As we travel I take stock of the nearby terrain, keeping an eye out for useable materials. I also realize that my short skill list should’ve included something that would encompass knowledge of herbs and plants. I have never been a fan of “natural healing” and “herbal remedies” and the like, which are allowed to make any claim they want without having to be able to prove there is any validity to them. I'd much rather trust in things that have to pass government inspection, have rigorous and repeatable studies performed to prove efficacy, have list of known side effects notated, and so on. For the most part, I think of the various natural remedies as being various flavors of snake oil.

With that said, however, where exactly do you think aspirin came from? We learned to make aspirin as a result of an enterprising individual deciding to investigate the effectiveness of willow bark tea, which was contemporarily used in native and folk medicine to treat headaches, inflammation, and fever. Aspirin itself is a strict refinement and improvement on the initial discovery of willow bark herbal extract containing Salacin, which is part of why I'm avidly pro modern medicine, but the point here is that those old wives tales for this or that treatment method aren't entirely without basis. Not all of those old housewife remedies are useless, there's just a tendency for snake oil salesmen to exaggerate their impact and utility and to make up claims that are without basis in order to be able to secure more sales for these various "natural healing" solutions.

Well, there is no Food and Drug Administration to make sure the claims being made are legitimate here, and there is no actual aspirin, either. I was already looking for some world appropriate non magical healing skills, hence barber surgeon was on my list of professions to chase skills for, and at the least a knowledge of herbs and poultices and so on would be expected to supplement that skill. Just because I know that much of what I am told regarding the effects of this or that thing will be made up or only contain the barest grain of truth to it, that doesn't mean that there will be no value in learning what the claims are.

Once I know what the healers of this world claim the effects are, I can take and try to build upon that knowledge. Right now, there are tons of flowers and weeds and so on all around me that I am just not qualified to take advantage of. Even if this world were identical to earth, I would still be struggling in this area, because even on earth my knowledge of non-agricultural flora was a substantial blind spot.

Speaking of blind spots, I only brought a weeks' worth of food and feed. Feeding the mules is simple enough to handle, grazing is kind of their thing anyhow. Giving them feed is of course best, but letting them graze regularly will go a long way towards making that feed stretch. As for myself? My plan was to supplement my meals with game caught along the way, but is that really the best plan?

I decide that I should try and see if I can turn hunting and trapping and fishing into system recognized skills as well. For water I still only have the one waterskin, and I’m relying on Joaqim's ability to generate gallons of water each day to refill the waterskin for the immediate future. That plan was fine when he was producing upwards of 8 liters a day for three people, but with 5 of us and two mules now, I probably shouldn’t be relying so heavily on someone else’s magic to address basic living requirements.

With those concerns and the additional priorities mentally established, I realize I have no choice but to bide my time on taking any action when it comes to food and water, after all my options for taking said action are, at the moment, basically nonexistent. For now, all I can do is take note that those should be added to my list of priorities, and try to improve on these oversights at a future point.

Having a competent scout makes a world of difference when it comes to not just unplanned engagements, but to the entire trip. Despite having a cart and 2 mules to complicate the matter, Regina expertly leads us northwest. Not only is she guiding us around the worst of the dangers, but she also chooses routes which are relatively easy to navigate for the cart, and she completely takes over when it comes to picking off game for food: not enough to feed 5 people each day reliably, but at the rate we’re going through stock I could probably make this weeks' worth of rations stretch for over a month without difficulty.

That's not the only or even the biggest advantage of having a competent scout, though. Regina also helps us select fights which are as safe to engage in as any battle to the death can be, often ensuring terrain advantages as well. The terrain advantage becomes even more telling after I finish making a simple, crude short bow to provide some ranged capabilities for Bucky. He claimed that he had never tried firing a bow before, but even so, and even using the simplest type of bow, and a poorly made version of it from a guy who doesn’t even have an appropriate system skill to have crafted it, and even firing warped arrows crafted by that same guy… He is still, somehow, a better shot with that thing than I am with my trusty sling that I’ve had years of practice using. I know that my agility is only average and that's a part of why he is better with ranged weaponry, but still, this just doesn't feel fair.

