“You know, this bag of holding will probably make long-distance travel really easy,” Azalea said, shoving two more pieces of raw ore into her new rucksack. “I mean, I can carry a hundred different things now. Supplies are going to be so easy.”
“I can’t see you traveling that far,” Riley said, hacking away at the ore that lined the walls of the mine in which they were working. “You’re too attached to your farm.”
Azalea couldn’t refute that, especially considering how much she’d expanded it in the past few days. What had previously been four plots of vegetables and some fruits had now expanded to a veritable plantation. In fact, that was what the game called it. Now that she had so many plots dedicated to farming, the game was almost rewarding her with extra space to hold all her vegetables.
“I could take a break from the farm if I wanted to,” she said, almost sulkily. That only made Riley laugh. “Well, if we had some way to defend it, that is. I don’t really like the idea of leaving it to be raided while we ventured off.”
“I don’t think Caius would be interested in traveling just yet,” Riley said. “He keeps talking about how this is the central area, and that all the exciting things are going to happen here. He doesn’t want to miss it.”
She nodded slowly, putting another chunk of ore away into her bag. She’d heard Caius talking about that before as well. She saw his point; there had been a lot more activity as of late in the area. “But I’m sure there’s stuff to do elsewhere. I don’t want to hold him back if he decides he does want to travel.”
“What do you mean?” Riley asked, standing up straight and swiping a hand across his brow. Of course, there was no sweat there, but it wasn’t a habit they could easily break. “This is the spawn zone. We’re all here, aren’t we?”
“Have you seen a thousand players in the area?” She asked, frowning at him. She was surprised he hadn’t noticed how little players there were around Silver Village.
“Well, no,” he admitted, clearly thinking about it for the first time. “But not everyone would stay in the starting area, you know. Most people would head out to explore the map right away.”
“But we logged in right as the server started,” she pointed out. “I mean, you were here before us. Did you see huge waves of players leaving Silver Village to explore?”
“You’re right,” he said, sudden realization dawning in his eyes. “There are barely two hundred of us in this area. Even less, I’d bet. Where do you think the others started at?”
She could only shrug, as she had no answer for him. While there were plenty of maps of the region around them, courtesy of players experienced in cartography who had scouted for several days around Silver Village, she had yet to see a map of the continent in its entirety. From brief conversations with the Terrians who lived in Silver Village, she knew that other cities and villages existed, but they were all far away. The nearest city, a Terrian settlement named Dawnbreak, took almost two weeks to reach on foot.
“I guess it makes sense that we haven’t explored that much,” Riley said thoughtfully. “But you’d think we’d have heard news of the other players, at least. It’s nearly been a month.”
“Maybe they’re so far away that nothing interesting has managed to reach us yet,” Azalea guessed. “Or they’re so far away that they don’t even interact with Silver Village.”
“I wonder how long it would take to reach Dawnbreak on a horse,” he muttered, resuming the action of gathering ore. “I bet it wouldn’t take nearly as long.”
Again, Azalea shrugged, then picked up her own pickaxe and joined him on the wall. They’d been steadily clearing out the two mines they’d found in the raid dungeon for nearly a week straight now, and there was no sign of the ore drying up. Even the Sisters, who were working on the second mine a hundred feet away, and working with four miners at a time, hadn’t tapped theirs out yet.
“Oh look,” Riley pointed out. “Another rare.”
He handed it over for Azalea to put in the sack, and she took a moment to study it, confirming what he’d said. This chunk of ore was indeed of rare quality. “Nice. That makes four ingots worth.”
“It sure takes a lot longer to get rare metal than it does wood,” Riley grumbled. “Well, for you at least. I still can’t believe you got that wood so quickly.”
Shortly after receiving her rucksack that doubled as a bag of holding, Azalea had gotten to work on clearing the trees that still remained on their property, then, once Flower’s Rest was clear, she’d begun cutting down trees that ringed their property. The trees took up to three days to regrow depending on their size, but there were so many for her to cut down that by the time she’d completed a plot’s worth of lumbering, the first trees had already regrown. Thankfully, the ones she removed from their plots didn’t regrow.
“I told you,” she said with a shake of her head, stuffing the rare ore into her rucksack, “I just got lucky. I must have knocked down two hundred trees in the past week already. I was bound to get a rare drop. You probably would have too, if you spent more time gathering instead of fighting monsters.”
He made a small expression of distaste. “Hunting monsters is more fun than chopping trees down. Besides, you work much faster than I do now that you’re C-Rank.”
It was true. She’d ranked up her gathering skill just a few days ago, and she could now cut down the trees much faster than before. C-Rank Gathering might only increase the amount of ore she could get from mining, or the number of fish were she near the river, but when it came to lumbering, it instead allowed her to cut down the tree more quickly. It didn’t make logical sense for a single tree to be able to give her more materials, after all.
“Market Street is already hounding me, asking to buy all the wood I’ve been cutting down,” she said. “Jordine is relentless.”
