Natalie's alarm woke her, it was Sunday and she had wasted a whole night on real sleep, she should have logged into Freedom. Especially after what Sam had revealed, she stood up and exited the pod. Grabbing what she would need for her shower Natalie rushed to the bathroom, hoping no one had already enter it, but it was clear.

After a quick shower, she went downstairs and made herself a solid large breakfast. Once that was completed and cleaned up she started the house chores, by the time her mother came down the stairs Natalie had finished the house chores.

" The house is clean Mum," she told her mother. "Nothing for you to do but enjoy your Sunday however you wish."

Her mother looked surprised and please and hugged her in thanks.

" That was unexpected Natalie," Mother said. " but I think I love it all the more for that!"

Natalie smile then waved as she went outside to the gardens her job wasn't finished yet. She worked hard and as fast as she could to do the garden chores so that her father could have the day off as well.

"Hi Little Bee, Mother told me you have been very busy this morning," her father called as he came into the gardens, he was looking around and could see Natalie had almost completed all the garden chores as well.

"Hi Dad," Natalie smiled at her father and wiped a dirty hand across her sweaty forehead. "I've just finished here too now you have a day off as well!"

"Well thank you Little Bee," he replied. "Now what did you do yesterday? Did you and Amanda rob a store? Assault someone? Am I going to get a call from a correction officer over something you two little demons have done?"

Natalie laughed as her father joked about her free day gift to both her parents.

"No Dad I just decided to help out as much as I can, since I have all this free time on my hands." Natalie responded still smiling and hoping her father who knew her so well wouldn't press for more answers.

Seeing the doubt in his eyes she rushed forwards and hugged him hard and fast while babbling that she had to have another shower and then login to her game now that chores were done. Then she ran up the path disappearing into the house leaving a nonplussed parent standing in the garden behind her.

Once in the house Natalie paused to calm herself and then walked in quietly, no one was around again so she took the opportunity to slip back upstairs, had another shower and climbed into her pod again.

In her parents room a bit later, her mum and dad were talking, they were getting worried, Natalie was becoming more secretive and working herself harder as the days went by. Her Dad had notice it almost immediately, since the well-being of his youngest daughter played heavily in his mind.

They both knew how important the next two years were going to be for her and her diligence was in her favour. But what about this sudden obsession with that game? At first they had thought it a harmless pastime, one that made her happy now they weren't so sure. Their other three children were going to be playing it soon as well.

They eventually decided to do a little investigation on the game to see what it was about, all they had to go on right now was second hand information from their daughter. For the older children it would be harmless they had plenty to keep them grounded, but Natalie? She couldn't afford to be sidetracked right now.

Once back in her pod, Natalie sighed in relief, she sat down at the desk in her virtual room. After the work this morning she needed a minute to rest.

"Sam is everything ok with the bot raft?" She asked.

"Yes Natalie, everything is fine, your programming was spot on I didn't need to correct any of it." Sam replied. "Do you want me to bring up Freedom and get it ready for login?"

"Do you really think Freedom will help me?" She asked, she was doubting her own judgement on this decision to put everything into the game.

"Yes without a doubt, that game has been designed for people just like you." Sam said. "The only thing needed is for you to go into it and show them it's going to work."

"Ok Sam log me into Freedom please." She ordered.

The virtual room faded out and soon a brilliant morning sunlight was shining at her through the entrance to her little bed hut in the sanctuary. She sat there for a few minutes, the first thing she needed to do was harvest the crops that should be ready right now.

Then plant more, she should get the remaining experience needed to gain the Farming Skill. She also decided to finally put some of those points into her stats, as soon as the farming skill became available. Molly had also mentioned she would need animal husbandry, she would have to go to the big barn in the Village and try to get that.

Now that she had immediate plans for the day she got up, picking up her harvesting tools and walked to the first of the herb beds. These were the Sundaisys, she knew they had been ready last night to harvest, they didn't seem to be damaged by the wait. She set to and going by the instructions in the book harvested them as carefully as she could.

Once they were safely stored in her shed, and the seeds put into her inventory she moved on to the Blueguards, these were harder to harvest but she still managed to get a bit over half of the plot safely harvested the rest either faded away or turned to seed.

Halfway though the Healberries she felt the by now familiar warm tingle coursing though her and a system message appeared before her eyes.

Congratulations

You have acquired the Skill Farming

Starting Level

0/15

Tier Level

0/20 Copper

To raise your tier level you can spend 5 Farming levels to gain one tier level

Her tail wagging hard, she continued to harvest the Healberries, resisting the urge to open her status right then, she still had a lot to do. After the last healberry was safely stored away and the seeds in with the others, she stretched her back and stood upright.

