When we got back to the campsite, we saw that most of the players had logged out. It was not much fun hunting during the night. If not for the compass and some torches, we would never have been able to find our way back to camp after being teleported out of the dungeon.

We had been teleported to the edge of the forest, south west of the ruins. Where we had entered the range of the ancient battlefield. Robin and Petals had been stuck on their death screen until we had finished the dungeon.

As predicted we logged out later than normal, in fact almost an in-game hour later, meaning that the others were either hitting the showers or just about finishing up their training. With that in mind, we headed for the dining room, which was empty.

“How much coin did the guild earn on this run?” Edward asked as we were queueing up for the food replicators.

“A bit over twelve platinum in pure coins,” I said immediately. It had been the last thing I had checked before logging out.

“That’s pretty good, right?” Liam asked from in front of me.

“Yeah, if we can run the dungeon another twenty or so times we should have enough to pay for our monthly maintenance,” Ainsley replied.

“Nice, only twenty runs in the dungeon to pay for it. That means we can grow to double the size, and easily maintain it,” Liam said.

“No.”

“No?” he asked.

“No. Twenty runs or so will only be enough if Damian donated all we expect him to earn from selling the Lucky Charm,” Sarah said.

“Damn,” Liam said with a pout. “I thought you were rich will all the platinum you’ve been making selling loot.”

With a shake of my head, I said, “No, I’m actually pretty much broke. I got less than 2 gold on me at the moment. Normally I would say that the coin earned from the dungeon runs should be divided between the party, but at the moment the guild needs the coin urgently.”

We got our meals, and sat down to eat. The others were discussing what had worked and had not worked for them during the run. I had told them that I would probably not join the subsequent runs.

“Finally out? Slackards!” Kira’s voice reverberated through the room, immediately after the hiss of the door opening had sounded. “I expect each of you in the gym as soon as you’re done with your meal.”

“Sorry, I’ve to skip it tonight,” I said, looking back at her as she wheeled up to the food replicator. Her wheelchair changed course as soon as I said it, heading towards me with a frightening speed.

“What did you just say?” she asked. “I thought the agreement was that no one skipped.”

“In principle yes, I’ll take my time in the gym next time I log out to eat. Right now I have pressing business in the game.”

“And what pressing business is that?”

“I’m almost out of ingredients, I need to butcher a lot of stuff before morning. So I can earn money from the campers. Without food they’re not going to be happy, and I doubt many of them have thought to bring rations themselves. Especially since we promised they could buy from us,” I said.

“Do you need help?” Mia asked. She and Alicia was standing nearby, waiting to use the replicators.

“No, you should spend some time with your daughter,” I said immediately.

“I logged out early and spent time with her, and if you need the meat that I can provide by butchering the rabbits I brought, then so be it,” she said, voice full of conviction.

“Mommy, are you hurting rabbits?” Alicia asked with a small quiver in her voice.

“No, of course not. They don’t feel a thing,” Mia said quickly.

“But the mean lady in my game says I should send Fluffy to the Butcher, so they can sell his meat. That means they kill him, right?” Alicia asked, with tears threatening to spill. “Since you butcher rabbits, you must be hurting them.”

“No sweetie, I don’t hurt them.” Mia bent down to hug her little girl. She looked around helplessly at us for a moment, before settling on the nearest party member: Liam.

Mia pointed to him and said to Alicia, “He hunts them. Mommy just make sure that nothing goes to waste. Just like we have to recycle our plates and glass, right? When rabbits die, the Butcher makes sure nothing is wasted. Do you understand?”

Alicia nodded, and then marched up to Liam who had not been following the conversation. She looked up at him, before stating loudly, “You’re a meanie!”

She immediately fled back to her mother, leaving Liam with a very confused look. He looked around at us, and asked “What did I do?”

Which made the rest of us laugh at his expense. Rose who was sitting next to him, took pity on her boyfriend, or whatever descriptor they used to define their relationship, and told him what was going on. The rest of the meal was peaceful, and filled with laughter as the children laughed or sang along to the cartoons on the vid screen. It was almost therapeutic, getting a little break away from the pressure of running the guild, and just bask in the unbridled joy of the kids.

