CHAPTER TWO: OUT THE GATE

As I head out of the town gate, I start to take in the beauty of the area. Just outside the gate is a nice small plains area dotted with farms. On the edges, there is a pretty large forest. Beyond the forest are tall mountains and cliffs, which is probably what has kept Bardford from discovery. Looking closer at the farms, many are growing different forms of berries. There are one or two growing corn, and another growing some form of grain like wheat or barley. One farm is a bunch of barns and coops, so it probably is where the meat and dairy come from in this area. There is a small river that comes out of the forest, crosses the plain, and goes towards the section of forest where the mountains open up to form a pass.

When I exit town, I come out onto a dirt and gravel path. Along the sides are several weeds, and way towards the end there is a bridge that crosses the river. On the edge of the river there are cattails, and scattered throughout the grassland are a different variation of cattails. One of the weeds at the side of the grass is clearly a dandelion. I go over, pick a dandelion. After picking the dandelion, I pull out the green notebook and sketch out a picture of the dandelion, putting it at the top of the page. Below it I write the name, and write out some categories to put information into. Then I use inspect. In the notification that comes up with information, ‘A common yellow flowered weed found often in open grassy fields. Is completely edible from the flow to the roots. Consuming has a diuretic effect.’ I scribe the information about it into my notebook, then close the notebook and the notification.

After I close the notebook, I stand up, tuck the dandelion away into my herb storage, and walk into the field, moving over to make an entry for the cattail that is growing from clumps of grass away from the water. As I walk over, I notice something rustling in the grass. It's a little mouse, nibbling on some grass. More accurately according to inspect it's called a ‘Grassland Bush Mouse’. I pull out my red notebook, and quietly kneel down to get closer for a more detailed sketch of the mouse. It jumps in fright, and scurries back a little, but once realizing I'm not a threat, it goes back to nibbling on the grass. Following the same format as the herb lore notebook, I start by putting the name and a sketch at the top of the page. I write down the categories, and start scribing in the information. Something I noticed about using inspect on creatures, is that they show a level beside the name. So inside the location section I put ‘Average Level’ in brackets beside the location I listed. This little guy is a level one, but you never know if you'll find the same creature but stronger in another area. I finish writing things down and close the notebook, tucking it into my bag.

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Betraying the little mouse's trust, I pull my knife out from the sheath in my fanny pack. I move my empty had close to the mouse, slowly as not to scare it. When my hand gets close enough, I snatch the little mouse, pull it closer, and then cut its throat. A quick and hopefully painless death for the little mouse who trusted me so much. A notification comes up for EXP gained in battle, but I dismiss it and set it to only display when I look at my other gains.Carefully I draw my blade across the mouse and skin it. It all goes into containers in my fanny pack for now, but later I’ll look into how much I have, and what it'll be worth. I stand up, and continue on to the cattail.

Reaching the cattail, I repeat the process I did for the dandelion. According to inspect this is a ‘Grassland Cattail’ and was used in cooking amongst other things. An interesting item, but I probably won't end up using it. I tuck a sample into my herb storage anyways, and move back onto the path. Once I reach the path, I turn and continue walking towards the bridge. When I reach the bridge, I quickly jot down an entry for the variation of cattail found on the edge of the river. Apparently the only difference is in the name, this one being ‘River Cattail’ rather than ‘Grassland Cattail’. At the base of the cattail I notice a frog, but it hops away before I have an opportunity to add it to my bestiary.

Continuing along the bank produces little results. All the frogs are clever like the first, and jump away before I have a chance to record them. I come across several samples of a small blue bell flower inspect claims to be ‘Frogweed’ but trying to harvest it gives me useless clumps of weeds rather than usable herbs. I jot it down into my herblore notebook nonetheless.

I continue down the bank, and after what felt like an hour (But was probably only ten to fifteen minutes) I finally get the jump on a frog. I happened to come across a frog who was to busy snacking on bugs to notice me. I very slowly kneel down to the ground, momentarily forgetting that it's marshy and wet. I pull out my bestiary, and careful not to get it wet, I write an entry for the ‘Green River Frog’, which literally is just a descriptor for the frog. Once the entry is done, I tuck the notebook away, and stab at the frog… which jumps away before the knife even reaches it. So much for samples. However, I did get it into my bestiary at the very least. I stand up, and only then do I notice that I was kneeling into a bog.

“Shit!”

I shout, realizing I had ruined my only pair of pants just to get a sketch of a frog. A frog for God's sake. A frog that may I add, I failed to kill. I shake my head, and start walking back to town