Break shuffled up to the large floating bag sitting at the bound of the large divot where the pond once bubbled. Edging his hand towards the bag, he got a notification making one of his eyebrows perk up in excitement. Break motion Emmy and Trent to his location, the two laying down on the downy like grass rolling across the landscape. “Guys you might want to see this.”

Trent jumped to his feet, scattering the particles of dirt across his leather armor, and made his way over to the floating bag of loot. “Ummm, what do we do?”

Emmy, after a few more seconds, gave in to the curiosity, and trudge over to the large bag. “Just grab the loot already,” Emmy said, stepping to the side of Trent.

Break stepped back letting Emmy take a look at the inventory of items scrolling down a large list hovering over the bag. The majority of the items were rather normal, healing potions, crafting material, and an array of junk. After scrolling down towards the middle of the list, Emmy saw the golden glittering text standing out like a dwarven ranger.

Emmy pushed her hands out, the bag winding across her fingers as the distribution screen materialized. She quickly allocated the potions, giving Trent and herself three vials and the remaining four to break.

“Can I have the junk?” Break asked, pointing to all the grayed texted items.

“What use do you have for cracked scale and broken bones?” Trent asked, naming off some of the dozens junk tier items.

“Don’t antagonize me, everything has a use, even when it's not apparent.” Break’s words came out a bit harsher than what he wanted them to sound, but his largely empty inventory gave him an uneasy feeling of having part of him stripped away. Even though a majority of the junk he collected was utterly useless to most people, he had always found a use for each item. One of his favorite activity involves grinding up the teeth and bones of monsters into small chip flakes, and feeding them to the small Rav fish on the edge of the river in Durge Forest.

Trent put up his hand, “Alright, I was just curious.”

“Who’s getting it?” Emmy asked, after distributing all the other items.

“We could sell it, from what Gedeon said, we could make a lot of money from it,” Trent said.

“Its account bound,” Break interjected. “Also, I might not be as valuable as you think, with the number of new monsters, there are a plethora of first drops bonuses being whittled out right now. This is just speculation on my end, but this update is heavily focused towards magic. Even though I haven't seen the current patch notes, I’m quite certain the developers made it increasingly easy to obtain magic.”

Emmy sloshed the orb back and forth, the interior spinning like a snow globe filled with translucent ichor and what seems to be a hint of glitter. “Trent should use it.”

Trent quickly turned his head towards Emmy, the statement catching him off guard. “Why me? You're more suited to using magic.”

“I second that,” Break said. “Emmy, you're the smartest person in the party, myself excluded,” letting out a slight chuckle. “Trent is right, you have the most knowledge when it comes to projectile physics, if either of us learned magic it would be like learning how to play tennis. If you picked up magic, it would mostly feel like switching from badminton to tennis.”

Emmy looked at the orb once more, “But-.”

“Just take it,” Trent cut her off. “I bet we're all going to get a chance at magic, and for that to happen we need to make it further into the game, and that means making smart decisions early. We can be more reckless when we have the resources and time, but we’re competing with thousands of other richer, smarter players.”

Emmy nodded her head as she opened the transfer prompt and accepted the item into her account. The second the orb was bound it exploded in her palm, the shards of glass divided into thousands of tiny particles floating upwards and gradually fading away. The liquid spilled out onto Emmy’s hand, bubbling violently as it clashed with her skin until it slowly melded into her body. Emmy quickly rubbed her hands together, the friction causing her hands to warm up as the chill of the liquid finally settled.

System: You have unlocked the use of water magic (tier 1)

“What spells did you get?” Break asked.

Emmy thought about her character screen, the system pinging in acknowledgment as it opened up a large screen in front of her. Emmy glanced over at the magic tab and open the window, a seizure of blinking light caught her eyes as she opened up the magic tab.

