Congratulations! You have unlocked the Alchemist profession!

Would you like to become an Alchemist?

[Yes] [No]

'A job where I just grind up some dried plants and impossibly effective medicine pops out?' Don chuckled to himself.

He was still riding the high of actually making something with his own two hands. In one day, he made a huge batch of that miraculous salve that healed all his superficial injuries in a single night. It was an incredible result considering the simple preparation. If the ColoColo really didn't have manufactories to make it for them, maybe Don could even find some way to automate the process. Besides, it looks like Sik is the only alchemist here, and he didn't sound too healthy at the moment. He could definitely use an assistant. Every department needs redundancies after all.

That settled it, Don reached out and pressed the [Yes] button.

-CONGRATULATIONS-

You are now an Initiate Alchemist!

The road to mastery is long and arduous, hunting down materials which are both scattered and scarce, but do not lose hope. A true Master Alchemist can brew wonders, concoct miracles, and distill death.

Alchemist: Initiate - 1

+2% effect of alchemical products

+1% chance of success

Skills:

Concoction: Initiate - 1

You can now concoct initiate level potions

+1 potency of concocted potions

Don was immediately glad about his choice. It was pretty clear that initiate was far from the last tier he could reach and if he was able to make such an incredible salve now, he couldn't even imagine what he would be able to make in a year or two. Don didn't understand much of the information but he figured more effective and potent medicine was always a plus, Success was always welcome too. He remembered that Grey gave him a potion which completely healed his shoulder wound. Don looked up, wondering which of the unassuming plants could be responsible for such an amazing recovery. Don's thoughts were interrupted by a contented yawn. Sik made a few more happy little squeaks as he stretched.

"Good evening," he said to Don.

"Good evening" Don replied.

"I must have drifted off, sorry about that." Sik yawned again "Might as well let me see your attempt so I can get back to work. I'm even more behind now thanks to you."

"I didn't know where the salve pile is so I just left them by the Mortar."

"...them? Did I not tell you to make a single practice attempt?" Sik's voice was suddenly dripping with venom.

"Uh, yes. You did not." Don replied honestly "Your exact words were-" Don never got to recount Sik's exact words because the ColoColo finally spotted the heaping pile of filled gourds next to the Mortar. He shrieked and scampered over to where the salve's ingredient used to hang in great bunches. Now the dome there was almost completely empty. Sik rushed back across the open space and leapt at Don. He was much smaller than Don but the sudden and ferocious attack coming from the dark set Don backpedaling.

"Out, out, out!" Sik screamed "After Grey emptied our stores to heal you! You ungrateful, wasteful, disobedient, gluttonous hatchling! Out!" Don fell backward out of the dome. He scrambled deeper into the tunnels, Sik chased him for a bit, nipping at Don's heels. When he was left alone, panting into the darkness, Don realized he was good and lost. That didn't seem as important as what just happened with Sik though. Why did the monster fly into a rage? Even if Don made more medicine than he was supposed to, wasn't that a good thing? There was nothing he could do about it now. Maybe Sik would be a bit calmer after the night passed.

When the adrenaline of the short chase faded, Don realized that he was close to falling asleep. Not wanting to do so where he would block most of a tunnel, he got to crawling. Branches in the tunnels were easy to spot from the glowing ceiling, but the darkness and lack of a grid layout made it impossible to keep his bearings. The tunnels were silent and empty save for Don's labored breathing. He still had to stop regularly, but he noticed it wasn't quite as hard to move around as it was before. He added his returning strength to the short list of things he could be thankful for.

Don got to another intersection and paused. It looked a little familiar. Yes! There was a bare patch of ceiling where Don bashed his head. Don followed that path. Before long, Don started to hear running water. A little while longer and he came to a wider cave. Don could actually feel a channel in the stone beneath him. The sort of channel that is worn into stone by generations of foot traffic. Don followed it. The rushing water became louder. Don was eager for a drink and picked up his pace. He wasn't at all eager to plunge headfirst into a pool of icy water. He was even less eager for that pool of water to be an underground river which pulled him away from the cave and it's stale yet very breathable air, but since when did Don get what he wants?

Don tumbled in a blind panic. He gasped as he fell into the water and inhaled some as a result. He coughed and breathed in more water. He desperately clawed at the stone around him, hoping against hope that he could find some purchase and get back to the caves. Then, a shimmering field of light replaced the darkness. It was the surface! Don reoriented and surged out of the water, coughing and spluttering as his aching lungs drew in the sweet night air.

He didn't stop struggling for a while, he kicked at the water, he clawed at the passing vines and grasses, it wasn't until an unhappy voice said "Just stand up already!" that Don realized he was struggling in water that only came up to his waist. Then it was the easiest thing in the world just to stand up. The water swirled around his heavy frame, threatening to push him back under. He staggered downstream until he could compensate and reach the edge of the water. He pulled himself up out of the creekbed using some exposed roots and collapsed onto the dirty ground, dead leaves sticking to his body.

"Thanks" Don growled.

"If you want to make it up to me you can stop speaking out loud." Said Cel as she buzzed by Don's face.

"Gah" Don said, very much out loud. The fairy's glow was blinding after so long in the caves.

"Stop glowing!" he insisted with his hands covering his eyes.

"you've sure gotten bossy." quipped the fairy but Don could see the glow fading even through his eyelids. After a few seconds, he peeked at his surroundings. Cel was sitting demurely on a twig close to Don's eye level.

"Compared to what? Did you come here to get me into trouble again? Don't expect me to take any more orders from you."