Riley laughed again. “Your fault for being such a hard worker. If you were obsessed with hunting like Oscar and I, you’d have less to sell.”
“I don’t mind,” she said, returning to gouging the raw metal out of the mine wall. “I’m just not interested in selling this bunch of wood. I have plans for it.”
Riley gave her a curious look out of the corner of his eye, but didn’t ask about the plan. He already knew that she liked to keep her projects secret until she was ready to share them. So he could be confident in the fact that he would, eventually, know. And so they returned to mining in silence, slowly but surely chipping away at the metal reserves that the mine had to offer. They’d both volunteered for a four-hour shift, and by the time they were done, she’d acquired eight new pieces of ore. Riley, Still D-Rank in Gathering, had only mined out four. But he’d also gotten that gem he’d found, a thick ruby the size of his clenched fist.
“That will fetch a nice price,” she commented, examining the gem before putting it and the ore they’d mined into the communal storage. “If nobody decides to use it, that is.”
Tankbabe and Centrogen were on guard duty when they exited the dungeon. The dragon girl only gave them a solemn nod of farewell, but Tankbabe offered a cheery wave. “I’ll swing by after my shift is over for a cinnamon roll!”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Azalea said, turning to answer her. “I’m actually out of cinnamon until tomorrow. But I’ll have plenty of other sweets to choose from, so you should definitely still stop by!”
Tankbabe looked sad at this news, but waved nonetheless, promising to stop by. Riley made no comment on the exchange as they walked the half-hour trip back to Flower’s Rest, but when he saw the crowd of avatars that had gathered by the time they’d arrived, he couldn’t stop himself from letting out a laugh. They were all there to visit Azalea, clearly. Most were waiting for a chance to buy some food, but he did recognize the green dress of Jordine, here to negotiate for surplus materials. Again.
“No rest for the wicked,” he quipped, turning as soon as they were on the property and heading toward the small house that he and Oscar shared.
“And money don’t grow on trees,” she threw back, finishing the line from the old song he’d referenced. Then, setting her rucksack down beside her market stall, she addressed her waiting customers. “I can’t work all night tonight, folks, so get what you’re going to get quickly. I’m closing in two hours.”
Riley paused in the doorway of the small house, nodding in welcome to Oscar, who returned the gesture. “Not feeling like hunting today, eh?”
“Meras is repairing my bow,” Oscar replied, naming one of the craftsmen in Market Street. “He said he’d deliver it at about eight. Nothing else to do.”
“I see. Where’s Caius at, then?”
“Scouting. He thinks he might have found another raid. He just has to confirm it.”
They stood in a companionable silence for a while then, watching as Azalea served food to the long line of customers. Now that she’d been spotted at her stall, more people were coming from the nearby area. He wouldn’t be surprised if some people closer to Silver Village would make the trip, even if they knew she wouldn’t be open all night again. Azalea had gotten her hands on a rare blueprint for a Strength buff potion that lasted for an hour, and she had more ingredients readily available than the merchant at Market Street that had actually been the recipe’s original seller. Naturally, Azalea could make it for cheaper, and drew in a veritable flood of customers for it.
“Did you hear how much wood she managed to get yesterday?” Oscar asked. “I saw her cutting down trees for almost seven hours straight. She did eight the day before.”
Riley nodded. “She’s filled three whole slots of her pack already. I bet she’s going to work again tonight.”
They knew that each of the slots of Azalea’s bag could hold fifty items in a single stack, except of course for those items that didn’t stack. They had no clue what she had planned with over 150 wood, but they knew her pretty well by now, so they were sure it was some grand project.
“She said she got three new blueprints from her visit to Market Street the other day,” Riley commented. “But we’ve only seen two of them. I bet you that the third one is some kind of building.”
“Maybe she’s going to build some kind of barn.”
“Whatever it is, I’m sure it’ll keep her busy for days. We should really think about recruiting some new members. With how often she’s busy with that farm or her stall, we’re almost always a man short.”
Oscar frowned thoughtfully. “Not a bad idea. We should make sure they know what they’re doing, of course. I don’t want to teach anyone, and I doubt you or Caius would be so charitable.”
“Not a chance,” Riley said with a laugh. “We’ve got the advantage as long as nobody understands the secret of the combat system.”
He gave a short wave then, stumping into the house and settling himself down on a bed. He took a relatively weak poison out of his pack and downed it, grimacing at the taste. “Well, I’m off early today. I’ll afk train my Endurance. Nearly at C-Rank now. I bet I’ll get it tonight.”
Oscar gave a small wave, not taking his eyes off of Azalea. “See you tomorrow, then.”
He did spare a quick glance in his friend’s direction, but the “Not Present” tag was already over Riley’s head. Oscar let out a quiet sigh, tapping his leg impatiently with a knife as he waited for his bow to get back. He still wanted to go hunting tonight.
Lifeskill grinding is a different kind of addiction xD