True to the previous day’s plan, Mike awoke the next morning well before the sun had crossed the eastern ridge and began hunting for herbs that he could use to help heal the multitude of pinpricks on his body. At this point, he was very familiar with what was contained in his little valley, and he knew he would need to look outside. He was more or less banking on the System and the added healing effects of his First Aid skill to create a salve that would heal his wounds almost instantly. Thinking back to when he had first stitched his shoulder closed, that had happened almost overnight, so the little wounds caused by slightly pointed wooden arrows shouldn’t be too big of a deal. They had already mostly healed from yesterday, but if he wanted to up his training to the level he felt he required, he was going to need something much faster. Yarrow, calendula, and chamomile were extremely abundant in Montana, and it didn’t take him long to find them after exiting the valley.

When he arrived back at the long houses and surrounding parade ground, the first of the hobgoblins were just exiting their shelters and beginning their tasks. Despite their zeal for improvement that he had witnessed over the last few weeks, very few of the hobgoblins got out of bed before the sun crested the horizon.

Mother would have berated them for the time wasted. He thought to himself. The thought of his Mother brought a pang to his heart. He could usually squash such feelings, but clearly his isolation from other humans was beginning to take its toll. At least she passed before the integration. She never would have stood for the lawlessness that is now humanity.

If she was in Noobtown, she probably would have cowed the whole town away from hunting me, even despite the huge bounty the System has put on my head. He continued with a chuckle. If nothing else, she could make me some of her world famous fried chicken, gravy and mashed potatoes.

What I wouldn’t do for some well seasoned gravy. He added as an afterthought.

Eager to dwell on something else, he quickened his pace and soon arrived at the furnaces. The yet early hour meant that he had his pick of the litter, and he opted for his first furnace above the newer-more improved iterations. Within minutes, a fire was lit and he had a small vessel heating up water. Once the water reached a boil, he took it off the heat, and then ground up a good amount of each of the herbs and steeped them in the water. Only seconds later, a skill notification was brought up.

[Congratulations! New skill unlocked, Potion Making!

+1 Intelligence

Sometimes the only tool you need is nature.

Success rate based on luck]

Before he could even grumble to himself that Luck was once again impacting his life, another notification appeared in his view.

[Congratulations, new recipe found: Potion of Minor Healing

Use: Instantly heals light wounds]

A boyish whoop escaped his lips as he reveled in his success. The sound changed almost immediately to a low growl as he Analyzed his potion.

Potion of Useless

Quality: None

Durability: None

Rarity: None

Attributes: None

Hoping that the glitch could be overcome by perseverance, he attempted to make the potion two more times, until one of the larger vessels available to him was filled with the viscous liquid.

By this point, the smelting and pottery crews had arrived to do their work and were curiously watching his actions.

Loath to simply throw away his work when he had such a large storage container, he put the entire pot and its contents inside the smaller of his storage bags. He didn’t understand why liquid items stored inside the bag didn’t spill, but then again, he didn’t understand the bags at all. One day he would need to clean that out, but he just couldn’t face the wasted work with thoughts of his mother still lurking around his mind.

Fighting to be optimistic since he had gotten an additional point to Intelligence and learned a recipe, he called over a few of the gardeners and instructed them to use the rest of his herbs to make some potions. Then he went and found the scouts, who were just returning from their morning training and had Creeanth instruct them to bring back more of the herbs, giving them a small sample to keep so they knew exactly what to look for.

Swinging by the main cookfire, he grabbed some sweet potato mash and headed towards the mines. Upon arriving, he was pleased to find that the hobgoblins had completed hundreds of feet of braided rope. He wasn’t sure if it would be enough for the full length of the shaft, but it was a start.

Ever conscious of those beneath him, Mike decided to test out the strength of the rope before he decided to use for hauling heavy loads. Looping a few strands around a thick tree, he attached the other end to a stout log, which he then put over his shoulders like a yoke. Siphoning his Dexterity into Strength, he pressed forward, seeking to find the limits of the rope. When it held up against his modified strength, he waited three minutes, then activated Footsteps of the Wind before once again channeling Dexterity into strength, bringing it up a full 100 points. The rope broke with a crisp snap and Mike toppled forward as the no loose end of rope whipped around at lethal speed. Thankfully, no hobgoblins were within range of the berserker twine.

After wading through the expected stat decrease, Mike put his points back to normal as he stood up to survey the scene. One the one hand, the rope hadn’t held up to his full force. On the other hand, he wasn’t sure that any rope could anymore. Deciding the rope would be sufficient for a starting point, Mike took the hobgoblin down into the mine.

Over the next several hours, he slowly helped the hobgoblins set up the lower set of pulleys so that they could lift a load of metal one platform at a time. Initially, he used a large crank arm which enabled an almost 5 to 1 ratio with the pulley, making it much easier for the small creatures to lift much more of the metal in one go. The crank was too tall for their small frames, but they made up for it by multiple hobgoblins moving the crank together.

It wasn’t nearly as fast a process as he would have liked, and the amount of Quicksilver that the miners had been able to collect over the past day was less than inspiring, but it was something. He was confident that when the miners were able to control the metal as he could, the process would speed up dramatically.

…………………………………………………………………………………………

Bart awoke to a pounding headache late in the afternoon. He didn’t remember much of the last night, flashes of large mugs of ale and the background music a low level bard singing incoherently were the only things he could be certain of. Swirling his tongue around his mouth, he tried to eliminate the hairy aftertaste of his bender, but to no avail. Moaning in pain, he slowly rolled to a sitting position, then waited for the ground to stop moving before he stood up and made his way over to the sink. As he slowly cleaned himself up, he couldn’t help but allow a little introspection.

He had been feeling pretty down on himself yesterday, and he had let his anger drag him back to the alcohol. It was the same ailment that had afflicted his father and made his mom cry so much. It was the same ailment that had already cost him his whole business once. Was he really going to let this take over his life again?

Feeling the need to do something productive, he pulled up his mobile interface and decided to do see if their were any new items he would be interested in selling. The potions all looked to be the same, with a Elixir of Advanced Cure Poison being the only exception. It wasn’t the type of potion that was generally needed in the Noob Zone, so he passed it by. A new line of lizard skin armor caught his eye as he went through the Clothing/Armor tab. Generally speaking, the System store based its products on things that had been discovered by Noob Zone residents, so the new armor meant that a new type of monster had been found. Wanting to take advantage of the sales that came with a new item, he ordered over 100 full sets of the armor. A loud thud accompanied his purchase in the shop below as the order was delivered to his warehouse. It had taken some time to get the System shop to interact with his stores the way he wanted, but he had eventually figured out how to have purchased items delivered to each of his stores based on a distribution he set up in the Deliver tab of his mobile interface.

Moving on to the Weapons tab, a new item caught his eye. The price more than anything is what made him even glance at the seemingly innocuous dagger, one hundred thousand silver, more than triple the enormous wager he had lost to Gregorvich. As he pulled up the more detailed view, he realized that the price may actually be way under value.

Soul Sunder

Quality: Exquisite

Durability: Indestructible

Rarity: Legendary

Attributes: A single prick with this dapper rips apart the ties to the System, ending the victim in both soul and body.

Not only was it of the highest quality, durability and rarity, but the description of the blade made it sound like it could actually kill someone without the chance to respawn, and a single nick would be enough to do it. A surge of bloodlust seethed within Bart as he considered what this could mean for his enemies. Sure, the System punished humans who harmed other humans, but he was a Soul Contractor, he could get around that.