With a deep yawn, Linnet smacked her lips, she hadn’t slept well. Her dreams full of worry that centred around a yapping rat that was stealing a sack full of all her clothes. It ran off into the wall, the bag tore open as it squeezed its filthy body into a tiny crack, and the clothes became caked in grime. Well, Glades clothes were the ones that being stolen. Linnet clothes consisted of a handful of worn-out oversized t-shirts and jeggings that no longer even counted as vintage. Linnet also had some business suits, but these still hung in her wardrobe, still in their dry-cleaning wrap, a fine layer of dust coated the top. Unlike her, Glade had some wonderful outfits. For her everyday attire, she wore the top half of the "Old-Knight" set, a half plate with blue trim, that provided average protection against most damage types and had swapped in some "Boots of the Explorer" for the climbing bonus. She also had the event outfits; like the “Blood-Ivory vampire” set that was this ornate and elegant ball gown. It had a deep blood-red lace hemming, a domino mask and a bone-white choker. She picked that up during Halloween last year, and she also had the “Descaled Mother of Dragons” set when the final Game of Thrones novel came out. The rumours say that it was finished by AI. with George R. R. Martin passing away over a decade before, so unless it was hidden well, it was almost a certainty done by a robot.
When Linnet logged back on, and stepped back into Glades body, she was greeted by a chest full of mature-Alraune blossoms (auburn), golden stems and aqua spider silk. She looked over the items, these had taken her ninety-eight hours to collect on her own and her guild had got them in only seven. The power of friendship, she rolled her eyes at her own cheesy thought. The golden stems had a low drop rate, while not hard to collect it was dull work that was often interrupted, making optimizing the process hard when you were alone. Both the mature versions of the Alraune monster-girls and the brown haired variety were rare to spawn. They mostly came out in the young blonde form and could be seen bobbing and grinning from miles away, so getting a mob with both the needed traits was tricky. Aqua spiders gave her the ick, especially the ones that like to make their homes in your drinking water. She could still feel their jelly-like legs tickling the back of her throat. She shuddered and chased away the memory.
Over to one side, Crocnor and Imple laid intertwined in a heap. The potions had worn off, and they had crashed hard, succumbing to exhaustion. She was curled up in his lap like a spoiled cat, and his arm was draped over her, with his face in the crook of his other arm. Their breathing was light, and their bodies shifted every once in a while as the new days sunlight peeked between the clouds, causing them to move, stopping the idle timer from kicking them. Observing the scene, a smile played on Glades lips; they appeared remarkably sweet when not at each other's throats. She emptied the chest, it creaked loudly, as all chests do when opened in games. Freezing in place, she glanced back at the pair, but they didn't even stir in the slightest, content in their job well done.
It was still early and if as many of her guild members stayed on last night as would have been needed to get all these items, it will be a while before others showed up. She had the whole camp to herself, and she didn’t like that. She did her best work when she could hear others talking and laughing in the next room, poking their heads in to gossip and chat. She entered the workshop and was shocked to see Maze working at the potion bench.
He was brewing stamina potions too, but they were cloudy and smelt bitter in the air, when compared to the ones she had made last night. Still Glade could tell they would offer the same benefits like the ones that could be bought for from the traders back in town. Maze looked up and smiled. Well, Glade thought he smiled, it was hard to tell. His face lacked any features such as a mouth or a nose. It was like he was wearing a flat wooden mask with two thin eye slits to see from.
“Good morning, legendary crafter” he said warmly, her ears and cheeks tinned red again.
"I’m surprised to see you still awake Maze," she approached him slowly to observe him work. His vines skilfully manipulated multiple objects simultaneously. One extended to twist a dial, causing a stream of yellowy-green liquid to drip into a pot. Another tugged at a knob, that made the heat burn hotter, while a third dropped additional slitted fibres into the cauldron. She picked a ginseng root and broke off one of the thumbs before slowly started to grate it. She tipped the course pieces into the pestle and mortar with a small amount of lichen oil. This work always soothed her. She could activate a skill to get it done in a moment, but chose to live in the monotony of it, like she had done last night in a daze, as she recovered from the shock of her achievement.
“My timezone is different from yours, night is just starting to fall here, I will rest shortly,” He shifted to one side giving her more space to work. Glade reached out without thinking and turned down the heat on the cauldron, shifting the purple smoke to a shade of deep blue. She flinched, realizing her foe-par of messing with another’s project, but Maze just thanked her.
Maze split a vine from his side and used it to point out the door at the sleeping couple, “The two of them have been up all night, drinking potions to keep awake. Crocnor even threw up at one point. So I will replace the ones that were used”
“You should have left it for me, everyone is going out of their way to help me” she said, dropping the pestle with a clank turning to him.
