Courtney nods, “Now the question is, do we want more of that oil?”

Jason shrugs, “This amount should last us a couple fights if we need it. However the jar is half full so I could spend another night filling it and we should be good for a while. Of course we don’t know how much it is worth in the next city so any excess we make is betting on it being worth something.”

Rosha takes a last look at the description before closing it. “It should be worth something. At the very least, an alchemist will want it as an ingredient. I think it's worth is less going to be determined by the oil and more by the availability of it. After all, the entire area seems to have a low level presence of undead. Besides that”, and she turns to Courtney, “we can look into what it is worth?”

Courtney smiles, “Shouldn’t be too hard. We don’t have anyone in the next town that can help, but one of the house butlers is a decent alchemist and should be able to find out for us. Jason, will you let me send the description to him?”

Jason laughs, “this isn’t exactly some secret recipe. I might have been the first person to distill the slug in this way but any professional who looks at the oil will know what I did. Send it on and we can figure out if we can make some pocket change on it or not.”

With his answer Courtney taps the air a few times, “There we go! I sent the request away. I hope you don’t mind but I also asked him if there was anything else we should do with it. Though I agree with you that this likely isn’t some secret. Since the monster is one of those that spontaneously generates they should exist anywhere that undead and roses are. Now I think we should be ready to head out?”

Jason and Rosha both nod and the group heads out for the day. As they travel Jason keeps an eye out for the roses which are about to change into the slugs. There are a lot of them around, but unlike last night he plans to conserve them. Jason had stripped the clearing of the mature buds and if he continued to do that, the undead could see a resurgence in the area. Now he is just harvesting a single bud off of any plant with more than one flower.

Throughout this the group is able to spot a number of plant monsters and even a couple of the slugs, but everything is too young. However, that doesn’t stop Lily from playing around with them. The low level slugs are all much smaller than her but the group figures they should provide a learning experience to help with the actual boss fight.

As night rolls around and the group sets up their camp Courtney tells them she has gotten a response from the butler. “So Jason was right that people know about the oil. While he didn’t know what the prices would be in the next place we visit. It tends to be worth at least a handful of silver, even without an alchemist to buy it.”

“We might even make more if we stumble across a village between here and the next town. Anyone that lives this close to a place like this will want gentle repose in some form on hand for emergencies. Apparently the biggest use for it isn’t any of the listed ones, but rather for those who have been attacked by one of those undead strains that infect others. If dead, gentle repose will of course prevent them from rising. But more important for a small village, is it can save someone who is still alive. A splash of oil on the wound will eat the infectious energies and cure them.”

Rosha claps, “Well that just shows we should have at least a few jars on hand for ourselves. I think that for our personal use we should have five jars. One for each of us and two spares in case we have anyone else join us or we come across an emergency. Though I did just think of something. Jason, are you okay?”

Jason tilts his head to the side, “huh?”

Rosha waves her hand at his arms, “aren’t ghouls one of those undead types that have a corpse poison that creates more ghouls?”

“Ooohh”, Jason smacks his palm with his fist, “no, I’m fine. One of my skills resists it. That is why I was able to shrug off the paralysis so easily. It even went up a few levels and change going by the Systems alerts, though I haven’t checked. Though that brings up the question of what happens when a player gets turned into an undead.”

Courtney shrugs, “I looked it up and the answer is that it depends. Though mostly it depends on whether a local can be cured of it. The two classic examples are of a skeleton and a vampire. Skeletons have completely lost any connection to their past life. Even the highest level of spells can’t cure a skeleton, even if they can bring the person back. For that a player doesn’t even get a choice, they are sent to respawn while it leaves the skeleton behind. The only special thing to note is that the remains become generic. The company didn’t want someone turning a rival into an undead and parading it around naked without the person’s permission.”

“Vampires are on the other side of the scale. They aren’t even fully dead which is where the blood thing comes from. If a vampire doesn’t drink blood, they lose that last spark of life and become a different type of undead. My guess is the devs wanted to allow people to lean into the whole angsty vampire thing. But yeah, a combination of high level remove curse and heal effects will return them to normal. Though that can cause trouble if the person has been a vampire for longer than their natural lifespan.”

Akhier

Thank you for reading! Next two chapters are free on my Patreon ( https://www.patreon.com/dragonheartednovels ), five chapters beyond that for only a dollar, and many more for five dollars (two chapters release a week at this tier).