It ended all too soon, when I finished my meal and had to log back in, and get a lot of Butchering done. On the way out I got a look from Kira that promised me pain if I did not complete my physical training as I had promised.

Back in the game, I found all the others in camp asleep. No one seemed to be missing, none of my gear was missing, so I assumed nothing were. The first thing I did was creating some manastones I could fill for Ed.

It was while I was working on some water manastones that Mia logged in. With a bright smile she came over, “Hey. Just want me to butcher some rabbits, or should I work on some of the other carcasses?”

“Hey. Just rabbits and foxes will be fine, while the wolves and so on might give you a lot of XP, they’re better left for me. Higher chance of getting something useful, and I can actually grind my Butchery skill for once,” I said.

“Okay,” she said and started to set up on a table next to me.

Most of the night passed in silence, with only a few questions from Mia. We managed to get our field and plots planted. She planted a cotton field and a chamomile plot, unlocking Farming and Horticulture. I planted my two available plots with chamomile.

I also tried something new with Cooking, something I had been avoiding so far. Because Cooking was only at the Beginner tier I could only use two ingredients in the meal. For each ingredient above that I would get a 5% penalty. Now that my Cooking was at level 15, I figured I could try it: Making a stew.

First I needed to make a broth, which was just another ingredient, so the chances for success was pretty darn good. Just needed water and 5 kgs of bones, and let it simmer for half an hour. Since I would mostly be using rabbit meat, I used rabbit bones.

Rabbit Broth (10 Portions)

Cooking Level: 15

Recipe Used: No

Lucky Charm: +1%

Lowest Quality: Below Average

Highest Quality: Below Average

Best Outcome: Below Average

Highest Crafting Points of the Materials: 15

Possible Outcomes

Failure - 4%

Flawed - 64%

Success - 32%

Base Experience: 50 XP

I had bought four extra cauldrons for just this, to save the broth for when I would be attempting to make the stew, or more correctly pottage, a few hours later. Since I had six hours I had twelve attempts to get five made. In the end I only ended up with 4 of Below Average quality, though I disposed of many cauldrons full of Poor quality.

What I had really high hopes for was Butchery, though I was almost 10,000 XP away from a level up, I felt confident that could be resolved with butchering a lot of wolves. I decided to forego any wolves under level 13 to start with, since that would lower the amount of XP I got.

Forest Wolf

Carcass Level: 13

Butchery Level: 13

Carcass Size: 4

Effect of Butcher Knife Set: +1%

Effect of Lucky Charm: +1%

Quality based off Skill Tier: Below Average

Chance of Higher Quality: 1%

Chance of Lower Quality: 4%

Possible Loot

6 kilograms of bones - 101%

6 pieces of wolf meat - 91%

2 liters of wolf blood - 76%

6 extra pieces of wolf meat - 61%

6 extra pieces of wolf meat - 51%

6 extra pieces of wolf meat - 41%

1 forest wolf pelt - 31%

Base experience: 520 XP

Stamina Cost: 120

I was able to butcher four of them per hour, each one taking around eleven minutes to butcher, and I had to take a break to regenerate stamina after four. After the first hour I had already almost three thousand XP, really driving home the point that I had been stagnating with regards to Butchery by keeping the party to the rabbits. Though the loot from the rabbits were still worth more than what I could get from the wolf.

Now that we had other revenue streams than what I made from butchering rabbits, mostly in the form of Mia who would butcher the rabbits for now, it meant I could finally get further ahead in my skill, maybe even get it to level 20.

It was when I finished butchering my thirteenth wolf that I got a welcome notification in the event log.

>Butchery has risen to level 14.<

>1 Skill Point has been awarded. Your character level has risen to level 15.<

Which was followed by not one prompt as expected, but two.

You have reached level 15, and has been awarded with:

1 Class Skill Slot

1 Upgrade Point

I had known that I would be getting that award, but what I did not know or possibly forgot was the Pacifist reward.

You have reached level 15 without losing your class. Your dedication to your class has impressed the Gods, and grant you another reward:

16,000 Class XP

Continue to follow the path you are already on.

16,000 Class XP was huge, that meant I could level up either Runesmithing two times or Meditation one time. I also had one more Class Skill Slot, which I immediately assigned to Imbue, meaning I freed up a normal skill slot. I then threw twelve thousand XP in Meditation and the rest in Imbue, levelling each of them up once.

