The path ahead led through fields and on a smooth cobbled road. I could already see a light dusting of snow on the ground; it wouldn’t be long now until we were in the middle of winter itself.
Micca pulled her horse up to ride alongside my own. “Are you excited to finally reach the capital?”
I let out a chuckle. “Yes, and no. I’m nervous about what’s coming, but excited all the same. You?”
“Same. Mostly excited—just nervous about how I’ll go. Usually, from what I’ve been told, when I was thinking about moving to Boltron, merchants only go to the capital once they are well and truly set up. Very few start there and succeed,” she explained.
“They won’t have buffing candies though,” I said with a smirk.
Micca nodded. “True, but I can’t just survive on your supplies. What if I sell out of everything in two weeks and you’re several months away from returning?”
Milo pulled up alongside both of us, joining the conversation. “It’s smart that you’re considering this, but what’s important is that you limit your stock. Fabricate a reason why you can only get three a week, as an example.”
Micca nodded. “Makes sense—create demand and scarcity to drive up the price.”
Their deeper conversation about the market in the capital, and the importance of advertising her wares to the wealthier clientele, lost me. But Micca seemed happy with the discussion.
I would need to make sure I prepared plenty of stock for her to sell by the time we reached the capital. I was kicking myself that we hadn’t purchased more vials or supplies. I had wanted to revisit the familiar market as well!
Looking over at the two of them, I asked, “Milo, are we going to pass a town that will have a good market for supplies on the way to the capital?”
Milo nodded. “Absolutely. The closer we get to the capital, the larger the towns will be, and we’ll see far more of them compared to our trip to Boltron. I think the best town to stock up in will be a place called Farnox. It’s a dungeon town—usually has lots of interesting items.”
I looked at Milo wide-eyed. “The town has a dungeon?”
Milo shook his head. “No, not in the town. It’s the closest town to the dungeon, so most dungeon runners work out of the town, and almost every merchant stops there on the way in or out of the capital.”
“Will we see the dungeon?” I asked excitedly.
“No, we likely won’t see this dungeon. I’m sure at some stage in your adventuring career you’ll enter one, but it’ll likely be a smaller one—like the one south of Boltron, or the one north of Elarith Vale,” Milo explained.
“Is it because this one is too difficult?” I was curious now. I had learned nothing about dungeons, and they always fascinated me.
“Not really the difficulty—that scales based on how far you get. But it’s a matter of time. Visiting a dungeon isn’t a small task. The easier ones can take weeks; the harder ones… we’re talking months, even over a year. So much so that some dungeons have entire communities inside them,” Milo said.
My mind was racing at the thought. I had heard that you could make a fortune in a dungeon and find amazing, rare and magical items. It even had its own dedicated stat from the system!
***
We travelled in silence for a long while, just the sound of the wagon on stone as we rode, taking in the surroundings. I was admiring just how much farmland there was. I had never realised it until now. When we went the other way, there were plenty of fields, but very quickly we ran into trees along the road.
I had been running Arcane Foraging on and off, mostly to see if anything showed up, so I was caught off guard when a notification flashed.
Notification:
You have reached level 5 in Chef’s Pantry.
You have reached level 5 in Arcane Foraging.
You have 3 available Evolution Quests.
…
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Congratulations! Your Arcane Foraging skill has 3 available Evolution Quests:
- Use Arcane Foraging for 9 straight hours: 0/9
- Discover 3 rare or better ingredients using Arcane Foraging: 0/3
- Discover 3 unique carcasses using Arcane Foraging: 0/3
Two things stood out to me. The first was that there was no evolution quest for the pantry skill. Did it just not evolve? Was that a thing?
The next thing that stood out was the foraging quests—they seemed… easy?
I could just pull out a carcass right now and use my foraging ability to see it, and that would count, right? Then there was simply running the skill for nine hours. I didn’t even need to find anything?
“Milo, I got two level-ups. I think one might have been from yesterday or this morning, and I didn’t notice. The first one is Chef’s Pantry,” I started, Milo’s eyes widening.
I continued, “Well… there is no evolution quest for it. It just hit level five, and that’s it.”
There was a look of disappointment on Milo’s face before he spoke. “It’s not uncommon for a powerful ability not to have an evolution, or to have strict requirements for an evolution quest. Although I don’t see how you could use the pantry in any other way to trigger a quest.”
