“Man you look like hell.” Josh said as Winston stumbled out of his room. Winston’s eyes were bloodshot and he moved like an old man as he walked slowly towards the kitchen.

“I feel like hell. I can’t believe you’re not sick, you had to play in that mess.” Winston grumbled as he walked by his brother and poured himself some orange juice. He downed it, then grimaced as the acid mixed with his already sour stomach.

“It’s actually not that bad with your pads on as long as you’re moving around. It’s a lot worse on the bleachers when your just sitting there. Besides that, I’m just awesome.” Josh said with a straight face. He flexed a bicep and nodded smugly as he looked at it. Winston grumbled something unkind at him as he walked back to his room.

He slept right through the meeting he was supposed to have with Abby about their econ project and didn’t wake up until nearly eight at night. That left him wide awake on Saturday night with nowhere to go and nothing to really do.

He decided to get back in game. He needed to get back to the keep and get working. After paying Trollogistics to take him back to the keep he’d be hurting for money again and he needed to get a stock-pile of grain built up. That would take the pressure off of his daily grind and give him more options for dealing with everything.

He logged into the game still near the inn from the night before and headed back inside to wait for his troll based transportation to show up and take him back to the keep. The tavern was oddly full. A few were NPC’s who were probably the taverns regulars but there were over a dozen players. That was odd, very odd. It made Winston nervous. He knew he was safe. This was a safe zone so it’s like like he could get mugged or attacked but Verith was in the back-end of nowhere. There shouldn’t be this many players in town.

“Hey handsome, you from around here?” Said a feminine voice. The voice was low for a girl was filled with enough smoke and promise to short circuit his teenage brain. Winston looked up into the eyes of a Dryad. Her skin had the texture of bark and her hair was an odd light-blue color. She was short but with curves in all the best places. She’d changed her face but it was the eyes that gave her away.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Winston asked Trish. She grinned widely. He was running into all kinds of people he recognized this weekend. What was going on?

“That didn’t take long. Figured I’d have to be more blatant for you to figure it out.” She said.

“I thought your guild base was on Kishik. That’s like three continents and 10,000 miles from here.” Winston said, still stunned.

“Closer to 12. We’re on the South coast, headquarters is right on the beach.” Trish said with a grin. Winston shook his head and tried to understand what was happening. It was then he noticed the name displayed above her head. He blinked, then his mouth gaped open.

The digital green text read. ‘Trishka Treesinger level 58’.

“You’re the Mad Witch?” Winston asked incredulously.

“Didn’t I ever tell you?” She asked innocently. Winston sighed.

“No…. You hardly ever talk about your character, just your guild and the game and even then it’s usually something vague.” Now that he thought about it. That should have been a bit of a give away. Trish was so open about everything else. The fact that she’d never really talked about her character should have been more of a tip off.

The Mad Witch wasn’t a popular streamer but she was considered one of the better casters in the game. Not one of the true elites but good enough to make a name for herself. She was young, pretty, and talented so she had quite a few fans. She was a shaman who had an odd nuking build where she summoned elemental spirits then possessed them to gain elemental powers. Winston had never imagined it was Trish. He was running into all sorts of his classmates in game lately. At least he knew Ruger and Brad were just average players.

“Your going to steal the wagons back from the Crimsun’s aren't you.” Winston said, finally understanding why she as here. He laughed incredulously. “What the hell is wrong with you people? It’s just one crappy convoy. That’s three different guilds going to war over what 6000 gold worth of materials? That’s ridiculous.”

“It’s not about the convoy. Neither the Swords, the Crimsun’s, or us for that matter ever cared about the convoy. For us, it’s about the reputation. The Crimsuns and the Swords are gearing up for a full scale war. It’s the perfect time to throw our hat into the ring and prove we can play with the big boys. We’ll kill the Crimsun’s and slap the video up online. We’ll have recruits coming in from all over to get a piece of the two juggernauts.” She explained.

Winston thought that over then shook his head. “You guys are all idiots.”

