I felt miserable. I looked miserable. The only comfort was that I was not alone in feeling and looking that way. Mia looked like a drowned rat, and if I had to take a guess, I would be looking like a drowned pig or boar or something. Robin and her squad looked like drowned warrior maidens. They were not as miserable as me and Mia, since they had only occasionally had to enter the water to fight the sea mobs we attracted.

We were drenched. Not because it rained, but because we had been swimming. Not in a pool or for fun. No, we had braved the ocean, testing the latest boat Philmore had built. We had pulled double duty and gone hunting for some Siren’s Breath. One of the ingredients needed for an underwater breathing potion. The other primary ingredients were alchemical alcohol at one gold per bottle and some crushed carapaces of the Greybeard’s Curse.

The very invasive barnacle known as Greybeard’s Curse was luckily abundant at the moment, with the fishermen’s boats not seeing much use. They were more than happy to get paid coins for work they would have to do anyway. In fact, since I had such a high reputation with them, they had offered it to me for free. I was tempted, but since I would be earning plenty of coins on the potions anyway, I decided to share the wealth. A decision that had earned me another 13.6 reputation points with the Poor people of Blackport. Not a whole lot, but it was something.

As we stood, drenched waiting for the lift to come down, Mia glared at me. “Remind me to take a break from being your assistant next time you want to get aquatic plants.”

“You’ve my permission to slap me silly next time,” I replied, shivering a bit. Luckily we would be dry in a few minutes, but it was miserable until then. Robin and the girls were taking the time to hunt some seagulls so that Robin could get some new arrows.

“With pleasure.” Her smile was a bit too happy.

I gave her the stink eye. “Don’t look so happy at the thought of slapping me.”

She just blew me a raspberry. As the lift finally arrived, I said, “Hopefully, the next time I need them we can send Mason and his gang.”

“That would be nice,” she replied. We paid the guard operating the lift. As it rose, I watched Robin killing a seagull. Not that it was hard for her at her level, but I could not help but frown. For her help guarding the boat, I had promised I would butcher them for high quality feathers, make some high quality glue so that Phil could make some better arrows. More tasks for me to do before we left in the morning.

Not only did I have to harvest 34 plots in a moment, make the underwater breathing potions, I also needed to talk with Old Millie about some Firebloom seeds. Then I had to runesmith Hei’s equipment, spend two hours butchering seagulls, make glue, cook food, and finish the supply quest for the quartermaster.

I had to think for a moment if I was missing anything. That was when I remembered I also needed to stock up with supplies from Fillard’s, had a bunch of stuff I needed to sell to him. I also needed a new cart. Mine was down to less than five durability. It would hardly survive the trip to the castle ruins, much less the trip needed for the expedition quest afterwards. It would also be nice if I had time to use Lesser Transmute and make seeds from all the excess plant material from the harvest.

I had to do all that before we left tomorrow. That was in roughly 14 game hours. I also needed to take a break for eating, that would cost me roughly 2 game hours because I could not just dine and dash. I owed it to the new people to talk a bit with them. That left me 12 hours, and only six of them were within my normal schedule. I would have to cancel my time in the shooting simulator, something I found myself doing more often lately.

“What’s bothering you?” Mia asked. I must have sighed loudly, not just given a mental sigh at my to-do list. I told her about my problem.

She cocked her head for a moment. “You need to delegate more. I can go talk with Old Millie and pick up a new cart. I can even run to Fillard’s for you. And you don’t need to transmute for seeds if pressed for time. We can let some of the others do it, and if it’s really bad we can afford to buy the seeds.”

I shook my head. “Well, I’ve to decline on the first offer. You don’t have the reputation points needed to get her to sell to you. At least not where you can hand it to me. But I would love your help with the two other things. And I know you’re right about the seeds, I could use the experience though.”

“We could all use more experience. You know, you should have Phil make a cart for you,” Mia suggested. He had made the carts for Mason and his gang.

“While it would be cheaper, his carts are not as good as the ones provided by the local carpenter. Right now I need all the carry capacity I can get. Besides, Robin has shanghaied him to log in early to make arrows.”

“Okay, just give me a list of what you need from Fillard’s,” she said as we got to the top. With a cheeky grin, she added, “I might even be so kind to abstain from drenching whatever you’ve me pick up.”

