Natalie continued to run until she dashed inside the Alchemy shop, where she stood looking back at the closed door like she expected a demon or something to come bursting in.

"Crystal!" Molly said shocked. "What is it child what ails you? Are you being attacked? "

Natalie let out a half shriek and spun towards the voice, seeing it was only Molly she put a shaking hand to her head and shuddered in a breath of relief.

"Child tell me what has happened?" Molly came around the counter and pulled the distraught girl into her arms. "Come now tell me, what was it?"

"l..l.. Leather.. worker," Natalie finally manage to say.

Molly went still then her body shook, and her voice sounded strange when she next spoke.

"You went to the leatherworker and brought a scroll from him? She asked, unknown to Natalie, Molly knew full well what had happened now and she was desperately trying to keep in gales of laughter.

"Your ok now Child take a deep breath," Molly sounded like she was choking, but when Natalie tryed to pull back to look at her she was held fast. "Best thing for you to do now is to will yourself to your Sanctuary, take a few quiet days and recover."

This sounded like excellent advise to Natalie, so she nodded closed her eyes took in one more ragged breath then willed herself home. As soon as the girl disappeared out of her arms Molly broke down into laughter.

Once she had settled down, she thought about it from Crystal's point of view, poor child she must have thought some sort of evil magic was being used on her. Shaking her head and still occasionally chuckling Molly walked out of her shop put up the closed sign and walked up the street to the leatherworker's shop.

She enter and walked around the counter and into the back room.

"Tarscellian, you monster what have you to say for yourself," she called as soon as she could see him. "Seducing innocent Dogkin girls, disgraceful!"

At the sour glance from the elf, Molly could hold back no more and started to laugh again. Once she had herself in control again she told him about Natalie's explosive entrance to her shop.

"So I sent her back to her home, the calm of her sanctuary should undo the rest of the mess your aura made of her," Molly concluded. "But I'm going to have to get her an aura resistance charm the girl is wide open for it."

"Here when you see her next give her this one," Tarscellian said. "I should have put it on her before I pushed her out the door."

Molly took the delicate snowflake designed pendant and studied it, yes this would help it was a strong one too.

"Ok but it might be a while before she comes back in this rattled her badly," Molly told him. " I will explain to her what happened when I give her the pendant."

"Thank you my friend, scaring young girls is not pleasant." Said Tarscellian.

Molly hid a grin then said goodbye and went back to her shop, she hoped the girl recovers fast those herbs and berries were needed.

Natalie opened her eyes and looked around, she could feel herself relaxing and the confusing thoughts and feelings started to fade. What in all the holies had that been? She had seen handsome males plenty of times why on earth would she get that sort of reaction to the elf?

Still feeling a bit confused, Natalie checked her inventory, yep she had all of the scrolls except the animal husbandry one. She couldn't go and get that one until she had at least two of the garden plots free. She picked out a scroll at random, seeing it was the woodworking one she opened it and said the word of power while placing it on the ground.

After her eyes cleared from the bright flash Natalie looked around to see where it had attached itself. Not seeing any other new paths she walked down the one leading to the foundry which was on the left of the new path as you walked in.

Now she could see a shed on her right but she was surprised to see a rather large fenced in field full of saplings behind the big shed. Apparently woodworkers grew their own wood. So if thats right, she pulled out the miners scroll next, once the light faded she looked expectantly towards the foundry and sure enough she could see a new path but this time with rails on it.

Following the rails brought her to a mine entrance, with a wooden rail cart sitting outside of it. The track disappeared into the gloom of the mine. Right by the entrance was another shed this one held picks, shovels, support beams and lanterns.

Satisfied for now she walked back towards the gardens, once there she opened the Fletchers scroll, the usual flash and she looked around for anything different. She spotted another large shed at the bottom of the gardens on the same side as the foundry, mine and woodworker.

Finally the Leatherworker scroll was the last one she opened, it had formed on the left hand side, a large shed with drying racks and deep tubs, and a another shed with tables and counters with shelves and deep bins. Natalie looked around at all the different professions that she now had in her Sanctuary, and this wasn't all of them, how was she going to find the time to work on all these?

Looking back at her gardens she could see the plants needed to be weeded, tilled and watered again, so she shelved her speculations grabbed her tools and set to with a will. Again she just finished as the sun went down.

This would be the last night she could sleep in game, and tomorrow after she harvested her crops it was time to logout for her night work. Natalie settled down and made notes of everything that had happen that day including the strange occurrence with the elf. Then she rolled over and went to sleep.

The next morning Natalie found she had time on her hands, it would be a few more hours before the plants were ready, so she walked to the field with the trees in it. Was there anything she needed to do for these? As soon as she touched the gate a warm tingle went though her along with a notification before her eyes.

