April 10, 2039

After a minute or so, the rat was dead. The Dragonkin bent down and started running a large knife over the rat. He stood up and put a pelt into the bag on his back. Then, knelt back down and finished looting the rat. Aaron was puzzled as to what he just saw, so he got up and walked over to the Black Dragonkin.

“Evening!” Aaron said as he walked up to the Black Dragonkin. “Mind if I ask you a question? I’ve been in the game for about 20 minutes now and was hoping to get a bit of advice.” The Black Dragonkin shrugged, “Sure thing. What’s on your mind?”

Aaron pointed at another rat sniffing at a tree. “Sorry for such a newb question. The one kill I have so far just had the loot pop up in a window. It looked like you had to actually skin that rat.” The other Dragonkin nodded. “I’m guessing that you’ve only fought one of the bugs. It’s easier to just show you. That rat would probably take you apart if you’re a level 1. Go smack that one. I’ll hang back until you can get it under half and then I’ll jump in. That way you can loot it and will get the xp.”

Aaron nodded. “That sounds great. Thanks.” He ran up and hit the large rat about the size of a cocker spaniel. The red 5 still flew through the air, but there was no blood this time. It spun around and went to bit at him. Just like the first fight, he kicked the rat in it’s head for 2 hit points as soon as it turned towards him. This gave him the chance to score another hit for 3 hit points against the rat. Shaking it’s head, the rat launched forward and bit Aaron on the leg right where the beetle had bit him. A large red 12 flashed in front of his eyes. He heard the Black Dragonkin groan in sympathy. He slashed his sword back into the rat, knocking loose another red 5 and glanced up over it’s head. It’s health bar was at around 70%. It lunged at him again and Aaron was able to jump back out of it’s way. He slashed the rat again for 4 hit points. The rat ran up and bit him again. A large red 10 flashed. Aaron kicked the rat and slashed it, breaking loose a red 2 and 4. This brought the rat under the halfway mark.

The Black Dragonkin ran up and kicked the rat up against the tree. He pulled the two handed ax from his back and slammed it into the rat. It managed to bite the Black Dragonkin once before a second blow from the ax finished off the rat. He turned back to Aaron and glanced above his head. “Lexen, that’s not bad at all for your second kill. It took a few nice chunks out of you. As you can tell, my name is Karion.” As he said this, he pointed up to the name floating above his head.

“Go ahead and check the loot. Don’t take it all though.” As Aaron checked, he saw rat meat and a rat tail, but no pelt. “Ok, no pelt. Is it an uncommon drop?” Karion tossed him the large knife that he was using earlier. “Try to loot the rat holding that.”

Aaron knelt down next to the dead rat while holding the large knife. Tapping the rat, he was surprised to see a window pop up appear before him.

Welcome to skinning! Approaching a recently defeated opponent while holding a skinning knife will allow you to take it’s pelt, if you have sufficient skill. Larger or more complex creatures will take longer to skin. Be aware that you can be attached while you are skinning.

As Aaron watched, a series of dotted lines appeared across the body of the rat. The lines followed a logical path of one had wanted to skin this creature. A cuff around each of the paws, a line up the back of each leg. A long line across the belly, and around the neck. When he placed the knife on the first dotted line, he heard a sound like fabric being cut. After about 30 seconds of tracing the lines, he was rewarded with a large rat pelt.

Tapping the rat again, he collected the rat meat and rat tail. Glancing at his experience bar, Aaron was excited to see that it had jumped up to 125/1000. Taking down rats would be a nice way to level up quickly. However, it would have killed him after another bite or two and it would only be at a bit under half health. His musings were interrupted when another box popped up.

Skinning: level 1. Please note that skinning is a trade skill. You can only have two trade skills that are over level 20 and one trade skill that is over level 75.

Aaron heard clapping as he stood. Karion was applauding his success. “I’m impressed! I turned my first two times into leather strips and scraps! Here you get the full pelt on your first go. Follow me. I want to introduce you to some people who can help you with that.”

He turned and started walking over to a building off to the right of the gate. The odd thing was that it was outside the wall and a good 200 yards away. The building looked about the size of a three car garage with two stories. There was a large outside work area that was covered by an overhang

Never being one to waste an opportunity, Aaron started up the conversation and handed Karion back the knife. “Do you know much about how the breath weapons work? I wanted to use it against that rat, but I didn’t want to ruin the pelt.”

