Today was the day that things got infinitely harder. And I had thought, trying to discern a different scent from each bottle had been difficult. Waking up from my cot I got up and saw plant after plant strewn throughout my loft. In front of each plant was a corked bottle with a piece of cheap leather wrapped around the outside hiding the fluid that was inside from view. After looking at the various plants, wondering what Victoria’s game plan for today was, I decided to mentally recall all the names and properties of each plant in my room. Leaving my room and entering the front part of the apothecary shop I saw the rest of the 100+ plants spread amongst the various shelves of the store. Once again I went over all of the plant names and uses in my head as I gazed at each one.

After completing my self-appointed task, I started to head into Victoria’s house only to be stopped by her as she came through the doorway I was about to go through. “Good morning Jade.” She welcomed me.

“Good morning Victoria.” I replied back. “I went over all of the plants that you lay out for me this morning.”

“That’s very good, but that is not what I was planning on having you do.” She said. “This morning, before breakfast, I want you to go through every part of these two rooms smelling first the plant till you can determine its unique scent before then smelling the jar of its extract right in front of it. Then you are to move on to the next plant.” I gazed despairingly about me at all the smelling I’d have to do before I even got breakfast.

“Once that is completed, you can come back to the kitchen to enjoy your meal.” With that she walked away, firmly closing the door behind her. “Sigh . . .” Starting with the plant nearest me, I began the arduous task of smelling it till I could determine its scent, then I’d smell the accompanying liquid in the jar in front of it. Several times throughout the ordeal, I thought of skimping on my efforts by just taking a quick sniff to verify that it was the same. It was only with great fear of her wrath and disappointment that I put all my effort into this task, refusing to move on till I felt that I would have a better chance identifying each plant by scent alone if required.

Finally, with the task done I headed to the back to enjoy my well-earned breakfast. As soon as I sat down in front of my plate, Victoria left through the door that I just entered. After finishing my meal without her returning, I figured she might want me to do something else as soon as I finished up.

Sure enough, as soon as I met her in the front room, there in front of her on the main counter were all the bottles, but now with numbers written on the leather. In her hand, was a piece of paper that I correctly guessed held the name of the plant that went with the accompanying number. “Here’s to hoping that you were diligent with familiarizing yourself with the scents.” She said. “I have left the plants in their previous area so that you have a point of reference for the first time, but after this we are moving around the plants each time you finish finding them.”

‘And let the tedious work begin.’ I thought to myself. It took me the remainder of that morning to match up all of the plants with their accompanying scents. After quickly going through the first 30 or so that had a very distinctive smell to them, my pace began to slow down drastically. As the smells became harder and harder to discern I made more and more mistakes. The first few times that I was very uncertain about my choice, I would look to Victoria for any sort of sign, but sadly for me, she has the absolute best poker face I have ever seen. Only after I had placed down the jar of extract in front of a plant and released it would she make a strangled sound to let me know I had misidentified the scent.

By the end, my feet had gotten sore from the repetitive crissing and crossing of the floor so much so that I was certain I had walked a couple of miles indoors just from running from plant to plant. After a short break for lunch, of which she instructed me in the preparation for before leaving me to watch it simmer, she returned to the shop itself. I had a feeling of dread as I was certain I knew what she was doing. Sure enough, after lunch, I stepped back into the shop and she had rearranged all of the plants and changed some of the numbered jars around so that I couldn’t be certain of it being the same. She was a devil in disguise this woman.

This process went on for a total of 3 and a half days in game time of just tracking down scents till I hadn’t made a single mistake in finding the right plant. After getting it completely right, the next thing she did was cover all of the plants, instructing me not to uncover them, but to only smell them and compare the smells. This was Torture! Again this continued for another 2 days before she was satisfied with my progress.

At the end of those 5 and a half days of pure smelling, I was given the remainder of the evening and that night to do as I liked. I desperately needed to do some shopping in Real Life and so I logged out to catch up on everything that needed taking care of in the Real world. This gave me 6 hours in real life before I had to log in for morning of the 16th day in game time. I have never before had to work this hard and this meticulously just to gain a skill. Speaking of skills, where the hell were they?!? I had not had a single pop up saying I had a skill.

