Mature Content Warning: Just more weird lunch habits and such.

Author's Note: I just woke up from taking a Nyquil induced nap and finished this segment of chapter 3. Those of you interested in Freelance Saga should note that it will most likely be out Monday afternoon sometime. So, we have a release date, barring weirdness with the ebook cover. :)

---

Chapter 3.2: I Have Eaten Worse

---

Half an hour, or so, passed before the next combat event. Four onions hopped out of the grass, each of them eager to eat a proper meal. Thankfully, they were somewhat close together. Blackthorne ran in toward them and began to wildly swing his sword.

His actual knowledge of sword play was quite basic, but it did not matter. These monsters were not great fighters either. Unless they had the chance to use their special abilities, they were easy to defeat.

Unfortunately, even in death they struck back. The dark mage’s vision became blurry as the defeated onion corpses caused him to cry a little. There was no room in his bag for the onions, but he did not want to just leave free vitality restoration behind. He did find two more of those small green stones as well. That brought his collection up to seven.

Blackthorne chose to take a break and knelt down near his most recent kill. His vision cleared up after a few minutes passed, and he took out a few items, to test his skills further.

He already knew that he could combine bracelets and rings. What he wanted to test out his synergy ability a little more, however. The green stones did not provide any specific information, no matter how long he stared at them. So, he figured that he would try to combine two of them to see if anything changed.

The mage held the two stones in his hands and concentrated. He envisioned the two stones becoming one item. He was not actually certain how synergy worked. Out of all of his abilities, this one had granted the least insight when he first chose it. Still, he knew the basic command to make it work. “Combine.”

He felt his life energy slipping away as the two small green stones drew closer together. An energetic effect began to skitter back and forth between them. He was not certain why, but the overall effect was much stronger than when he had combined the grass bracelets. Once the stones came into physical contact they melded together in a swirl of energy. The resultant item was a slightly larger green stone.

“Seriously...? That’s it?” He stared at the new item for a moment, but no information became apparent.

He decided to try it again. The same thing happened. The two stones became one. The slightly larger stone had become an even bigger stone. Now it was about the size of a normal chicken egg.

Blackthorne checked his status then frowned. He’d had to expend three vitality points total. That meant that combining the larger stone with the smaller one had cost him twice as much life force. That was fine. He still had a little of the rear end of his rat fiend kill, and four onions to eat. He could recover that much energy loss.

However, he was curious to see what would happen if he tried to combine the stone one more time. Blackthorne held the egg-sized stone in his right hand, and another small stone in his left hand. He began to synergy combination process.

This time he felt like his body was on fire. His skin grew hot, like he had contracted a severe fever. He felt like he was being stabbed with needles, and every part of his body began to ache. It was excruciating, but he knew what it meant. He had felt it before when he had imbued the jolt spell into his sword. He was expending a lot of his vital energy. However, the process was working!

The stones combined once more. However, this time when the combination was completed he had a perfect sphere the size of a golf ball in his hand. The stones had shrunk down, but it weighed slightly more overall.

He gazed at his handiwork for a moment. He was surprised and delighted to see that there was information available now.

<<< Item >>>

Mineral: Vita Stone

Class: 1

Grade: low-quality

Value: 20

>>

“I see. So, these things can be combined into a low-quality mineral? I wonder if anyone else has learned what these things are for, yet...” said Blackthorne before he tucked the stone into his bag.

He sighed loudly. That had taken a lot out of him. In fact, it had taken more out of him than he would have wanted. Still, he had onions to eat and two pieces of the hind end of his rat kill to eat.

Blackthorne had a small, but disgusting meal that consisted of the left hind quarter of an overly large rat. He then ate two onions to completely restore his vitality and placed the other two into his bag. The useful carrying device was full once more, but that was fine. If he had to, he would do the same thing after the next fight. He would combine a few of his items to see what happened.

In that way, the noob dark mage worked his way toward the forest in the distance. He ended up in battles with over thirty onions and seven more rat fiends in the next few hours. They came one at a time in the case of the rats, and in small groups in the case of the onions.

Whenever he fought a rat he spent a short amount of time scanning the area for signs of trouble. If no monsters showed up, and none ever did, he set about skinning and gutting the carcass. He ended up tossing out most of his grass bracelets in favor of storing rat parts and onions. He could only eat so much, but the bracelets could do nothing but take up space. He could easily make more of those, but if he ran out of food, he would die.

