"Hm, I have access to salt, so why not preserve the meat and have it for when the weather turns cold?" Baris thought for several moments.

"Yeah, instead of selling the wolves, unless Jarbuk comes out of nowhere, I'll skin, and preserve it all. That will allow me to make more spear heads, and a lot better quality. These level twenty wolves must be made of some real good material." Baris grabbed two fallen trees, took off the limbs with a stone, and tied the carcasses to the long poles. It would be easier then making a few trips.

"Now that I can use material processing magic, I can make leather. That means better boots, and better gear. I should make a nice coat for winter in the future, and make a decision about where to make a permanent camp." Baris continued to walk and pull the poles along, all the while, he considered his next few steps.

"I should think about where, but maybe do a bit of scouting around Steepbell. I've always wanted to make a forge, and that needs a lot of good stone." He sighed, and pulled the simple stretcher along.

"It wasn't that long ago that I felt lost without my computer. Now, I want to try all those things I've never done, but always wanted to. Build a house too. I've got strength, and ability now. I can do whatever I want, and there aren't any authorities around to say I can't do something." He grinned.

"No national government, no countries, and no taxes unless I live in the walled city." He knew there was territory, but since the races didn't protect the wild land around the cities, they couldn't come collect taxes for it.

Not only that, someone who survived outside the walls of a city was not someone they wanted to try to intimidate taxes out of. It was a fool's errand without an army to back it up.

After all, if their soldiers wouldn't go out to kill level twenty blue wolves, what chance would those same soldiers have against someone who did?

"Maybe I should move closer to Steepbell." Baris thought. "Those fairies are there, which means that as long as I pick some things for them to eat, I can also eat a few." However, he still had random thoughts going through his mind.

"Why are there only a few beasts now? I haven't really killed that many, and who drove the fairies out of the grove?" He pondered as he pulled. "Or should I ask what?"

If it wasn't a group of people, could there be a higher leveled beast out there, watching, hunting, and laying low?

* * *

"Jarbuk. I am not surprised to see you." Baris said as he cut open the belly of a blue wolf. "I see you've brought an elf with you. I take it that there is a reason." Jarbuk smiled as this man was more like a dwarf than a human. He came right to the point, which is what he liked.

"Yes. Baris, this is Alea, the Guild Master of Noobville." Baris stopped for a few seconds.

"Hungry?" He asked, and could see her smile wide. "Take what you need. The forest provides plenty." He indicated the recently cut open belly of the wolf, and didn't reach in himself.

"You've already met an elf." She said and reached in for the heart.

"Yes, I assume that when she said you don't like others to touch your food, she meant ones not elvish. You don't know where we've been." She grinned wide at his statement. "Or what we've done to the salt." She chuckled, but her eyes lost their amusement.

"Yes, Jarbuk has mentioned how you helped us with that problem." She said quietly, but immediately rolled her eyes as she bit into the fresh meat. "So good."

"Just hunted this morning. Two gray wolves, and three blue decided to try and take me on near a weakened repulsion stone. A level twenty, eighteen, and twenty two. The gray wolves were only tens. Nothing much." He turned away and didn't see her stop munching on the heart.

"Hey, Jarbuk, did you bring that map? I found more copper, tin, iron, and salt, and can mark it down now." Jarbuk handed him the rolled up map, and a marking stick. It was a simple coal stick wrapped in leather.

"Let me see. Grove, down the edge, salt, tin, copper, further down, iron. Around back, iron, copper and tin, more copper here, and some salt here. Then more iron. There you go. This place is a bowl, only the front way in, but no real features. Just water springs and the brook." Alea stopped altogether.

"Brook? You mean the one out front on the way to Steepbell?" She asked casually. He shook his head.

"Nope. There is a spring here, here, here and here, all running off the mountains. They gather and run around Noobville further out, and eventually run into the brook, which runs into the lake near the grove. That lake feeds another brook which heads north east. Plenty of magical elements in the water, plenty enough for low leveled mages to not tax the life in the land." He said with a simple smile.

"How many mages do you think it would take to tax the water supply's magical essence?" She asked casually.

"Hm, if I consider how much I get from each mouthful, hundreds, maybe thousands. The water comes from deep within the mountains, but is usually supplied by snow packs on much higher mountains. You know, the big ones behind them." Baris watched the woman's eye twitch. "You didn't know?"

"I've never checked." She said quietly. "We were told that there wasn't anything of interest over the last few centuries. When this city was built, it was constructed with the cooperation of the dwarves, and the humans."

"So many people just took their word for it, and didn't explore." Baris said. "Centuries. Either someone had plans and didn't get the chance to work on them, or someone still has plans."

"Yeah. Either one is a possibility. I'll have to send a letter home." Alea groaned. "I don't want to do it because it only brings more calls to return to the mountains where my kind is supposed to belong." She said quietly.

"Well, in a few days, I'll be moving closer to Steepbell. I can't enter Noobville, and I've pretty much done what I can around here. I want to see if there are any areas I can set up, and live out the winter. I can't feel a chill in the air yet, but I don't want to be caught with my ass outside when the snow flies." Baris watched the elf smile.

"I can understand that feeling, but don't share it. Winters are magical times for mountain elves. Hunting is easier for tracking purposes, and good training for younger colts. We love the summer sun, and the winter snow." She said wistfully.

"Makes sense." He took one of the gray wolf hides, and put it down, while he put the main body over the flames of his fire on a spit.

"Need leather, so might as well process this hide." Before Alea could offer to buy it, he held out his palm. "Strip. Tan. Cleanse."

"What did you just do?" She whispered in a low tone.

"Material processing magic." Baris said. "I know what things should look like, how to do it, and the finished product. I was able to form the magic to process these hides." He watched as her face twitched again.

"You make it sound like you just took a walk through the park." She said in a low voice.

"Well, it practically is." Baris grinned. "As long as you know how to do something, you can form the magic for it. The problem comes in the quality. If you don't know how to make good quality leather, or tools, and only know how to make rough grades, your magic will make rough grade items. Production magic has that limitation. Isn't that why only those who've progressed in their crafts are allowed to learn it?" Alea rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, I know, Alea. He doesn't understand our common sense, but he's also correct. He showed me he could make a spear, but only as good as he knows how to make by hand." Jarbuk sat down beside the fire, and took the offered roasted meat. "If younger dwarves learned the magic before they mastered their crafts, they would flood the market with low quality gear, and the apprentices would never make a living."

"Balance." Alea said, and groaned. "How is it that a balance is worked into everything we do, but we don't even notice it?"

"You lived in the mountains, right?" She nodded. "You didn't know about this low land, or the meadows, or the forests, did you?" Baris asked.

"I get what you mean. I don't live on the mountains anymore, but I still remember them. I also appreciate them now that I'm not there. While I was there, I had no appreciation for them as it was common. We are used to balance in the world around us, so we fail to notice it." She pursed her lips and took another bite of the heart in her hand.

"However, we do notice when things are out of balance." Her eyes looked quite vicious as she spoke. Baris shook his head.

"Then you only react to the problem." She stopped at his word.

"What do you mean?"

"You react to what was already done, instead of preventing it. I am not quite sure how balance is maintained in a vast world like this, with so many different races that live upon it." Baris thought for a moment, and nodded.

"A scale. That might be enough to show you what I mean." He said and stood up.

"How can a scale show me?"