* * * * *

Sure enough, back in the real world the first thing I did was look over the instruction manual. It spoke of skills and the rarity/quality of them. After speed reading through other parts I finally came across a section that dealt with some of the powers that the stone tablet bestowed upon the NPC’s. It gave them the ability to arrest or stop any display of accomplishment that related to the skills they taught others until they deemed them ready to receive them. “Groan.” How was I to know that? I just had to hope that was the case here and not that I was just horrible at gaining skills.

Instead of the regular 1 hour of swimming, I did 2 hours this time to clear my mind of all the troublesome and repetitive things I was doing in game. I had to admit though, that I felt that my mind had drastically improved in being able to learn and recollect things in just this short period of time.

Finally going shopping, I grabbed lots of fruits and vegetables as well as dairy and all the other necessary parts of the food pyramid. All the good food I was eating in game was having an effect on me to the point that I dreaded the microwave heated meals. After looking at the time I realized I had another hour left. After all the other things I had done, I had a choice between a long shower and checking up online about news updates and E-mail. I chose a mix of the two.

Opening up my mail, my jaw dropped at the number of messages I had in my in-box. Most of the messages were from a group or person labeled EX Reich. Who or what the hell was that? Ignoring it for now since it would take forever to look at all those messages, I just looked for any updates from Millennial Enterprises. Other than a single e-mail from them, asking about my rating and opinion of the game, which I promptly filled out with high points for realism, there was nothing else from them. Signing off with a personal promise to check the rest of my messages later I headed off to that nice, Hot shower.

In the game, cleaning and bathroom facilities left much to be desired. Hot showers were a huge luxury that we in the merchant district didn’t get. Usually you just went to the communal shower area where the water was at best luke-warm while trying to get done before someone else showed up.

After turning on the hot water spray I aimed it at the back end of the tub before turning off the bathroom light and closing the door. As this plunged the room into darkness I carefully maneuvered my way into the shower to lay down in the tub with the spray hitting me in my upper body and warming me as it traveled down to the drain. “Ahh, this is the life.” I said to my-self. This is what I would do often whenever I had a tough day at work or school or especially when I had a headache to get rid of. As I lay there dozing in the water, I began to wonder when I would start to see other Travelers in the game. ‘Was I going to be the only one showing up in that city?’ I thought to myself.

Oddly enough, as my mind wandered, I found myself mentally going over the plants I had memorized. Hah, If I studied a quarter as hard for my school studies as I have been for this woman, then I would always have a 4.0 in all my classes. With a little disgust at my inability to escape that woman’s influence even in the real world, I decided I might as well head back to my fate and endure the training.

* * * *

Logging back in, I awoke in my cot and got ready for the day. Stepping out into the front room of the shop I stared at the now hated jars assembled on the main counter. All of them were still numbered and Victoria sat there with a plate of food for me. Something was up.

“Hahaha!” She seemed to find my expression funny for some reason. “Now I know how my master must have felt when he was teaching me this method of being an apothecary.” Trying to hide her mirth she continued. “Your expression of dread is quite priceless though!” Standing up to give me the spot in front of the jars she motioned for me to take her seat. Setting myself down to my fate she stood at the opposite side of the counter. “Honestly though, if you were as dedicated and careful as I believed you to be, then this test shall be quite simple. All I want you to do is pick up each bottle, smell it, and tell me the plant that it came from.”

“That’s it?!” I enquired. “Yes. After you pass this test, we go out into the field to continue our training.” ‘Finally!’ I thought to myself. With renewed vigor I opened the first bottle and began the test. . . .

Sure enough, after all that hard work, the test was simple for me. Any other time I would have looked at the teacher as if they were crazy if they had asked me to do this kind of test with this many different scents if I hadn’t Already suffered through her insane teaching method. As a reward for a quick pass I got to have a hot breakfast and enjoyed every bit of it as she headed into the main house to pack some things.

As we headed out the doors of her shop together to go off into the wilds at the outskirts of the city, she handed me the packed bags that she was carrying. I wondered at what was in there, since they were different from what she always took with her when collecting specimens. Feeling that is was a bit heavy I just shrugged and counted it as impromptu strength training.

