Once the Blueguards were planted, Natalie decided to try and find donkeys. Ideally a couple of horses would be best, but right now she would settle for a donkey.

She exited the Sanctuary and then started to wander around. The bigger Sanctuaries, probably weren't a good idea to check, as they would be like her and reasonably new. Although, she supposed, that also depended on what the main theme was for that particular Sanctuary.

It wasn't long before she found a Sanctuary with a barn and cottage showing, she approached it carefully, calling out, rather then trying to go up to the door to knock. When someone's head appeared in a window, she was mildly surprised it had worked.

"Hello, sorry to disturb you, just wondered if you have any horses or donkeys for sale?" Natalie asked. "Preferably ones suitable for plowing and such?"

"Yeah I have two nice little donkeys that can pull a plow, sweet natures on both." Was the rather quick reply. "Sell em to ya for eight gold the pair."

"Natalie," Sam suddenly said. "He seems a little to eager to sell, ask to see them first."

"Can I see them?" She asked with a smile.

"Sure," the person answered. He moved out of sight, then reappeared, leading two small donkeys out of the barn. They were smaller then she had expected.

"Aren't they a bit small?" She asked. "Can they really pull a plow?"

"Donkeys are strong Miss." he told her. "Don't be thinking their size is a problem, these two will work till they drop."

"From the information I found on Donkeys, he is telling the truth," Sam said. "They also seem to be docile."

"You want them?" The Farmer asked. "Like I said eight gold the pair."

"Ok thank you," Natalie said as she took hold of the leads and paid the Farmer his eight gold. She then turned back to her Sanctuary, with the two donkeys following her. Once back on her Farm, Natalie started to harness up the pair. She put them in the round yard, and tied their leads to the leading ring on a another pole, she'd pulled down in front of the donkeys.

She made it taught enough so that the donkeys felt they were being led, then got out of the way. With a slap onto each of their dusty rumps, she had them moving. Watching for a moment, to make sure they were ok, she then went inside the storage shed.

The threshing machine was clattering and grinding. She pulled out a reasonable sized wheat sheath, slowly fed it to the teeth of the thresher. As she watched, the grain was separated from the stalks, then the husks. Both husk and grain ended up in the trough underneath.

While the straw was spat out onto the floor, on the other side of the thresher. She kept feeding wheat stalks into the machine. Until the trough was full, then she shoveled the grain and husks though the sifter part of the thresher machine, the grain falling into grain sacks, that somehow appeared under it.

She went out to check on the donkeys, from time to time, but they both appeared to be ok. Steadily, Natalie worked her way though all the wheat and oats. Soon she had fifteen large bags of wheat and seventeen large of oats, on top of that a large amount of hay and straw.

She went out and unharnessed the donkeys, leading them into the barn. She chose a stall for each, and tied them up outside of it. Then she ran and got large armfuls of straw, to lay down for their beds. Filled up the water troughs in the stall, put a good amount of the fresh hay into their hay racks. Along with a measure full of both the wheat and oats.

Natalie found the brushes in her tool shed, grooming both donkeys, until not a speck of dirt came off them, and their coats shone. Then she led them into their stalls to eat and rest. They deserved it, she was very pleased with them both.

Tomorrow, she would use them to plow the fields and plant more crops. Natalie was a little surprised, she hadn't received any levels. She had been doing a lot of farming, and herb related stuff. Not to mention the animal husbandry. But she had felt nothing all day.

Calling up her Status, she had a bit of a shock! She had leveled and quite a bit to, her overall level was now three, she had sixty unspent stat points, and fifteen skill points! Farming, was level eight. Herbalist level six, and animal husbandry was level two. What had happened to the warm tingling feeling, she used to get in the beta?

Well she supposed it didn't matter, that had been kind of distracting, maybe this was for the best. Natalie looked again at the status, all those points, she chuckled gleefully. Natalie started to place the points, the status seem to flicker, then fade completely, only to come back in the next second.

What was that ? She wondered, a glitch? That hadn't happened before. A system message appeared.

Attention Travellers

A small but significant change has been applied to all Status, from this time forward levels in skills, can be use to upgrade, not only the Sanctuaries, related buildings and quality. But can also be used to upgrade the skill itself, upgraded skills will have hidden benefits. Thank you for your time and patience

Well that was unexpected, a patch? So soon after the launch, Natalie thought about it, she couldn't see the sense of it yet. Hadn't that just made things a little more complicated then needed? She still had no idea what the stats were actually used for, she was putting the points into them, and just hoping she wasn't messing up her avatar.

Well let's see what had been changed. Did the points she had just placed go though? Or was she going to have to do them again. Well no point in speculation, she called up the Status again.

After reading it though a couple of times, Natalie was glad the stat points hadn't been confirmed. They had changed it, but by her estimate, it wasn't a small amount. A brief explanation had been temporarily placed on each Stat, that kind of explained a little of how it worked.

It had mentioned spells and ranged spells, so far she hadn't come across anything like that in the game.

"Sam check the forums please see if anyone has uncovered spells or magic yet in the game, I mean, other then the magic I've seen so far in the Sanctuaries." Natalie said.

Natalie Level : 3 Race : Caldron Raptor (rare)

The species was thought extinct until you emerged from the tall trees

Strength : 13

Increases how hard your base attack will strike for, in melee and ranged attacks.