“Mighty kind of you,” I mumbled and followed her towards the gate. 34 plots would take a good amount of time to harvest, around 3 hours or something like that. Fortunately, it was a game so it would be faster than real life. If it had been in real life, it would have taken much longer to harvest that much produce.

31 plots later, I was done with all the plots outside the gate. The only ones left were the moss in the grow room in the basement of the guild house. I had high hopes for those because we would need a lot of healing and mana potions against the boss at the end of the expedition quest. It had been a lot of work, but it had earned me 3 skill levels. One in Horticulture, Farming, and Harvest each, and I was close to levelling up Horticulture one more time. With three plots that had yet to mature, I would at least get 3150 XP, and I only needed 2250 to level the skill.

That was what was great about those skills. As long as you kept your fields planted and fertilized you were almost guaranteed to level the skills up every three days. And that was when planting below average seeds. When you were skilled enough to go to higher tiers, it would snowball from there. Now Harvest would normally not go up as fast, but because I also harvested Mia’s fields, it went quicker.

I made my way back to the guild house and checked the smoker on the way. Unfortunately, we had only had room to place one smoker on the property. There were still twenty minutes until the last portion of jerky was finished. I had severely overestimated my success rate. Out of 90 attempts so far, only 44 of them had been Successes, actually less. I had made 3 of my Exceptional Successes into something I could use for the completion of the quest. So I needed six Successes, or I would have to go buy some more salt.

I had just finished checking the smoker when the moss in the grow room matured and was ready for harvest, one after another.

>Small Blue Moss Plot has matured.<

>Roll for Outcome: 64.<

>Quality remains Below Average.<

>Rewarding Horticulture XP: 1575 XP.<

>Small Blue Moss Plot has matured.<

>Roll for Outcome: 1.<

>Quality remains Below Average.<

>Rewarding Horticulture XP: 1575 XP.<

>Congratulation, Horticulture is now level 13.<

>You have gained 1 skill point. Gain 3 more to advance to level 26.<

>Small Red Moss Plot has matured.<

>Roll for Outcome: 38.<

>Quality remains Below Average.<

>Rewarding Horticulture XP: 1575 XP.<

Even though it was expected, it still made me exceedingly happy. With a bit of luck, I might level up before the day was over, getting closer to level 30. When I made my way into the basement, I looked at the moss I had growing in there, trying to decide where to start. I started with the red moss.

Small Red Moss Plot

Harvest - Level 12

Luck: +1%

Room Effect: +2%

Quality: Below Average

Maximum Yield: 40 Patches

Possible Outcomes:

4 Patches - 153%

10 Patches - 128%

13 Patches - 103%

20 Patches - 78%

26 Patches - 53%

30 Patches - 28%

40 Patches - 18%

Base XP: 600 XP

A couple of minutes later I had removed the last of the red moss and waited with bated breath for the result. When harvesting from a plot, there was some extra moss that could not be used for making potions, but it could be used for creating spores with Lesser Transmutation. Unless you got one of the best 3 results, there was only enough of the extra moss for one batch of spores, and I would prefer not to use the usable moss to create new spores.

>Roll for Outcome: 20.<

>Rewarding Harvesting XP: 1084 XP.<

I could not help the big smile that formed at that. Not only would I have plenty of moss for healing potions, but I had also gained 4 chances of getting spores for the red moss. I moved on to the blue moss with a spring in my step.

>Roll for Outcome: 100.<

>Rewarding Harvesting XP: 611 XP.<

‘Crap,’ I mentally swore when I saw the log. How unlucky. At least I had one more.

>Roll for Outcome: 88.<

>Rewarding Harvesting XP: 611 XP.<

“Double crap,” I swore loudly at seeing the event log. Not only did I get less blue moss total than I had gotten red moss, but I also only had 2 chances of getting spores for planting a new plot. Such rotten luck.

Which did not bode well for the jerky, which should be finished in just a few minutes. With a sigh, I packed everything into sacks and put it in a corner of the room. My alchemy room was still overflowing with crates of bones. I pondered for a moment of selling some of them, however, I decided against it.

Though uncommon, they were still only of below average quality. There were also plenty of them coming in from the castle ruins, especially since other people have started picking up Butchery for the increased quality of looting, meaning that there was not much of a player market for them. Not even in the auction house. Skeletons could be found all over the world.

