They looked at the rats that the spiders had killed during the night.

"Why are so many of the monsters that we encounter some kind of rat creature?" Sher wanted to know.

Louie scratched the back of his head. "I think that's because they breed like rats," there were a couple of chuckles, "and the only two creatures that thrived in most cities were Rats and Pigeons, strangely pigeons were also known as flying rats."

"So we can expect more rats the closer we come to towns?"

"Yip."

"Great, that's just bloody great." She shuddered as she turned around and went over to help with breakfast and some lunch that they could store and eat later.

"I had hoped that the road would lead us to those two Dungeons with the vendors, but it slowly turned and now it looks like those two are more in the direction of Wellington."

Now everybody was looking to where Wellington was supposed to be in the distance but all they saw was a light shimmer, like a heat mirage on the horizon.

'Maybe it is because the sun is only rising now and the sunlight is reflecting off something. Yeah right, maybe if I keep on repeating that, then I might start believing it myself.'

"Damn, I wonder what's going on over there?" Dan voiced the question that they were all thinking.

"Not our problem now, one objective at a time," Leon said as he turned away from where Wellington should be visible.

Louie shook his head, as he turned back to the fire and a nice breakfast which consisted of thinly sliced meat, Dwaren baked beans, and toast, together with a big mug of milkcoffee.

"Where did you get the milk?" Louie asked Deidre as she handed him the mug. She pointed to Micheal who sent him a Loot report.

Husse loot (uncommon)

2 x ears

6kg meat

2x 3Ljug of milk

1 pelt

1 x veil of blood

Husse Blood

This ingredient is sought after by alchemists for the creation of 'potion of Seshat' a potion named after a god of curiosity and wisdom, if correctly prepared the potion will grant the drinker +25 luck lasting for thirty seconds.

"Damn nice, have you checked out the description of the Veil?"

Micheal nodded and grinned while he downed his milkcoffee.

Something bumped into his foot and as he looked down he saw one of the puppies trip over its paws after bumping into him, he bent down and picked the Jack Russel size pup up.

"Damn," he looked under the pup. "He has grown bloody big, it's what? Four days since we got them?"

Kotche came over and placed a bowl of milk on the ground and Louie placed the pup next to its sister so that they could also have breakfast.

"Yes, four days, I would guess they are between six and eight days old, they are growing fast and they are going to be huge."

Louie squatted next to the two feeding pups, "I haven't heard them crying or whimpering once."

Sher came closer. "I've checked them and they are healthy, but then I have no beast skills, so my healing spells might be telling me all kinds of wrong things, but being a druid my instinct is telling me that there is nothing wrong with them."

"Have you thought about how you are going to train them?"

He looked around searching for something and noticing the kids standing on the other side looking down the slope, he whispered. "I'm waiting till we reach Paarl, if David will stay with us then I'm going to offer to train him as a guard and offer them to him as pets."

Louie nodded, "If he decides to stay, I will not force him. He already has a share from the production of the mine, but he might decide to take his money and go live with his family if there are any still alive. If he wants to stay with us then he is welcome to stay and to the pups."

Louie stroked his hand across the pup's back before he stood up and got himself another mug of coffee.

Louie looked around and saw that everybody was present.

"Guys, impromptu STC company meeting." He got a couple of smiles and stopped Dan and the teens as they started to back away.

"Stay, this is nothing secret." They nodded and sat down as everybody took a seat.

"I might not have made things clear before, We are a trading company, so we are here to make money but as you all noticed by now, money is not hard to come by if you are lucky or willing to work for it, so if the people in Paarl are in dire needs, which I hope they are not. But if they are struggling then we can help them to get back on their feet with a little bit of hard work. So that being said, we can't make money if there are no customers, and as you guys know that if our potential customers are down on their luck then they can't buy from us. Then we would need to get them up and help them to earn money to spend." He saw a couple of smiles.