This was actually my first time in the forest that surrounded the city on all sides but the falls. Excitement began to fill me as I realized I would surely find some adventure while picking herbs or whatever she was going to have me do. In all the other games I had played, never had I been in a forest for more than a couple of hours without some kind of an attack unless I was in a camp of some sort.

Trudging into the forest, Victoria stopped me just after the boundary. “Today I will be showing you the places where each of the plants I tested you on are found. As you know from your previous transcribing of my apothecary guide that there are hundreds of more plants that we know of, they are either too rare to find consistently here, or they don’t grow in this area. You are going to familiarize yourself with the location of the plants that do grow here in any way that you can think of. The surrounding foliage, the animal life, bug life, soil composition, and more. Now keep up because we have a lot of ground to cover today.”

She was right, there were so many different plants in so many different locations. On the rare occasion she would point at a rare plant that I hadn’t learned about yet. The first time that I had gone over to pick it, she stopped me. “You need to let those grow, it is rare enough to find here that it is worth it to wait. Also for a while we are not going to be picking any plants. So just focus on familiarizing yourself with your surroundings.”

As with the plants inside the shop, we spent an entire day hunting down the various plants and their locations only to stay were we found them as I took in my surroundings. At noon day she took the pack off my back and pulled out some food and water she had saved for our lunches. Then we went back to searching. The saddest thing that happened was the fact that nothing exciting happened all that day. No animal or monster attacks, and no magical beings showed themselves to us. I had the distinct odd feeling that the creatures in the forest feared this lady and so refused to show themselves to us as we made our way through their home. Going the whole day without mishap left me in a miserable state as we headed back to her place.

*

Sleeping in game I awoke the next morning to seeing her once again in the front room with a plate of food and the bags packed. This time she had something extra. After eating breakfast and as I shouldered the travel bag she took a blind fold and placed it over my eyes and wrapped it around my head. “I think I get why we are doing this, but why do it before we enter the forest?” I asked her. “It is to get you used to the idea of being blind and becoming accustomed to your surroundings before entering the more difficult terrain of the forest.” She said.

Then grabbing my arm and interlocking our elbows she led me out into the city. Cat calls and whistles sounded around us as we passed various districts and groups of people in the town. “Nice catch there Victoria!” One person called out. “Oh Monroe’s got some competition now doesn’t he?” Another said. “Are you going for the younger ones? I’m available if you are.” Cried out another voice. “Hahahaha!” Victoria laughed at that last one before calling back to them, “Go back to your work Craig. You and I both know that you’d end up getting yourself killed by a wild animal if we got married.” A chuckle came from where I believed Craig to be in response to her reply. “You know me too well don’t you?”

Finally we made it to the edges of the forest and stepped into the undergrowth. Just before we entered, Victoria put a pair of gloves in my hands. “You are going to want to put these on.” She told me. Not questioning her reasoning in the least I did as she said before continuing onward. After walking about 10 steps in with my blind fold still on, I promptly tripped on a root and face planted. “Oumph!” I cried out with my face muffled by the ground. Even though Victoria had her left arm interlocked with my right, it seemed in that moment to slip out of my grasp leaving me with nothing to hold onto. “Why didn’t you catch me?!” I cried out indignantly as I reached up to pull off the blind fold. Grabbing my hand before I could reach my blind she stopped me.

“This is all part of your training if ever you want to become a good Apothecary.” She said. “And the blind fold stays on.” Pushing my hand back down, she helped me to stand up. Leading me now by just touching my back, shifting the position of her hand as she prompted me to go left or right to change my direction I proceeded to fall time after time. Only when it would have been extremely detrimental to my health if I fell in a certain area would she catch me as I stumbled. Had it not been for my gloves, my hands would be bleeding from various impacts by now. After a while she would stop at a certain place and tell me to concentrate and find the nearest plant or plants that I could smell and recognize. Staying in that area she would wait till I had found them all. Whether by falling on them or successfully touching them. If I took too long, due to the plant not having a strong fragrance or with another scent covering it up, she would bring me closer to the patch were they were growing. Only then after finding it would we move on. Of course as we found each one, I had to name the plant and then she would quiz me again on what they were used for. Oh how I hated this training.

