Mia excitedly opened the pouches she had purchased while in town while explaining what was in them. “So these two pouches have skill crystals in them! One for me and one for you.”

As I started to open my mouth to ask about the price Mia hurriedly interjected with: “Oh hush, they are common non class skills. If cheap was made physical, these would be them. Apparently they are only made to sell because it is a way for artificers to level while recouping some cost on materials. The skills are ‘business management-basic’, and it apparently means the bare minimum needed to manage your business.”

“Why do we need this so early? We haven’t grown anything yet… I doubt we need menus to keep track of our few coppers.” I replied.

“See I initially thought the exact same thing, but Old Sal threw them in my shopping basket and said that these were only second to the guides in terms of starting out. And with how much coin that man was spending at the counter, he knows enough to teach us a few things.” Mia informed me.

“I see… well I guess let's learn the skills. Did you find out how to use them?”

“Ya, Sal said to press them against your forehead for 5 seconds. He also recommended that we sit when using them. Apparently it brings up quite a few information panels when first learned at the basic level. When I asked him why he once again brought up that they are always being made by the new and least experienced artificers so they always have issues. Don't complain though, they were super cheap!” Mia said while cutting off my complaints.

“I wasn’t going to complain. I was uh, just going to ask if there was a difference between the two. So is there?”

Raising her left eyebrow with a slight tilt of her head accompanying it, Mia said: “No, they both are the cheapest, non trash quality crystals I could find.”

And with that, we both lifted the crystals to our foreheads and held them for about 10 seconds before they lit up, vanished into dust, and left a flurry of windows flashing through each of our minds. With such a large amount of windows popping up, we both were grateful for the tip to sit down. A final rush of windows cascaded through my vision before a loud “DING!” blasted through my ears.

With a groggy moan caused from being overwhelmed, Mia said: “Well, I can completely agree that mine did indeed have issues. And looking at you, so did yours.

“That's the understatement of the century. Honestly the worst part was the deafening chime at the end.”

“You got a chime? I got a gong that went off with every window that appeared! I quite literally feel like a herd of elephants just charged through my head.” Mia complained.

“Wait what? I only had one ding sound at the end, but it was super loud. Are you saying you had a sound go off with every new window!?” I questioned in surprise.

“Yes, and it was overwhelmingly a 1 out of 10 star performance. Nothing but rapid hits of the world's largest gong. I bet the artificer leveled up his combat skills with that one.” she joked.

“Well, I guess we might as well dive into it to see what it brings up for us. Now that we have the skill, we might as well start using it.” I commented in order to move along with the day.

Opening our menus, we found that our business was already loaded with a profile. Its tab was above another tab on the left side of my vision. The other tab had a locked symbol covering the entire tab. Opening the tab labeled business, I was greeted by the name slot containing the word “business”.

“Um Mia, why is our business named ‘business’”? I asked curiously.

“Because we made the agreement when neither of us had this skill unlocked. We should be able to change it now. I say we rename it later tonight, we can think on it before bed. Right now, check out the map! It is awesome, we are able to designate different areas for different crops and we can set up a standard pricing catalog that we apply to all of our produce shipments to town! Do you know how much time this is going to save me?” Mia exclaimed with joy.

“Huh, that's nice. But it looks like we have to manually input everything. Probably because we are at such a low level with the skill. Overall it is pretty cool, but let's get those farming guides opened so that we can plant before the day is up.” I reminded Mia.

“Oh, no need. Sal told me to plant everything as soon as we can and to follow the directions in the bag of seeds. Apparently the seeds are sold with a slip of paper detailing basic care for the crop in question. The farming guides will be useful when we work up schedules for harvesting, enriching the soil, watering, and keeping pests away.” Mia went on explaining.

“Hrm, okay. Then let's get back into the field and get everything into the ground before night time. We can plan out the extras tonight before bed.”

“That sounds like a plan. Do you want me to plant the seeds while you turn the soil before me?” Mia questioned.

“Excuse me, what do you mean turn the soil? Do you mean break it up?”

“Yes… Yes I do. How do you not know the terminology? Never mind, don't answer that. Go ahead before me and break up all the soil in front of me in order to loosen the hard packed ground. This will help the roots to grow and hopefully lead to a better harvest. You can also leave the grass stubble in the overturned ground. It would be best to burn it first but we are not quite ready to have fire near our fields. We would really need to invest in safety and fire control equipment first.” Mia went on to explain.

“Okay, that sounds like a plan, hopefully we can plant everything tonight and work on the posts and wire for the vine crops tomorrow.”

So off towards the field we went. Upon arriving to the cleared plot of land we heard a hiss. Within moments something lunged out from the grass and time seemed to slow down momentarily. During which my body seemed to freeze and a window came into view followed by some eerily manic music.

As the music started to fall towards the background ambience, time started to move once more. As the snake barely missed me due to a shocked stumbling dodge to my right, I saw Rumble fly by grasping its tail.

“Brad, this is bad! We are definitely not ready for a Mini Boss. Grab Rumble and lets barricade ourselves into the shack until the event ends!” Mia was screaming frantically.

With my mind whirring with fear and my palms sweaty I nodded my head and agreed. Charging the snake I was gonna give it hell. After having seen Rumble’s S.O.S. and “Battle-Buddies” emojis, I couldn’t leave him alone. So with a screaming and unheard Mia behind me, I lunged at the turning snake, ax arcing through my downward chop.

Bing! Thunk!

My axe glanced from the pythons snout and buried itself into the dirt. Stunned less from my attack and more from my ineffectual aggression. As it started to regain its composure, Rumble shot up to its head and buried two of its root-like fingers into each nostril. Outraged beyond all belief the Python’s next lunge hit me square in the chest launching me into a concerned Mia’s chest as she had tried to come help us.

“Oof! Ow. Oh, my god Brad! We have got to go! We can’t fight this thing.” Mia was screaming as she quickly recovered and started to pull me away from the thrashing Python.

“Uh, what happened?” I asked while my head was trying to clear, but within moments the situation snapped back to the front of my focus. “We’ve got to help him! Rumble can’t do this without us, we need to save him!” I found myself yelling.

“Brad, he is holding his own, not winning, but as of now keeping out of danger. We have got to run.” Mia said calmly while holding my cheeks to stare me straight in the eyes. Within moments she had me by the arm pulling me towards the shack while running with her.

“Rumble, follow us to the shack! We will close the door behind you, but you have to get to safety with us!” I started screaming back to Rumble.

After reaching the shack Mia headed to the wood pile in order to get pieces to brace the door with. And as Rumble eventually launched himself towards the house after letting go of the Python mid head swinging thrash, he fell just short of the entrance. With a quick dash to grab him and back into the shack we slammed the door and piled logs as quickly as we could move.

“The fire!” I exclaimed. “We’ve got to stoke the fire! If we don’t, it might come in through the hole in the roof. As we ran over, both poking the ashes with sticks and throwing on tinder, the pounding on the door started.

Within minutes of bashing the door, Rumble holding onto large logs being used as braces, the snake realized that the front was a dead end for chasing us. With that realization it started up the wall and onto the roof. Luckily the ashes were still hot from lunch and with all the dry tinder we had the fire blazing hotter that ever before. With a good bit of our wood stock on fire the snake dare not enter.

At least that is what we thought…