina Cost: 40

The XP was not the greatest to put it mildly, but this was also the most basic form of fertilizer. If we started composting some of all the extra “waste” and mix it with the bone meal, we could make some better fertilizer. However, at the moment all the “waste” was used for making new seeds.

The first attempt was a Success, nearly and Exceptional one. Not that it would have helped any.

Item Name

Crafting Points

Increased Farming Success

Corn Fertilizer

15

+1%

Since it was fertilizer for a Common plant, to increase the bonus only cost 5 points. Meaning that with a normal Success, and an Exceptional Success, I could increase it to a total of +4%. A Flawed Success on the other hand only allowed for a total 3% increase, since I would only get 11 crafting points.

They had a total of six different fields and four chamomile plots that would need three portions of fertilizer each. Meaning I had a lot of crushing to do.

The next day found us shortly after dawn ready to head out. The others had been using the day before to spread the word, and there were a surprising number of people willing to join our convoy and stay at the camp. Even though we charged a gold coin per person or four gold per party, giving an incentive for full parties to join.

We had the entirety of the Knights of the Squirrel guild join us. Their numbers were at ten. A single party from Almighty Al’s Assembly of Adventurers, including Al himself had also joined. Eight individual players had also joined, though none of them had partied up as far as I could see.

Just to be on the safe side, I used Observe on all of them, but none of them used a skill to hide their name. Or if they did, they had a higher level in the skill than I did in mine.

Sir Miller came up to me shortly before we were going to leave, and asked, “Have your men seen this supposed dungeon?”

Choosing to be somewhat honest, I said, “No. But we’ve been told about it by a reliable source. Confirmed by the Locals.”

“I hope it holds true, we would not like to be scammed,” he said with a serious expression on his face.

“If we cannot find it, I’ll pay you back your gold plus fifty percent as compensation.”

He nodded slowly at that. “We’ve an accord.”

“That we do,” I said with a smile.

Ed stepped up on the lip of the fountain, calling for everyone’s attention. “Listen up. We’re going to start travelling in just a moment. We expect it to take most of the day to get there. We got eight independent players and four full parties. The independent players will be divided into two parties of four.”

There were some disagreement from the independent players on hearing that, but Ed continued on. “It’s just for while we travel. How you do it when we get there is up to you. We’ll have one party taking the front, one to take each side and finally one to guard the rear. The other two parties will be reserves, taking it easy. Every thirty minutes we change position. Understood?”

“How about loot?” someone asked.

“The party that kills the mob, keeps the mob,” Ed said with confidence. It was still amazing how confident around strangers he seemed to be in the game. It was a different story in real life, though he was only around people in the guild at the moment, so he had started to be less shy. There were a few independent players and Al’s party that wanted to roll for each kill, but Ed brokered no discussion.

After ten minutes of inane questions, we finally left. Me and Mia were each dragging a cart. Mine filled with all my different items, while hers was mostly filled with firewood, as much as she could carry at level 3 with all attribute points put in Strength. The rest of the firewood Ed’s party carried in their personal inventories. I was not about to take up Logging, but the firewood was needed to keep the campsite up. If the campfire at the center of the campsite at any point was extinguished, the camp was disbanded, including all the materials used to create it; such as tents, bedrolls and so on, which all were rather expensive.

As we were fighting the way through the rabbit infested plain, Sir Miller approached me again. “I was asking Sir Blaze about what creatures we could expect, and what level they are. He said it was best to talk with you.”

“I guess I’m the information hub,” I said with a smile. “Well, rabbits up to level five until we reach the forest. In the outermost area of the forest we’ll most likely be running into boars, foxes and wolves up to level fifteen. If we’re lucky—or unlucky, we might run into a bear up to level twenty.”

“Are their loot valuable?” one of the independent players nearby asked.

“Not as such, sure their pelts are worth a pretty copper or silver, depending on what kind and quality.”

“Why don’t they drop eyes and horns like the rabbits?” the player asked.

“Well the horns because they don’t have them,” I said with a smile and explained to him about the twisted creatures, and how their loot had magical properties and thus were worth more.

After I had satisfied that guy’s curiosity, Sir Miller asked, “How about further in?”

“Well, after we reach the middle area of the forest the levels will go up to about twenty five, and it’s also where we’ll find the old castle ruins,” I said.

“What kind of creatures can we find?”

“The normal forest creatures, just higher level. We’ll also run into some twisted hawks. They’re big enough to tussle with with a wolf, so they mostly hunt in the clearings.”

“By twisted, you mean they’re magical in nature?” he asked.

“Yeah, so their eyes and blood are worth something.”

“We’ve never received any blood as a drop,” he mused out loud.

“Because you’re looting instead of using Butchery, when you use Butchery you get better quality, most of the time, and there are a few extra items that you can loot. However, it takes time and a skill slot.”

“I see. Anything else we should know about the ruins?”

“There’s undead roaming the area, so be careful. Mostly it’ll be zombies and skeletons, but there’s the occasional ghost or shadow which can only be harmed by magic. Well not entirely true, normal weapon attacks hurt them as well, just not a whole lot. They got an insanely high physical damage reduction.”

“Good to know, thank you,” he said and walked away, since it was his party turn to have the vanguard.

When we stopped for a break, Mia asked in a low voice, “How come you know so much about the game? I mean, the others here doesn’t seem to have as much information as our guild.”

“It’s a guild secret,” I whispered. “Not really the place to discuss it.”

“I guess you’re right,” she said. “I still like to know.”

“I can easily understand that, but not the time or the place,” I said. Since we had ten minutes to spare, I looked at the forest looming in front of us. It would be a new experience for my guildmates, and hopefully also the start of our growth.

I had to make sure that Ed’s party received the first clear of the dungeon. Not because this dungeon gave a guild achievement for the first clear, but because it dropped a better reward the first time. Unlike the Sewer Dungeon or the Rabbit Warren, this one was a more traditional dungeon. With different degrees of difficulty to be chosen from, leaderboards on fastest clears and so on.

The traditional dungeons were created by the Gods and you could earn a lot of rewards by completing them. Rewards that could mean the difference between succeeding and failing for the guild and me.