“No, think about it. The Crimson Sun’s and the Swords of Solomon are like two professional sports teams. They fight all the time and although their power waxes and wanes at the end of the day it doesn’t really matter which one is better. It’s still the two big-boys just whacking away at each other, but what would happen if they lost to a college team. Even just one game. For the two pro teams, not much, but for the college team? They’d have all kinds of bragging rights. They’d get better recruits, more money, more publicity, maybe even enough to push them up into the next league.” She tried to explain.

“Your really butchering your sports metaphors. College teams can’t move leagues.”

“Now your just being contrary.” Trish said with a frown. Winston rubbed his face, then laughed.

“if your going out to fight can you at least take me back to Grimstone keep? I sorta need a ride and don’t wanna waste another 300 gold.” Winston asked. Trish snorted.

“I’m the girl, your supposed to be driving me around in your sweet ride. Figgures….” She muttered darkly, shooting him a scowl before laughing again.

“Well, Bog’s gonna need a bit of training up before she’d ready for riders. Even then she’s not exactly a hot-rod. She’s more of a half-ton pickup.

“You’ll never get a girl to like you if you call them fat.”

Winston rolled his eyes. “She’s a bird.”

“Doesn’t matter, but sure I’ll take you.” Her eyes looked off to the side, like she was looking at something he couldn’t see. “We’ve got about twenty minutes until it’s time to go. You hungry?” She asked.

“Our date isn’t until next week. No cheating.” He said, smiling. Trish laughed and the two descended into small talk while they ate and chatted. It was then Winston remembered he actually had something he needed done.

“Oh, your heading back to your guild once your done tonight right? I need you to sell something for me.” He said as he dug around in his pack. He’d finally gotten a quest reward from the orcs that was worth something but he couldn’t sell it in Verith without getting ripped off.

He reached into his pack and pulled out two metal ingots. They were dark green and seemed to absorb the lamplight of the tavern.

[Orix]

[Rare, Regent]

[Orix is one of the primary ingredients of the legendary metal Adamantium. In its base form it acts as a high-quality metal with extreme anti-magical properties. The orcs see the metal as sacred, a remnant from their ancient wars against the high-elves where the metal allowed their warriors to counter the elves’ sorcery.]

Trish whistled. “Where did you find that?”

“Chain quest reward.” Winston said. “So can you take it back with you? They should get at least 1000 gold each I figure.”

“I can do that. I’ll mail you the gold when the auction is over. Now let’s move.” She said as she stood up form the table and headed out.

Winston soon found himself on yet another strange mount. This one was a massive red boar. Trish hopped up easily with her level 50+ stats but Winston had to struggle to heave his bulk up on the creature’s back. He sat between the creatures shoulder blades and Trish sat in front of him. That made things a bit awkward for Winston. When he’d ridden behind Jessica he’d enjoyed it but although she was attractive he didn’t have feelings for her. With Trish everything was magnified and his stomach flopped with an odd fluttery feeling. He sighed at himself. Trish snorted from in front of him and wiggled in a matter that didn’t help his stomach.

“Now your just being mean.” Winston said flatly.Trish laughed as she flicked the reigns and they headed out of the city.

The battle between Trish’s Blood Hounds and the Crimson Sun’s wasn’t nearly as interesting as the one between the Swords and the Crimsun’s. It’s was just a slaughter. The whole thing lasted maybe thirty seconds before the Crimsun’s were all dead. Trish hadn’t even participated. She and Winston had just watched the carnage.

“And this is supposed to help your recruiting?” He asked.

“Everyone loves a winner. The fact we out numbered them 2-1 and brought all our highest level players doesn’t really come into it.”

Winston just shook his head.”You are all insane. It’s like every time I see one of the guilds do anything it’s in the most illogical and round about way possible.”

Trish shrugged. “You get used to it I guess. Besides it’s just a game. If we wanna teleport three continents over just to smash a bunch of Crimsun’s what’s it really matter? It’s not like they don't deserve it. You know how many small guilds and players they’ve crushed just to steal a raid or a iron mine.I can see why you like your character though. You just have to farm.”

Winston thought about all the things he had going and needed to work on and just shook his head. The grass always looks greener from the other side. He had plenty of problems of his own.