Blackthorne took a break once more after he finished off his latest rat fiend. He had grown tired from his endless walking and fighting. He could not know how much distance he had traversed, but he suspected that he was close to where he needed to be. The forest was not that far away any longer.

He had taken a lot more time traveling toward the forest than he might have if he had traveled straight through.

However, between battles he had often stopped to eat a small amount or to train his other skills. Frequently, he had done both. He had found a natural rhythm in a way. If he did not over train he could usually expend a vitality point or two, then eat an onion or a piece of rat to restore his health. He often wove grass bracelets and left them behind if he had to spend time waiting between meals.

None of his skills, or his actual level, had increase despite all of the effort that he went to in order to train. Increasing abilities took a while. There was a reason why even someone in a coma would only be level seven after three days. Three full days in the real world was almost two active weeks in the dream reality, after all.

“Let’s see what I have...” Blackthorne decided to take stock of his inventory instead of training skills. He opened up his bag and dumped everything out onto the ground.

The bag only looked to be the size of a bowling ball, but far more poured out than should be physically possible. A small mountain of destroyed onions and badly butchered rat parts were piled before him. Interspersed among that bloody mess he could see about a dozen grass bracelets, a few grass rings, three completed vita stones, numerous fangs, and a collection of various rat horns. A few other odds and ends existed as well.

“Man, I wonder how long it will take to wash my bag out later...” That thing was going to smell pretty damned bad unless it was self-cleaning.

He packed up everything except for the rat horns. He had experimented with synergy on everything except the horns so far. It did not work well on the onions and meat. In fact, the only thing that it really seemed to help so far was the green stones.

Blackthorne held two of the rat fiend horns in his hands and began the synergy process. The energetic effect that he had witnessed during the combination of the green stones occurred this time as well. His eyes lit up. That effect had signaled an increase in capacity before. He had noticed that when items combined without that effect, they often either just became the same thing or even became downgraded in capacity.

After the horns combined he checked the result.

<<< Item >>>

Manufacturing Item: Fiend Horn

Class: 2

Grade: Low-Quality

Value: 45

>>

“Value forty-five?” If he recalled correctly, value was a rough estimate of how much Jerin an item was worth. Of course, the actual trade value varied by the area. It was a general estimate only.

A silly thought crossed through his mind after he ran the math. “Five of these horns would get me a crack whore for an hour.”

He shook his head. Whores could wait. He needed equipment and real food. He had accepted the disgusting nature of his wilderness survival meals, but he did not want to eat raw rat and screaming onions forever. Besides, those things took up a lot of bag space. He wanted to find something more nutritious and compact to save room.

Blackthorne found that he could not manage to combine the fiend horn with the rat horn; or rather there was no energetic effect. He did not want to risk his new found potential money maker, so he stopped trying to combine them. Instead, he focused on combining a few more of the rat horns to create fiend horns.

He ate a little to restore his vitality, and then placed the horns into his bag. It was time to go once more.

The moon hung low on the horizon by the time he saw a light in the far distance.

“Is that a farm?” he asked the empty air. He hoped so. Fighting was fun and all, but he wanted to see what a town in this world was like.

Blackthorne headed toward that light. On the way he ran across a few random onions, but he made short work of them. They were not even worthy of note at the moment, though he did search the corpses for green stones.

He felt like he had walked for hours before he began to see any detail in the area near that light. What he had originally mistaken for a ridge, turned out to be a wall. Dawn broke upon the world not long after and he was able to finally see where he was going properly.

In the distance he could see tiny moving figures. It did not take long for him to determine that those were wagons and carts. He had several miles left to go, it seemed. Thankfully the grassland was fairly flat, so could not become lost as long as he had used the landmarks provided by the traveler earlier.

The mage walked steadily toward the road that he saw. Surprisingly, no more monsters molested him in his travels.

Either the coming of the dawn had sent them into hiding, or they did not range too close to town. He did not care at the moment. The only thing he wanted to know was whether or not he could trade any of the crap he had gathered so that he could find a room to rest and some equipment.

