Our journey had wound through sparse woodland and wide, open fields whose crops swayed in the wind. Being behind the proverbial shield provided by Pitchhollow, the farmers were doing the same as Romund’s people and trying to gather as much stock as possible before retreating behind the safety of walls. We came upon a fork in the road as dusk began to settle. A helpful sign pointed us towards the waiting port and Milton Dawnstar’s citadel to the south. What wasn’t displayed, except for on my minimap, was the direction to the sorcerer’s tower. Pulling on the reins, I guided Bolt to the left and trotted on for a short while.

“Through there seems a good place to rest,” suggested Sun, having picked out a small clearing on her own map.

We dismounted and guided our horses through a small grouping of young trees. The grass was lush and green, so we let them both run around and find the best spot to graze.

“We should make the tower by mid-morning,” Sun explained, her eyes flashing over the unseen map on her screen.

“Let’s hope they haven’t laid any fireball traps for us to stumble through,” I replied.

“The stakes and oil in the caves were bad enough,” she muttered. “Cowardly things.”

“But useful,” I countered. “Like the pitfalls around the garrison.”

“I’d prefer to face them in an open field.”

“Most people aren’t like that. Not everyone loves to fight.”

“Then they weren’t raised well,” she scoffed, setting to work on the firepit.

I chuckled and began to gather as much dry wood as I could find. I took a peek in my inventory as I was walking around and realised I needed to start using my materials. True, I’d managed to poison myself once, but that was an accident and I wasn’t about to start nibbling on anything else. I returned to the clearing and dropped the timber. “Sun, would you mind if I had a play with some of my crafting items? I might be able to make something useful.”

“Go ahead. Anything heavy and dangerous is mine.”

“You got it!” I called, settling in a shaded patch of soft grass.

I opened the Basic crafting box (bronze) and a deluge of basic cloths and goods filled my pack, as well as a crafting table. Looking over the contents, it was just the same as most game RPGs where you started by creating clothing that was only good to sell or dump. The options also included linen bandages which would give healing over and above what a tightly bound wound would normally provide. With my shield, it was largely redundant. I switched over to my looted materials from the dungeon and world so far.

“Eww,” I muttered, spying the rat fur.

My first thought was whether I would need to put the bench out and physically go to work on the filthy hair. I found the submenu and activated the rat fur loincloth option.

“Oh, thank god,” I sighed as a small bar slowly progressed to completion and a cheery ping echoed in my mind.

Retrieving it from my pack, it dropped to the ground a safe distance away. The greasy covering of fur on the briefs were crawling with lice or something worse that didn’t bear thinking about. I checked the description that promised eight percent more comfort, compared it to the overall vileness of the underwear, and put them away again before making a dozen more pairs and twenty rolls of bandages.

My character tab flashed with the news of my increase to level 2 in crafting. So far, I hadn’t found anything remotely useful, but such was the way of lower levels. I used the remainder of the fur and cloth to make a heap more loincloths, some pantaloons, and a few shirts. Not unexpectedly, their value to my experience was limited and the level bar had only gotten teasingly close to level 3 for my efforts.

“What about you?” I asked, looking at the matriarch bile and matriarch fang.

The crafting box gave me the option to grind the fangs to powder, so I did it for the entire stock I held. Either the aliens had very little faith in us, or Bart had dumbed it down for me, the slots in my crafting menu self-filled with the potential mixtures. I added the powder to the bile and it suggested adding a healing potion. As reluctant as I was to waste one, my inquisitive nature wasn’t to be ignored. With a slowly filling bar and a ping the result dropped into my pack.

Item – Potion of Disease (common)

Type – Weapon (Taint, thrown, augment)

Description – This vile concoction has a chance to apply disease debuff to the target. Can be used to taint items or food, thrown as a projectile which will coat the enemy, or provide a short duration weapon augmentation (15 minutes).

Requirements – None

Effect – Disease on target (subject to resistances)

Misc - None

Now that was something useful. As much as I tried to forget, I could still remember the feeling of utter helplessness when Bommy had me afflicted with disease and beat the living snot out of me. It mentioned nothing about boss immunity, only a general note on resistances. If I could bring down a powerful foe to a more reasonable level, it might mean the difference between life and death. Figuring what the hell, I made four more and popped them in my quick slot bar.

“What else is there?” I asked, digitally rummaging on my HUD. “Ooh, I remember this.”

The silkweb gossamer had dropped from the webspinner’s food source. Before the memory of their partly eaten forms could twist my gut, I forced them out of my head by concentrating on the table before me. My increase in wisdom had opened up the creation of a set of armour. I had enough to make three complete sets, so I stacked them and sat back to wait.

Sun was watching me from the firepit.

“Nothing heavy so far!” I called.

“Try harder!” she called back.

“It’s not like I’ve got stacks of steel and wood that I can craft into a battle-axe!”

She looked away with a disappointed shake of her head.

My skill rose with a double ding as the job completed. Level 5 flashed briefly on my viewscreen as I activated the armour set. My comfy black Elwes garb vanished, replaced by a light and airy white set. I didn’t know what I’d been expecting. Actually, that was a lie. I had been expecting frilly, see-through, negligee style clothing made of poorly stitched, loose webbing. What I had instead was a faintly shimmering shirt and trousers that looked to be made of actual silk. Unfortunately, there was no seventies music playing where I could throw out some disco fingers or a quick YMCA.

Sun burst out laughing at my Saturday Night Fever getup and I gave her the finger before checking the set out.

Item – Silkweb Armour Set (uncommon)

Type – Light Armour

Description – Don’t let the glossy exterior fool you, this is one of the best starter sets for a rogue. When in stealth mode, the material acts like the skin of a chameleon and changes to suit the surroundings. Don’t ask us how, we didn’t make it.