Spell

Water

Lesser Heal

Water

Water Bolt

Placing her hands in front of her, Emmy thought about using her skill. Small droplets of water popped into existence, each one hovering towards her hands until it made a glove of liquid. The water gently swayed back and forth as the water started to turn a green hue. “How am I supposed to use this?”

“What is it?” Trent asked, a confused look on his face.

“One of my spells is lesser healing, so I thought about using it.”

Break frantically open his in-game notepad, scribbling down Emmy’s world. “You're telling me you have a healing spell? Only recovery magic has the ability to heal, and only healers are able to learn recovery magic. This is something utterly baffling,” Break said, the tone his voice shifting multiple times. “Use it on Trent.”

“That’s what I'm trying figuring out, how do I use it? For regular healing magic, you just use it and the person gets healed. Do I maybe splash some water on him?”

“It’s worth a try,” Trent said, looking at the bubbling liquid.

Emmy waved her hands at him, the liquid sticking to her palms like molten caramel.

“Place your hands on him,” Break noted.

Emmy placed her hands over Trent’s shoulder, the healing liquid poured through his body slowly regaining his health.

“Thanks, Emmy,” Trent said, looking at his full health bar.

“Intriguing, you have to make full contact, and the healing is not instant,” Break noted. “Not too useful during combat, but it can provide a bit of extra support mid-battle.”

“Wait, during combat, you let loose a pretty crazy arrow, what was that abou-” Trent let out, before being interrupted.

The sound of hooves crashed along the distant plains, the rumble causing the team to immediately be on guard. A charging cavalry of six men riding mechanical horses, steam billowing out of seam as they gallop, surrounded the three. Each knight drew out various weapons, one twirling a magical flail that wiped lighting back and forth as the knight swung it overhead.

“Lay down your arms, bandits,” one of the knights bellowed.

“Whoa, I don't know what this is all about, but let me assure you, we are not bandits of any sorts,” Break said.

A caravan pulled short of the group, the base of each emitting a magical force repelling the cart off the ground. A man in a brown trench coat jumped out of the leading cart and strode over to the group, “I think you're being a bit hasty there Sir. Von.”

“Nonsense, why would a group of travelers be walking through Highland Veil unless it was to plunder travelers.”

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“We are mere explorers from the region of Geil. Through a selection, we have been sent here by the great overseer to document all the various new species of monsters as well as a menagerie of other stuff.”

“Well nice to meet you, I’m Krane, trader, and transporter of magical goods,” the man said, walking past the guards and putting out a hand.

“I’m Break, these two are Trent and Emmy,” Break said, firmly giving the man a shake. “We are currently on our way too…, uh, I guess we currently have no destination set but we're going somewhere.”

“Well if you don’t have a destination, how about taking a ride with me to the wizard town of Illistrium. Mind you, the rides not free, but it’s better than walking four days to get to the closest town.”

“What the cost?” Emmy interjected.

“Twenty thousand siphon per person.”

“Uh… what's a siphon?” Trent asked.

“Wow, you guy come to the region of Perintah and have no clue of the main trade currency? A siphon is a direct exchange rate of mana to stored energy. The rate of transfer is ten mana to one siphon. To transfer and store a siphon you need one of these,” pulling out a small purple rhombohedron, “whenever you have an excess supply of mana, you just transfer it into this small crystal, and that can be used to trade for most stuff.”

“How much mana do you have?” Break whispered to Emmy.

“Let me do the math,” writing air numbers in front of her, “Yeah, I can make two siphons.”

“Two? He wants sixty thousand.” Break looked at the man with an earnest face, “any way you could lower the price?”

“Lower the price?” the man exclaimed. “I'm already cutting you guys a deal, usually a trip like this would cost fifty a person. Keep in mind the price is not only for the ride, but it’s to pay the guards and my recommendation to the gate security when we get into the city. You know how hard it is to get into the city if your not a mage, you would have a better time stealing coins from a thief.”

“Alright, how about credits, we have plenty of credits.”