Congratulations

You have acquired knowledge of the skill Woodworking

to gain this skill you need to practice related actions to Woodworking

Well that had been easy, she pushed the gate open and walked into the tree plantation, she could see immediately that the trees needed water and weeding so she went and got her tools and started putting things to rights. Once done there she went back to the gardens and found them ripe and ready for harvest.

The Sundaisys, were again the easiest ones to harvest and this time she got the whole plot no failures and for every stalk she received 6 very healthy looking seeds. She moved on to the Blueguards, they were harder to harvest and again she only managed to get enough seeds for the next crop and four bundles, two of which would be going to the Blacksmith.

Natalie improved her take of the Healberries, getting almost three quarters of the plot and plenty of seeds for planting. But of the Yellowdells she got barely a quarter and she wasn't sure she'd have enough seeds for even half the plot this time.

Finally was the Chance berries, when she harvested them she received three times more then she planted and also 21 seeds for replanting. The Chance berry bushes didn't disappear like the other ones did, it looked like they stayed once planted and just kept on giving fruit.

Natalie placed everything into the storage shed, it was time for her to logout, she went into her hut and laid down on the cot, then asked Sam to bring her right out into the pod. She needed to eat and take care of her needs before she went back in for the work hours.

Natalie spent the remainder of the night in front of the TV half watching a show with her sister, and half talking about the game. It was from Chelsea that she found out about the elf aura and why it affected her so much, she listen with rapt attention as Chelsea recounted her first few game days as an elf.

Chelsea's experience had been so different to her, the elves were incredibly friendly to outsiders, but so far only a few players had chosen to be elves. They also gave sanctuary's to new players but the information about them wasn't obvious, it took Chelsea two game days to befriend a tree tender before she was given hers. The elves called them Groves and just about all of them started with woodworking or farming themes.

"I have to thank you Brat." Chelsea said. "Without your warnings and knowledge I would never have found out about the Groves, I think I'm the only elf player who has one right now."

"I didn't do anything Chelsea it was more luck then anything, anyway have you tryed the combat in the game yet?" Natalie asked. "I'm thinking of taking a break from the farming when I next login to see about getting hides and meat for my storage shed, all I have stored right now are berries and seeds."

"Yes I have, it was awful, be prepared for pain when you get hit or bitten, it's no joke," Chelsea said with a shudder. "I nearly died the first time because the pain distracted me from the fight, I found out I prefer to shoot my victims from a distance, up close and personal with a hairy brute, with more teeth then should be allowed is not my thing! I switched to a bow, as soon as I got back to my Grove."

"Don't they still get to close to you after you shoot them?" asked Natalie. Chelsea grinned and reached over to slap Natalie's legs.

"What do you think these are for then?" She said. "you shoot a few arrows then get the hell away, rinse and repeat, I like to dodge around the trees and believe me the first few hours those woods rang with my screams, as I ran away!"

Natalie started to laugh, her sister was serious and had no shame talking about it, she could picture her doing exactly as she had said quite easily. Nothing like that ever bothered her sister, she had no qualms about showing how she felt about things.

"Also Natalie," Chelsea continued. "Try to find someone who is willing to show you how the process your kills, I made a hell of a mess, the first time and received nothing for my efforts, the game doesn't help you at all with that, it's all done almost the exact way you would in real life."

"Ok that sounds terrible," Natalie said. " I never thought I would be playing a game were I would have to learn how to skin and butcher for real."

"I know I almost logout and deleted it, when I found out," Chelsea grimaced. "And I had no idea that I would smell the blood and guts, especially when I made a mistake and pierced the stomach of a deer. My god that stunk! I know, I know, as a trainee Doctor I should be a little more use to it, but these days we don't even bother to open a patient up, our medical machines do it all!"

"Well if your ever on a primitive colony world, that doesn't have those advantages, you will at least have some idea of what to expect," laughed Natalie.

"Yes I guess I will." Chelsea replied, looking thoughtfully at her sister. "And it never occurred to me, but your right about the primitive world part too, it could happen in my future."

"All the more reason to keep playing then, Chelsea," Natalie said. "You can use this game to learn what to do if your ever in a place like that."

Natalie didn't think to much on that, Chelsea was a much needed talent, she doubted they would risk her in a world that hadn't been properly tamed. Both girls continue to chat until it was time for the night work to start then, both hugged good night and went into their separate rooms.

Natalie checked everything out and double checked all her programming that night, she want no demerits for sloppy work and to make sure she had Sam check it over twice as well. They worked hard that night, with Natalie paying attention to the smallest detail.

It was tiring work and by 6pm she was mentally exhausted, but she dragged herself out and had a cold shower to wake herself up. Then set too and did the morning chores, she had no intentions of dropping that morning routine, no matter how tired she got.