It took over two hours before he reached the road, and another half hour after that to reach the town gates. Upon arrival several guards popped up.

“Halt, traveler.” said a burly man in fur-lined steel armor. He looked like the sort of man who could lift a cart up overhead then laugh when other people stared in slack-jawed awe.

“Yes?” asked Blackthorne.

The guard eyed him up and down. “You look frightful, traveler. Did you find trouble on your journey?”

“Ah, someone suggested I cut across country to save time on my trip here. The rats and onions are pretty nosy at night.” replied Blackthorne.

The massive militiaman laughed heartily. “I see. Did you collect anything to prove that story?”

Blackthorne was momentarily annoyed by the man’s questioning nature, but he realized that he had to look like hell after carving his way across the countryside. He was new in the area as well. “Sure, one moment.”

He reached into his bag and pulled out a few onions, a rat thigh, and several horns. The guard raised his eyebrow then nodded.

The guards visibly relaxed after seeing the proof of his story. Their overly large leader said, “Ah, well met then. Welcome to Argent, traveler.”

The massive man waved everyone away, and Blackthorne entered into town without further issue. On the way in, however, the guard leader called out. “If you need a place to stay, traveler, try the Screaming Onion Tavern. They buy meat and onions, too.”

“Thanks! That’s good to know. I have a lot of left overs to sort out.” called back Blackthorne.

The guards watched the mage walk into town for a moment then turned back to their duty. He was an odd one, but they had seen stranger people. It was not that uncommon for an adventurer to wonder in with a frightful appearance.

Blackthorne walked through the streets of the small town and tried to ignore the stares and occasional frightful gazes as he walked along. Mothers pulled their small children close to their skirts. Grown men eyed the traveler carefully. It was hard to ignore, but he had to accept it. He was covered in animal gore and he was a new face in town. Those two things did not work well together in most places.

Had there been any place to wash off on the road, he would have done so. However, a quick grass scrub had been the only thing he could do.

He reached the town square then looked around. Inns and taverns would probably be located somewhere near a lot of foot traffic. After wandering around like a tourist for a few minutes he noticed a patrolling guard. “Excuse me...”

The guard turned to look at him then eyed Blackthorne carefully. “Yes, traveler?”

“I’m looking for a place called the Screaming Onion Tavern. Do you know of it?”

“What do I look like, a tour guide?” asked the guard in annoyance.

Blackthorne shook his head. “No, you look like the sort of person who knows the town well.”

“I do, at that.” said the guard. He was not more forth coming, however.

The dark mage fought back the frown that he was dying to unleash. Instead, he said, “You also seem like the sort of person who would like to see a gore spattered traveler get cleaned up as soon as possible to avoid frightening the local citizens.”

“You think you know a lot about me, don’t you, traveler?” asked the guard.

Blackthorne shook his head. “I’ll just wander town aimlessly, covered in rat guts and onion juice. Good day.”

The guard watched Blackthorne walk away then snorted and went back to his patrol. Why did travelers always assume that he would be their damnable tour guide? They have feet. Why not use them?

A voice called out, “Patrolman Greene, what is wrong with you?”

Blackthorne heard the loud outcry and turned his head back to see what was happening. He was surprised to find that the massive guardsman from earlier had appeared from out of nowhere. How had he gotten there so quickly?

“Captain! I...” began the surly guard from earlier.

The massive man-mountain shook his head. “Don’t give me excuses. That traveler politely asked for simple directions, yet you treated him like horse offal.”

Patrolman Greene did not say anything in response. His captain continued. “I’m assigning you to escort that traveler around town today.”

“Captain, that’s...!” cried out the patrolman. What kind of punishment was that?

“An order, patrolman.”

The captain pointed toward Blackthorne then said, “Get to work and escort that traveler.”

Patrolman Greene snapped to attention then smartly saluted his captain. “Sir, yes sir!”

Despite his reluctance to be in the presence of the repellent traveler, Patrolman Greene knew better than to talk back to his superior officer. Everyone knew better than to talk back to the captain specifically.

The armored patrolman jogged over to where Blackthorne stood then ground out, “Let me show you to your destination, traveler.”

Blackthorne nodded in agreement. He did not want to remain in the man’s presence for long, but if he was going to get a free escort out of the deal he would gladly use his services.