Jim's PoV

 

Jim was looking down at his wrecked car. How was he supposed to know that sand getting in the engine was a bad thing? They had reached about the right area where the potion vendor should be and the car started to smoke. Maybe he should stop asking himself "What could go wrong?"

Karma seemed to have an especially good ear for phrases like that. Still, overall they had saved a lot of time. Everyone was slowly filing out of the car when Scarlet said "Did your magic carriage break? I heard that constructs of magic like that are complex and fail a lot."

Grabbing on to the life line Jim tried to say assuredly "Yes. I'll have to try to find time to fix it later. But that leaves us on foot for now. Ummm, I can look around while you all can make camp. If she's here, she shouldn't be too far away."

Forrest and Davis started looking at each other anxiously for some reason. Jim tried to assure them "Don't worry! No unknowns in this area! I'll leave the wolfies with you all. It'll be fine!"

Glancing to the car he figured he would leave it there for now. Maybe the little smoke signal it was putting off could help him find the party later. The group seemed somewhat mollified and Jim started running at a jog. Well, a jog for him in this world was more like an olympic sprinter.

***

Rare Potion Maker's PoV

 

Milly had left the main road and headed towards the desert. The first thing that she realized about traveling was that things got really heavy after you walked for hours on end. The second was that sleeping on the ground was not as comfortable as it seemed in all of the stories. And the last thing she realized was how terrifying it was.

Every noise made her jump. Things outside of towns were never safe. Even the roads where soldiers patrol were not totally safe. Her book had detailed the best way to get to the location, but so far two people had died following those instructions. She wondered if she would make a third.

With every muscle aching she packed up and marched onward. After several hours she kept moving forward while in a daze. She wasn't paying attention to her surroundings. At first she thought that the noise she heard was just birds screeching, but as her bleary eyes looked up she knew she was wrong. Giant Centipedes. Hundreds of them, they were all headed her way.

Scared out of her mind she dropped everything and started to run. Looking over her shoulder she tried to gauge the distance between the monsters but it only made her trip. Getting up she pumped her legs again while feeling the grains of sand beneath her feet shift and sap her energy. As her energy dropped she gave in to the inevitable. Taking a seat she watched her death come. If you didn't look at the detail too much, it almost seemed like a black sea had covered the sands.

Then she saw a massive Sand Wyrm. Milly laughed as she saw the huge creature hunting down the centipedes. It was like an adult walking among infants, except the Sand Wyrm wanted to eat them. It would not save her though. A small group detached and headed towards her.

Then she saw another weird sight. At first she thought the black creature was just a malformed one, but then she realized it was just a human in black armor. The man was moving incredibly fast! She watched the centipedes run even faster away from the man than the Wyrm! How odd.

Looking back to her death she felt sad. It would have been nice to know a man like that. Milly blinked and then somehow the man was in front of her. He lifted her up, and then there was nothing.

Did she die? Looking around she only saw darkness everywhere. Milly tried to stand up only to trip. Then her eyes adjusted as a yellow glowing triangle was acting as a light. Looking beneath her she saw a mountain of potions!

Well, there was fancy looking armor and weapons too, but she was mesmerized by one of the potions. Gazing at the glittering red liquid she knew what it was. Then her eyes caught another, and another!

Was this heaven? There was only a black void beyond the mountain of items that she was on. She had never even heard of an afterlife like this. But Milly had been saving money and watching gil like a hawk her entire life.

Finally her greed took hold of her and she used her shirt to gather all of the Elixirs she could find. There were so many! If she wasn't dead she was going to be rich! Filthy rich! How much would those damned High Nobles pay for these!

No longer would she have to live in the ghetto! She could move her shop right next to those bastard Merchant Circle members and pay their damned fees to get on the list to buy ingredients. Little gold gil coins were jumbling in her head. Then she saw the oddest thing she had ever seen. Even more odd than being in a land of potions and armor.

