The previous days harvesting had been extremely successful. With Dillan sprinting around the forest, combined with the fact that Morgan had been saving many clumps of Valoplant for when he’d levelled up his harvesting skill had resulted in them gathering almost a quarter of what he needed. They’d scoured the part of the forest closest to Caslon clean of herbs, and the pair discussed where to head next.
“Ralph and Chris should arrive late today, they’ll let me know when they’re nearby. I’ll take you to see Trevor first thing, perhaps he can teach you something new. It’s a little north -” Morgan froze halfway through the sentence and slapped his forehead. “Wait. I should have done this yesterday. Do you know how to change my respawn point? If we go north again, I think I need the insurance of not having to run for days to get back.”
Dillan nodded as he responded, “Sure, I could do with switching myself. I saw the shrine as we came in yesterday. It generally costs though, and as this is an Eleos owned settlement you can bet it won't be cheap.”
Morgan shrugged, “The peace of mind will be worth many coins at this point. Let's go.”
A few minutes later the two players walked to the centre of the town, and nearby the row of shops was a small shrine, recessed into a wall of a thin stone building, next to its large oak door. An old and weathered statue of a robed lady, half a meter tall, sat in the recess, backlit by no visible light source. There was a small dilapidated box with a slot for coins affixed to the wall. The pair stood and stared at the shrine for a minute.
“This one looks pretty old and battered.” Commented Dillan. “If you identify the statue, it’ll tell you the price.”
Morgan did as instructed;
[Shrine of the Lady]
[Respawn point – Cost: 1 Gold]
[Location – Caslon (Eleos Guild)]
[You will respawn at this shrine upon death]
[Accept?]
He looked over at Dillan, who had also used identify and was sputtering in outrage. “A gold? A whole gold? Seriously? It’s 5 silvers by default. Criminals, the lot of them.”
Morgan frowned. He couldn’t actually afford the shrine. The goblin loot hadn’t been that much. He could sell the sword, he supposed, but then he’d be unarmed – which would be a quick way to test the shrine. He turned awkwardly to Dillan. “Er... Dillan...”
The runner understood right away. “I’ll cover for you Morgan. It’s a business need. I’ll abstain, my respawn is currently set to Dilanar, and I’d rather run all the way back than give them another coin.”
That settled, the pair started to head out of town. The route to the wizard's hut took them through Harl’s ever expanding clearing, and once the lumberjack was done with trimming a large log, he joined the two men to talk.
After introductions were made, the three got to talking about the reinforcements that were due to be arriving soon. After Morgan outlined his need for help on the spider quest, Harl rejoined the conversation, “Well, I’ve got an objective like that too – I need to gather a handful of ancient elm. My general quota is going well, so yesterday I did some exploring trying to find some. The thing is, after a whole day looking, the only mature elm I spotted was to the north, and well-guarded There’s a bunch of pixie-like creatures hanging about it. I saw at least a half dozen, about a meter tall and well-armed. I didn’t dare get any closer. If I’m to assume that that elm is my ancient elm, then I’m going to need a hand myself. I’m not sure I’ve anything to offer apart from my assistance in return, but if you’d be willing to help me out on that I’d owe you one.”
Morgan accepted the request immediately. “I can’t imagine that’d be much of a problem with a team of us. How’s your magic coming on?”
Harl grinned at this, “Oh mate, I almost forgot to tell you. There are a bunch of points on the track back to town that are hard on the cart. Turns out that I can solidify the air under the wheels for a short time. Make a little bridge of air across a rut, for instance. It’s made the journey a fair bit quicker and a heap more pleasant. I’ve been experimenting with some other stuff but that’s the only useful development.”
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Morgan filed this knowledge away for later, before congratulating the lumberjack on his discovery, and stating he’d be in touch once Ryan and Chris had arrived. With this, Morgan and Dillan continued into the forest. Dillan ran a zig zag route in the direction of Trevor's hut, and by the time he'd found it, he’d highlighted over a dozen clumps of herb for Morgan to gather.
[Dillan – I hope that’s enough to keep you entertained for a while. Remember the beacons only last half an hour so you’ll have to be quick. I’m going to head in, I’ll message you when I’m done.]
Morgan unleashed the cats and set a brisk pace, bouncing from beacon to beacon. He was amazed there were still so many harvestable plants in the area despite his earlier wanderings. His harvesting level had just hit 12, and as he was succeeding almost every harvest, his bag was filling up fast. By the time he reached the hut, he’d put away 42 Valoplant, 12 Versfern and 9 Bellishroom. Not too bad for a short morning's work. Which, he thought, was just as well; the deadline was looming ominously close in his near future. It didn’t take long for Dillan to reappear.