I made it to the smoker with a minute to spare. I anxiously checked the log as the result was announced, and mentally kept a tally. ‘Success. Success. Success. Just three more to go. Flawed. Flawed. Flawed. Goddamnit, only four more left and I need three more. Flawed. Flawed. Fuck, I’m going to have to buy more salt and do another batch. Flawed. Exceptional Success.’

That was a bummer. Since I needed to make another batch or two, I decided to make the Exceptional Success into something useful for Blaze. He would be paramount in beating the expedition. With 94 crafting points, I could make it increase Resonance by 2 for 45 minutes. A pretty good buff.

I decided to head to Fillard’s before heading back to the gate and make dinner for the guild and our customers. When I got there, he greeted me with a large smile. “Greetings Damian, what brings you by, your assistant was here just a while ago?”

“I need more of the average quality salt if you got any,” I replied.

“My stock is running a bit low, another customer was just in here earlier today and bought almost all of it,” he said with a frown. “If I had known you needed more, I would’ve saved some for my favourite customer.”

“How low is low?” I asked, greatly concerned that he was out. If I did not complete the quest it would cost me some reputation points. I would get 20 plus something for handing in the 47 pouches, but I would also lose 30 points for the three that were missing from the minimum.

“Is it still for jerky?”

I nodded. He looked up for a moment, probably doing some calculations in his head. “I only have enough salt of average quality for eight portions, will that be enough?”

“I really hope so, it should be, but then again I thought the hundred I bought earlier would be enough as well,” I said with a sad smile.

“The life of a crafter, always at the mercy of the Mother,” Fillard said with a sad shake of his head. Then added with a huge grin, “Of course, ‘tis the reason why I’m a merchant, not a crafter. I prefer to rely on my own wit and charm.”

“Of course,” I replied drily. “Still forty-four copper per portion?”

“For you, of course,” he said and fished out a small pouch of salt. I handed him the 17 silvers and 12 coppers I owed him.

“Thanks. Did my assistant mention that we’re heading out tomorrow?”

He shook his head. “No, where are you headed?”

“The castle ruins.”

“Splendid, will you be bringing back a lot of undead reagents?” he asked with a gleam in his eyes.

“I hope so.”

“Average quality?”

My turn to shake my head. “I doubt it. I might take a run at the ruins, but we got some new people that need the XP more than me.”

“Shucks, I had hoped,” he replied with a frown.

“Look at it this way, the sooner we get them levelled, the sooner more of us will provide materials for you. Anyway, I’ve got a lot of hungry people to feed,” I pointed out and turned to leave.

“True, young Damian, very true. Good luck,” he called after my retreating back. I gave him a wave over my shoulder. I made a detour to the smoker first and put over my last hope of succeeding the quest. If it did not work, I would just have to eat the loss of reputation.

Because it was evening and most people logged out for nighttime in the game, cooking was mostly about filling satiety and healing wounds, only a few wanted buffs for the last couple of hours before logging off. While the money might not have been as good as for breakfast or lunch, it brought two very welcome events with it.

The first came from messaging people that food would be available shortly.

>Congratulation, Message is now level 3.<

>You have gained 1 skill point. Gain 2 more to advance to level 26.<

The second came from making the food.

>Congratulation, Cooking is now level 32.<

>You have gained 2 skill points. Gain 0 more to advance to level 26.<

>You have gained a character level. You are now level 26. Gain 18 skill points to advanced to level 27.<

All in all, despite the setbacks it had been a good day. Of course, I was still lacking behind the others in level, I hoped that getting to level 30 would help fix that. There was still a lot of work ahead of me before that happened. 57 skill points to be exact. However, it should be doable, especially with some help from the expedition quest. All that free XP could be invested in some of my low levelled skills and make quick work of those skill points. 

It had been a long night of grinding, but it had given me a lot of XP and resources. The most important thing was that I was not screwed over by the RNG when it came to the jerky. In fact, I ended up with a Success more than I needed. All that was needed was for me to turn them in.

Of course, that was easier said than done. It seemed that the quartermaster did not arrive until well past an hour after dawn. Meaning at seven o’clock, an hour after we were supposed to have left. The others grumbled a bit about the wait time, however, it could not be helped. I spent the extra downtime getting the Firebloom seeds from Old Millie.