There was a massive white gloved hand that was flying. It was not connected to anything, just a hand. The white gloved hand started moving towards her. Panicked, she thought "No! It wants to steal my potions! They're mine!"

She curled up in a ball and wrapped them in her arms around her stomach. Instead of the hand trying to grab the potions, it grabbed her by the back of her shirt. Looking behind her she saw the hand picking her up.

The next thing she knew she was back in the desert. Back in the desert with the handsome black armored man who was smiling. Then his eyes turned to her Elixirs and his smile turned into a scowl. Fast as a snake he struck and took them away and one by one they disappeared.

But... her potions! She had them in her hands! Why!

The man cleared his throat and said "My name is Jim. You must be the rare potion vendor."

Sadly she said "My name is Milly. Um, vendor? Kind of I guess, but all my stuff is back at my shop. Can I have one of those glittery red potions? Pretty please?"

The man narrowed his eyes and said "Why?"

Milly tried to stop her fidgeting but she wasn't doing a good job. Finally she got out "I want to sell it! Please! Just one would save my shop!"

That's when the man named Jim smiled and said "Have you ever thought about a change in location?"

Confused, she asked "What do you mean?"

Jim said "I could pay you a good wage. I'm looking for someone who can be my Potion Maker. What do you say?"

A chance to get out of the slums! And he looked rich! Milly instantly said "Done! I just need to pick up my book at Jacksberg!"

Jim smiled and said "Fantastic. My party is back that way."

He gestured in a direction and then said "It will probably be a couple hours if we walk. If I put you back in my inventory would you be nice? No more stealing."

Then Milly started to look around to buy time and her gaze stopped. Not more than a couple hundred feet away the Sand Wyrm was shaking with its head sunk into the sand. Did it not see them? Milly slowly drew her little dagger and started creeping towards the creature. The little gil coins were clattering in her head again.

Jim started walking by her and said "What are you doing?"

Exasperated, she said "Shhh! You will scare it away!"

Jim looked at the thing and then said "Yea, Milly, I think you have the wrong idea. I don't think most people can 'scare away' something that's double the size of a subway train."

Confused, she asked "What's a subway?"

The man named Jim sighed and said "Just something really big. Anyway, what are you trying to do?"

Reverently she said "Sand Wyrm blood! You know the kinds of potions I could make with that? I could make Full Mana Potions! FULL! It would restore any amount of mana!"

Jim perked up and said "Really?"

She nodded sagely. So many gil coins. Milly started creeping towards it again when the man shouted "Hey wormy thing, can you understand me?"

Milly froze as she saw the massive creature stop shaking and turn its head toward them. She gulped. The Wyrm nodded its head up and down.

Jim said "Fantastic! Look, can we have a little of your blood? Seems like it's valuable. Just a little, you can tell us where to take it from."

The Wyrm seemed to nod reluctantly and it turned its giant head towards its tail. After biting its own tail it proffered the leaking end towards them. Milly started frantically patting around in her pockets for something to put the liquid in, but she remembered in horror that she dropped all of her stuff. Crap!

Luckily Jim pulled out a few boots and started filling them up. She was worried that the precious material would leak through the leather but it seemed to contain the blood. After filling a couple boots up Jim said "Thanks wormie. Here take this for your trouble."

Her expert eye made out the potion instantly. It was a Full Healing Potion, and he wasted it on the creature! How crazy is this guy!

Jim said "Thanks, feel free to be on your way."

The Sand Wyrm seemed to glare at her, but then shifted its focus to the pile of dead centipedes. Wow, she didn't see those before.

Jim turned to her and said "So, we good now? You ready to go?"

But the little gil coins. There was a chance to make more money. She said "Can we take a short trip that way? There should be an oasis there that has all kinds of plants that I can make potions from!"

Jim sighed and nodded. Milly was mentally cheering! She was going to be rich! Filthy filthy rich!

