“What you have in your hands, son, is garbage. Trash. Literal leaves and twigs that have no value and are almost completely useless. The berries are edible. But they don't taste very good.”
I guess there was a good reason why no one had picked them already.
Wait. “You said ‘almost completely useless.’ What can they be used for?”
“Well, two reasons. First, since you were able to gather a number of twigs and leaves, that means you probably have a gathering ability. The look on your face shows that you have no idea what I'm talking about. Not everything can be gathered. Were you able to tell which leaves could be gathered just by looking at them?”
“Maybe? Now that I think about it, I was looking at the tree and noticed that one leaf looked different from the others. It shimmered slightly, and I grabbed it instinctively, and it came off in my hand…”
“Wait. What happens if you try to take the other leaves?”
“Hahahahahahahahaha!”
The shopkeeper's laugh fills the room and he folds over, tears running out his eyes.
“Whoooooooooeeeee!”
He breathes out hard and wipes the tears from his face.
“Thanks son. I haven't laughed like that in ages. Man that felt good. Hahahahaha!”
“So you didn't even try to take the other leaves?”
I think back. One, two, three, ran out of space... oh yeah! I hadn't even tried to take the normal leaves. I realized I had limited space, and assumed the shiny ones were special somehow.
I look at his eyes and wonder.
“Are the other leaves not gatherable?!?!?”
“Nope. And every time you fail - or pull on the wrong leaf - some of the leaves you could have gathered lose their shine. In some cases, you only get one chance to gather from an herb or plant - and it has to be done at the right time, or under the right weather. Then you have to also choose the right thing to take. One wrong move, and the whole plant becomes unavailable until the next time it blooms. Well… at least the useful parts. You can still chop down a tree and get wood, or rip off leaves, berries, and flowers, but they won't have any special effects. They’re only good for food or making a fire.”
That makes sense. There's a game where flowers only bloom at night, or under lava or water, and if you gather them when they're blooming, you get a bonus of some sort. This world seems a bit harsher though. In most games, anyone can pick from a tree or a bush a couple times. But here someone without the skill to gather would have to be insanely lucky.
I mean, otherwise someone could just take a rake and pull all the leaves off. They still can - but they won't get any useful drops from it. Or pluck every herb and flower they see. This way, only the people who can gather see the stuff that can be taken, and the people who can't have no reason to destroy stuff.
He continues.
“These are mostly worthless, like I said, but it could also be because I usually see a crushed handful of random twigs and crumpled leaves.”
It seems like everyone has inventory issues. Is this for real?!???
“It's possible that someone else could have a use for these, even though I don't. I mean the Item Drop Guy buys everything. He'd take them off your hands. I wouldn't even take them from you. I have no use for them.”
“Either way, good luck with gathering in the future kid.”
I thank him for his kindness, push open the door, and step back out on to the street.
-----
The merchant's last remark took me by surprise. I've never been in a game where you couldn't sell something to a merchant. Except maybe angel statues and “true junk” items specifically added to the game as junk. Like old boots picked up in fishing. Most games you can sell anything to anyone - even junk.
I guess it makes sense though. This guy runs a general store. Why would he need sticks and leaves?
This Item Drop Guy: first of all, how could I tell that the merchant was using capital letters to describe someone? Also I wonder what kind of shop it'll be. Maybe someone who specializes in buying everything you'd ever want to sell...? There's gotta be a catch.
Oh! Maybe he pays way less than market price! If he's got connections, he can resell stuff for more than he bought it and make a fast profit. It actually sounds like a pretty good business model. Players go to him knowing they can sell literally anything in their miserably small hands, and he uses his connections to eventually sell all the stuff they bring.
I walk down the main road and start perusing the other shops. But then I remember that my hands are still totally full of sticks and berries. Lol. I ask a little old lady running a roadside stand where I can find the Item Drop Guy. She looks at my hands, then at my face, as if trying to read my mind.
“His shop is on the East side of Fountain Square. Exactly across the street from the guild hall.”
She gives me a smile and I walk in that direction.
I wonder if there's someone else who would actually benefit from this stuff. Well, at least I'll get an answer right?
The Item Drop Guy’s shop is literally across the plaza from the main guild hall. The name of the shop is Item Drop Guy.
I expect it would be the very first thing players see after walking out from a quest. I guess that would make sense right? Maybe sometimes you get stuff for a quest, but don't have to turn it in so you can sell it for money afterwards?
