Basilisk venom was known by many to be one of the most dangerous toxins that normal people could get their hands on. There were definitely far more dangerous substances out in the world, but none were as relatively easy to obtain. That made basilisk venom the most dangerous poison in all of Unnamed World.

Basilisks were large, occasionally amphibious serpentine lizards. Some of the more powerful ones could turn their prey to stone or flat out kill them with nothing but an annoyed glance. Though the weaker ones had to rely on their venom, which usually came in the form of a gas they exhaled. The gas was deadly by itself, but it could also be captured and condensed into viscous liquid potions that could be used directly or laced onto a blade.

The lower leveled basilisks could be farmed for their venom, but it was dangerous and just as illegal as the venom itself, so the market was quite scarce. That was a good thing though. An amount of condensed venom the size of a pill bottle could kill an entire amphitheater if it was burned into gaseous form again. It was the poison of choice for terrorists, war criminals, and general bad people.

Thus, only lawless countries permitted the farming, sale, and possession of basilisk venom.

“The burning and liquifying venom are both five gold for a twelve milliliter bottle. The fumes alone would probably be dangerous for anyone under level one hundred while a single drop would kill a Warrior below level two hundred,” Dale said. “The petrifying venom is forty gold for an eight milliliter vial, and you could kill level five hundred Warriors with it. It’s a reaper class poison, so if your victim is fully turned to stone, they won’t ever move again.”

Allen nodded sagely. “That’s out of our budget range, but still a fair price,” he thought. “Do you have anything less expensive?” he asked.

Dale smiled. “Of course,” he began. “We have bottles of a particular neurotoxin from the beastkin tribes in the Jungles to the South. The name translates to ‘Red Eye’ and it causes hallucinations in most everyone and death to many under level two hundred within a few minutes. We have one hundred milliliter bottles for two gold each.”

“I’ll take one of those then,” Allen said, smiling back. “You certainly know your poisons,” he added, glancing at Dale’s nametag.

Name: Dale

Human – Apothecary – Level 378

“Certainly,” Dale said as he reached into a crate nearby, withdrawing a bottle. “I always enjoy working with Rogue types like yourself.” The sales representative grinned again, handing Allen the bottle of poison after removing the antitheft tag. “Few others have any genuine appreciation for poisons and such.”

Camila snorted derisively, but nobody reacted.

“Thanks,” Allen replied, ignoring the strange looks from his group.

“That’s two thousand base damage per milliliter per second,” Christopher commented, looking at the potion.

“Wait, he has Identify?” Allen wondered. “Huh.”

There was a moment of silence while Dale looked over the other four. None of them seemed particularly interested in contraband items though. Allen quickly closed his eyes and pinged with Expanded Awareness, confirming that he could still hear Kenneth’s voice somewhere outside.

“Will that be all? I recall that you had asked about sting potions and fate binding seals,” Dale said.

Allen hummed in thought. “No, I think that will be all, thank you very much.”

Dale nodded politely and led the group back outside. He turned around on his heels and bowed slightly with another smile. “Well, I believe you can find your way out from here. It was a pleasure doing business with all of you, please have a nice day,” Dale said, shaking Allen’s and Christopher’s hands. With one last friendly business smile, he turned and left.

“I feel like we really connected,” Allen thought, chuckling. Then he cleared his throat and got his group’s attention. “I heard Kenneth’s voice over this way,” he said bluntly, nodding in a direction near the back of the encampment. There was a line of magicarriages being loaded with crates of various goods over that way. Workers were running around and carrying things, though none of them immediately stood out as Kenneth.

The magicarriages looked similar to the Model T cars from the thirties, except they were powered by magic. The ones lined up were distinctly meant as trucks to haul goods.

Allen guided the group through the crowd of workers, acting natural. He had long since learned that anyone could get away with walking into somewhere they didn’t belong as long as they seemed confident enough. All it took was a forceful stride and a severe expression.

It wasn’t long until Allen found who he was looking for. He stopped and nudged Ty in the side before pointing over at a group of workers lifting crates labeled with the word ‘Potatoes’ onto a magicarriage. There were four of them, including Kenneth.

“Found our boy,” Allen said with a sly grin. “We can get the fuck out of here now, right? Not to be a dick or anything, but I had plans before all this shit with Andy happened. I honestly don’t give a damn about Kenneth or this company at all.”

Ty sighed. “Sure. You were right, I’ll admit it,” he said. “He looks fine to me, which says enough considering he died.”

Allen stared back at the Defender with a blank look until he shifted uncomfortably. “Well damn, I wasn’t expecting a love letter.”

“Shut the hell up man.”