***

Jim's PoV

 

Jim felt the rush of adrenaline pass as his nerves decided to calm down. Finally a real adventure! When he saw that lone woman about to be swarmed by a mass of black centipedes, he knew he was her only hope. An honest to goodness damsel in distress!

Then he didn't hold back. Sprinting full force he felt like he was moving at the speed of a bullet train. Having no qualms about killing insects, especially ones that were about to kill a human, he let his sword fly. Many were trying to run away from him, but he targeted the group that was slithering to the girl.

Once he reached her there were still plenty of centipedes that wouldn't run away. Casting Sense Lv2, he realized why by just reading their name. "Hungry Black Colossal Centipede: Level 12."

Out of habit more than anything he tossed the girl in his inventory. Once he had done it he was slightly worried. In many games putting living things in your inventory was not possible. But without having to protect her any more, it made the fight very short. The low level mobs had no chance against him. Although the amount of centipede goo that seemed to cling to his armor was rather nauseating.

After pulling the girl out of his inventory he was very pleased with himself. He got to cross out saving a damsel in distress off his bucket list! When he got a good look at the short mousey brown-haired woman he mentally padded himself on the back.

Speed runner baby! He made it in time to the rare potion vendor! This was a very interesting interpretation of why the vendor wouldn't appear if the player was too slow.

But coming off his high from saving the day he realized what she had. Elixirs. A lot of them. Checking his inventory he realized a few were missing. Counting and doing the mental math he realized what happened.

Damn, people in his inventory could steal from him! He would have to be careful of who he put in his inventory. A few stolen end game items and someone in lowbie-ville would be very formidable. It would really suck to lose something important.

Then he remembered back to the whole putting someone in his inventory bit again. Did that mean he could take someone from the game world to Earth!? That would be epic! He would need to test that at some point.

Focusing back on Milly he realized that he was broke. He had 99 gil left to his name, everything else was converted into silver on Earth. Jim sure as hell wasn't paying her in Elixirs. That's when she started asking about the Sand Wyrm blood. Maybe it would work as a down payment? Couldn't hurt. Well, it wouldn't hurt him.

Jim felt a little bad asking for the Sand Wyrm's blood. He could tell the beast had only given it up because of how powerful he was, just like the spider boss in the caves. When he was moving at speed it was all but confirmed that monsters were fleeing from him.

Still it was kind of cool seeing a side boss floating around. The Sand Wyrm was a boss that you had to level up your party for around an hour if you wanted to have a chance to beat it. Most people didn't bother.

The side boss had decent loot but most of it could be replaced three bosses from this point, so most people skipped him. Then she asked him for an escort so she could loot her plants. He felt like he had to help considering that she probably needed those weeds in order to make potions. Placating her he followed her to a beautiful oasis.

Three hours later Jim looked sadly at the former oasis. With his massive inventory space the Milly woman literally stripped away every plant that was there. And of course she didn't have any way of storing them. Now he had a massive number of boots that had dirt and weeds growing in them. Seriously, that's what his inventory called it.

"Boot with Weeds x 347"

He really hoped this was worth his time. Jim remembered that Charlotte was under a lot of pressure to have a reproducible source. Sadly looking at the now dead forestry he could only hope that it was for a good cause. Milly handed him the last boot and finally said happily, "Looks like we have all of them! Let's go to Jacksberg!"

Trying to tamp his anger down, Jim said "Need to get my friends first."

Milly sadly remarked "Oh.. yea. Okay."

"Ready?"

She nodded. Jim emphasized once more "Milly, just remember not to get grabby with my stuff. I can tell if stuff is missing."

Shocked, she said "You can?"

That really didn't bode well for their relationship. It didn't look like the happy kind of surprised. More like the "Oh no! I can't get away with robbing you" kind of surprised. Lifting her up he put her into his inventory.

Once he disappeared the woman, he decided to take a quick bath in the nearby oasis lake. Having centipede goo on him sucked.

It was going to be disappointing if she didn't work out. He would have to travel to the far east to find humans who could make the Remedy Potions.