I walk in and am assailed by smell. The fresh outside air has changed to something musky, old, and covered over with a cheap air freshener. Somewhere between the smell of an antique store, a natural history / dead animal museum, and the home of someone who has far too many cats.
A bell rings as the door opens, and after a short delay a middle-aged man comes from a doorway to the front counter, absentmindedly wiping wet hands on the dark apron around his neck. He arrives at the counter and squints at me until the door closes behind me.
I haven't moved because I'm still looking around.
The shop is...
Empty.
I guess I was expecting a pawn shop. Or an antique shop. Both cluttered beyond belief and packed full of stuff you never knew you didn't need. My ex loved antique shops. After visiting dozens of them, I never caught the bug.
This shop though, is the exact opposite. Not the super-exclusive metallic/shiny aura of a too-expensive popular electronics brand that keeps their stores empty, but just... empty.
It doesn't feel empty though. Especially with the smell, which honestly makes me wonder what is behind the doorway. The shop is wide and shallow - with a large square table on the left and right of a wide, deep counter. The walls have sparse plaques and adornments that seem like they could be found in a school, or a museum, or a library, or any kind of shop in fact. The only thing that is throwing me off is the smell.
The middle-aged man is now leaning up against the counter. His eyes go to my eyes, down to my hands, then back up to my eyes again before I finally turn to him.
“Welcome! Whatcha selling today?”
No "welcome to..."?
Oh.
I guess that makes sense. Everyone knows this guy is the item drop guy. It's written on the door of the shop. So it makes sense that he doesn't sell anything... right?
Let's do this.
“Hey! I was out in the forest and ended up gathering some items. I was hoping I could sell them and maybe figure out if they're good for anything.”
“Let's see em here!”
I empty my hands to the counter and begin carefully pulling the piles of leaves from my pockets.
“May I?” The merchant gestures with his hands to the piles. I nod, and he deftly begins sorting the items into smaller piles.
Berries goes into 3 different groupings - most in the first, a couple in the second, and one berry alone in the third. Twigs are split into two groups as well. Leaves in five different piles, two rows and three columns.
I've played games before, so my mind immediately works out possibilities. They aren't even stacks and they don't have round numbers, so he's not counting them. I know that when I look at the items I see only the name "leaf," "twig," and "berry" - maybe they're actually different in some way? I know there are some games where when items are identified they can change shape and size dramatically.
Are these stacks of different items?
“I'll explain the stacks since you look like you might be new around here.”
“These are all redtree berries. The first set is terrible quality - most people only ever see these ones, and they taste bitter enough that they don't try them ever again.”
He laughs a bit and then picks up a berry and offers it to me.
“I can tell by your face that you haven't tried one yet. I'm going to buy all of this stuff from you unless you want to keep something, so I'll buy this one and let you eat it as well.”
He must have sensed my hesitation.
“I’ll buy these berries for 20 for a copper. The lowest price of anything on the market. And that's a steal for you because I can't sell them to anyone.”
He laughs again.
“Not even animals will eat them. The only thing they're good for is pranks.”
I take the redtree berry in my hand and lift it to my mouth. He watches me expectantly.
Here goes nothing.
I pop the berry in my mouth, slide it to the right of my mouth and crunch down. It's firm, sort of like an unripe blueberry.
The flavor makes my mouth pucker and I immediately begin to foam. Saliva starts pouring from my mouth into the bucket that the merchant somehow pulls from nowhere and has placed in front of me. I somehow keep from vomiting but my mouth keeps draining saliva. It's literally pouring into the bucket... and it keeps going. I don't think I've ever experienced this. Nor anything that bitter/sour before in my life.
“Apparently some high touch chef tried to make a jam and drink flavors out of those. It has the exact same effect even when it's diluted with water, mixed with sugar, and even cooked with other ingredients. He ended up completely giving up, and I lost the only market these berries ever had.”
He gestured to the second pile.
“These ones, however, are poor quality. I say terrible and poor but there is actually a gradation for each type of item. Some items just have bad / ok / good levels. Some, like these berries, just have terrible and poor. Some just have excellent and legendary. It all depends on the item.”
“So these are better?”