Trish’s boar could really move but the trip was still hours long. They finally got back to Grimstone sometime around three in the morning and Trish unceremoniously booted him off her mount before turning to head back to Verth. Winston on the other hand went to bed. He’d spent all day riding around with various people and hadn’t actually accomplished anything.

******************************************************************

Winston looked up at his tree Sunday morning with a puzzled look on his face. His apples were finally ready to pick. It had taken two weeks since he planted them and the results had been….. mixed. Half the tree was covered with apples, they were small and didn’t look very high quality but they were at least within Winston’s expectations. The other half of the tree only held a single apple. It was an odd brown-red color and was the size of a cantaloupe.

When he’d planted the tree he’d known there’s been something odd about the soil but he hadn’t expected the results to be so obvious.

He reached up and picked the apple and light flashed around him in blue and green.

[You Have reached Level 8!]

[Your Farming Skill Has Increased]

[Current Rank: Beginner Rank III]

[Bonus Crop Yield: 19%]

[Bonus Crop Quality: 30.9%]

[Fruit Sub Skill Has Increased]

[Current rank: Novice III]

[Bonus Fruit Crop Yield: 6%]

[Bonus Fruit Quality: 6%]

Winston smiled happily as he looked down at the apple in his hands. Just two more skill ranks in farming and two more player levels and he’d get two more powerful skills, three when he ranked up his Grain Sub-skill. That should put him well on his way to being a powerful and hopefully rich farmer.

That was for the future though for now he had to do something with the giant apple he was holding.

[Apple of the Earth]

[High-Quality, Reagent]

[An Apple of the Earth is a uncommon mutation that sometimes happens with a large amount of Earth mana is absorbed by an apple tree while its fruiting. This process makes the fruit poison to most creatures but also turns it into a powerful alchemy ingredient.]

More items he had no real market for. Still, a quick search of the markets let him know this little gem should be worth a good 300 gold at least. That wasn’t bad.

He picked the rest of normal apples grimacing slightly at their poor quality and small size. He really needed to figure out some form of irrigation. Water was the biggest problem his crops were having and discovering a way to fix that would help out all his crops and increase yields.

He pondered the problem while he harvested and planted his crops. When Trish sent him the money from those ingots he’d be pretty financially sound. That would at least give him a few options. A mundane solution would be some sort of water holding tank or pond. He might be able to fill it from the river, although it would take a long time. Still, he was going to be here for months so it wasn’t out of the question.

The second option would be to buy a magical scroll or magical device to create water. Those would be pricey and he might even have to have one special made which would cost thousands of gold. The problem with both options was that they were based in magic so unless he could create a perpetual system the water would disappear quickly as a victim of the games rules for magic. It wouldn’t be impossible to work around but it would likely be expensive.

Because of how he’d completed the last quest for the orcs he hadn’t received a new one. That was a load off his plate. It would let him work for himself this week and stockpile both grain and money. He popped open a market window and started to search for a solution to his water problems as his body stayed on autopilot.

He found some scrolls that might work first. The scroll was call ‘Simple Rain Cloud’ and wound douse a circle 50 yards in diameter with rain for 30 minutes. The scroll was only about 200 gold since it had no real combat utility but he’d have to use at least three or four of them a day to really be worth it. That would make the cost prohibitive unless he really needed a crop to come out high-quality.

There were some more powerful scrolls like ‘Localized Rainstorm’ but that scroll was 10,000 gold. It was also too much rain at once. In a place as dry as Brethren Plains it would just flash flood and drown all of his plants .No, he was going to need to find someone to make him a magical tool. Talented Artificers and Enchanters were rare but he really didn’t need anything complicated. He just needed a magical sprinkler.

He opened up the forums and started to look through advertisements. As usual the trade section for the forums was overflowing. Winston started chopping down the 100,000’s of thousands of options into something useful. Firstly he cut out everything that wasn’t an enchanter or magical artifact maker. Then he limited it to the Lunari Continent. It wasn’t too populated but some of the larger cities had decent populations of crafters

He started to pareuse his options. There were three enchanters, two Artificers, and a Rune-Crafter on Lunari who were actively seeking customers on the forums.