He just shook his head
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“How many Guild Points have you earned now?” He asked, proving a point.
She had a lot and rarely, if ever, cashed them in. Members of Blink had the option to use their Guild Points to acquire loot from the vault, request favours, or set quests for the group. The points could also be used for voting in polls, although most members either followed Crocnor's lead or opted for the free vote included with each poll. Glade felt like she was a cheater when she used them. Rather than paying with points yesterday, she had even given Imple the other item drops while they were out farming. She felt that was fair.
Maze took her silence for what it was, “allowing others to help you is OK, sometimes they can do what we cannot” He drained the last of the liquid from the pot as the blue smoke vanished.
“I need to make the cloak now, do you mind…” Glade paused for a second, thinking about the best way to phrase the request, “..Just keeping me company, just for a little while as I work”
“OK.” was Maze’s simple reply.
He dropped the newly completed minor stamina potions in the chest outside as Glade started to set up for the cloak before taking a seat in the corner of the room. She had enough for two attempts, but without the candle her risk of failing the craft had doubled
She took a deep breath and started to work, stitching and sowing the blossoms with the aqua thread and running the stems through the neckline. It only took 5 minutes to fully craft it, out came the hammer.
Ping!
Ping!
Ping!
[Summer-breeze Druid Cloak Crafted]
A new menu popped up in front of Glades vision, it had a small list of skills that she had, at one time or another, crafted before. She blinked a few times and glanced over at Maze, he couldn’t see the UI menu, so it must be linked to her new [Legendary Crafter Skill]. She had read the wiki a few weeks back, studying methods to get the best skills and how to improve the odds for each one, and these were all the imbued skills that could have been pulled when crafting the Summer-breeze Druid Cloak
T1
55%
[Zephyr]
[Animal Friendship]
[Herbal Insight]
[Camouflage Aura]
T2
40%
[Zephyr+]
[????]
[HP Regen]
[????]
T3
5%
[????]
[Animal Friendship++]
[MP Regen]
[????]
TR
[Locked:Zephyr Rainbow]
[????]
[????]
[Random Roll]
She reached out and hit one of the question mark skills, it flashed red, an error sound that clunked in her ear. [Skill undiscovered] said the message that flashed up. She tapped a few times as the error message continued to sound.
Glade read over each of them again, Animal Friendship gave boosts to taming and capturing monsters, Herbal insights boosts the effect of raw herbs when eaten. Camouflage Aura was kinda complicated, something about an invisibility cloak effect, while standing in the woods on Tuesday or something. She reached forward and tried out one of the other buttons. The menu closed
[Summer-breeze Druid Cloak Crafted, imbued skill. HP Regen] sounded the alert.
“Carp” the Ai voice said overriding her own. A warning was added to her account for trying to swear. Glade still had access to her imbued re-roll skill, she prayed that would fix the mistake, but even then she only had two uses of it. On activating, the same screen popped up again, but this time she hit the Random Roll skill. In turn, a panel would blink on, as it illuminated the background for a moment before the sectioned skill rotated to the next. It spun fast. Impossibly fast. It clinked and clanged like a slot machine, lighting up her view with dizzying lights. Glade held her breath as it started to slow down; [Camouflage Aura], [????], [????], [Zephyr], [Zephyr+].
Glade erupted into a long loud cheer, the sound burst from workshop. Tears dripped down her face, and washed away the mountain of stress. She clutched her lifeline, the newly crafted cloak, and spun around. The fabric lifted and fluttered in the air as she and the cloak danced together for a fleeting moment.
The workshop door burst open, and Imple rushed in.
"You did it?" Imple asked, a wide grin spread across her face.
"I did it!" Glade laughed
Imple rushed her best friend and hugged her tightly. Maze arms shifted and twisted his vines into a thumbs-up. Crocnor stood in the doorway somewhat awkwardly with an uneven smile. He scratched the scales on the back of his neck, then flip his frills with his claw tips. He lent on the doorway.
"Looks like we only needed enough for one cloak," He gestured at the unused items on the bench. “I guess I over-spent on the GP”
"Come on, Crocy!" Imple released Glade before she wagged her finger at him. "Don't be a killjoy."
“No, No” He held his hands up “ I should have trusted Glade to get it first time”
A blend of dazed fatigue mingled seamlessly with their joy, but the moment to part ways arrived too soon. Maze took the lead, embarking on a quest line that led him westward. Following suit, Crocnor and Imple signed off, too tired to make full sentences let alone do anything else. Glade, expended a fast travel coin. She walked outside and stared up into the sky. Her transport would take her to the Den of Spiders, deep in the PVP zones where she would meet her buyer. She just hoped Ryder was going to meet her there like he said he was going to.