“In my world, these are so much better that I think of them as a different product. They're still just berries. But these are edible. Which means I can sell them because someone will want to eat them. They still taste weird, but they have a decent shelf life, and you don't see them often. The chef I told you about? He buys these when I can get them. He uses them in the drinks and jams and they add the tartness he wants and have much less bitter flavor.”
“So what made the difference? Were the other ones not ripe yet?”
“Ripeness is a thing. Depending on when you gather from a plant, you can end up getting something that is unripe or overripe, but usually you can tell that by observation. These berries stay good on the plant almost forever. It's just when they are picked that they start to lose their life.”
“The difference could have been that you picked from different trees. Quality can change based on time of day, location, weather patterns, you name it. Or you could have lucked out and gotten a talent bonus that upgraded the berry as you gathered it.”
“That's a thing?!?”
“Yeah. Sometimes when people with a gathering talent bonus gather something, it gets upgraded to the next level of value. These berries, for example, are 5 to a copper.”
Still not much, but that small pile of 4 berries is worth more than the 8 in the other.
“Gather talents aren't as popular as combat talents, but they can make a difference every now and again.”
He leans over the counter before adding the next part.
“And I'll tell you a secret.”
“Combat talents either give a consistent bonus, or they have a chance to activate before going on cooldown. The guy who came in before you killed a bunch of wolves. Mentioned that he had a combat talent that has been doing pretty well for him. Well the wolves were for a quest at the guild. Brought them in to prove that he had done the quest, got the reward, then came here to sell them to me.”
“Thing about gather talents tho. Gather talents can activate *multiple times at once.*”
He leans back waiting for that to soak in.
“Multiple times at once? What is that supposed to mean?”
He points to the last berry, in its own pile.
“This is a redtree berry. But this one is different. It's good quality, which you don't see growing on redtrees. They only have terrible. Sometimes you see poor. But for this one to be good, since you said you were in the forest near the village, I'm guessing it's almost a given that you have a gather talent.”
“As you picked this berry, it's very likely that your gather talent procced and upgraded this one from poor to ok then again from ok to good. Maybe it even skipped 3 levels and upgraded from terrible to good. Either way, this berry is pretty rare.”
“So it's worth a lot?!?”
My eyes must be huge because the merchant starts laughing again.
“Hahaha! I've seen them before but they're uncommon enough that there isn't really a market for them. And it's still just a berry kid. I can give you a copper for this one. With one berry I don't have many options for selling it, but I can bundle it with the other ones and my chef buddy will probably buy it. From what I understand they're better than the poor quality berries, but still taste weird.”
“The twigs are terrible and poor quality but can apparently be used as crafting materials for people who want to improve their skills using low quality materials that don't cost much. Lol literally they are useful trash.”
“The leaves are terrible, poor, and ok quality, but further separate into good and ok conditions. Apparently moving the pile of leaves back and forth from my pocket had damaged the edges of some of them, which lowered their already low value. What is more interesting is that the conditions and quality are readily visible to the merchant. But not from looking at the leaves or twigs. He has an appraisal skill that allows him to see the quality and condition of each item as a visual status bar. Sort of like a HP bar? And then a name to indicate it. That's convenient because trying to communicate what a status bar means would be hard. Either way, he can tell that the leaves have been damaged without even having to look for the damage.”
-----
I leave Item Drop Guy with empty pockets and one berry. I've decided to keep the good quality berry - maybe it'll be good luck or something. I had thought to keep some of the sticks if I could figure out the crafting skill, but I literally just have two hands and my pockets. I can't afford to fill up my inventory space right now as much as I normally would have done so.
Diagonally across the fountain square is the Central Bank. This is my next destination.
The teller's eyes hide the surprise as I pull an electronic voucher out of my menu screen (inventory space? Someday? Maybe? Or is it only for money vouchers?) and slide it across the counter. The merchant had offered me cash but couldn't pay in partial copper increments. The wide eyes aren’t for the fact that I’m using a voucher. Apparently it's pretty common. The amount is not. The total is 3.6 copper. But hey, you gotta start somewhere! Here at the bank, I can open an account of my own. The Item Drop Guy had explained that somehow the voucher actually contained money. At the bank they would simply open it up and deposit it. Most people apparently use electronic transactions to buy and sell everything since it's so much more convenient. Makes sense - it's like credit or debit cards back home. Though I guess these are like debit cards... but with the actual money inside?
Either way, I am now the proud owner of 3.6 copper, a good quality berry, and a bank account.