Duncan stuck all his available stat points into Vitality again before he turned in for the night. He fell asleep surprisingly easily even though the events of the day before were quite traumatic for him.

You can hear about ghosts and other paranormal things on Earth but you expect them to be works of an overactive imagination and fiction not real entities that can kill you.

The theme song of an old movie played in his head as he closed his eyes.

“Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters!“

As he woke up the next day, he picked up his socks and underwear from the window sill and put them on then made for the bathroom to wash his face. He rubbed his teeth with his fingers.

“I really have to ask Wazsh if they have toothbrushes here,” he thought as he looked around if Wazsh had one but didn’t find one.

As he came into the kitchen, he found Wazsh sitting at the table peeling some vegetables.

“Good morning. Did you use your stats?” Wazsh asked.

“Good morning to you too. I put them all in Vitality,” Duncan replied.

“Smart choice. I forgot to mention this before but since you are reaching level 12 sooner than I thought I think I should explain it more thoroughly,” Wazsh said.

“Explain what?” Duncan asked.

“The time off. As you reach level 12 the time off will be capped at 1 hour per day and maximum accumulation you can use at one time is 8 hours per Earth’s day,” Wazsh explained.

“What do you mean by it exactly?” Duncan asked as he did mental gymnastics with the numbers in his head.

“Well, when you are away from here for 8 hours you are basically missing a whole week from here. They had to cap it off, I guess. If they left it uncapped the higher levels could have time off measured in years,” Wazsh explained.

Duncan nodded and shrugged. There was no reason to bother Wazsh about something he had no say in.

“Anything else I should know?” he asked.

“A lot but nothing pressing. If you have any questions feel free to ask them anytime. I will provide you with all the answers I am at liberty to give,” Wazsh replied looking him in the eyes.

“So, there are questions you are not allowed to answer,” Duncan asked.

“Yes. But they don’t affect your immediate situation or you could do anything with the answers anyway,” Wazsh replied.

Duncan took a big breath.

“OK. Hmmm. I have wondered how my health bar works,” Duncan said after a few moments.

“Your health bar works as a function of your Vitality, Endurance, Resistances and external items such as armors. Main stat governing it is Vitality which raises your overall health. Endurance and everything else just reduce the damage you sustain,” Wazsh explained.

“Is there fatal damage?”, Duncan asked.

“Yes. If you lose your head, you are dead immediately. If your heart is damaged you have a chance as long as you can use a healing potion or a spell fast enough. So, by no circumstances should you lose your head,” Wazsh explained looking for a reaction which never came as Duncan just nodded.

“Is there a way I can see the health bar permanently? It switches on and off. Also, numbers would be great to know,” Duncan asked.

Wazsh nodded.

“It’s in the settings. Should be some check-boxes. Permanent display under health and mana. Also use numbers.”

Duncan found the settings after some menu browsing and turned them on.

“Anything else?” Wazsh asked.

“Not right now. I will let you know if I remember something. Have to visit a dwarf now about a key,” Duncan replied and made to leave.

“Wait. Maybe you should not go in the mine just yet. I have been thinking there might not be just the shades down there. There could be some physical monsters also that crawled up from the 2nd floor. You should learn some skills and get some weapons to handle them before you go in again,” Wazsh quickly said his enthusiasm from yesterday gone entirely.

Duncan waved his hand in dismissal.

“I will mostly just mine,” he said as he left.

Soon he was at Bolgar’s smithy and reached for the door handle. Surprisingly for the first time since he got there the door was locked.

“Bolgar, open up!” he yelled as he knocked on the door.

“You aren’t getting the key!!!”, he heard from the other side.

“Bolgar? Why?” Duncan asked.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“I thought about it. Without the key you can’t go down there. If I were alone down there yesterday, I would be dead now and you plan to go alone,” Bolgar replied.

“Open up!” Duncan said.

“Noooo. I won’t open or you will just try to convince me!!!” he yelled and after that he heard Bolgar walking away from the door.

Soon the sound of a hammer hitting iron was heard as Duncan was hung out to dry outside the door. Having been left with no other choice he turned away and walked back to the bar thinking what else he could do.

He remembered Elland telling him to visit his shop whenever he wanted to learn how to make potions yesterday. So, he figured he might as well visit him now.

Trouble was he didn’t know where exactly the shop was located. The only thing he did know was that it was not in the part of the village where the mine was.

As he passed Clara’s, the laundry lady’s shop he saw the main street take a slight bend to the left and saw a sign in the shape of a potion bottle. Under it was written something in elegant script. As he used [Identify] on it, he got the name of the shop - “Nature’s Gift potions”.

The shop had a big green tinted window with golden artwork reminiscent with what humanity imagined elves would have. Lots of swirling branches and flower motives.

Duncan entered the shop. There were chimes that rang alarming the owner a customer entered. What greeted him was a big counter with a scale on it. Behind it were shelves and drawers. Some shelves were filled with potion bottles but some were left empty or had only one or two bottles left.

Elland soon came from the door behind the counter.

“Oh. It’s you. Good morning,” he said in a surprised voice.

“Good morning. I was thinking you could teach me how to make potions today,” Duncan said.

Elland scratched his nose.

“I did say something about that yesterday. I didn’t expect you to take me up on that offer so soon though. I thought you were going back to the mine,” Elland replied.

