After exiting the barracks, we started making our way back to the shop where my new chest piece should be ready to pick up. Not only did we now have enough money to pay the owner for her work now, but we could have a look and see if there were any special pieces of equipment were on sale that we simply wouldn’t have been able to afford if we hadn’t done as well on the Terror Bird extermination Quest as we had.

Warren and Kelly looked around the shop with interested expressions at all of the various pieces of equipment. I couldn’t blame them; they hadn’t really had any chance to have a look at any of the equipment that you could buy in this game at all. It probably didn’t help that the gear here actually seemed to be much better than what you could usually find in a starter town like this.

“Ah, Zeke you’re back and you brought some new friends!” The owner greeted us as she came out from the back room. “I take it you have the rest of the money that you owe me.”

“Indeed, I do,” I replied as I placed the coins on the counter making the older woman smile happily before excusing herself as she went back into the back room to retrieve the armour that I had ordered.

When she returned from the back room, she was carrying a large bundle of cloth that she placed on the counter and slowly unwrapped revealing my new chest piece. It was a fairly simple looking thing that almost perfectly resembled the design that she had drawn for me. There was however one small difference.

“Why is it red?” I asked as I looked down at the rather expensive piece of equipment which had been dyed the dark red of blood.

“I just thought that colour would suit you,” she replied with a shrug. “I can change it if you want though.”

“No, no its fine I just wasn’t expecting you to do that,” I replied quickly. “Do you mind if I check the stats?”

“It’s all yours,” she replied with a laugh and I nodded as I brought up the information for my new piece of armour.

Armoured Scale Vest

Item Tier (Rarity): Well made (Uncommon)

Required Level: 5

Physical Defence: 15

Core Slots:

1 Skill Core Sockets

2 Support Core Sockets

Magical Defence: 6

Armour Type: Medium

This armoured vest has been made out of the surprisingly light armoured plates of an Armoured Rabbit that were broken up into smaller pieces and then bound together in a way that provides decent protection while not slowing down the wearer.

“Wow,” I said as I looked up at the older woman who puffed her chest out proudly. “This is a nice piece of gear for my Level.”

“Of course, it is,” she replied happily. “I made it. Unfortunately, while the materials that you brought me are decent for people who have a low Level like you do it’s still not good enough for me to make something truly worthy of my talents.”

“Do you mind me asking how you turned that big plate of armour into these rectangular scales?” I asked as I looked over the vest. As I said the massive chunk of armour that I had given her had somehow been turned into small rectangular pieces which she had then bound together with some sort of leather which allowed her to make it into medium armour instead of a proper plate breastplate which was what I had been worried she would tell me was the only thing that she could make with it when I had handed it over to her.

“Let’s just say that you gain some interesting abilities when you Level Up your Crafting Skills and leave it at that for now shall we,” the woman replied with a small laugh.

Wait a minute, I thought as I checked my map and sure enough there was a marker on this exact store for the Armour-smithing, Leatherworking and Tailoring Crafting tutors.

“So, I take it you’re the Tailoring and Leatherworking tutor then?” I asked as I looked up at the woman who nodded.

“That is correct, and my husband is the Armour-smithing tutor,” she replied. “Why would you like to learn a Crafting Skill from one of us?”

“Well I wouldn’t myself but one of my friends might,” I told her as I turned to look at Fern who nodded in agreement.

“Yes, I would like you to teach me Leatherworking,” Fern said as she walked up to the counter. As it turned out both Fern and Evie had reached Level 5 and could choose their own Crafting and Gathering Skills like I already had.

Fern had predictably chosen Leatherworking for her first Crafting Skill but had yet to pick her second one. While Evie had chosen Cooking and Alchemy fairly quickly as she and Kelly had decided that it would be better for Kelly for learn the Tailoring Skill instead which had actually been Evie’s first choice. However, Evie seemed pretty happy with the Skills that she had right now, so I wasn’t going to disagree with her decision.

“Alright have you Levelled Up the Skill at all?” the woman asked as Fern walked up and my party member shook her head.

“I haven’t even had the chance to use it yet,” Fern replied.

“Well I can teach you one other Crafting recipe and give you a basic leatherworking kit for 5 Silver if you want,” the woman told my Party member making us all blanch in surprise at the surprisingly high cost. We could afford to buy these things even after I paid for my armour and still have plenty left over but it was clear that becoming a true Crafter was an expensive process.

“Sure, that’s fine,” Fern said after glancing over her shoulder at me and the others to make sure that we were all in agreement.

The older woman happily took the money that Fern handed to her before turning around and opening a drawer which she rummaged around in for a few moments before pulling out a small sheet of paper which she placed on the counter in front of Fern and then going into the back room once more and coming back with a small bag which I assumed contained the things that Fern would need for basic Leatherworking recipes.

“How do I use this Recipe?” Fern asked as she picked up the sheet of paper, then blinked in surprise. “Ah never mind.”