"If there is somebody in command then we will try and get a meeting to see what we can do to help them, if not, then I'm sure they would need secure housing, if there is none, we will help to create a walled enclosure to keep out the monsters, we will also use the space to set up a market, healthy people are more productive so Sher and Mainey with their little helpers could see to the health of our future customers while our crafters would see to those people who would like to learn crafts. We could help the people to form parties and go out hunting, I'm sure I got some starter weapons that we can lend to some would-be hunters that could be taught by Michael and our caravan guards who would be able to instruct them on the proper way to hunt, kill and clear the monsters from the surrounding nests. Micheal can teach those hunters how to harvest correctly so as not to damage the hides that they could sell to him for the use in creating armor that they could buy from him, furthermore, he could teach some of them how to work and prepare those pelts and he would also need people that could help him create those armors. In other words, we will have to help the people to create an income so that they will have the money to spend at our merchant." He smiled at Celia.

"I'm sure that Derek, Diedre, and Francine could also benefit from some helpers that might pick up a trade from them."

There was some outright laughter now.

Louie turned serious.

"That being said, we are not the Red Cross or the UN that are going in to hand out food parcels, but we will help and feed those that want to help themselves. Hand a man a fish and he will eat a meal, teach him how to make a rod, lures and how to fish and he can feed his whole family. Hopefully, there is a thriving community and we would be able to set up a trading post and start trading from there to Worcester and back. If not then we will still set up a trading post and help the people to get a community going."

There was a lot of nodding and agreeing.

Shadow was still drinking her coffee as he turned to her. "I would like you to do your sneaky thing and check out the camps that I'm sure will be there, find out who is leading who and doing what."

"Sure."

He nodded and turned back to the others.

"Ok, after everybody is done with breakfast I will start with a gentle switchback road down the slope here and see if we can connect to a road down at the base of the mountain going in the direction of Paarl."

"There should be a couple of roads down there," Micheal spoke up. "I used to travel this road a lot before the pulse, never liked to go through the new tunnel. I stopped here a couple of times, it was a popular lookout spot. I know for a fact that there were farms between this slope and Paarl."

They returned to the road and looked over the tree-covered slope towards where the town should be clearly visible in the distance.

"Of course there weren't so many trees back then."

They could make out what looked like two cleared sections of trees, the nearest one to the base of the slope had what looked like smoke rising from it and the other one was nearly at the boundary of Paarl.

"The distance from here to Paarl looks to be over thirty kilometers, if I remember correctly then it should be just under eight kilos from here so I guess that this is more of Gaea's doing."

Creating the switchback road was taking longer than Louie thought, there had not been any forest to clear when he created the road down the canyon, clearing the underbrush and trees for the road was a hassle, luckily Sher was able to use her Druidic skills to find the best route for the road, bypassing some of the huge trees which seemed to house a lot of monsters.

He marked those trees on his minimap since they were so huge it seemed there were spawn points for tree-dwelling monsters in them.

He would liquify the ground on one side of the big trees and as they started to topple he would solidify the ground in sections and so directing the fall of the tree, he had thought of trying the tree cutting method that he had used when he raised the walls at the Fort but decided against it.

Now and then he would join the rest of the party, except the kids, and took time to grind to help clear and trim the downed trees. They cut and store the trunks in four-meter lengths to go into Celia's merchant chest for resale later.

Cauterise

Create a blade of fire that Burns a part of a body to remove or close off parts of it. This blade destroys some tissue in an attempt to mitigate bleeding and damage, remove an undesired growth, or minimize other potential medical harm, such as infections when antibiotics are unavailable

MP Cost: 20MP +5MP/min

"Keep your eyes open people, the spiders might be scouting the trees but something could slip past them."

Sher also spoke up, telling everybody to keep their eyes peeled for anything that looked useful like herbs and other plants that could be used for potions, trading, or even just cooking.

"Where's BOB?" Kotche wanted to know and Louie just smiled, "I will show you at lunch."

