We turned left upon leaving the guild, heading south I assume. It’s in the opposite direction of my pod and where I entered town from. After a few minutes of walking Shara speaks up and starts taking one of the two burlap sacks off her back and tosses it at me.

“Oh Nina, I almost forgot. Here are the cloths you wanted, and keep the sack.” She says.

“Thanks, maybe now people will stop staring at me.” I say while rummaging around the sack for a shirt.

Grant gives us a weird look, but I ignore him. I find the shirt after a moment of rummaging and pull it out. I hold it up to examine it and see if it will fit me. It’s a brown tunic with short sleeves. I think it will fit, barely. So, I throw it over my head and pull down. After a bit of struggling, I manage to get my head out the top and arms in the sleeves. It’s kind of tight on me, especially around the sleeves. But beggars can’t be choosers, and I’m happy to have an actual shirt now.

Shara and Grant share a look, but don’t say anything and keep walking. I throw the sack onto my back and call out to them.

“What never seen someone put on a shirt before?” I ask.’

“In the middle of the street? No, I can’t say I have.” Grant says.

Shara starts chuckling. Very funny wise guy, I see how it is time to pick on the new girl. Well, better start asking questions now, both from my list I made last night and about our current excursion. Maybe if I intermix the questions, they won’t get suspicious.

“So, what exactly does this goblin killing entail? Just find and kill a few of the buggers?” I ask

“Pretty much, we need to cut off both ears for proof of kill.” Grant says.

“Why both ears?” I ask.

“Because some dipshits got caught cutting off both ears and turning them in individually saying they killed twice as many as they actually did. That was a few years ago and ever since then they only accept a pair of ears for proof.” Shara says.

Wonderful, it’s always stupid people and crooks ruining it for the rest of us.

“Well, I guess that makes some sense. So what about the herb gathering, what exactly are we looking for?” I ask.

“Corso berries and Halix Root. Corso berries are orange, the plant has a blue stem and green leaves, very distinct and hard to miss. Halix Root looks like an unassuming bush, you won’t recognize it unless you identify it and have seen one before. Me and Grant will find one and show it to you.” Shara says.

Well, I specialize in plants so this should be easy. I wonder if I can start growing some of these things myself for some side money. It should be easy with my ability to manipulate plants. Well, Shara did say that we would only be out until noon today. It’s decided then, after work today I’m going to experiment. But that’s later, now it’s time for some questions. And I think I just the perfect lead in question.

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“Speaking of identifying things, can everything be identified? or is there some sort of requirement?” I ask

“Oh boy here we go.” Shara says.

“Only things with mana or magical properties can be identified. Examples would be people, monsters, and some animals. Now, just because it can be identified does not mean you immediately know what it is. If you don’t know what you are looking at and have never seen something like it before you wont be able to identify it. On the other hand, you may not know what you are looking at sometimes but will be able to identify it because you have seen something like it before. An example would be identifying a mutilated wolf corpse because you have seen a wolf before. Make sense?” Grant asks.

“Yea, anything else I should know about identification?” I ask.

“Hmm, well supposedly if something is powerful enough it will be identifiable regardless of if you have seen it before. But I’ve never run into anything like that. Same goes for monsters and people, we are always identifiable even if we don’t say our names and haven’t seen each other before. Only exception I know of is that some classes can hide their identities.” Grant says.

“Is there any way around that? Like special items or skills that can get around disguise or hiding skills?” I ask.

“Probably some skills for it, items can do stuff like that too. A good rule of thumb for magical items, if a person has it as a skill it can be put on a magical item.” Grant says.

“That reminds me, Alex said something before about monsters showing their rarity but not upgrades or race levels, any idea why that is?” I ask.

“No clue, probably something to do with whatever makes them monsters.” Grant says.

“So on a similar topic, how exactly does leveling work? Do monsters follow the same leveling structure?” I ask.

“Leveling is the same for everything, your race level is displayed up until level 10 where you get to choose your first class and race upgrade. After that it’s every fiftieth level you get upgrades.Most people around here will probably only see level fifty by the end of their lifetime, but I’ve heard of a few people who have managed to move up and out of this shithole.” Grant says.

“That’s good I suppose. So any tips for leveling up quicker?” I ask.

“Killing things is the best way to level usually, but it’s dangerous as hell because things don’t like dying and fight back. The safe way to do it is to do things that relate to your race or class and gain experience that way, but it’s a lot slower.” Shara says.

“That reminds me, how the hell do skills uh, rank up? I know you invest points to level the skills up but are there other ways to level or rank up?” I ask.

“No way to level skills except for investing points, same goes for upgrading. Sometimes skills can’t be upgraded without the proper class. An example would be if you maxed out your healing skill, you probably won’t be able to upgrade it because you’re only a novice paladin.” Grant says.

“Darn, I was hoping to keep leveling things but I guess that's not going to happen.” I say.

“Nope, word of advice, max your important skills before investing any remaining points into your stats. A level in a skill makes a lot more of a difference than the points would in any stat.” Shara says.

We approach the southern gate as our conversation draws to a close. Shara and Grant double check their gear, and I just stand there staring at my mace. It’s still clean, I'm going to fix that today with any luck.

“Alright, stick close to us and keep your eyes open Nina. Once we are past the tree line assume any and everything wants to kill you and that we are always being watched.” Shara says.

And with that, we walk out the gate and start down the road.