She quickly poked something in mid-air then froze as her face went completely blank for a few seconds. When she came around, she had a slightly disappointed look on her face. Seeing this the older woman chuckled slightly.

“I take it that you were hoping for something better than that?” she laughed. “Don’t worry dear the two recipes that you know now are so that you can refine the hides that you get from the monsters that you kill into something usable and train up your Leatherworking Skill. I know they’re not very exciting, but you can’t expect to learn how to make things like leather gloves and such without having to learn less complicated things first. Besides you can learn how to make our own recipes later on so that you can make specialised items like the armour that I made for your friend.”

“Okay,” Fern nodded. “By the way I don’t think that we ever got your name. I’m Fern by the way.”

“Oh, yes of course,” the lady laughed. “I apologise my dear. I’m Gertrude Favreau it’s very nice to meet you.”

After the rest of us had introduced ourselves we started to look around at the wares that were on sale in the store. Unfortunately, almost everything was a bit out of our price range, so we decided to make our way to the marketplace. We said goodbye to Gertrude she saw us out with a smile on her face.

When we got there, we immediately made our way to the stall that Gertrude’s family run and started browsing the wares which were considerably cheaper but also worse than the stuff that was on sale in the store. Warren found a shield that was considerably better than the one that he had and an iron breastplate that we decided were good purchases. Fern also found a short leather cape that she quite liked that came with a new Soul Core that gave her a basic Stealth Skill. The Soul Core was only a Support Core instead of a proper Skill Core, but she could always buy a better Core later when we had a bit more money. Evie decided to let the other buy new equipment first since we had already bought her a new weapon which was still more expensive than both the shield and the breastplate that we had brought for Warren.

I actually disagreed with her on this. Evie was our healer which along with the tank which was Warren was one of the most important members of the party but she completely refused to even look at anything so there wasn’t really anything that we could do.

With a sigh Kelly picked up a small ring that glowed slightly with an internal light and placed it on the pile of gear that we were buying. A quick check told me that this ring had a single Support Core Slot that had a Core slotted that increased SP regen by 1.5 which was actually a pretty good choice for a mage type character like Kelly.

“Are you sure you don’t want something better than this?” I asked as I looked at my friend in confusion. We have enough money for you to get some Light Armour.”

“It’s fine Zeke,” she laughed. “We need to save some money so that we can get some more antidotes and things. You have to go hunting those Javelin Toads for that old man you told us about in some sort of swamp, tomorrow right? You know as well as I do that swamps typically have a lot of poisonous monsters.”

“That’s true,” I sighed putting some funds aside for that sort of thing was always a good idea, so I decided to let it go for now. “Alright Katy is there anything that you want?”

“Hmm,” my AI companion hummed to herself as she looked at the items for sale at the store. “I was actually thinking that I might get some specialised arrows.”

“Hmm, what sort of arrows were you thinking of getting?” I asked. This was actually something that I knew a little bit about. Although any quiver had an unlimited supply of normal arrows you could also buy arrows that had serrated tips that would replace the arrows in your quiver with ones that could inflict bleeding or just ones that did boosted damage. There were even specialised arrows that had magical effect like igniting an enemy in flames or freezing them solid. These specialised arrows only had a certain number of ‘charges’ before you became unable to use them, but they were still quite useful pieces of equipment that gave an archer a lot more utility than they would normally have. According to Katy they functioned just like a Skill did. When you wanted to use them so you could choose when you wanted to use a certain type of arrow. Some of the things that these specialised arrow could do could be mimicked by certain Skills that an archer could learn but the effects of both of specialised arrows and Skills stacked so you could use a Skill that ignored a certain amount of defence and an armour piercing arrow at the same time and deal even more damage to a heavily armoured enemy.

After looking around for a bit we managed to find a stall selling the arrows that Katy was looking for and she picked out a bundle serrated arrows and another bundle armour piercing arrows that had 50 charges each. They weren’t as expensive as I’d feared either so we still had more than a gold coin remaining after our little shopping spree, but it was starting to get late and people were already starting to pack up, so we decided to head back to the inn.

Once we got back to the inn and sat down at our usual table down the back and ordered some food before we started checking our Soul Links to see what new Skills and things we had unlocked. I hadn’t unlocked anything new myself, but the others all had.

Katy had unlocked two new bonuses from both of her Soul Cores. For her knife she had unlocked the same Skill that Fern had unlocked which allowed her to attack multiple time in a split second and had also increased her Agility. She had also unlocked a new Skill for her bow called Drill Arrow that ignored a certain amount of physical defence much like her new arrow did.

Meanwhile Evie had chosen to increase her Spirit and Spirit regen with the Level Up bonuses for her two Soul Cores since she couldn’t unlock a new Skill for them. At the moment all of her Soul Cores increased these two Stats, so her build was still a bit lopsided despite the fact that I had warned her against doing this before. However, we were a bit better equipped than we had been earlier so hopefully it wouldn’t be too long before we would be able to start buying things like that to round out our builds.