When they stopped for lunch Louie was torn on making a campsite or just creating a rest spot with a couple of benches and maybe a picnic table or two. Making the road took longer than it would take to just travel on it but a place to safely hide from creatures would always be welcome since they are in the middle of a forest, but on the other hand, someone that can't defend themselves shouldn't be traveling outside of a party.

He settled on just making a picnic area.

Louie took his Orb trap out and pressed the button twice. Those sitting on the stone benches exclaimed in surprise as BOB appeared on the road in front of Louie.

"What the hell?" Kotche exclaimed as his eyes grew wide.

Louie smiled. "I was thinking of the games where summoners summon their pets when they need them and thought that this might be a good way to have your pet with you without everybody knowing."

Leon laughed, "I played some stupid game once, where the characters had a horsepocked, it worked like an inventory slot where they could store their mount. But this is great, this will allow you to store your pet in your inventory like Trish's slime in its container."

"Precisely, that's where I got the idea." He smiled at Trish where she was feeding her glitter slime pet a piece of fruit. He had noticed that the slime was about three times its original size, but still fit into its container, and thought that they should look into that later, it might be a spatial container and they might be able to replicate it if it were one.

"Pity, we haven't got enough for everybody."

"Yes, but if we can find more in a toy store then I can see if we can't get them turned into traps, so like I said, keep your eyes open."

Louie placed the ball back in storage and rubbed BOBs head, it felt like he was stroking his hand over metallic snakeskin.

After lunch, they were back to clearing trees and building the road.

Later that afternoon it seemed that they had reached the base of the mountain when they crossed a small stream that flowed from left to right and not straight from behind them, looking around Louie called a halt and made camp.

He gathered earth from around the area and heaped it up next to the road till he had a big mount fifteen meters in diameter and six meters high. He solidified a meter thick outer layer of the mount before removing the inner earth leaving him with a dome that he shaped to look vaguely like a traditional Zulu hut but with a rolling disk stone door and thick Moroccan style stone lattice windows with small openings.

'Wish I could sculpt glass, maybe if I tried my spell on crystals, see if I couldn't shape it into a flat disk? Something to think about later if I can get some quartz crystals or something.'

He shook himself and entered the Rest Hut to sculpt seating, tables, and stone bunks for everybody as well as an alcove where he could erect his tent, which they had decided not to carry inside an inventory anymore, not after Louie's mistake that left him out for two days, so that anybody can erect it if they need it.

That night Sher sat them all down, and after making sure that Trish and David had unlocked their Herb Lore skill, although their status page was still locked, they all went through the herbs and plants that those not on tree clearing duty had gathered. There were some nice surprises there.

Belladonna (Common)

Belladonna is a well-documented poison with various side effects. All parts of the plant are potentially deadly, including the berry-like fruit. While the plant may not kill you, it does cause hallucinations and delirium.

Common potions will cause hallucination, while this plant in the hands of a master alchemist, who can negate the poisonous effects, can produce a potion that could give you the power of flight for up to two hours.

Poison causes hallucination.

Potion can grant flight.

"Hell, an ingredient to make a flight potion." Louie perked up when Derek found the berries and mentioned the potion but quickly moved it out of the reach of the kids when he saw what it was.

"Um, ja I think we should put those to one side till Sher can teach us more about how to handle poisonous plants."

Derek quickly agreed as he gave the kids a stern mock glare.

Naomi and Trish giggled and Jack and David just shook their heads.

Wild Blueberries (common)

Blueberries are one of the healthiest foods you can eat, chock full of vitamins and antioxidants. They're also highly nutritious, which means you can grab a handful of blueberries to sate your hunger. Last for twelve hours

Can be eaten as fruit.

Can be used in potions for its healing qualities and many more.

Louie popped a blueberry and as he chewed and swallowed it he started feeling slightly bloated as if he had eaten a full meal.

"Damn, you guys should try the blueberries."

Most plants were analyzed as earth variants but some were different and then there was, of course, the blue lichen that grew everywhere.