“What am I supposed to do with credits? Noone within a month’s travel takes credits.”

“Well, umm… can you give us just a second,” Break said, huddling the group towards the edge of the divot. Break sat down on a dried husk of wood before rummaging through his bag of items. “You guys got a plan? The best I can do is maybe offer him some of the items we got from the monster.”

“Maybe we could not take the ride,” Trent said.

“That’s the stupidest thing I have ever heard.”

“It’s sad to say but I’m going to have to agree with Break,” Emmy said with a slight contrition.

Break whipped his head towards Emmy, the look of his flabbergasted face twinge with satisfaction. “Did you just agree with me? No wait, did you just disagree with Trent?”

“Stop making it such a big deal,” Emmy glared. “I’m just pointing out the fact that we are days from the closest town, and that’s considering the guy has a flotilla of carts. If we want to have any chance of getting anywhere, we need to get on those carts.”

“Easy to say, but we're pretty much broke. The only thing we got to our name is a bunch of random items we got from the monster,” Break noted.

“Better than nothing?” Trent shrugged.

Break walked over to the Krane, the large man nudging the guards back to their post protecting the caravan. “Would you take a trade for the ride?” Break bluntly asked.

“I never say no to trade before I’ve had a chance to evaluate it, show me what you got,” Krane boasted, opening up a trade window.

Break dumped the content of his bag into the window hoping at least one item could be worth the ride they were looking for.

“Did you just dump a page of garbage into the trade window?”

Hastily closing the trade window, Break put his arm over the man back pushing them together so he could be within a whispering range. “Quick question, how much does a meal cost in that town your heading to?”

“You got to be a bit more specific, are we talking like a light breakfast, or like an evening meal.”

“Uhh… let’s say an apple.”

“Etherium Apples? Those things are pretty expensive, really good for alchemy and…”

“No, I mean just apples, regular apples.”

“Oh, well I guess an apple will run you around a ten siphon.”

“O.K. yeah, give me a second,” Break said shuffling back over to Trent and Emmy. “Guys we're not getting that ride, I asked for the price of an apple and it’s a ten siphon. Emmy, do me a favor and use a spell, any spell will work.”

Emmy manifested a glob of water that dripped across her fingers as she poured mana into the ball. After a few seconds Emmy had fully depleted her mana as the ball lost cohesion and puddled to her feet. “I'm at 0/27.”

Break started a timer in his HUD, “Let me know when it reaches ten.” After a grueling eight minutes, Emmy made a quick motion with her hands indicating that her mana had funny replenished. Break sigh as he did some quick mental math. “As it stands, Emmy can make a hundred and eighty siphons per day, and that’s only if she is logged in the whole time, and remember to deposit her mana every ten minutes.”

“Guys, I’m on a schedule, my striders are done refueling so I’m going to need an answer now,” Krane said.

Trent stood up giving a slow shake of his head. “We don’t have close to the amount your asking, but I’m willing to do any task to repay you.”

Krane let out a hardy chuckle so loud it shook Trent. Turning around he held out his hand letting the group know he needed a minute.

Emmy's face grew hot, her fingers twining with hate as she pulled out an arrow. The guards rushed towards Emmy each one holding their weapons to her neck. “What did I tell you, nothing but bandits,” Sir. Von scoffed.

“Whoah, whoah, whoah, what with all the hostilities,” Krane said.

“Trent asked if there was a quest he could do to help pay for the ride and you laughed in his face,” Emmy muttered, the spear poking at her neck.

“Guy weapons down, this is just a misunderstanding. Von, can you go back to guarding the caravan, my friend here is just a bit confused.”Waiting for the guard to stride back to the carts, Krane walked up and placed a hand over Emmy’s back. “Let me ask you a question, If someone was sitting on a mound of gold and wholeheartedly told you they were broke, wouldn’t you laugh your butt off?”

“What?” Emmy said.