Her gaze went to the last section that held the Yellowdells, they weren't ready yet for harvest. It would likely be later that night or early tomorrow. She walked to her well and drew the bucket up for a long cool drink of the sweet cold water, she followed that with a ration bar from her inventory. As she walked over to her tool shed Natalie was trying to decide wether it would be a good idea to place the skill points now.

If she did that any more experience she gathered would be increased by another 20%, she needed farming levels and herbalist levels so she could raise her skills to the first level. The higher her tier the better her herbs and berries would be and the easier it would be to successfully grow and harvest them.

Yes she decided it was time to move forward, no looking back no waiting just do it like Sam had advised. With this firm resolve she called up her status and started to place the points, it wasn't long before she found she could play with them to see the effects. After a bit of careful placement she was satisfied with the results and locked them in, taking a deep breath she confirmed her choices.

Yes that looked much better she decided.

Crystal [Dogkin] Level 1

Stamina 13 Strength 13 Intellect 13 Mana 54

Unassigned Stat points

0

Skills

Herbalist Level 0/15 43% Skill points: 1

Farming Level 0/15 0% Skill points: 1

Unassigned Skill points

0

Skill points can be used to reduce the amount of experience needed to level a skill, 1 skill point will reduce the amount by 20% per skill. Use them wisely

Having so little mana was a concern, but there didn't seem to be anyway to increase it other then assigning stat points. The only time she had felt her mana drop had been when she was experimenting with the berries to see what properties they had.

Strength seemed be just that and allowed her to lift heavy items and hit things harder like unforgiving ground when she was tilling the earth. Stamina helped her to last longer in running and harvesting, any activity that required movement. While Intellect seem to govern her learning speed and harvesting abilities as well as the power of her skills.

Mana was strange, she knew she needed it for the crystal stirring rod but so far that was it. Maybe she would use it more later when she tiered up a bit. For now she would put points into it and hope she was doing the right thing.

Now that she had finished with her status she went into the tool shed, picked up the hoe and rake, carrying them she moved to the first section of the farm plots and started to turn the earth getting it ready for the next lot of crops.

She worked on that until the sun went down, feeling tired but pleased with herself Natalie washed up and laid down to sleep. She didn't need to logout this time and could freely spend her first night sleeping in the game.

The next morning seem to come quickly, Natalie opened her eyes yawned then dragged herself to the well, splashing cold water onto her face woke her up fast. She walked down past all the tilled plots waiting for the seeds until she reached the Yellowdells, yes they were ready to harvest, Natalie set to with determination.

Yellowdells must be a higher level plant then she thought, even though she was being very careful she only managed to gain a quarter of the plots harvest, and of the failures only another quarter gave her seeds.

She tilled the plot and replanted the seeds she did manage to get from the Yellowdells, then went though and planted the other seeds back into her farm plots. After heavily watering them she stood back and looked at her work, wasn't much to see just neat muddy rows of earth but she knew the plants would be up by the next day.

Suddenly she could hear Sam.

"Natalie you have spent nearly 12 hours in the game and while I know you slept, you haven't eaten since breakfast, please logout to see to your bodily needs."

"Oh of course Sam," muttered a very surprised Natalie. "I didn't realise I had spent so much time in the game, log me out please."

When she got out of the pod her body was telling her in no uncertain terms that it needed attention. Quickly seeing to that, then showering Natalie went downstairs to find that sandwiches were once again on the table in the food keeper.

She piled a plate high with sandwiches and fruit grabbed a bottle of water and another of flavoured milk she moved into the lounge to eat while watching a movie. It was only 8pm she still had the rest of the night to play and all day tomorrow.

Relaxing back and watching a harmless comedy movie that made her giggle more then once was nice. She became so absorbed in the silly show she didn't realise her parents had come down, they watch her for a bit and then both seemed to relax as well Natalie seemed to be fine.

Their fears about her looked groundless as they watched a typical 14 year old laughing uncontrollably over a show while stuffing food in her mouth. They quietly move away before they disturbed her, smiling at each other in relief they went back upstairs.

Natalie watch the show to the end, cleaned up her dishes then retreated back to her room. But before she went into her pod she moved to the computer sitting against the wall and pulled up the forum to see if there was anything on it about Freedom.

It didn't take her long to find a whole post about her on the forums complete with pictures, apparently the nine who had tryed to force their way into her Sanctuary had resorted to posting a complaint on the forums about an unfair exploit glitch that a player had found.

At first she was outrage to be accused of this but reading down she found one of the games moderators had soon quashed that thread as groundless by a simple statement that Sanctuary's were not glitches. Natalie kept reading a little further, but the post had derailed into a moan fest and had been locked by the moderator.

Shaking her head she turned to the pod and climbed in, people just seemed to want everything given to them straight up, with no thought or effort for them. She was pleased that Freedom was considered a hard core game.