Jim's PoV

Jim was looking down at his wrecked car. How was he supposed to know that sand getting in the engine was a bad thing? They had reached about the right area where the potion vendor should be and the car started to smoke. Maybe he should stop asking himself "what could go wrong."

Karma seemed to have an especially good ear for phrases like that. Still, overall they had saved a lot of time. Everyone was slowly filing out of the car when Scarlet said "Did your magic carriage break? I heard that constructs of magic like that are complex and fail a lot."

Grabbing on to the life line Jim tried to say assuredly "Yes. I'll have to try to find time to fix it later. But that leaves us on foot for now. Ummm, I can look around while yall make camp. If she is here she shouldn't be too far away."

Forrest and Davis started looking at each other anxiously for some reason. Jim tried to assure them "Don't worry! No unknowns in this area! I'll leave the wolfies with ya. It'll be fine!"

Glancing to the car he figured he would leave it there for now. Maybe the little smoke signal it was putting off could help him find the party later. The group seemed somewhat mollified and Jim started running at a jog. Well, a jog for him in this world was more like an olympic sprinter.

Rare Potion Maker's PoV

Milly had left the main road and headed towards the desert. The first thing that she realized about traveling was that things got really heavy after you walked for hours on end. The second was that sleeping on the ground was not as comfortable as it seemed in all of the stories. And the last thing she realized was how terrifying it was.

Every noise made her jump. Things outside of towns were never safe. Even the roads where soldiers patrol were not totally safe. Her book had detailed the best way to get to the location, but so far two people had died following those instructions. She wondered if she would make a third.

With every muscle aching she packed up and marched onward. After several hours she kept moving forward while in a daze. She wasn't paying attention to her surroundings. At first she thought that the noise she heard was just birds screeching, but as her bleary eyes looked up she knew she was wrong. Giant centipedes. Hundreds of them, they were all headed her way.

Scared out of her mind she dropped everything and started to run. Looking over her shoulder she tried to gauge the distance between the monsters but it only made her trip. Getting up she pumped her legs again while feeling the grains of sand beneath her feet shift and sap her energy. As her energy dropped she gave in to the inevitable. Taking a seat she watched her death come.

Then she saw a massive sand wyrm. Milly laughed as she saw the huge creature hunting down the centipedes . It was like an adult walking among infants, except the wyrm wanted to eat them. It would not save her though. A small group detached and headed towards her. Then she saw another weird sight. At first she thought the black creature was just a malformed one, but then she realized it was just a human in black armor. The man was moving incredibly fast! She watched the centipedes run even faster away from the man than the wyrm! How odd.

Looking back to her death she felt sad. It would have been nice to know a man like that. Milly blinked and then somehow the man was in front of her. He lifted her up, and then there was nothing.

Did she die? Looking around she only saw darkness everywhere. Milly tried to stand up only to trip. Looking beneath her she saw a mountain of potions! Well, there was fancy looking armor and weapons too, but she was mesmerized by one of the potions. Gazing at the glittering red liquid she knew what it was. Then her eyes caught another, and another!

Was this heaven? There was only a black void beyond the mountain of items that she was on. She had never even heard of an afterlife like this. But Milly had been saving money and watching gil like a hawk her entire life. Finally her greed took ahold of her and she used her shirt to gather all of the elixirs she could find. There were so many! If she wasn't dead she was going to be rich! Filthy rich! How much would those damned nobles pay for these!

No longer would she have to live in the ghetto! She could move her shop right next to those bastard merchant circle members and pay their damned fees to get on the list to buy ingredients. Little gold gil coins where jumbling in her head. Then she saw the oddest thing she had ever seen. Even more odd than being in a land of potions and armor.

There was a massive white gloved hand that was flying. It was not connected to anything, just a hand. The white gloved hand started moving towards her. Panicked she thought "No! It wants to steal all of my potions! They're mine!"

She curled up in a ball and wrapped them in her arms around her stomach. Instead of trying to grab the potions she was being lifted by the back of her shirt. Looking behind her she saw the hand picking her up.

The next thing she knew she was back in the desert. Back in the desert with the handsome black armored man who was smiling. Then his eyes turned to her elixirs and his smile turned into a scowl. Fast as a snake he struck and took them away and one by one they disappeared.

But... her potions! She had them in her hands! Why!

The man cleared his throat and said "My name is Jim. You must be the rare potion vendor."

Sadly she said "My name is Milly. Um, vendor? Kind of I guess, but all my stuff is back at my shop. Can I have one of those red potions? Pretty please?"

The man narrowed his eyes and said "Why."