"Hey! When did I give you an order? All I've done is tell you how to pull your ass out of the fire. If it wasn't for me, you'd still be getting tortured instead of taking a nice bath in the woods."

"Don't expect me to thank you for implicating me in unauthorized actions. My life was fine before you came along."

"Was it?" Cel scowled at Don "Do you even remember how your life was before we met or are you just throwing a hissy fit? I'm the one who knows who I am. I'm the one who had a plan. I'm the one who should be expressing regrets right now. You couldn't wait one stinking day to ruin my gameplan. I was going to show you how to become a death wraith, the undisputed champion of solo-survival and information gathering, but no, someone had to go and choose Alchemist. Alchemist! Of all the useless professions why did you have to choose alchemy?"

'Hey,' Don interjected, "Alchemy isn't useless, haven't you noticed that I'm completely healed from all the injuries I got during your escape plan?"

"Oh, wow, you healed! Soooo cool." Cel said, her words oozing with sarcasm "Did you know that Alchemy is the weakest out of all the healing skills, It is the slowest to take effect and on top of that, it comes with all kinds of nasty side effects too! Oh, and to top it all off, Alchemists need materials and tools. Where do you think you're going to get tools way out here? Do you think you can just take a trip into the city for an alembic? NO! BECAUSE YOU'RE A FREAKING DEMON!"

By the end of her rant, Cel was red in the face. The demon was blown away by the volume and the emotion of the diatribe and was left stunned while Cel tried to catch her breath. Don wasn't about to let her get away with badmouthing him so mercilessly though. He came back at her with a silent retort, heavy with the resentment of being duped and left on his own in a den of monsters.

'So? Why did you leave me? If your plan was so great, why abandon it halfway through?'

"I didn't leave you!" Cel shouted but exasperation was more prevalent than anger now. "The entrance to their nest is underwater. Fairys can do a lot of amazing things but they're not particularly strong swimmers." She stopped herself and took a deep breath. "How can you be so irritating? It doesn't matter what my plan was. What matters now is how we're going to adapt to this situation."

Don was caught off guard by the sudden change in her tone. Anger flared in his chest as he realized she was trying to get him to follow her 'advice' again.

"Give me one good reason why I should listen to anything you say."

"Because I still know a lot of valuable things that you don't know. For example, when was the last time you checked your quest log?"

"Uhh... quest log?" Before Cel could answer, a screen full of new information presented itself to Don.

Quest Log:

Who Am I?

Objectives: ????

Progress: ???? Active Social Animal

Objectives: Replace the resources you have consumed

Progress: Food: (0/31)

Hidden objectives: Salve: (22/7) Active Alchemy Lessons

Objectives: Produce one healing salve which is up to Sik's standards

Progress: 22/1 Failed

"That one's free," Cel said smugly. Don ignored her in favor of exploring this new information. It seemed like his amnesia was part of a quest. Without any details, there wasn't much he could do to complete it. Don was curious about this new hidden objective entry for his social animal quest and a new window replaced the Quest Log.

Quest: Social Animal

Type: Reputation (Mandatory)

Primary Objective: Food (0/31 units)

Hidden Objectives: Salve: Healing: (22/7 doses)

It made some sense that Don would be responsible for the healing supplies he used but he wanted to know why the screens hadn't been upfront about that requirement.

"Ohh, not bad for a noob," Cel chimed in. "but what's with this failed training quest? Talk about overachieving." Don ignored Cel as she laughed at him. Instead, he stayed on task, trying to learn more about himself and the screens.

What are these screens anyways? Who is tracking my progress, and why are they withholding some objectives? Yeah, that would be a good start. Cel stopped laughing and grew serious. She teetered on indecision for a few seconds before speaking again.

"I suppose there's no getting around explaining that part. For your first two questions, it's the work of your god." She stopped there to gauge Don's reaction. His complete disbelief wasn't reassuring so she gave some more detail.

"You are no longer in the 'real world', you are in its domain, a test world of sorts, and these screens are its way of interacting with citizens who come here."

Don continued to be unimpressed with the imaginative lie. He didn't expect something so ridiculous right out of the gate. There was no way to test this so he just filed it away as 'probably definitely a lie' and moved on.

"And my last question? Why are some objectives being withheld?"

"That's more about fun." Don kept his mental file open and got ready to drop the rest of Cel's response in next to her last lie. "It's more fun to figure out stuff on your own"

Aaaand, in it goes. Don was going to have to get a lot more concrete with his line of questioning if he was going to make any headway. Cel beat him to the chase.

"As fun as it can be to get metaphysical, we have more pressing concerns, like your current dire need to find food. Luckily, that shouldn't be too hard if we work together. You know, like partners..." Cel held Don's eye. Don kept quiet, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"As I mentioned before, you won't have much luck strolling into an apothecary and trying to buy potion ingredients so you will need a gathering profession. Luckily for you, getting a crafting profession makes it very easy to gain it's associated gathering profession. Herbalism should make foraging much easier too. Always best to kill two birds with one stone right?"

Don continued stonewalling the fairy until she provided some actionable information. Cel sighed, "Just start picking up plants until something happens."

Don didn't see the harm in trying so he reached out and pulled a bit of hanging moss from a nearby tree. Nothing happened so he continued picking up random plants. He tried a broad waxy leaf, a long frond from a fern. He was feeling more and more silly with every attempt until he tried to pull a vine off of the tree it was climbing. It didn't come loose so Don yanked harder and harder until it snapped with a loud crack and he fell back onto the ground, nearly tumbling back into the creek.

Congratulations! You have unlocked the Herbalist profession!

Would you like to become a Herbalist?

[Yes] [No]