After planting the seeds, Natalie began to check the field, to see if any of the flower patches had respawned over night. It was still the same as yesterday. Maybe it would take a few ingame days, before they respawn.

She turned her attention to the fields across the road, they were fenced, but only from the road. Natalie could see gaps here and there. It didn't look as if the fence was there to keep anyone out or anything in. It seemed to be more for defining the road, then being functional.

Natalie, making up her mind, crossed between a section of the fence, wide enough to drive a large vehicle through. Already, she could see patches of the sundaisys, with other flowers scattered in the larger field. She set to work, harvesting as many as she could. Natalie found other small plants. That when she rubbed them to bruised their leaves, gave off various smells, from pleasant, to sharp or tangy.

Natalie worked all morning, singing softly to herself the whole time. She still kept watch, for any angry farmers or roaming wild life, as she worked. Nearly all the plants she harvested, that were damaged, turned to seeds, the rest faded away. She now had seven, different seed types, in her inventory.

Around the middle of the morning, Natalie suddenly felt a burning rush of strange energy, going throughout her body. Words appeared in her vision.

Congratulations Traveller you have reached level 1

You may now see your stats and assign points

You have 10 unassigned stat points.

You have reached the starting level you have an additional 3 unassigned points and 2 skill points.

to assign points or to see your skills or stats simple think "Status"

Natalie stared, then a large doggy grin appeared. Her tail was wagging so hard, she couldn't walk. She had leveled, now maybe she would progress further. Natalie wonder if she could see the skill, she was trying to earn.

"Only one way to find out," she muttered. Then thought 'Status'

Crystal [dogkin] Level 1 Stamina 10 + Strenght 10 + Intellect 10 + Mana 50 + unassigned stat points 13

Skills

herbalist 60%

farming 30%

unassigned skill points 2

Natalie checked the status over, that seemed high for a level 1 avatar. She shrugged, deciding to leave placing the points for now, until she knew a bit more of how the game was played.

She thought about heading to the town, maybe selling the herbs and plants she had gathered that morning. It had seemed almost like a quest, had been handed out. When the NPC had asked her, to gather plants and flowers.

It was the middle of the morning. She could still gather more plants, if she worked hard, maybe she would get the skill. Natalie also needed to check on the flowers, she had planted. Nodding to herself, Natalie walked back across the road to the first field. Making her way to the bushes she had slept in.

All around them was a large garden of Sundaisys, she stood and looked, then with her tail wagging began to harvest her flowers. To her surprise, the one's she planted yield far more undamaged herbs then the wild ones. And when she placed a flower on the ground, to see what would happen to it, she found it was worth more then wild flowers as she received six seeds from it rather then two.

Standing there looking at the field, she came to a quick decision, that NPC was friendly enough to risk asking questions. If she brought in some good herbs, she might be even more likely to talk. Natalie turned and headed towards the village, it wasn't long before she found herself outside the herbalists shop.

She walked in and placed all the plants she had harvested onto the counter, the owner of the shop wasn't anywhere that she could see. Stumped Natalie looked around for something that she could use to attract attention to the counter, a bell or something but couldn't see anything like that either. While trying to think of a solution, the door opened and the NPC walked into the shop.

"Hello Crystal isn't it ?" The Herbalist asked. "What can I do for you today?"

"I found you some herbs and quite a lot of interesting plants from the fields," Natalie told her. " I was hoping you would look at them to see if any are useful to you."

"Well let's take a look then," the Shop Keeper answered. "Molly is my name, if your going to be finding plants and herbs I can use, then I think I should be polite and at least tell you my name,"

She then began to sort though the herbs, again placing the ones she wanted close to herself. This time there wasn't that many rejected, the pile was growing and Molly seemed more and more pleased. Finally she was done, she then placed 23 copper and 62 silver onto the counter near Natalie.

"That's for the mundane wild herbs and plants," Molly said. " this is for the farmed Sundaisys, they are of considerably more value, due to the higher yield I will get when processing them."

She placed 1gold, 3 silvers and 23 coppers on to the counter next to the other coins. She then look at Natalie for a minute, before going down to the end of the counter and reaching under it.

" If your going to farm herbs you will need to be able to know what your planting." She told Natalie. " you also need the right tools for it."

Molly was placing some well made tools onto the counter as she spoke and then moved to another section, opened a draw and produced a little book that was placed by the tools.

"There you go Crystal," she said, "all together that will cost you 46 silver, that's 12 silver for the farming tools and harvest tools and 34 silver for the Herbalists Compendium on how to identify and harvest herbs."

Natalie's eyes widen this was more then she was expecting, but Molly then surprised her further.