Because of my increased reputation, she was willing to sell me the seeds I requested. They were pretty expensive though since they were of the uncommon variety. She charged me ten gold per pouch of seed. I bought six of them.

As I was leaving, she asked, “When can I expect a dinner invitation?”

“My apologies, Miss Millie,” I said with a frown. “I’ve been very busy, with the expansion of the guild and preparing to complete a quest for your nephew.”

She frowned mightily when she heard that. “You’re the one that weasel Henstal got to take the quest? You’re not suited for that.”

It took me a moment to realize who Henstal was. I had never actually learned the Seneschal’s name. I nodded. “I know, but my guild members are very capable.”

“Be very careful, he shared with me the rewards determined by the Gods for the quest. If they determine that such rewards are warranted, the quest is not easy,” she cautioned.

“Thank you for the warning. I’m not rushing heedlessly into danger. I’m taking my new members to train in the ruins, for a week before we head out on the quest,” I told her. “I hope to invite you for dinner after we return, so maybe in ten days time.”

She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Normally, I would think you were stalling for time to complete my quest. However, since you’re doing something of the utmost importance for my family, I shall be patient. See you in ten days.”

“Goodbye, Miss Millie, I look forward to hosting you,” I said and left. The truth was I still had no idea what I was going to serve. Hopefully, the extra days would allow me to level up Cooking a lot more. With a higher skill level, I could more easily manage a meal made from average quality. The higher the quality of the ingredients, and how successful the crafting attempt was, the better the taste.

Her quest would not reward how many crafting points I could throw into a meal, but how well it tasted. While I had never heard about her having that quest chain, I had heard of similar chains from other important NPCs. I would have to be creative. However, all the ideas I had would require more advanced cooking ware than the game had available at the moment.

Since I had more than half an hour to spare, and getting ideas about how I could get different modern cooking tools into the game, I made my way to the blacksmith. At first, he baulked at my weird requests, but when I promised him five platinum on top of his actual costs for making the items, he readily accepted if I paid the platinum upfront.

I agreed, but I also required a contract to be drawn up, to make sure that he did not blab about the designs to anyone. Not even his apprentices. A quick trip to the temple, a payment of another platinum, and soon I would have a new line of magical cookware. Or at least the hardware for it. Still needed to make the runes to make my ideas come to life.

Of course, my trip to the blacksmith took much longer than expected, so it was close to eight o’clock before I made my way to the barracks and the quartermaster. I felt bad about making my members wait, but time had run away from me like it often did when I got consumed by a task.

Getting into the barracks proved easy, but finding the quartermaster proved to be as bothersome as the last time. Took me nearly five minutes to find him. I knocked on a nearby crate, making him look up. “What the fuck do you want?”

“I’m here to turn in the quest,” I said. “You know, jerky.”

“Right, you’re that guy,” he grumbled. He manifested an empty crate from his inventory. Gesturing towards it, “Well what the fuck are you waiting for? Fill it up then.”

I did as I was asked, turning in the 51 pouches of jerky I had prepared for him. After I had moved every pouch over, he got a faraway look in his eyes, most likely looking at the inventory of the crate. What he said next, confirmed my haunch. “Some of these just barely qualify. What the fuck took you so long, boozing?”

“Limited production volume,” I said with a shrug. No need to raise to the bait, even if he was being a jerk. “But all still have four days or more viability.”

“Aye, they do, so I guess you succeeded. Congratulations on not screwing up,” he said with a sneer, before pulling out some coins, at the same time as I got a prompt which I minimized. “Want the quest again?”

“I’m going into the wil—” I started to explain.

He interrupted me, “If you’re not here to do business, take your coin and fuck off. Come back when you want the quest again.”

I grabbed the coins and left. No need to try and be courteous with that asshole. As I set the course back towards our guild house, I looked at the prompt.

Quest Completed

Jerky for a Jerk

Reward

7 gold and 19 silvers

34 (25) reputation points with the Blackport Guards

102 free XP

It was not bad. The reputation and free XP was nice. Including what I had sold to players and the few pouches I had donated to the guild, I had earned a bit over 1 platinum while I had spent around 14 gold on materials. It was not groundbreaking, but it was not bad either. The reputation points were the biggest prize in my opinion.