By midday, we were no-where near the point that we had been at when I was able to see. By evening I would have to say we went through less than a 10th of all the plants that were out there. Making our way back still with the blind fold on I happily lay down for the night. This process went on for 6 more days in that area before I found all the plants.

*

*

*

*

*

*

Finally I found all the plants in that area! I thought I was going to get a pat on the back or a present for having completed the task but nope. The very next morning, breakfast on the counter, bag in hand and blindfold waited for me.

Having become somewhat familiar with this route I knew we had gone a different way once I again felt the familiar crush and give of the forest undergrowth. “We aren’t in the same area are we?” I said more than questioned. “It’s good that you noticed that and no we are in a new area that you have never been to before.” She replied.

With her hand on my back she proceeded to lead me forward, but I waited. “Is something wrong? She enquired. “I’ve just been wondering, who’s been taking care of your shop while you’ve been out helping me train? Surely there are people that still need things while you are not there.” I asked her. “Oh Hah, Yeah, Gertrude actually has some knowledge of potions and so I have a sign up saying to go to her shop for any help. She and I are good friends. Though I doubt as many people will be going to her for their more ‘personal’ problems since she is the town gossip.” She laughed as she seemed to find this information funny.

My jaw dropped as I made the connection. Placing my hand over the dolphin charm that lay beneath my shirt, I hadn’t realized that the lady who gave it to me, would have been an integral part of my social demise had I not succeeded in the Date Quest. Swallowing some water to ease my suddenly dry throat I think my expression or probably my skin color told of my sudden understanding. “Hahahah! It seems you learned something.” Was all Victoria said before we continued on.

Repeating the same steps that we took in the last area we went about searching for plants by smell alone. It wasn’t till lunch time that something interesting finally happened. Still blindfolded and Sitting down by feel to get out the lunches I carefully seated myself. After a few minutes of quite eating and enjoying the sounds of the forest, I heard something I hadn’t heard in a while, a quiet rustling could be heard that got more and more pronounced. Finally it seemed to stop as if waiting for something.

I could sense as Victoria stood up, maybe it was the shift in the reflected sunlight from her body to mine or maybe I was actually able to sense her whereabouts to a degree now. In any case she seemed to be preparing for something. “You know, I wouldn’t normally let you take off your blind fold, but I think you might hold a grudge against me for keeping this from you. So go ahead and take it off, but only to stay there and watch.” Very intrigued with what she was saying, I quickly took it off to be welcomed by the blinding light that filtered through the trees above. As my eyes quickly adjusted to the light I saw a pack of wolves hiding among the shadows a moderate distance from us. A single wolf that was larger than the rest of the group began snarling at us. I assumed him to be the alpha.

With a growl and a yip it seemed he was telling his pack to attack. Interestingly enough they refused to budge. They seemed perfectly happy with trying to look menacing while letting loose a low growl in our direction, but going so far as to advancing upon our little picnic was too much even for him to ask. An angry snarl rose in the alphas throat as he bit the nearest pack mate forcing them to take action. Instead of jumping at us the bit wolf ran forward a few steps and then took off running in another direction to get out of the vicinity. All the other pack members also dashed away a short distance from their leader. With an angry snort more like a huff, the Alpha turned to face us directly. At that moment, I saw a smile fill Victoria’s face. “Oh . . . it looks like the new king of the forest wishes to challenge the Queen.” Rubbing her hands together in excitement she raised them in the air. “This should be exciting.”

With a single gesture and not a spoken word, a field of hazy white crystalline particles formed in the air several feet in front of us. Not looking around me I didn’t notice that it formed a complete circle that protected us on all sides. I didn’t want to look away from the spectacle that was about to unfold.

With a defiant sound the alpha rushed at us from the underbrush. Just at the start of the crystalline field it made a leap, passing through the wall of ice particles as if it was nothing. I don’t know what kind of an ice wall it was that she had created, but it didn’t repel the wolf so much as slowed the momentum he had gained from the jump. Stumbling short of where his leap should have taken him, he landed in a pile of shivering limbs, a mere body’s length from us. Eyes blood shot from the cold, limbs quivering, trying desperately to make them stay firm and a single small icicle hung from his black nose as he seemed to be seized by a fit of uncontrollable sneezing. Heavy frost coated his entire body and all the fight seemed to have leached out of him in an instant. With another flick of her hand a second field of ice surrounded the wolf separating him from us. As Victoria’s eyes bore down on the wolf, I began to sympathize with the poor thing. Even through the ice field I could see as steam rose from the ground around his back legs. Yellow liquid made its way down a back leg of his due to a miss aimed frozen appendage.