Bluemana lichen (common)

A type of lichen that often grows abundantly during system introduction events, this type can be used in alchemy. It is a fast-growing resource that grows on rocks near water and has properties to enhance potions. Alchemists tend to keep a huge stock on hand.

Louie took some time using his cartography to fill in his map while comparing it to his system minimap and concluded that they had traveled about halfway to the first clearing that they had seen, the one where the smoke was coming from.

The minimap luckily opened up the terrain as they moved and it was easier to transfer the information to an actual map so that everybody could see it.

System Minimap

This Minimap will generate an image of everything you see around yourself in a radius of 2 kilometers. Your path will be marked with a red dotted line and lasts for 24 hours before fading away. Higher Tier levels in this skill will reveal hidden caches as well as enemies using stealth

The next morning everybody was packed and ready, Micheal offered to go up a tree and see if there was anything to be seen. He came back down and told them about the column of smoke he saw in the distance and that at their current pace they might reach it before nightfall.

Louie shook his head, "That's worrying." He remembers Sher saying that she smelled smoke coming from this direction a couple of days ago. "I don't think it's a group of survivors that are fighting monsters or something, but It might be some kind of monster that is causing the fire or it might be natural. In any case, I don't think it would be a good idea to get there as night falls. Our biggest hold-up is the trees, taking them out and clearing them. Sher, I want you to use your Druid skill, push it hard, find a way that we can skip or bypass most of the trees."

"Shadow, I want to know what's going on there, so as soon as possible, sneak ahead and gather some info."

Louie turned to Sher as Shadow disappeared among the trees

"Can you tell us something about the fire?"

She shook her head. "I can just say that the trees are anxious, they don't like the fire, but it's like they accept it."

"Accept it?"

"Yea, it's strange, if it was humans burning the forest then the trees would be angry because it's not natural, this feels more like a natural wildfire, something that happens now and then, the cycle of life. It's very confusing communicating with trees, there are no words, just feelings."

"Ok I have enough mana potions to keep me from stopping to meditate for today, but I don't want to use my potions too much since I don't know when we will be able to get to a vendor or get somebody who can make us potions, " he smiled at Danny and Sher.

"Sher, let us know if anything changes with the trees."

She nodded and he picked up where they left off with the road last night.

This time the road wasn't as straight as before, more like a meandering river, but their progress was faster since Louie just sunk everything into the liquid stone road before them as they tried to skirt the bigger trees. There were fewer attacks, the monsters have either recognized the fact that they were dangerous and that they might lose their life if they bother the company, or something else has scared them away from the region.

Two hours later they came across a trail, more like an overgrown footpath, heading in the direction that they were traveling.

Micheal called them over and outlined a couple of tracks in the dirt.

"All the prints are moving that way." He pointed away from them in the direction of the mountains. "It's as if they are all fleeing something." He anxiously looked at Louie, Micheal wasn't a ranger with hunting skills but he had the highest level in Tracking and Woodlore among them because he frequently went out with the hunting parties in Starter Town to ensure they skin their kills correctly.

"Ok, everybody listens up, no more gathering herbs and stuff, everybody stay on the road and stay together. Dan, I want you guys to look after the kids and bring them into the middle of the group. Kotche, you and Counselor take front and back, the guards, split up and cover the flanks. Kotche, call the spiders in, let them stay close to the road, I don't want them to miss anything trying to sneak up on us. We are going to move ahead, shout out if you guys see anything strange."

The sun had started to go down when Sher came up to Louie and showed him her vendor tablet and showed there were a Vendor within a twenty kilometer raduis in the direction of Paarl when Shadow emerged between the trees ahead.

"I found something, you should come and see this." She uttered in a soft voice.

Louie looked to the people behind him.

"It's ok, they can come, just keep low and quiet." The last was directed to the rest of the party.

Louie left the road and they all tried to move as silently as possible down the path.

He noticed that the path changed from sand to gravel and then to broken asphalt. They had found one of the roads leading to Paarl.