Fern had ended up increasing her Dexterity and Agility again. She was close to unlocking the next tier of bonuses but for now she could move and attack slightly faster and deal more damage with her weapons. I was really looking forward to seeing what Skills she would be able to learn next time.

Warren had unlocked two new Skills as well. For his shield he had unlocked a new Skill that allowed him to hit an enemy with his shield multiple times dealing minimal damage but massively increasing aggro called Shield Pummel. It could only be used against a single enemy at once, so it wasn’t quite as good as the taunting Skills that Jameson had used but it was a start. He also unlocked a Skill for his sceptre that gave him a small buff to damage for a few seconds called Charged Strike. Like the other Skills that Warren had gotten from his Sceptre Soul Core this Skill also used his Magic Power as the modifier instead of his Strength like it would with something like a mace. Our Tank increasing his Intelligence so much when he didn’t really have any magic still seemed a little odd to me but then it wasn’t like I could actually talk much.

And finally, Kelly had unlocked a new Earth spell that allowed her to make a pit of quicksand that could slow down enemies which massively increased her ability to control the battlefield. I’m not going to lie I couldn’t help but wish that she had unlocked a new damaging spell, but I guess we actually had enough damage dealing capabilities, so more control skills were certainly useful. Interestingly the Skill that she unlocked for her staff was one that sort of worked as both. It was called Explosive Glyph and created what was essentially a magical mine that detonated when an enemy stepped on it. I actually felt a chill run down my back when I saw the smile on Kelly’s face as she told us about this new Skill and I found myself thankful that we were friends instead of enemies which was something that I had done an uncountable number of times since I had met her.

Still these new Skills and increased Stats increased our combat capabilities by quite a significant amount especially when I considered that we had also bought some new equipment. Of course, my happiness at this thought quickly changed when Fern and Evie reminded me that they wouldn’t be able to play tomorrow.

“Ah, crap, that completely slipped my mind,” I sighed sadly. “Oh well you’ll be able to play in the evening, right?”

“Well I know that I can,” Fern replied.

“I can too,” Evie chimed in. “But you should make sure to bring plenty of healing items tomorrow. I’ll be annoyed if one of you gets locked out of the game because you died.”

“Fair enough,” I chuckled before turning to Warren and Kelly. “Well I suppose that we’d better head off to bed. I’ll see you and Kelly in the morning.”

“Sure,’ my friend nodded. “We might stay up a bit longer though.”

“Okay,” I nodded before heading upstairs and going through my routine of logging out, eating and going to the toilet before logging back in and going to sleep.

The next morning after having a quick breakfast Warren Kelly and I collected some healing potions and antidotes from the market before heading off towards the marker on my map.

“How far do you think it is to this swamp we’re supposed to be going to?” Kelly asked once we had left town.

“Not too far,” I replied. I had actually asked about this while Kelly had been buying the consumables earlier and the swamp, we were heading to was only about half an hour’s walk away from Ponson.

While we walked the three of us caught up on things. It had been a few months since I had spent any real length of time with Kelly and Warren. We had played a bit up until recently, but their jobs took up quite a lot of their time.

As such the time passed pretty quickly and soon, I could smell the distinctive odour of swamp gas and mud on the air and knew that we were close. Not long after that we arrived at the swamp.

“Well, here we are I guess,” I said as I looked out over the rather unappealing landscape. “Now to find some toads.”

“I don’t see any toads,” Warren said quietly. “But that thing over there isn’t a log that’s for sure.”

I nodded in agreement as I saw that object that Warren was referring to. While it would be easy to mistake for a simple log, I could see the muddy water that it was sitting in rippling slightly around it. This combined with the fact that other objects in the water were moving slowly along instead of remaining still like this ‘log’ was, told me that it was something else entirely.

“Yeah, let’s stay away from that for now,” I said. “I don’t think that we’re ready to take on a crocodile or alligator that’s twice as long as I am tall.”

“Nope,” Warren agreed. “Not without a healer anyway. Still if that things there it’s pretty likely that the toads that we’re looking for aren’t so lets head to the other side of the swamp and start from there.”

I nodded in agreement to this idea and we slowly made our way around the edge of the swamp. I kept a close eye on the muddy water as we walked. Even if we had spotted something that we were pretty sure was a giant alligator fairly easily I wasn’t going to let my guard down any time soon. In a game like this who knew what we might end up facing.

As it turned out my wariness was unwarranted and soon, we came to a halt a short distance away from the muddy water and tried to figure out what to do next. After a while of Kelly and I coming up with ideas for finding the toads and then shooting them down Warren stood up and walked over to the water’s edge before turning back to us with an irritated look on his face.

“You know guys,” he grumbled. “Getting the attention of mobs is the Tanks job.”

Having said this he turned towards the water and threw the fist sized stone that I hadn’t even realised he’d been holding into the water creating a loud splash. It was at this moment that all hell broke loose.