He started going down the list. Two of the enchanters weren’t online, the third wanted 5000 gold minimum so Winston just hung up on him. One of the artificers was a bit too eager and Winston didn’t trust him. The other seemed completely uninterested. That left Winston with Gregson Thunderfist, Hill-Dwarf Rune-Crafter.

Winston shot him a message.

Win mills: “Hey man, you looking for a commission?”

Gregson Thunderfist: “I suppose that depends on what you need done, and what your willing to pay for it.”

Win mills: “I need a magical sprinkler, or more likely multiple sprinklers, depending on the area they cover.”

Gregson Thunderfist: “........ I think I’m going to need you to describe the problem.”

Win mills: “Well, I’m a farmer but my guild stuck me in a zone where it’s too dry. So I need a water solution. I was thinking a few sprinklers would be the best. Although I’m not sure how you’d power them.”

Gregson Thunderfist: “That’s….. Not exactly what I do. I’m a Rune Crafter I upgrade weapons and armor with runes.”

Win mills: “Why can’t you just upgrade a sprinkler with runes. That should be way easier. I mean water is pretty easy to create with magic. I just need something that will do it at a stable volume with some time release options.”

Gregson Thunderfist: “That not what I do.”

Win mills: “But you could do it. Look man, do you want my money or not?”

The reply took a while in coming and Winston thought the dwarf wasn’t going to answer him.

Gregson Thunderfist: “Fine, it’s been slow here anyway. So a water rune, a projection rune, a durability rune, and probably three for the time aspect, although a remote control option might be easier.”

Win mills: “No good, I need it to run while I’m not online.”

Gregson Thunderfist: “Alright, then probably three runes for your basic automation. That’s six runes at 100 gold each. Now how much area did you say you needed to cover?”

Win mills: “About a half-acre in total. It’s one quarter acre field and a few smallers ones. Although I’ll likely be expanding in a few weeks.”

Gregson Thunderfist: “I’ll have to do some actual work before I know what the coverage area will be, but I’d guess you’ll need at least four of the devices, that would be 2400 gold, and that doesn’t even count the magical gems you’ll need to power them. Those won’t be too expensive, but it’ll still cost.”

Winston grimaced. He didn’t have that kind of money. When Trish sent him the money from his metal bars that would take him up to 2 grand or so, with the money he had left in the bank that would cover the sprinklers themselves, but he’d have to pay Trollogistics a pretty penny to make it to Grenville to pick them up. That would cost him at least 1500 gold, and then more for the magical gemstones to power the sprinklers them.

He popped open his action menu and looked for magic-charged gems. They were the most common way to store magic. If you cut the gem right you could use it to hold magic like a battery the larger the gem, the more magic it could store. He did a few quick searches and sighed. Yeah, it would be at least another four or five hundred gold for the gems and he had no idea how long they would last.

So, he needed around 4500 gold to even get his plan off the ground. He only had half that. The other problem was time. It was already October 6th. The trip to Grenville and back would take probably two weeks. If he waited a week to send Trollogistics it would be damn near November by time he got back and Winston’s contract would be ⅔ over by then. Was it really worth it for four weeks? After that he’d be leaving this hell-hole for greener pastures.

He supposed he could use the sprinklers even after he left. He’d just take them with him. That gave him around a week to raise something like 2000 gold. It was theoretically possible. If he could bump his grain skill up a rank he’d have something like 42% bonus yield. Combine that with his blessing and it would be close to 60%. That was nearly 5 bushels of wheat per harvest. If he managed two harvests a day that would be 14 harvests. Granted he could only use his blessing once a week, and he’d have to send Troll before next Sunday. If he scrapped all his vegetable gardens and changed them over to corn or wheat he’d be able to accumulate a pretty impressive amount of grain.

The vegetables had been a good idea but without more water they’d be stuck at low-quality and it just wasn’t worth the extra hassle. He might as well just flip them back to grains until he had his sprinklers. Nodding at his new plan, it was time to get to work. He was going to have to work his tail off this week.