Milly tried to stop her fidgeting but she wasn't doing a good job. Finally she got out "I want to sell it! Please! Just one would save my shop!"

That's when the man named Jim smiled and said "Have you ever thought about a change in location?"

Confused she asked "What do you mean?"

Jim said "I could pay you a good wage so that you would never want for anything. I am looking for someone who can be my potion maker. What do you say?"

Milly instantly said "Done! I just need to pick up my book at Jacksberg!"

Jim smiled and said "Fantastic. My party is back that way."

He gestured in a direction and then said "It will probably be a couple hours if we walk. If I put you back in my inventory would you be nice? No more stealing."

Then Milly started to look around to buy time and her gaze stopped. Not more than a couple hundred feet away the sand wyrm was shaking with its head sunk into the sand. Did it not see them? Milly slowly drew her little dagger and started creeping towards the creature. The little gil coins where clattering in her head again.

Jim started walking by her and said "What are you doing?"

Exasperated she said "Shhh! You will scare it away!"

Jim looked at the thing and then said "Yea, Milly, I think you have the wrong idea. I don't think most people can "scare away" something as big as a subway train."

Confused she asked "What's a subway?"

The man named Jim sighed and said "Just something really big. Anyway what are you trying to do?"

Reverently she said "Sand wyrm blood! You know the kinds of potions I could make with that? I could make full mana potions! FULL! It would restore any amount of mana!"

Jim perked up and said "Really?"

She nodded sagely. So many gil coins. Milly started creeping towards it again when the man shouted "Hey wormy thing, can you understand me?"

Milly froze as she saw the massive creature stop shaking and turn its head toward them. She gulped. The wyrm nodded its head up and down.

Jim said "Fantastic! Look can we have a little of your blood? Seems like its valuable. Just a little, you can tell us where to take it from."

The Wyrm seemed to nod reluctantly and it turned its giant head towards it's tail. After biting its own tail it proffered the leaking end towards them. Milly started frantically patting around in her pockets for something to put the liquid in but she remembered in horror that she dropped all of her stuff. Damn!

Luckily Jim pulled out a few boots and started filling them up. She was worried that the precious material would leak through the leather but it seemed to contain the blood. After filling a couple up Jim said "Thanks wormie. Here take this for your trouble."

Her expert eye made out the potion instantly. It was a full health potion, and he wasted it on the creature! How crazy is this guy!

Jim said "Thanks friend, feel free to be on your way."

The wyrm seemed to glaire at her, but then shifted its focus to the pile of dead centipedes. Wow, she didn't see those before.

Jim turned to her and said "So we good now? You ready to go?"

But the little gil coins. There was a chance to make more money. She said "Can we take a short trip that way? There should be an oasis there that has all kinds of plants that I can make potions from!"

Jim sighed and nodded. Milly was mentally cheering! She was going to be rich! Filthy filthy rich!

Jim's PoV

Jim felt a little dirty asking for the wyrm's blood. He could tell the beast had only given it up because of how powerful he was. Still it was kind of cool seeing a side boss floating around. The sand wyrm was a boss that you had to level up your party for around an hour if you wanted to have a chance to fight it. Most people didn't bother. He had decent loot but most of it could be replaced three bosses from this point. Jim already had the guys whole loot table times 99.

He wondered a bit about that. Now that he thought back to his party's fight near the temple he didn't remember them mentioning loot. Actually now that he thought about that the answer was probably really simple. He had given them gear way better than anything they would find. Oh well.

Jim looked sadly at the former oasis. With his massive inventory space the Milly woman literally stripped away every plant that was there. Now he had a massive number of boots that had dirt and weeds growing in them. Seriously, that's what his inventory called it.

"Boot with Weeds x 347"

He really hoped this was worth his time. Jim remembered that Charlotte was under a lot of pressure to have a reproducible source. Sadly looking at the now dead forestry he could only hope that it was for a good cause. Milly handed him the last boot and finally said happily "Looks like we have all of them! Lets go to Jacksberg!"

Trying to tamp his anger down Jim said "Need to get my friends first."

Milly sadly remarked "Oh.. yea. Okay."

"Ready?"

She nodded. Jim emphasized once more "Milly, just remember not to get grabby with my stuff. I can tell if stuff is missing."

Shocked she said "You can?"

That really didn't bode well for their relationship. It didn't look like the happy kind of surprised. More like the "Oh I can't get away with robbing you" surprise. Lifting her up he put her into his inventory.

It was going to suck if she didn't work out. He would have to travel to the end of the first continent to see someone else who could make what she can. Hopefully he would have the patience.