Stamina : 13

Increases the constitution, allowing for more movement base agility and affects the amount of damage reduction applied.

Wisdom 14

Increases the amount of damage of spell powered attacks and ranged spell attacks

Intellect : 16

Increases the regeneration rate for all health related issues

Mana : 70

All spells and actions requiring the use of mana are limited to the amount of mana stored, to increase the stored mana apply stat points

Unassigned stat points : 60 Titles : Beta Achiever (hidden) 5% Experience gained on all activities Sanctuary: Tier 1 Copper rank 5 / 15

Sanctuary Skills

Farming : 8/20 rank: 0/15 skill points: 2 (40% skill gain)

Herbalist : 6/20 rank: 0/15 skill points: 1 (20% skill gain)

Alchemy: 0/20 rank: 0/15

Animal Husbandry: 2/20 rank: 0/15

Mining : 0/20 rank: 0/15

Fletcher: 0/20 rank: 0/15

Woodworker: 0/20 rank: 0/15

Leatherwork: 0/20 rank: 0/15

Blacksmith : 0/20 rank: 0/15

Tailor : 0/20 rank: 0/15

5 skill levels earned can be spent to upgrade the ranking of the associated skill, which will increase the overall quality of products produced, or can be used to upgrade the Sanctuary and all buildings associated. The five skills spent will be deducted from the total reducing the skill back by five levels. If left to reach the maximum of the skill level then the skill itself will be raised in Tier by 1

Weapons Skill

Bow : Beginner

Skill points : 15

Each skill point is worth 20% extra experience per skill to the maximum amount of 80% for the Copper Tier Level all explanation text are temporary and will disappear after the placement of your stat points and skill points.

Natalie look at it again, she needed to find out more about this before she placed the points, but going just by what she knew so far she would have to chose carefully what to spend levels on, since she now had 3 outcomes to choose from.

"Natalie I found nothing about magic or spells in the forums," Sam said. "However as of a few minutes ago the forums are getting a lot of traffic. Given your sudden question has something occurred in the game?"

"Yes you could say that Sam," Natalie answered. "How much time before I need to logout?"

"Well it is very close, you could stay ingame for another hour if you wish too." Sam said.

"No log me out now please," Natalie said. "I'll tell you about what has happened, then we need search for any of the information I asked about, the Devs have just shaken the tree something is bound to fall out of it."

Once Natalie was in the Virtual Room, she told Sam about the update to the status. They chatted about it for the rest of the afternoon, while searching for more information. Frustratingly, neither of them, could uncover anything.

When she went down for dinner, the whole family was at the table. All of them were just as confused about it as she was.

"I thought this game was just going to be a standard combat action game with bows and swords and such." Jake complained.

"Yes, the only magic, looked like it was confined to the Sanctuaries," Brian said. "Now we find out it's also in combat?"

"I can't find any mention in my starting Village about magic." Chelsea said. "With Elves being the traditional magic users; you would think there would be something."

"I'm worried that if I place any points, I'll mess my avatar up and cripple her. I haven't even tryed the combat side of the game yet." Natalie said. "I have been searching the forums, for anything about it, but it seems everyone is in the same condition."

"It would be stupid to do anything point wise, until they give more information." Brian said. "What is the big secret, that they feel the need to only give out information in tiny pieces."

"I am not familiar with how these things work," Dad said slowly. "But it's almost as if they don't know themselves."

All the children laughed, their father had unknowingly hit on a popular joke-complaint, about game developers in general, not knowing how their own game actually works. As they explained to their puzzled father, why they had laughed at his comment. The mood in the kitchen swung around to more laughter, joking and good natured ribbing, before everyone left to do the night shifts.

"Sam did you find anything at all while I was having dinner?" Natalie asked hopefully, once she was back in the pod.

"No Natalie." Sam said. "We will have to see if the developers respond to the comments and accusations, that are filling the forums."

"It's bad then?" Natalie asked.

"Since you last checked the forums, they were being hit so hard by searches and complaints, they crashed," Sam replied.

"Crashed?" Natalie said. "That's really bad, are they back up yet?"

"No, there has been no announcement, in fact, the developers are being very quiet." Sam said. "They would have normally sent something out about the crash, and how soon it will be before services are returned."

"Well it's time to start work Sam, we will have to wait until we are done, maybe they will have it all back up by the time we can look again." Natalie said.

"Yes that is a sensible way of seeing it." Sam replied. "We only have the one shift tonight. So you will get more real sleep time, how would you like that scheduled ?"

"Oh that's right, I forgot about that," she said. "we normally finish our first shift by 1am, so how about from 1:30am to 5 am I will have for real sleep. That should be more then enough, considering I was functioning on only the minimum requirement fairly well before."

"Ok Natalie, that has been set in." Sam said. "I will now start the checking procedures for the robot raft."

"Thank you Sam, I'll get started on the programming." She said. "Then we will switch you check my programs, I'll check the raft."

"Understood, Natalie," Sam said.

Natalie, thought with pride, how well she and Sam worked together. She knew he was a top of the line AI, calibrated to her since she was two years old. But it still amazed her, it was like Sam was a part of her, she never realised she had missed until now.

Then she went back to her work, she needed her full concentration to program. It wasn't her strongest skill. With practice she was starting to understand it more now, then she had at school.