When I got back to the guild house, I had the good graces to blush a bit when Robin loudly exclaimed, “About fucking time, we’ve been waiting for an hour longer than you said.”

I looked around sheepishly at the entire membership of the guild. I also saw Mia was talking with a couple of players I did not know. “I’m sorry, I got caught up in a business opportunity. Couldn’t be helped. Let me get started on cooking, and then we can get moving.”

“About fucking time,” seemed to be the general consensus amongst the guild. I felt bad. I did make all of them wait, except for Nise and Andrea. Everyone else would be going with us to the castle ruins. The two newbie squads and Kira’s squad would only be there for two or three days, then they would go back to town for a couple of days before returning.

They would be moving supplies back for storing and selling with the first trip, and the second trip was to get some more supplies back to town. Everyone else would be going with us on the quest. Though Mia, Phil, and Philmore would not be part of the expedition, nor would I, we would still be going with them. The secret meadow where the boss was had a lot of uncommon and even some sparse resources. It would be a great boon for our crafters, but we needed people who could harvest it all.

As I set about cooking delayed breakfast for everyone, including myself, Mia brought her guests over. Actually I ate the first skewer that was done because my satiety was at 0 and I was taking damage.

“Damian, this is Captain Lutra,” she said, indicating the male player. He was dressed in black leather boots going up to his knees, tight brown pants, a loose-fitting white shirt with billowing sleeves. His female companion was dressed the same way. They were both on the shorter end of what the character customization allowed for humans. Both had reddish-brown hair. “And his wife, First Mate Kawauso.”

“Pleasure to meet you, let me just get these skewers on the grill and I’ll shake your hand,” I said as I finished preparing the next batch of skewers. “Can I tempt you? Free of charge of course.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say no to a slight buff,” Kawauso said with a sly smile.

“I guess I offered. What attribute?” I asked as I started preparing a new skewer with some carrots and thyme on it. I would be making buffs for everyone anyway, two free skewers would not bankrupt me.

“Resonance, please,” she replied.

“I’d like a strength boost, thank you,” her husband said.

“Coming up in the next batch,” I said and then put away the food preparation long enough to shake their hands. “So how is the boat working out?”

“It’s okay, we can’t wait to get our hand on a large ship,” Lutra answered.

“I can understand that. Hopefully, we’ll get Philmore some more skills in shipbuilding soon. Or at least better materials,” I said with a smile.

“We hope so too. We’d like to be raiders of the sea, not the coast.”

I laughed politely at that. “Anyway, I finished making some water breathing potions. I’ve got a total of forty-three for you. They grant from eleven to seventeen minutes of water breathing. Eighteen of them last twelve minutes, eleven come in at fifteen minutes, only two of them have seventeen minutes duration. The rest are almost equally divided at eleven and thirteen minutes.”

“That’s a little less than we had hoped for,” Kawauso said with a frown.

“Until my skill increases and I can use better quality or I get my hands on some rarer materials, it’s the best I can do right now,” I replied with a shrug. I had already told them to expect somewhere between 10 and 20 minutes. Or rather Mia had. It was the first time I actually met with them.

“It’s fine,” Lutra said and gave his wife a look. “How much do we owe for them?”

“Let’s say ten copper per minute of effective use,” I said. It meant that I would be getting between 110 and 170 copper per potion. My cost had been around 75 coppers per bottle when including breakage. “So a total of thirteen gold, eighteen silvers and ten copper. Let’s call it thirteen gold and ten silvers.”

“Deal,” the Captain quickly said before his wife could say anything. She looked like she was about to haggle. After we had exchanged potions for coins, and they had gotten their free breakfast they said their goodbyes and left.

In short order I had everyone fed, and we were finally on the way. We made quite the procession. 44 players, with fourteen of them dragging a cart behind them, cutting a quick swathe through the horned rabbit population and heading for the forest. We mostly let the new players handle the rabbits because they gave little XP for the more experienced players. The new players were brimming with excitement, they were going to a new dungeon, while the rest of us were more relaxed.

I looked around and took in the camaraderie that was already building between the members of the guild. No one was looked down upon, not even Mason’s squad, which were “just” gatherers. Everyone seemed to understand that everyone played a role in the guild, and that the player next to them would help keep them out of the coffin. And best of all, it was my guild. It was a good feeling.