The attribute points I had gained from the level up was invested in Endurance, or four of them was, to increase the attribute by 2 points. The last one I saved because I could not invest it in anything interesting.

That left me with just one decision. What kind of skill should I fill my open skill slot with? I could grab the lumber axe I had and start chopping down trees. I could take Harvest in a few days instead of Mia. Another option was to take Farming. The last option that sprang to mind was Leadership. With Mia as my assistant, it would make sense to start a party. We could take one of the general crafting party designations, instead of a specialized one. The perks might not be as good, but it would work well for someone like me with a lot of different skills. I decided to wait till later to make a final decision.

Dawn broke and the other players started logging in again, all of them hungry, or rather with low satiety, as we did not feel hungry or thirsty. Luckily I had something to soothe their need for satiety and buffs, my normal skewers as well as a rabbit stew. Just to be efficient I used some of my own firewood to start three more campfires, without making a camp, not that I would be able to do so within a few kilometers of another one, in order to make forty portions of stew at the same time. Hopefully some of the cauldrons would succeed.

I took the broth from earlier, added ten carrots and ten pieces of rabbit meat that had been cut into cubes to each cauldron and then let it cook for thirty minutes.

Rabbit Stew (10 portions)

Cooking Level: 15

Recipe Used: No

Lucky Charm: +1%

Combined Crafting Points: 45

Highest Crafting Points of the Materials: 15

Possible Outcomes

Failure - 32%

Flawed - 42%

Success - 21%

Exceptional - 4%

Brilliant - 1%

Master Work - 0%

Base Experience: 300 XP

Luckily none of them failed, but three of them were Flawed Successes, while only one of my four attempts were a normal Success. However, even the Flawed Successes had crafting points enough to make food with buffs.

The successful one I made into a Hearty Stew which added to Strength, which used 25 of the 45 crafting points.

Item Name

Crafting Points

Satiety

Other Effect

Duration

Hearty Stew

20

45

+1 Strength

3 minutes

First I spent 9 points on adding Duration, 3 minutes extra per point meaning it lasted 30 minutes. It was after spending the ninth point in that the cost went up. 3 points for every additional five minutes. In the end I ended up with a Stew that increased Strength by 1 for 45 minutes and filled 47 Satiety. The best part was that I sold it for three silver each, and the production cost had only been fourteen coppers.

I did make sure that Petals and Robin got first crack at the good stew. The other stews were not quite as good, with a duration of only 30 minutes. I made one of them into a Strength buff as well, while the two others were Resonance buffs. Still sold for two silver each. Of course with only 28 combattants, a lot of it was wasted, though it filled me up just fine. To top of the others Satiety which was near empty, I also made 100 wolf meat skewers.

All in all I earned myself 3 gold coins, which was not too shabby, but as my level rose, it would become much better. Especially when I reached Apprentice Tier and could get the sub-skill Combined Meals, where you were able to pair for example stew and bread into one meal, meaning you could receive buffs from two or more food items, instead of just one.

After the other parties left for the Castle Dungeon, and Ed’s party left to hunt for a few hours, it left just me and Mia alone again. We had been alone more or less the entire time, with the others being logged out. However, their avatars had still been there, which made it feel like we had to be quiet, unless we were going to wake them up.

“I really feel like I should be thanking you again,” Mia said suddenly.

“You’ve thanked me a hundred times already,” I replied with a smile. “I only did what was right. I took in Alicia, I could not leave her mother in the Coffins.”

A shudder went through her. “That description is all too apt. When I went in there, I never thought I would get out of there. But it’s not so much for getting me out of there, I want to thank you. It’s for taking care of Alicia.”

I scoffed at that. “It’s all Miss Ellebye, not me.”

“Not true, Alicia will not stop talking about how you gave her Fluffy and all the other rabbits in that game. Missy and Kitty too.”

“I didn’t give her anything, I just showed her a game.”

“I know, but to Alicia they are present from you. She loves those critters as if they were real,” she said with a smile.

Frowning, I said, “That’s not good, because they’re on a timer. They’ll die of nat—”

At that point the world froze around me and took on a black and white quality, as if looking at a really really old photograph. An emergency contact from outside the game. Then I heard Alicia’s panicked voice. “Help, help, he’s dying!”