Shadow indicated that they should get down as she duck walked out of the trees and stopped at the edge of a clearing.

Louie looked at the scene from the edge of the road, it looked more like a valley where people had been slash and burning the forest.

He saw Sher stop and she got that far away look on her face when somebody was reading a BB.

He looked at the devastation in front of them and then back at the trees, everywhere he looked the forest was teeming with life.

He shook his head, 'Life was so bleak before the pulse, houses, shopping malls everywhere. All the property belonged to somebody, you couldn't even stop next to the road to splash in a river or creek because it belonged to somebody.'

He closed his eyes and smiled. Taking a deep breath he softly said.

"I love this smell of the forest. Before the pulse, I would go up the hill behind our farm and just sit up there for hours and take it all in, but that area is semi-desert so there isn't much there, it was still nature, but this, this is life. The sight, the sound, smell, even the taste, you can taste the difference in the air you breathe, it's full of life. I hate what the pulse did, all the lives taken, but this I'm grateful for."

The earth in the forest was rich with low-level insects. Some flowers once Analyzed showed that they cured headaches. Vines from which each leaf taken will give enough nutrients to feed a person for 24 hours, herbs that will wipe away exhaustion, strawberries that will heal minor skin irritations when rubbed on the affected areas.

Mana infused everything, every plant, creature, and tree, like the trees covered with the pale cream-colored flowers that gave a lovely fragrance that will lure a creature to sleep under its branches, easy prey for monsters, so it can feed off the essence of the kill and grow stronger.

The circle of life.

Sher whispered as she also looked around, "I love nature in all its beauty and glory, but nature is harsh. Humans were never meant to rule over nature, we were meant to be its caretakers, but there will always be those that want to dominate everything and everyone."

They turned around and looked back to the other side of the road and the destruction before them.

They had found the road, well, a road.

All that matters is that it goes in the direction that they are going, but the road acts as a dividing line.

On the one side is the forest and on the other side is the destruction that they are watching.

They were on the edge of the road and looking over the small valley, the domineering feature was an anthill in the center of the valley.

It's nothing special in South Africa, except this anthill was visible to the naked eye and it was at least two kilometers away.

Derek stated the obvious. "That's a big anthill."

Louie nodded, "At least 40-50 meters high. It's a termite mound. They have already cleared the valley of all the trees, pretty soon they will move out and then they will become a problem."

He looked to Sher, "You got a notification?"

She nodded and shared the BB with them.

Mandatory Quest

Firefighter

A termite Queen has mutated into a Termite Fire Queen and is determined to bring the world under her rule or see it burnt to ashes.

Gaea implores you to seek aid and destroy the Queen and her nest before the alates swarm:

03:22:37:08

Reward:

You will receive 50G for each person that is recruited to help.

Each helper will receive 50G

Reputation increases with Gaea.

Failure:

You all die and the hive spreads.

"So, a mandatory timed quest, I hate those."

"Yes, not my favorite either." Louie agreed with Derek

"Damn, termites with a fire affinity. That's a contradiction if I ever heard one. Well, we have no option, we will just have to go in and kill the Queen."

They moved down the road slowly, trying not to attract the attention of the termites harvesting the few trees that were still left in the valley and stopping every now and then for Louie to take snapshots off the terrain for his journal.