“Hey Morgan!” Dillan called as he stepped from the shack, “What an interesting guy. I had no idea you could modify spells. I’ve got a small bunch of earth and air spells already but haven’t really found any of it much use to be honest. I may be able to blend some spells together to be useful. Definitely needs more thought. That was well worthwhile, thank you. Anyway, back to work?”
The pair set back off into the forest, with Dillan dashing about laying beacons, and Morgan following them up. By the time the sun was setting, Morgan had gathered just over 200 of the valoplant, as well as respectable amounts of Versfern and Bellishroom. They’d lost a couple of hours dodging a four-goblin patrol that Dillan had spotted just in time, and later had to take on a couple of wandering forest beetles, one of which left Morgan with a nasty gash in his forearm, but all in all it was a roaring success. On their way back to town, Morgan received a message,
[Ralph – Hey mate! We’re just rocking up to Caslon now.]
Morgan replied, saying they’d meet them in the inn in an hour or so. When they got back into town, Morgan headed to the grocer to sell his Bellishroom, and then the alchemist to submit his Valoplant for processing and sell the rest of the herbs. With this done, he headed to the inn.
Dillan had already found Ralph and Chris, and the three were sitting at a table talking over dinner. Ralph greeted Morgan with a cheery wave, and after he picked up his own plate of food, he joined them at the table. Ralph had picked up some more gear, and was looking like a stocky juggernaut, with plate pauldrons over a mail hauberk. Chris was a tall, lanky human player, clad in a mix of mail and leather armour. Morgan restarted the conversation, “Hi guys, so glad you could make it down. Ralph, great to see you again, and you must be Chris. Pleased to meet you.”
Chris smiled shyly in reply, holding his hand out to shake over the table, which Morgan did, awkwardly whist trying not to upset the contents of the table. “Pleased to meet you too,” Chris said to Morgan, “Ralph told me all about you. Thanks for harvesting that Ragthistle for me. I hear you got knocked out by a spell to the face, that must have hurt.”
Morgan grinned and replied, “No worries, it was the least I could do. The spell to the face was arguably better than a goblin to the face I took when I arrived in Caslon.”
Ralph snorted in amusement, “A goblin to the face?”
Morgan explained his arrival to Caslon and the battle of the Baron, and the three talked for a while, sharing stories until their plates were all clear. Ralph took a while to brag about earning his pauldrons; recounting a tale of him and Chris hewing their way into a small merloc camp to take out their chieftain.
Soon, Morgan turned the conversation onto the tasks they had to complete. “I’ve got to harvest a bunch of a plant called Silkblossom. We need to move pretty fast as my deadline is coming up. The thing is, we’re going to have to fight our way into some spider infested caves to get at it. There's also a friend in the same boat, but he needs a specific tree that’s being guarded by some well-armed pixies.”
Ralph grinned at this, “Sounds like fun. We ran into a chick with pick on the way into town who asked if we could help her too. She needs help to get at some quartz in a grotto that’s near the goblin encampment, so we’d probably be facing off against them.”
Morgan started at the mention of the woman, “Her! She was the one who took my gear when I died. We met her a couple of days ago, but she got mean and ran off when I bought it up. I don’t know if we should help her at all. Oh, I’ve just had a message from another couple I met along the way who were willing to help out. Apparently, they’ll be with us tomorrow noon.”
Chris nodded appreciatively, “Well, with the six of us, we can likely clean up all these objectives quickly, including the miner. You may have some issues with her, Morgan, but perhaps helping her out will make her more agreeable.”
Morgan shrugged, half-heartedly, “Well, OK, I’ll help but I’m not dealing with her. We’ll meet up at the city gates just after noon tomorrow and get started. We’ll start with Harl’s pixies. The next day we’ll try the spider caves, and after that we can consider helping Elaine.” Ralph raised an eyebrow quizzically, “Oh, that’s the chick with the pick, as you put it.” Morgan clarified.
With everyone agreed, they finished up their dinner and Morgan headed out to train with the guards. Ralph and Chris asked to come along, and Dillan, not wanting to be the odd one out, joined in too. The guards greeted the crew with surprise but had no problem setting the four of them to train. Ralph still had his large lumberjack's axe, while Chris withdrew a spear from his satchel to train with. Dillan had his two daggers, and Morgan had his crude goblin sword and a borrowed shield.
After a couple of hours, when the practice yard was only lit by the fires in the braziers, the training broke up and the players retreated back to the inn to sleep.