“Victoria, can’t you stop tormenting the poor thing and just let it go?” I asked her. “Sigh. . . I suppose he has learned his lesson as to who the master of this forest is.” With a last wave of her hand all of the ice fields disappeared. Despite the fact that we no longer had a barrier between us and him, the alpha did not take the bait this time and staggered off in the opposite direction with his tail between his legs.

Too soon the excitement was over and the blind fold went back on. Despite the occurrence of the day it hadn’t really taken more than brief moment for all of it to unfold. From that point on I felt at least that pack of wolves would never again bother us.

This time as I blindly sought out the plants by smell and carefully maneuvering through my surroundings, despite the still frequent falls, it surprisingly only took us 3 days to find all of the plants in this area. Once again after completing that trial for the third day running in that area, Victoria was waiting at the front of the shop the very next morning with everything in hand, except this time she had her sample bags with her and no blindfold.

“Today, we are going to one last area to pick samples that you will finally get to practice creating potions and compounds with.” She said with pride in her voice. All I could feel was relief. No more blindfold, no more falling, and hopefully no more smell tests.

In the new section of the forest she gave me one simple order. “Do whatever you can to find and gather a single sample of each of the plants I tested you on.” After donning my gloves I straightened the bag of supplies on my shoulders and set out into the wild with Victoria close behind.

Gazing around me at the beauty, I really hadn’t had a chance to take in everything with all of my senses combined to this extent before. Colorful Birds chirped happily in the early fall colored trees, a fox could be seen chasing a rabbit a fair distance away, and bees were swarming around some flowers whose aroma could easily be smelled upon the air. Closing my eyes I took in a slow deep breath to enjoy the scents as they filled me with knowledge of the area. Without further ado, I took off in the direction my nose told me to go. By the time lunch came around I had gathered all of the required samples that we would need. As I had gathered the plants, Victoria made sure to teach me how much was safe to pull from each section when it came time to gather in bulk. “You want to make sure that there are enough left to handle the grazing of animals and the weathering of the seasons. If you pull too many now, than there won’t be any in that area when you return in the future.” She told me. Making our way back to the city I was filled with wonder at what I had been able to accomplish in such a short time.

Back at the store after shrugging off our packs I was instructed to wash my hands and return to transcribing the plant information from her apothecary book to mine. While I did this she busily took down all the dried plants from the ceiling hooks in the front room. Once done she came over to me.

“Well now that all of the field work is done, all that we have left is simply transforming these plants into useful potions and various compounds. I will show you what you need to do with each of the plants. All the rest of that afternoon she showed me which plants needed to be hung out to dry and which needed to be used while they were still fresh. Taking the fresh ones she guided me through the correct way to use the mortar and pestle to create a paste of the various plants. Then she showed me another book that carefully described the various recipes that she had made up or learned from others. Going back and forth between the many tasks that she had for me including transcribing the additional book of potion and compound recipes it all finally came to an end.

After 3 more days of making and mixing various plants and water, 23 different potions lay on the counter in front of me and a few other compounds too showed the result of my endeavors. We didn’t use all of the plants seeing as many had uses that I didn’t have any need for any time soon such as poisons, laxatives, and libido increasing/decreasing compounds. I take it that the last group of medicines was what a majority of her secret customers were seeking out when they had spoken in private. I guess there is something for everything in the world around us.

At the end of the 28th day of in game time as I stared at the fruits of my labors, well more like rested my weary head on the counter holding them, Victoria came back into the apothecary shop with something behind her back. With her poker face in full effect she pulled stepped up to me. “I’m sorry but you are hereby banned as my student.” Lifting my head up in shock, I gazed up at her. Pulling out a decent sized satchel she set it on the counter with my other potions. Then a smile lit up her serious face. “Congratulations! You are now an apothecary!”

*ting*

*ting*

*ting*

*ting*

*ting*

What the Hell?!?