Caravan members

Lewis (Louie) Poren: Leader: Darkness: pet (BOB) Leon Koen: Metal(2IC) pet (Seera: Black Widow) Sheralee Van de Merve: Life(Healer) pet (Ansi: Queen spider) Mainey Fish: Light(Medic, indentured) pet (Stitch: Orb Weaver spider) Celia Malan: Life (Merchant) pet (Jon: Goliath birdeater) Naomi Malan: (underage) pet (Blue: small jumping spider) Trish and David: (Orphans) Diedre Viljoen: water (Tailor, indentured) pet (Sisy: Weaver spider) Francine Viljoen: Air(Jeweller, indentured) pet (Bling: fantasy Crystal spider) Micheal Nasser: Nature(Leathersmith)pet (Rover: Huntsman spider) Derek Samuels: Fire(Novice Blacksmith) pet (Ember: fantasy fire spider) Kotche: Earth (Soldier) pet (Stomp, brown widow spider) Counsellor: Air (Wedge, spear)pet (Wolfie: wolf spider ) Christian Else: Water(Water mage) pet (Rob: blue Tarantula) Shadow: Fire(Scout) pet (Selina: Assassin spider) Jackson Pollok: Air (Warrior) pet (Zephyr: Wolf spider) Debbie Poerstamper: Earth (Warrior) pet (Bar: big Spiny Orb-weaver) Witney: Air (Warrior, guard,) pet (Ula: Tarantula) Sean: Air (Air mage, guard,) pet (Sweep: Tarantula) Barry: Fire(Warrior, guard,) pet (Papi: Tarantula) Garth: Water(Ranger, guard,) pet (Eeak: Weaver)

Scouts:

Dan: Barberian?

Jenna: Firebrand

Danny: Chemist

Jack: underage rogue (system locked)

Apollo:?

Artimus:?

Status

Name:

Lewis (Louie) Poren

Race:

Human (Male) Lvl 11 "319,975/409,600" = Lvl 12

Class:

Seeker (5) (25%).

Sub-classes:

(exterminator) (2%)

Titles:

Jack Black Brodifacoum, Trailblazer, Liberator. OFS (One Finger Salute) Dungeon pioneer David Selfish ?????

Affinity:

Darkness 0.001%

Affiliation:

N/A

Statistics

Health points (HP):

484

Mana Points (MP):

451

Stamina (SP):

583

Critical Hit Chance:

4%

Attributes

Strength:

22

Agility:

17

Constitution:

21

Perception:

20

Intelligence:

26

Willpower:

15

Charisma:

7

Luck:

5

Free attribute points:

0

Skills

Skill

Level

Progression

Wu shu:

5

95/100

Improvised weaponry:

T1: 2

05/100

Glacial Rage:

6

30/100

Meditation:

5

95/100

Regeneration:

T1: 0

00/100

Mana Manipulation:

9

80/100

Survival:

9

55/100

Cooking:

0

10/100

Restoration:

T1: 0

50/100

Social Sharing

1

20/100

Harvesting:

7

20/100

Herb Lore:

2

30/100

Whittling:

0

00/100

Pain resistance:

T1: 0

00/100

Poison resistance:

3

42/100

Cat`s eye:

7

55/100

Senses:

4

85/100

Armourer:

5

95/100

System Minimap:

5

15/100

Cartography:

3

95/100

Public speaking:

5

25/100

Spell Transformation: *

2

10/100

Backstab:

0

00/100

Skewer:

0

00/100

Scholer:

0

00/100

Learning:

#

#

Quick study:

#

#

Know-how:

#

#

Class Skill Proficiencies

Skill

Level

Progression

Investigation:

6

35/100

Tracking:

4

55/100

Intuition:

T1: 1

95/100

Analyse:

T1: 7

10/100

Lore:

2

10/100

Monster Expert:

3

65/100

?????

0

00/100

Spells

Spell

Level

Progression

Activation

Improvise:

T1: 1

05/100

Touch

Mana Construction:

T3: 2

75/100

Cast

Structural Modification

0

00/100

Touch

Liquefaction:

T1: 4

80/100

Cast

Earth Sense:

T1: 3

85/100

Touch

Weapon Schematics:

T1: 2

80/100

Touch

Vampiric:

0

00/100

Cast

Darkorb

0

00/100

Cast

Transfusion:

0

00/100

Touch

Electrocute:

0

30/100

Cast

Suffocate:

0

15/100

Cast

Waterboard:

1

55/100

Cast

Cauterise:

3

85/100

Touch

Shadow Step:

0

15/100

Cast

Fear:

0

00/100

Cast

Concussion Blast:

0

00/100

Cast

????

0

00/100