“At first I thought were guys were Vectra Hunters playing hard, but I had my suspicions, In the end, you guy really are a bunch of travel with literally no idea what you're doing.”

“I still don’t see where this is going,” Emmy said lowering her bow.

Krane pointed towards the log Break had been stooped over, “That log there is worth a good amount of siphon, and by the look of it, you got about six or seven trees worth sitting all over this place.”

Break grab a chunk of the log and made a quick scan of the item.

Name: Vectra-Soledad

Material: Wood

Type: Craft

“It’s a crafting material?” Break questioned.

“Indeed it is, these shriveled logs contain a highly concentrated amount of mana, great for making wands and staffs. Not many people come out here to hunt for Vectrasol as they are extremely hard to track. Each Vectrasol is a bit different as they like to blend in with their environment, some of the rarer ones live in the mountains where they gather ore and other basic crafting material and turn them into hypercharged and highly potent crafting material.”

“Sounds amazing, how much does each of these logs sell for?” Trent asked.

Krane pulled out an optical scope and closely examine the logs “I usually don’t haggle for both sides, but with an eighty-seven percent mana concentration, these logs could sell for about twenty-five thousand a log.”

“Well with seven logs it adds up to a hundred and seventy-five, easily enough to pay for the ride fair and have plenty in reserve,” Break noted.

Krane sucked air through his teeth, the motion made a slight hissing sound. “Slow down my man, I said they would sell for twenty-five, not that I would buy them for that much. I would have to pay the tax to get them into town, then pay a carpenter to process them, not a cheap process.”

“How much will you buy them for?” Trent asked.

“You know what, I really like you guys, especially the little missy here, I like people with a short temper and a fierce loyalty to their friends reminds me of my Bunti, best grun I’ve ever had.

“I thought gruns were half pig half dog hybrid,” Break said.

Trent grabbed the tip of Emmy’s arrow as he saw her redrawing her bow. “He meant it as a compliment.”

How about for all the wood, I’ll take you all to Illistrium give you six thousand siphon to spends on supplies and lodging because you guys look like you desperately need it, and if that was not enough, after I finish processing the wood, I will give you one of the wands I plan to make for your water mage here.”

“Taking into account that we had no idea about the wood, I think that is a fine deal,” Trent said.

“Agreed,” Break added.

“Alright sounds good,” Krane jest pulling out three crystals. He handed one to each of the members, but not before touching them to the one he wore around his neck. “These are siphon founts, this is how you will spend and store all the siphon you gather.”

“How do I store my mana into the fount?” Emmy asked.

“Simple, just hold it in your hands, and pour your mana into the crystal like you would a spell. I’ve loaded each crystal with two thousand siphons, so keep them clear of pipers, they will drain your font dry if you don’t keep them in a secure location.”

The sun began to dip past the horizon, the light slowly getting dimmer. “Sorry to cut this conversation, but I need to get these logs loaded while I still have some light. You guys settle in cart seven, that's the one with the green and yellow flags.”

The group walked toward the floating cart, each one filled with different magical items. Hopping in towards the back of the cart, Trent let out a yawn that stretched for a good minute. “I say we log off and call it a day.”

“I can’t agree with you more, I’m starving.” Popping his head out of the cart, Break shouted towards Krane, “How long until we reach Illistrium.”

“Another day and a half,” Krane shouted as he commanded a troupe of workers.

Logging off the group walked out of the building filled with the few workers that manded the security. “Mind if I sleep over at your place Trent, would be a lot faster than Emmy having to drive across town to pick me up.”

“Oh, I don’t mind picking you up,” Emmy quickly replied.

“No, he makes a good point, cutting an hour off our commute would give up more time to play,” Trent said, getting into Emmy’s car.

“Where do you want to eat?” Emmy asked.

“We have two hundred thousand to blow, how about to celebratory steaks for surviving our first day.”

“Seconded,” Trent added.