Requirements – Str 6 Dex 6

Effect – The lightweight material decreases your body weight, greatly reducing movement noise.

Increased crit modifier for assassination.

Misc – Increased resistance to slashing damage

“Cool.” I jumped up and moved closer to the trees. True enough, the white seemed to absorb the colours around me, slowly phasing into a style akin to jungle camo.

“Ok, I take my laugh back!” Sun informed me as she hammered the cooking frame into the mud.

I gave her a thumbs up instead of the middle finger this time. Moving back to my little patch, I swapped over to The Princess Bride outfit and reponed the menu. I’d moved past the chaff and was now into the good stuff. I checked out the orc skin and all it provided was more armour choices, similar to a heavy leather.

“Do you want an orcskin armour set?” I asked Sun.

She returned my single fingered gesture and carried on with her tasks.

“Guess that’s a no.” I would probably craft some later, if only for the experience. With my class choice, I had no real need for a medium weight armour set. On top of that, knowing where it came from was gross and macabre. I’d look down and see the purple growths and wonder if that part had been taken from an orcish arse crack. No thank you very much!

Two items were left. I picked the Spider Queen Silkweb Gossamer first, and there was only one option available. I set my unseen table to work and settled back to wait for it to complete, a wave of excitement rippling through me. Thirty seconds later, my HUD both pinged and dinged as the creation ticked me up a level. I opened the item description.

Item – Shinara’s Snare (rare)

Type – Support Item (Crowd Control)

Description – Acts in a similar fashion to the spell – Webslinger. This small, egg-shaped object will burst and create a covering of sticky webbing on the surface or creature it strikes.

Requirements – None

Effect – Binds or slows enemies that come into contact with the webbing (5 minutes duration)

Misc – Some enemies are immune to the effects

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” I said, a smile plastered over my face. I could flee for my miserable life and toss the little white grenade over my shoulder to make good my escape. I couldn’t help myself, such was the excitement.

“Sun, watch this!” I called, throwing the snare into the branches above my head. Upon touching the edge of a single, fluttering leaf, the item activated and splurged white strands all over the tree. It looked like a mixture between a winter’s kiss and an embarrassing accident I’d had when I was younger, but the less said about that the better.

“What is it?” she asked.

“A kind of trap. Enemies will stick to it.”

“That will be useful. The food’s nearly ready.”

“One more thing to go, then I’ll be over!”

She nodded and went back to turning the sizzling meat.

In my pack, Malkar’s Teeth waited for me. The festering fangs and larger tusks were vile enough to look at as an image turning slowly on my HUD, without holding them in my hands. The bloody roots were about the only thing that wasn’t pocked and pitted with black rot. How the lunatic creature had actually enjoyed the toothache was beyond my comprehension. I’d had a cavity once and the agony had robbed me of both my sleep and dignity as I sobbed into my pillow. The only step open to me was grinding them down. What resulted was more a paste than the powder I’d received from the rodent fangs. This gave me the option to mix it with another of my health potions. I didn’t understand how something designed to help could be combined with something designed to maim, but I didn’t make the rules. The resulting vial popped into my inventory.

Item – Potion of Decay (rare)

Type – Weapon (Thrown)

Description – After coming into contact with this liquid, the enemy has the decay debuff applied.

Requirements – None

Effect – Applies Decay to target

Misc – Ethereal/Undead enemies are immune to Decay

“So what does it do?” I asked, pulling up the description.

Affliction – Decay

Description – The targeted creature is stricken with a weakening rot that breaks down their body, making them more susceptible to attack. While suffering from decay, all damage received by the enemy is multiplied by a factor of three.

Duration – 15 minutes

Considering the bosses I was likely to face, that potion would come in very handy. I pictured one of the demon lords of Hellscape Nightmare looking at me with puzzlement as their wings and other extremities shrivelled and fell off. Or a Tyrannosaurus Rex falling over its own mouldering legs on Prehistoric Peril, trying to use the little, comic, stick arms to push itself upright. Granted, being attacked by either was unlikely to give me much chance to see the funny side, but I still grinned stupidly in the glade.

“All done!” I called, jumping to my feet and making for the fire.

I had a new achievement, so I quickly opened it so I could settle down to a meal followed by combat training and reading lessons.

Achievement Unlocked – Little (Crafting) Shop of Horrors

Description – You’ve successfully used your crafting table to create items. Though lacking the name recognition of Leonardo da Vinci or Thomas Edison, you and your inventions will still be made famous by their use.

You will discover more craftables as you progress through the worlds. Practice makes perfect!

Reward – Increased loot from enemy. Low chance for cross species items to drop.

“Did you make anything useful?” asked Sun.

“Nothing heavy, but some of the gear seems quite dangerous,” I replied, settling by the crackling fire in the pit.

Bolt and Duke had found their own quiet spot and had started to doze as I tucked in to my food. “We’re going to practice more of the basic words tonight, ok?”

Sun nodded, her lips curling into a smile. I’d hated school in my own life, and it made me realise what an idiot I’d been. There were people who didn’t have the luxury of a classroom, let alone a willing teacher. This warrioress was soaking up my knowledge like a sponge, ever keen for more. If only the kids back in the good old United Kingdom appreciated the opportunity they were given, there might not be such a decline in reading and writing. It was a crying shame.

“Some hope,” I muttered, biting off a chunk of cheese that no longer made me gag.

I wolfed down the rest of my food, eager to get started. I laughed when I noticed Sun doing the same, a hungry glint in her eyes.