I nodded. “Well, the other one is Arcane Foraging. I got three quests for that, and two of them at least seem very simple…”
I proceeded to read the quests to him. Milo appeared to be in thought.
“Running it for nine hours I don’t think is as easy as you believe. If memory serves me right, you use five mana per minute running the skill? So you wouldn’t even last two hours before you’d run out of mana,” he explained.
I hadn’t even considered that, but it made perfect sense.
“As for your last quest, it seems simple, yes. The way you described could work, but usually the system is not so easy to manipulate. Still, there are a few options we could consider if it doesn’t work initially, such as having Jen and Liane hunt three creatures and tell you where to find their carcasses, or even lead you in the direction,” he continued.
I considered what that quest chain would lead to before speaking my thoughts to Milo. “I also don’t know if that will take the skill in a direction that would be very useful either.”
“Possibly not. It’s probably because of the carcass you found in the forest that the treants killed, and the baby Galvonson in the cave. That alone has likely triggered the requirements for it. The difficult one, I imagine, will be the three rare ingredients. The closer we get to the capital, the less likely you are to find them,” he concluded.
This gave me a lot to think about. There was no harm in completing the carcass quest and seeing what was offered regardless, but remembering a conversation we’d had a while back, it would likely lead to some tracking ability, rather than foraging.
Throughout this whole discussion, Crisplet had been floating around us, exploring either side of the road and seemingly fascinated by the scattered patches of snow—or more how fast he could melt them.
***
When we stopped for lunch, I went and checked on the barrel. I was pretty concerned about it. I knew I needed to keep it warm, but with how cold it was getting, just how warm did it need to be?
I tried to feel the wood on the outside. It wasn’t cold to the touch, but wood often had a warmth to it. I also didn’t want to take the lid off and remove any heat that might be in there.
Poking my head out the back of the wagon, I looked around for Crisplet, who was still exploring while Milo was building a crude stone hut for lunch.
“Crisplet, could you help me for a second?” I called out, and immediately Crisplet rushed over to me. I explained what I was after—heating the liquid until it was just warm, not too hot.
Crisplet didn’t hesitate, and the barrel was encased in an orange glow, which lasted only a minute at most before a burst of embers shot out and Crisplet floated out of the wagon, returning to his exploration.
The next thing I needed to address were the three boar bellies that had finished curing. They were in my pantry right now, so the curing process should have stopped while they were in there. I needed to get them out of their stone casings and rinse off the salt.
Once I had done that, I would need to season them again and prepare them for smoking, which would need to be done overnight.
After getting plenty of water from Milo, I pulled each belly out and began to rinse them off. The first thing I noticed was just how firm they were now. The meat had taken on a much deeper red colour, and I expected it to smell since it had sat out for a week, but there was no unpleasant odour.
I had to replace the water three times. By the third, Milo just joined me and topped up my water every time it got low. He offered to blast them with a water spell, but I didn’t want to find out the system considered that helping me cook and prevented me from buffing them.
By the time I had finished, I discovered that lunch was already over and Hari was packing everything up, ready to carry on. I had completely forgotten to cook lunch for everyone!
After mounting Sable, I pulled up alongside Hari. “I’m sorry I didn’t cook lunch for everyone…” I began, but he cut me off with a chuckle.
“Trev, we might not look it, but we can fend for ourselves sometimes. If you’re busy or need to do something, you don’t have to cook every single meal. Although the more, the better. Or at least stock me with your jerky—don’t let us go back to Milo’s cooking,” he said with a laugh.
“Hey! I heard that!” Milo yelled out.
Hari raced off as a small piece of rock came flying to where he had just been.
Hari’s laugh could be heard further down the road as Milo caught up with me.
“Milo, I want to make something special for dinner tonight. We know the drake is safe, right?” I started.
“Yeah…” Milo dragged out the word.
“Well, what about a drake stew? I wouldn’t use too many other rare ingredients, but I think it would be really nice if I made a slow-cooked stew using that meat,” I said, mostly seeing if it would be okay.
“Hmm… it should be fine, but I would suggest you have one of us try it before you feed it to Micca, George or Darren. Just remember they are much lower level than you are now,” Milo said in a surprisingly stern tone.
Liane appeared on my horse, making me nearly jump out of the saddle. “I think it’s a great idea!” she exclaimed happily.