A crashing sound suddenly came from where the workers were loading the crates. Allen absently glanced over to find that a crate of potatoes had been dropped onto the ground. There was a mixture of demeaning laughter and groaning from the workers, and apparently Kenneth had been the one who had dropped his corner of the crate.

“Way to go bitch boy!”

“No more dungeon runs for you, Ken.”

Kenneth just looked down and reached for the crate again.

Kenneth was level three according to his nametag. Allen chuckled at the scene of the vulture getting shit on by his coworkers.

“You get what you fucking deserve,” Allen thought, imagining himself with clown makeup on.

“Hey! You assholes are going to bruise them if you keep dropping them like that!” shouted one of the workers that seemed like he had more authority. “That shipment needs to get out to Hillford to-fucking-day.”

“Heh, do potatoes even bruise,” Allen wondered, “That’s kind of wei—" Then a realization struck him in that moment. He stood still for a moment while his mind raced, but only one conclusion came to mind. Anger rose from the pit of his stomach. Allen watched Kenneth and the other workers lift the crate off the floor and slide it onto the bed of the magicarriage with a hateful stare. He stayed there for a moment, knowing that any action he made at level fifty five would only get him killed.

“Allen?” came Christopher’s voice, interrupting the Assassin’s dark thoughts. “We’re leaving,” the professor continued.

“Did you fall asleep?” Ty asked, chuckling. “You we’re right, Kenneth’s a weapons trafficker, at least. I can believe that he’s doing other shady shit as well.”

“Uh yeah, right,” Allen said, forcing a perfect smile. “We can leave now.”

Ty laughed while the others seemed indifferent. They found their way out of the Lanthinus company encampment in a matter of moments, leaving Bernard at the gate with a wave. Then they began their walk back to the town of Hillford, which would take about two hours.

Allen grumbled to himself when the group reconnected with the intercity highway. The silence between them was getting awkward. Allen had to keep from scowling.

“Alright man, what’s wrong with you now?” Ty asked, laughing a little. “We found him okay.”

Allen drew his lips into a thin line. “Nothing,” he started. He took a moment to think of something to say. “So, how did you manage to get Identify in only three days Christopher?” he asked. He was actually curious about that. General skills typically took much longer to unlock.

“Uh, I just unlock it randomly,” Camila offered.

“So that’s what this is about?” Ty asked.

Allen clenched his teeth. “No, but there’s nothing I can do about it.” He looked over at the others and returned the teasing smirk. “I guess. It always takes me at least a few weeks to unlock Identify. How could you have done it in just three days?”

Christopher hummed in thought from his wheelchair. “There’s a trick to fulfilling all the requirements very quickly. It should only take a few hours.”

“What? Hours?” Allen asked, genuinely astonished.

“How doe you do it?” Amelia asked.

Christopher pulled five nearly identical, thumb-sized stones from his inventory and held them up for everyone to see. “The requirement for unlocking Identify isn’t just to learn the names of many different things, its learning the ability to identify particular items,” he said, shuffling the stones around in his hand. “I’ve intensely studied the mechanisms that drive the system. One such mechanism is the unlocking of general skills and how to speed up the process. The idea was to teach everyone the knowledge of how to easily unlock these skills so they can help themselves, but I lacked the resources to see that through… Anyway, the trick is to focus on differentiating a set of items. So, a good exercise is to try and tell the difference between each item in a nearly identical set.”

“Huh,” Ty started.

“Will any set work?” Amelia asked.

“It should,” The professor answered. “So long as the individual items are difficult to tell apart.”

“Why didn’t I think of something like that?”

Allen and the others practiced Christopher’s technique with random items from their inventories like coins or throwing needles in Allen’s case. It was seemingly fruitless at first, frustratingly so in fact, but it was a good distraction for the walk back to town.

No skill presented itself, no matter the fact that Allen’s throwing needles were very well crafted and just about perfectly identical. It was actually impossible for him to tell the difference between any two needles unless he used Expanded Awareness and stared at them up close to see the micro-scratches on the surface of the metal.

“Well, instant gratification is just not always possible,” Allen thought with a sigh. “What a world we would live in if people realized that and still kept on trying.”

Nobody had made any obvious progress in nearly an hour later when a magicarriage approached the group from behind. The sound of its magically powered engine sounded like a steam locomotive crossed with a jet plane, though not as loud.

Allen turned around and his eyes narrowed. It was still a few hundred meters away, but he could tell that it was one of the magicarriages from the Lanthinus company. Specifically, it was the one that had been loaded with the ‘potatoes.’

“Stop,” Allen said, prompting everyone to look back at him with hesitation clearly written on their faces.

“What is it?” Christopher asked.

Allen’s face darkened, his voice came out flat and stone cold. “Inspection,” he said.