“Bolgar won’t give me the key,” said Duncan in a sour mood.

Elland smirked.

“It’s probably for the best. Although I do believe you can handle shades, ghosts and whatnot. But in case you stumble upon something you need to stab I think you would be out of your depth,” Elland explained and gestured for Duncan to follow him with a hand.

The back room was three times the size of the shop. It looked like a huge kitchen. With strange apparatuses every now and then, on what looked like kitchen islands. All Duncan could recognize was some bottles, glass containers, mortars and pestles. There was also something that looked like a Bunsen burner.

Elland spread his arms and exclaimed like a mad scientist, before saying, “This is my workshop!”

Duncan nodded as his head swiveled from one weird apparatus to the next.

“Hmmm. What should we make today? Let’s start with something basic. Yesterday you supplied just the right ingredient for it. It’s perfect. Easy to make. Always in demand. A bug repellant,” Elland said ecstatically with a high-pitched voice.

Duncan nodded until the bug repellant part.

“What? A bug repellant?” Duncan raised his voice.

“Don’t worry it’s really easy to make. I am sure even you will manage. There is also a lot of the main ingredient so with some repeating you should get the potioneering skill,” Elland said as if to dismiss Duncan’s worries. Totally missing the point Duncan was going to make after the shout.

“OK. Whatever,” Duncan quickly gave up.

“First take these gloves,” Elland said and produced gloves in front of Duncan. As Duncan put them on, Elland put on his own.

Elland produced the Blue Glowing Deathcap on a kitchen island and continued his instructions.

“Take a clean mortar and bring it here. Stick the fungus inside and show it some love with the pestle.”

Duncan rolled his eyes and did as he was told. He quickly crushed the fungus with the pestle until you could not tell it was ever a mushroom.

“Now. Watch. You take one of these small bottles. Put a tiny spoon of the crushed fungus inside, add water, close the bottle and shake the bottle. Remember to close the bottle,” Elland continued before he started demonstrating it.

Duncan quickly used his Observe skill although he was sure he didn’t need it.

[ You have Observed Potioneering ]

Converting to Alchemy

Learn

[YES] - [NO]

Duncan mentally clicked on YES.

[ You have Learned Alchemy Level 1. ]

Intelligence +0.1

Wisdom +0.1

Perception +0.1

“What are you doing?” Elland asked as Duncan was looking at his status windows and closing them.

“I just got the Alchemy skill,” Duncan replied.

“You did what? Alchemy? This is Potioneering!” Elland said.

“Yeah, it said Potioneering at first and then converted it to Alchemy. Maybe Potioneering is a sub-branch of Alchemy?” Duncan asked.

“What do You mean sub?” Elland angrily replied.

“I don’t mean it’s below. I mean it’s more specialized on potions instead of…” Duncan wanted to say making a Philosopher’s stone but didn’t want to open that can of worms.

“When you put it that way it does make kind of sense. We both use what nature gives us to transform it into something more,” Elland replied after contemplating for a while. His anger disappearing as fast as it had appeared.

“Now. You try making one,” Elland said after a moment of silence.

Duncan looked inside the mortar at the squashed fungus and when the option appeared he clicked on make bug repellant option. After what seemed to him ten seconds, he was holding a bottle.

“Good. You can do the rest so long as the fungus lasts,” Elland replied.

Duncan sighed.

“I wish there was an option to make them in bulk.”, he thought as he was about to mentally press on make again.

Suddenly there was a flash in the menu and Bulk Make appeared. Willing his focus onto that option, he chose twenty pieces.

After what looked to him like five minutes of constant action twenty pieces of finished Bug repellent were neatly stacked on the kitchen isle. Elland was standing mouth agape beside him breathing heavily.

“What happened? I told you to take it slower several times and observe the process,” Elland acted disappointed.

“So that was the squeaking noise I had heard and what process?” Duncan thought to himself.

“I just wanted to finish them as fast as I can,” Duncan said as he closed the level up boxes for Alchemy. He had raised it to level 4.

“Haste makes waste!” Elland said as he checked the bottles.

“Good. Good. Superior. Good. … Superior.”

“Hmmm. Don’t be too smug. This is one of the easiest things to make,” Elland said as he observed Duncan smirking.

“Then stop acting like you showed me the Moon,” Duncan thought before he nodded.

“You can level your Alchemy just fine with it so feel free to make more until the ingredients last. I will bring some more bottles,” Elland said before he went through a door which was probably the warehouse.

Duncan clicked on Bulk make again and chose fifty this time. He only made 37 this time before the crushed fungus was scrapped clean from the mortar.

Elland was looking at him as he finished.

“What happens to you when you make potions? You do not get distracted at all,” Elland asked.

Duncan shrugged. How was he to explain the fast forward mode. He did know what were the distractions Elland was talking about. There was squeaking, hand waving in front of his eyes and other antics that Elland tried before he gave up.

“What level in Alchemy are you now?” Elland asked.

Duncan willed all his windows to close after he saw he was level 7 in the latest one.

“Seven,” he replied.

“In less than 10 hours? I thought the dwarf was kidding,” Elland said in shock.

“We are done for today. I need a drink,” he said next and ushered Duncan to leave with him.