I do understand that my sling is going to have to be replaced with something better eventually, but there’s just no point until I pick up appropriate skills to be able to make something which would be an actual improvement for me. Nonetheless, I find myself feeling so useless that it's embarrassing for me. Especially after I discover that Joaqim leveled up after the Orc fight in Diamond lake. I celebrate by making extra waterskins for everyone; the mules drink much more water than myself or any of the humans do, completely nullifying the benefit of Joaqims' level up towards his ability to produce water, but mules aside one waterskin per person just doesn't leave much flex room.

As our trip progresses it is more than apparent that Bucky is as inexperienced as he looks, but that he possesses ample natural talent as a fighter, because his fighting style is dynamic and powerful. As for Regina? She's a monster. She is at least as powerful as Jim, and might actually be a level or two higher than him. Which leaves Bucky and I as the only level 1’s in this group, and more significantly, leaving me as a very distant last in terms of combat contributions. Jim usually will not cast, but he generally does not need to; he’s here to turn the more serious fights into wins, after all.

I level up just before we reach our search area after our group finished defeating a Zombie Ogre. Frankly, fighting that zombie ogre should have been terrifying, but since we caught it by surprise we were able to rain devastation on its head from a distance, and with every one of us contributing damage, the zombie ogre barely makes it to Bucky before the magic animating it collapses under our onslaught. What would have been a one sided slaughter less than a month ago turned into a one sided slaughter, but with the side doing the slaughtering having flipped.

A crude short bow and some waterskins weren’t the entirety of my contribution up to now: Every night after we set up camp, I spend a couple hours making one thing or another. By the time we have located the entrance to the location Jim learned about, I have also outfitted myself, Joaqim, and Bucky with light wooden shields, and Joaqim with a sling. Apparently priests aren’t allowed to use bows, but slings are ok. They CAN use bows, but it's against a rule that their gods give them… Not all priests, but most of the goodly faiths have that restriction, and I cannot even guess why. On the bright side, slings require little effort and a limited amount of material to create, so making one for him is quick and easy.

When the level up prompt arrives, I choose to take another level in Architect. I am pleased by the changes this level brings. Once again, my health nearly doubles. Is that the norm, to double every level? That's not what I'd been led to believe, but that one level was another 9 point difference! My defense attribute has not improved beyond what my armor upgrades would account for, but my attack has gone up to 1! Time for a victory dance!

More seriously though, I quickly notice another new special quality: Potion brewing. That… Annoys me, actually. At the start of this excursion, I had been thinking about how nice it would be to pick up some natural remedy related skills, and an ability requiring extensive knowledge of herbology and their uses falls into my lap. I do not get the skill I would need to be able to gather ingredients myself, just an ability that requires me to have a skill appropriate for gathering and preperation. Son-of-a-bitch. I did get new skills though, and an impressive number of them, so it seems that my time in the library was not wasted. Nice! The next bow I make should be worth having. And finally, my imbuements are updated. My new status sheet looks like this:

Name:

Braza

Class:

Architect

Level:

2

Race:

Lizardfolk

Derived Attributes:

Defense:

Health:

Attack:

6

20

1

Primary Attributes:

Strength:

Agility:

Toughness:

Intelligence:

Wisdom:

Willpower:

8

10

20

16

13

13

Languages:

Common

Draconic

Goblin

Giant

Orc

Canid

Special Qualities:

Cold Blooded

Night Vision

Claw

Bite

Natural Armor

Exceptional Lungs

Natural Swimmer

Exceptional Balance

Simple Weaponry

Medium Armor

Architectural Comprehension

Disable Traps

Variable Item Creation

Scroll Manufacturing

Potion Brewing

Magic:

Imbuement:

3

Skills:

Operate Magical Devices

Spellcraft

Investigation

Arcane

Architecture

Engineering

Concentration

Appraise

Blacksmithing

Weaving

Stonemasonry

Leatherworking

Carpentry

Weapon Smithing

Armor Smithing

Bowyer

Fletcher

Open Locks

Talents:

Efficient Architect

Equipped Items:

Studded Leather Armor

Light Wooden Shield

Sling

Wait a second. At a glance I thought Open locks would make sense based on my Earth experiences where I learned how to crack several different types of locks, but even on Earth those skills had atrophied to a significant degree as I had not used them even for a practice lock in probably close to 20 years. Beyond that, I did not have any experience with opening locks here. None. In other words it has been nearly 30 years since the last time I picked a lock. Since arriving here, I had not so much as skimmed a book on the topic. I really cannot explain why that appeared on my skill list. Does this mean that the rest of the things I learned back home will eventually be allowed here as well? If so, shouldn't it still have been something else that I picked up rather than this skill?

I cannot help but think that opening locks will be about as useful for me here as it had been since having joined the military back on earth. Which is to say it was more trouble than it was worth to even reveal I had the ability to do so. Although come to think of it, “Disable Traps” appeared as a quality at level 1. Perhaps this skill had nothing to do with me personally and is instead class related?

Well, at least I have another crafting project. It’s not easy for me to prove my worth right now, so anything I can do to improve the impression my companions would have of me is worth serious consideration. Not that creating a lock picking kit is likely to improve their opinion of me, but if we do end up running into a stubborn lock, it would be nice to be prepared for it.

Finally, I look at my imbuements. All the old imbuements are still present, and there are no new ones. This does not surprise me; the majority of spell casting classes receive new spells only at odd levels, though the number of times they can cast their spells would increase every level. Being able to use an imbuement and attempt a spell release a 3rd time each day really is significant for me, even if the 1-minute casting times are unreasonably punishing.

For the most part I end up using my magical tool imbuement as a supplement for my nightly crafting sessions, which greatly improves the quality of my workmanship regardless of whether I'm supposed to be good at a thing or not. The difference between when I am using that imbuement versus when I am not is night and day, when I have it active the things I am working on end up at a professional level of quality even if I haven't gotten a particular skill to become system recognized.

It's a pity that at my current level I wouldn't be able to keep it going at all times… Though that may end up being a blessing in disguise. Only using it at night when it's convenient to pull tools out of the cart and put them to use means that I'm not expending my imbuements during the day while we are traveling and am more likely to want to be able to cast spells. Aside from crafting, perhaps someday the imbuements will be viable for in combat application, but I am not holding out much hope of it ever being useful while a fight is actively ongoing: trying to keep my imbuements available until the end of the day is simply keeping an emergency reserve of magical healing available in the event that things go horribly wrong.

When we arrive in the area Jim identified, we buckle down and begin the search, knowing that it may take days to locate the actual entrance even after we have roughly aligned ourselves towards where this ruin or crypt is supposed to appear. Finding it proves extremely difficult, so much so that every one of us thinks that Jim, more likely than not, has ended up with bad intel. After an entire week scouring the area, we decide to give up and search for another promising location.

Bad intel for expeditions is common, so it is usually worth planning out an expedition route which can investigate a series of leads one after another to ensure that the entire expedition does not end up being a failure. Bucky is surprised to find that failures are more common than successes. Not because he had not been warned. Everyone knows that for one reason or another, most expeditions do not bear fruit. Sometimes because everyone dies, sometimes you run into challenges you are not prepared to overcome, sometimes you cannot find where you’re supposed to be going, and many more reasons besides. Everyone knows that most expeditions end up in failure. But it is one thing to hear that most expeditions are not successful, and it is another thing entirely to be a promising teenager taking part in your very first expedition, only to immediately run into a wall. We did not even find the tomb or ruin that was supposed to be here.

Enthusiasm greatly dampened, we pack up our camp and continue towards the next location Jim picked out for us.