Keen Nose: (Uncommon) The ability to recognize the identity of certain objects you have smelled before through just scent. As you gain efficiency through trial and error you will be able to identify more objects through scent and other more useful subskill sets.

Sub Skill Discerning nose: (Rare) The ability to differentiate between many different scents and follow them to their source. With increased efficiency you can track down the scent from farther away and with more precision. *Does not work upwind of desired target area.*

Spatial Awareness: (Uncommon) The ability to know what is happening in your surroundings within a certain radius after a certain amount of time being in that area. Greater practice allows quicker assimilation of an area and larger radius of awareness.

Apothecary: (Uncommon) Due to the special nature of your training, instead of being one of many who have chosen the common path of an apothecary, you have achieved a state of heightened understanding and ability. The time spent learning of the different scents and familiarizing yourself with various compounding properties intimately has granted you an ability where the sky is the limit. With this accomplishment you have gained the ability to mix reagents to create beneficial, detrimental, or neutral potions/concoctions. After proper experimentation, effects are increased and more reagents are able to be mixed. Able to currently mix 3 different and known types of reagents at one time without risk of horrendous (unintended) side effects.

Sub Skill Apothecaries Hound: (Unique) The ability to track down reagents within a certain area with scent alone. Higher efficiency allows you to track down reagents from farther distances and in some cases underground. Negative effects of scent or compound based attacks become less effective against you as you recognize them.

After standing up at the surprise of it all I had to sit back down as the magnitude of it came crashing down on me. I WAS DONE!

Only now was I really able to take a look at the satchel that Victoria had set in front of me. “It seems you are ready to listen now?” She enquired with a smirk. “This here is a graduation present from me. Within it is your own mortar and pestle as well as several durable jars and tubes to hold various potions and compounds. There are a few other things in there that you will find useful as well.”

Turning the satchel so that I could see a large metal claps with some sort of silver plant in the middle of it she continued to speak. “The emblem on the buckle states that you are an Apothecary in your own right and that you are at uncommon rank. Copper denotes common, Silver uncommon, and gold at Rare. Apothecary masters at higher levels don’t display more than the gold plant. Often it takes individuals years to achieve what you just did in 21 days. This is the secret of my master who taught me. You will find that in addition to being able to determine where plants are by scent alone, when you find a new plant, you will be able to discover how it can be used through less trial and error as you compare it with the similarities and differences you have already learned from other plants.”

Victoria seemed to pause for a moment, “You know, with another apothecary in town, I can spend more time chasing down Monroe.” She seemed to say to the air. I rolled my eyes at that. Then an idea came to me. “Actually, what would you think of a partnership of sorts?” I asked. Her gaze centered in on me. “I’m listening.” She replied.

“Nothing major,” I said. “Just a sort of arrangement where I can hunt down ingredients for you at times and create lower level potions in bulk for you when you want to be elsewhere. What would you say that I get 10% of the proceeds for the potions whose plants I gather for you and 40% of the proceeds for the potions that I actually make that sell?”

“Hmm.” She seemed to think it over. “I was expecting to have to haggle you down, but that actually sounds like a very reasonable agreement.” With a nod of her head she made up her mind. “In addition I’ll pay to have an artist duplicate the plant drawings from my book to yours and you can continue to use the loft for your place to sleep as long as you are in the city.”

“Tha . . . That would be great!” I exclaimed. I too had thought she was going to bargain lower but adding in the completion of my apothecary book and sleeping quarters was the best! Now with a guaranteed steady income and place to sleep, I could start my real plans in motion. “If you don’t mind, I now need to spend a bit of time away to take care of things back in my world.”

“Do what you need. Your time is now your own.” She replied with a contented smile.

* * * * *

Evening of the 28th day in game time. Beginning at 50% pain level at the start of the next day. The current season is early fall in the game (let’s say September 28th). Real life time is Evening of May 27th.

* * * * *

Whew! Finally done with this tedious portion. I don’t know if the next section will come out any faster than this one, but I do feel it will come out with a lot more substance to it since I’ve already had a lot of plans going in my head for it. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I personally look forward to writing the next one. As said before it applies again now. :) , I’m always appreciative of detailed advice and constructive criticism. Until later, Enjoy!

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