Karion stopped dead in his tracks. “I didn’t even think of that. It would make sense that if you doused the rat in acid, that it’s pelt would be damaged. We’ll ask Uncle James when we get there. If anyone will know, he will.”

Now that they were getting closer, Aaron saw three Black Dragonkin moving around in the outside portion of the shop. To his surprise, Karion veered towards the river that was just down the hill.

“Uncle James and Aunt Molly run this place. Their three kids work here too. They don’t go out and actually play the game much, but can you believe that they make enough money to actually have Aunt Molly do this full time? She makes some amazing leather armor. She can even make it magical. Uncle James has specialized in tanning and skinning. He prepares all the pelts and she works them. My cousins Jeremy and Michael help outside and Zoe is getting pretty good at making leather armor too.”

By this point, they had made it down to the river and Aaron saw that there was a post by the water’s edge with a few ropes that lead up to the shop. There was a small fence that was built along the shoreline and four wooden baskets laying against the fence. There were also metal hooks hanging from the ropes. Karion took two of these and handed one to Aaron.

Walking over to the baskets, he picked one up and handed another to Aaron. “Here you go Lexen. It helps out when you bring up a refill of water.” Filling up his bucket by the river, he started walking up the hill carrying the heavy basket, Aaron filled up his basket and followed up the hill.

Once they got closer, two of the Dragonkin ran up to the railing around the outdoor work area. “Hey Dad! Kari is here and he brought a friend.” The other Dragonkin waved. “Hi Kari!”

Both of the Dragonkin were wearing similar outfits of a shirt and leather kilt. One of the brothers was wearing a blue rough cotton shirt and the other brother was wearing the red shirt. Both of them had a leather apron with tool handles sticking out of the pockets on the front.

Karion growled. “Come on! It’s Karion. I know you guys can read the name. It’s floating right above my head!” With that reminder, Aaron looked above the two Dragonkin’s heads.

William.Tanner was wearing the red shirt and Mark.Tanner was wearing the blue shirt. James.Tanner walked up to the group while Karion and the brothers were arguing. “Hey Craig. Good to see you. Who’s your friend?”

Aaron stuck out his arm to shake his James’s hand. “Good evening. The name is Lexen. Sorry if I’m intruding at all. Your nephew is helping me learn the ropes. I saw him skinning a rat and he showed me how. Even let me borrow his knife.”

James got a huge smile full of sharp dragon teeth. “Did he now? Well if he only let you borrow the knife, let me get you one of your own.” He walked over to a small chest and pulled out a knife with a leather sheath. Pulling the knife free of the sheath, he flipped the knife around and showed Aaron the artistic word Tanner on the side of the blade.

“This way you will think of us when you are using your new knife. I have a few propositions for you Lexen. First, I will buy any rat pelt you get for 5 silver or 15 silver for a wolf pelt. If you do find anything more interesting, let me know and we can work out a price. If you are thinking of going into crafting, I’ll swap you three raw pelts for one worked leather. My wife makes the most amazing leather armor. It is better than what you will find anywhere shy of a raid. She will make a deal for you if you are a productive pelt gatherer. Finally, if you bring me a fine person like yourself that will be killing all these rats and wolves for xp and quests I’ll give you a referral bonus.”

With that, he reached into his the back of his leather apron and pulled out a gold coin. The coin was a little bigger and thicker than a quarter. James gave a dazzling smile then yelled for Karion. Once he had his attention, he tossed the gold coin to him.

James clapped his hands together and rubbed them briskly, “So, you said you have a pelt right? Bring it over here and I’ll show you our operations. I can see from your hesitation and how you are looking at the gold coin that you’ve done the conversions. Yes, a virtual rat pelt is worth five dollars to me. Let me show you why.”

Aaron held up his hand in a wait gesture. “I’m very interested and I certainly want the guided tour. I do have a few questions though, if you don’t mind.”

“As long as I get to ask you one back, I’m fine with that.” Aaron pulled the pelt out of his inventory. He unrolled it and both he and James looked over it.

“I hit this rat five or six times with my sorry excuse for a sword and Karion hit it twice with his ax, but the pelt doesn’t even look damaged from the weapon hits. I wanted to use fire breath on it, but I figured it would ruin the pelt.”

James nodded in understanding. “They made this game realistic enough to be challenging and rewarding to us crafters, but not impossible. With the low level stuff it would be doable, but imagine how it would work against a big creature like a bear or something like a dragon. A fight like that would have a lot of people hitting it and more than a few of them would be using magic. William over there is a wizard. I’ve seen him kill a rat with his acid breath and a gout of fire, I went and checked the body. All the standard loot was there and when I skinned it I got a clean pelt. So feel free to kill them anyway you can.”