"Now about the farming it's a much needed skill just about anywhere you go, most people these days are only interested in adventures and dungeon delves. Which gives them an easier way to get meat and riches to buy what they need," she said with a grimace. "they do not think about where the potions they need for that come from, you had the patience and fore sight to try to grow what you wanted to harvest with no prior knowledge of just how to do it, so I am hoping to grab you now and ask that you consider a bit of farming in your life, so what do you say, interested?"

Natalie thought about it for bit, Molly didn't say anything she just stood and waited patiently to see what Natalie decided.

"Will I only be able to farm?" Natalie asked. " will that stop me from having other professions?"

"Heavens no girl," Molly laughed. " you can have as many of the professions as you want and have the time for."

" Then yes I think I want to do some farming," she decided.

"Good." Molly said looking really pleased. "Then you will need one of these,"

She went to a different draw and pulled out a wooden scroll and laid it on the counter.

"This is a farming land sanctuary," she told Natalie. " to make it work you unroll it a little and speak the word of power while standing in the middle of a fair side field, when it's time to move on just revoke the sanctuary, it will revert back into the scroll ready for use the next time you want to farm, it will cost you 1 gold, I know it's taking all that you just got, but I assure you that money will not be an issue for you in a few weeks time,"

"Thank you," murmured Natalie. She was in a daze so much valuable information in these loaded sentences. She gathered up all her new tools and the two books, thanked Molly again then took a walk back to fields. She decided not to put her sanctuary up in the small field, she walked to the big one across the road.

Natalie pulled the scroll from her inventory and started to read the instructions, when she was sure she had everything right, she placed the scroll on the ground and called out the word of power to activate it. There was a glow all around her, then a bright flash and she found herself in a large fenced compound. There were building's in it as well.

Congratulations Traveller you have gained a soul bound item 'Farm Sanctuary'

This is a level 0 sanctuary

Each 6 Farming level's can be used to raise the tier of your sanctuary, the farming level's will be reset to level 1 until the maxed tier has been reached. 0/15 Copper tier.

Natalie was wild with delight over her good fortune, somehow she didn't think that one gold was the true price of this item! Molly must have been desperate to have sold it to her so cheaply. She walked around looking at the different buildings she found one small hut with a bed in it, so it looked like this was her own safe logout spot. Beside that shack was a storage shed then a section for growing the herbs.

Natalie sat down on the bench near the shack and pulled out her herbalist book and started to read about which herbs would be good ones to skill up on. She decided to plant Sundaisy's and Blueguard's, with a smattering of healberries.

It took her about an hour to plant while following the guide in her book, but when she was done it was with a feeling of satisfaction. Now she could logout, and see if her brothers had made it into the game as well.

"Log me out please Sam," she said. Once she was in her virtual room she went to the console and entered notes leaving as much written down of her latest escapades that she could. Then she went to the game sight to check up if there were any different updates for the game, and the forums to see if any others had made progress in the game.

Finding nothing important at this stage she exited the pod and went in for a shower. As she was coming out of the shower her Dad was walking down the stairs, he stopped and smiled at her.

"Hi Little Bee," he greeted her. " it's been a while since I've seen you, what have you been doing? Want to come down to the garden with me and tell me about it ?"

"Sure Dad," she laughed and followed him out to the garden where she filled him in on her doings for the past two days, while they went about fixing , weeding and picking the fruits and veggies.

They were musing on all the different types of things she could do with her new item, as they walked into the kitchen to bring the days harvest into the house, she found herself filling in her mother on the same subjects and then her sister. So when her brothers came in she groaned, not liking the fact she was going to have to repeat everything again.

"Hey Little Brat," her sister chuckled. " don't worry I have you covered."

Chelsea then turned on her wrist comp, on which she had a recording of the whole conversation and played it though for her brothers. They listened with single minded focus to everything, then turned one after the other and grinned at her.

"That is absolutely fantastic Natalie," Jake said. "You must be the only player, in the game right now that has an NPC actively helping them and also the first with a soulbound item.

" Yeah," said Brian. We will have to come and check it out we spawned into the same starting area as you are in."

"You did? that's great Brian if you want to try the blacksmith be humble, perhaps try to find him some ore and ask him about it," she enthused.

"That's a good idea Natalie," Jake said happily. Then they were all called by their mother to come and eat dinner.

After dinner she went to her pod, and proceeded to put the new raft of robots though a diagnostic, to make sure the shake down of first installation had been totally successful. Then once that was done it took Sam and herself only half the night to complete the standard tasks, deciding that she had done enough she had Sam slip her into real sleep and set an alarm for 7:00 am.