Not knowing what was going on, but her words spurred me into action, I used the emergency exit, meaning I could not log into the game for half an hour and my avatar would just stand there. It would explain to anyone touching it that the player had logged out due to an emergency.

As soon as the pod opened, I rolled out of it, and grabbed a set of pants off the floor. As soon as they were on, I opened the door to find a tear and snot-stricken Alicia. When the door opened she shot forward, hugging my leg, getting snot all over my pants.

“Damian, you’ve to help me,” she wailed.

I bent down and picked her up, and she threw her arms around my neck, almost suffocating me. I tried to keep calm, but my voice sounded a little shrill to me. “What’s wrong Alicia? Who’s dying?”

“Fluffy!” she started wailing even louder than before. Relief flooded through me. I had feared something had happened to one of the other kids, or even one of the grown-ups.

‘Of course it’s the stupid rabbit in the game,’ I thought a moment later. I wanted to be mad at her for interrupting me like that, making me worry. However, the girl seemed inconsolable, and admonishing her would not help any, at least not right away.

As I stood there comforting her the best I could, I thought about the game. There were actually a way to keep the critters alive forever, but it would require a lot of time, and most people playing the game agreed it was a waste of time, because the animals that were kept alive with the tonic, was worthless in the game.

“Honey, listen to me,” I said and forcefully dislodged her arms from my neck, so I could look into her eyes. “There’s a way we can prevent it, but it means you’ll be working hard in the game, okay?”

“Really?” she asked cautiously, a glimmer of hope in her eyes.

I nodded gravely. “Yes, but we need to do it quickly, we have a lot to do.”

“Okay,” she said and launched herself at my neck again.

“I need to get a shirt first,” I said and tried to dislodge her once more. She reluctantly let go of me.

Half-way to her room, I ran into a panicked Mia, who immediately came over and scooped Alicia out of my arms. To me she said, “What happened? You—no your avatar said you logged out for an emergency.”

I explained what had happened, and she got a very stern look on her face before she addressed her daughter. “Young lady, you can’t do that! Those are for real emergencies, and Damian is a busy man.”

“But Fluffy—” Alicia tried in a pitiful voice.

“No buts, it could wait until we logged out in six hours,” Mia said.

“The mean lady says Fluffy only have four,” Alicia said with a pout. “There was not time to wait.”

“Don’t talk back to me,” Mia admonished.

“But—” Alicia started, but saw her mother’s hard stare. She leaned in and hugged her mother hard. “Sorry, I won’t do it again.”

“Good,” Mia said before looking at me, with a hint of pleading in them. “Can you help her?”

“Of course, we were on the way to do just that,” I said with a smile

“Thank you,” she said with a genuine happiness.

A bit embarrassed I just shrugged. “It’s nothing.”

After ensuring that Alicia knew how to keep Fluffy and the other critters alive indefinitely, if she kept doing her chores, I logged back in. Ed’s party had returned and was waiting for Mia to join them in the Castle Dungeon. I had decided to let her do the looting and earn some much needed contribution points. She would get the same quality as me, and also had the same chance of success.

I was far more interested in butchering all the high level critters they had been hunting. It was finally time to level up Butchery properly again. Which was how the next few days went for me, it was just a lot of butchering and cooking, while the parties ran the Castle Dungeon once per day, and hunted the rest of the time. Ed’s party manage to clear it four more times before we headed back at noon on day 29. He had been complaining a lot about the point rewards had been reduced by 10% after he hit level 21, and they could no longer compete for Fastest Clear.

However, they were not ready to challenge Enhanced mode, which were level 25, while Special mode were level 40. All of them needed to at least be level 20 or higher before they attempted Enhanced mode, and they would need a lot of potions with them if they wanted to try that before any of them were level 25.

The trip had been highly successful, of that there could be no doubt. We had earned plenty of levels and more importantly coin. From what the others had reported things had been going well in Blackport. The Bears had finally disbanded, and the Shadowguard seemed to have given up, just staying at the inn and hunting rabbits. They had been killed enough times to wear off their Taint.

With regards to the progress of the guild house, no one would say anything, which was a little more than frustrating. However, that little blemish could not sour how good I was feeling about our progress.