“Anyway, my turn to ask you a question. Why are you running around wearing no gear at all?” James asked expectantly. Aaron heard his wife make some comment to Valery about her father being a streaker in his younger years. He could swear that he could hear his daughter’s eyes roll.

Aaron just shrugged. “I’ve only been in the game for about 30 minutes. All I started with is a chunk of rusty iron with a handle on it.” James glanced at his sons. “When you started in the hatchery, do they still have the guy standing there to welcome you?” At my nod, he continued. “You didn’t talk to him. Did you?”

“No. Well, I guess that’s what I will do when I get back to town after this.” James shrugged. “It’s nothing urgent. It’s just a shirt and kilt, but it beats running around in just your loin cloth.”

Karion walked up and joined in on the conversation. “You know what would really help him out Uncle James? I think you should take that pelt and process it into a leather for him. I can take that leather and make it into a coin purse for him. Then, I can let him bum some coins for the gemstone that Aunt Molly will need for the conversion rune.”

James looked over at Karion. “Well, that is an ambitious plan. Would this have anything to do with you starting up on leather working yourself?”

Karion looked down and shrugged. “Well, there is no reason that we all can not benefit from helping Lexen out.”

Aaron looked back and forth between the two. “I’m sorry, but why would I need a coin purse. How much for the gemstone? Why a gemstone? What’s a conversion rune?”

Still eyeing his nephew, James answered. “Unlike the games of old, money goes in your inventory. The problem is they only stack with like. If I gave you one of each type, you are already down four inventory slots. Molly will answer the rest of those questions. Since you are new though, I’ll cut you a one time deal and do a straight one for one for the pelt. Mark! Go grab another bucket of water!”

As he yelled, one of the brothers jumped up from where he was leaning against the post. He started trotting down to the river,

“Walk over here with me Lexen.” James walked over to a large stone vat, about six feet wide and three feet deep. Picking up one of the baskets of water that Aaron and Karion had brought up from the river and poured it into the stone vat.

Aaron picked up the other basket of water and poured it into the stone vat as well. Mark came walking up the hill and poured his bucket into the stone vat. He pulled out the metal hook and attached it to the basket. He walked over to the rope that led down to the river. Connecting the hook to the rope, he sent the basket back down the hill to the river. Aaron pulled the metal hook out of his inventory and sent the basket down to the river. James handed Aaron the other basket and then that basket was sent down to the river as well.

“Alright Lexen. Hand me the pelt please and I’ll show you what it takes to make leather out of a pelt. Boys!” Both Mark and William came over and stood next to the stone vat.

The three dragonkin all breathed in as one and released their breath weapon into the stone vat full of water. Aaron could hear Marie and Val gasp as he stepped back. Steam rose from the vat as it began to bubble and hiss.

Mark slapped Aaron on the back. ”It always does that. We have to give it a bit for it to settle down, then we can use the mix to clean and prep the pelts.”

William walked over to a trunk full of pelts by the wall of the house. He counted out eleven more pelts and brought them over and tossed them into the stone vat. After receiving a nudge from Mark, Aaron tossed his in as well,

James reaches up and pulled three poles with hooks on them. Tossing one to each of the boys, James started to explain. It took us quite a while to figure it out. The first few batches didn’t do anything to the pelts. Some of the later batches dissolved the pelts entirely.” Mark muttered “and one of the hooks.”

Aaron heard Val laugh in the background. As they stirred the pelts around, the water started to thicken with hairs floating to the top as they slowly dissolved.

After five minutes of stirring, they pulled them out with the hooks and placed them in another large basket. Mark brought one of the steaming pelts over to a small rack. He quickly stretched the pelt over it and pulled out a knife and started running the blade over the pelt and scraping off the excess hairs and other materials. Setting that rack aside, he pulled another small rack forward and repeated the process.

James picked up the rack that had the scrapped pelt on it. It had lost a lot of it’s color in the process and was a pale gray,

“Let’s head inside and I’ll show you the next few parts of the operation. Come on Craig!” He placed the rack on a hook by the door. Glancing up, he saw a rope that led up to a door opening into the second floor.

James pulled open the door into the inside portion of their work shop. “Come on Craig! You may as well join us if you are going to try to bump your leather crafting. After you Lexen.”