Cora attempted to whistle as she walked into the spacious entrance to her mine. A quick sweep told her that not much had changed. There wasn't even a layer of dust on the tools she'd dusted the last time she came.
With a conscious thought, she triggered the repair lens part of her vision. That's what she'd labeled it after failing to come up with an official title. It didn't seem that anyone else on the forums had come across such a thing, or if they had, they weren't telling.
Thinking about the Heart of the Mountain she'd met in Cochran, she walked towards a random tunnel.
A few game hours later, she finally left, sacks heavy with stones, shards, ores and crystals and having found not a single, solitary sign of a Heart of a Mountain. Instead, she'd found just miles after miles of tunnels, most with railcars and some without.
Cora walked to the shards stele, mind whirling. She'd searched the forums for information about the stone shards, and all she'd found was complaints. Everyone who mined eventually wound up with stone shards, and you couldn't truly dispose of them inexpensively unless you dodged the guards, whether Town, City or County.
And being caught tossing them, or anything else really, resulted in heavy fines. Cora had whistled at the sight of some of the forms posted on the forums. The highest had been for nearly 800 gold when most players could barely scrape up 100 when scrambling.
Cora stopped in front of the stele and searched among the sacks she was carrying for the one that held the shards. She'd come up with the idea of separating them as she mined to cut down on time needed to dump. Cora was rather proud of the idea. Before, she'd had to separate everything out by hand which made everything take far longer than she wanted to spend.
Now, she had the large sack that was holding four large granite blocks, a medium sack of ore, a medium sack of gems and crystals, and a small sack full of shards. She weighed the small sack in her hand. It was nearly as heavy as the large one with the granite blocks.
The disparity made her thoughtful. With a shrug, she emptied the shards into the hole in the stele. The shards made musical tinkling noises as they fell.
Cora sighed. The amount in the small sack was roughly half of an inventory space. However, using the shards to fill the sack had surprisingly given it enough to level up and then some. The sack was now listing its level as (5/132/600).
Cora fell into thought. She really wanted to know what happened when the levels hit 10. It seemed like a paramount number. You could leave the beginner areas once you were above level 10. You could change careers or pick a career every 10 levels. When animals hit level 10, they advanced a growth level, especially the first 100, according to Blue.
She'd already seen the proof of that with Sycamore and Dewalt. Sycamore was now a level 22 and Dewalt, 44, and it showed in their size. Germaine had snorted when asked but admitted that she was now 164 instead of the 162 she'd been when they'd first met.
Cora glanced in the direction of her field. Standing by the stele always gave her the shivers, but since Sycamore's visit, it wasn't quite as scary.
A movement a few yards away drew her eye. The sere clump of weeds shivered even though there wasn't any wind. Cora immediately straightened up, snagging the other sacks that she'd set on the ground with her free hand. As the last shard fell from the small sack, she heard a faint, tinkling sound.
A brief message stating "You've reached Level 8!" flashed before her eyes before vanishing. Cora blew out a hard breath as she shoved the empty sack into her pants pocket. The sack barely fit, and a bit of it flapped against her leg as she turned and hurriedly walked towards the plaza.
Behind her, she could hear the scrabble of claws against stone. Without even acknowledging it, she began to run the few short yards. The scrabble grew in volume, and Cora felt that she could almost feel the anxious snap of teeth at her heels.
She stumbled into the plaza to find Blue sitting there. Blue's calm gaze went from her to behind her. Cora didn't turn as she heard the scrabble become louder and then fainter. She let out a relieved breath.
"Is that a new form of exercise," Blue asked, licking her chops. "It seems very…unique."
"I was dumping out shards," Cora explained, clutching her shirt.
She knew it was a game, but she still felt wildly out of breath. She could hear her heart thumping wildly, and the pulse in her throat threatened to strangle the last of the breath in her lungs. Cora leaned over, fighting to regain her calm.
"They look so tasty," Blue remarked, walking past her. "It does seem to be time for lunch after all."
Cora looked up at the sky. She could see the sun peeking just over the highest ruined spire of a tower near the eastern side of the town. Streaks of black striped it as if it was struck by lightning or fire.
Cora shook her head. Considering the weight of the other sacks, she decided a quick trip to Cochran was in order. The last time, she'd found out that the transport ring there possessed a setting for a place called the Collectives Central who had a setting for a place called Kai'en'cha which turned out to be what she'd been calling Orc Town.
The ring there sent her to an official building next to the Town Hall. Cora had happily talked to Ufkim who'd given her what he referred to as 'tasteless' radishes and Serene had whispered that they were Wind Vines, useful for twining around a gatehouse.
Cora still had them sitting in her little gardening shack. She'd found that seeds and seedlings placed there seemed to be in stasis. It was quite a handy thing to have.
From the inferences gathered from the existence of Water Berries, Sea Corn and Wind Vines, she realized that she could grow elemental plants. What they were good for other than providing eventually useful building materials, she wasn't sure. What she was sure of was that there had to be more uses than that for them.
She promised herself to bring back any earth or fire natured items if she ever saw them. Cora felt that she couldn't just wait to see if they would just show up somehow.
Regaining her breath, she started walking towards Wilderven's teleportation circle. She'd managed just a small part of the repairs for it because it simply took too much of her gathered resources. Just fixing the door had used up all the iron she'd smelted as well as most of the granite bricks she'd made over the last game week.
She left the large sack with the granite blocks in it just outside the door. She wasn't worried about the rabbits gnawing it to pieces. As Blue had informed her, 'sacks are their weakness, and no one wants to chance being made a part of their weakness.'
Cora preferred to not dwell on what that might mean.
*****
The man stood at the edge of the clearing, staring at the empty, near perfect circle at its center.
He was tall with a stern patrician face marred by days old stubble. The stubble grew unevenly as if unused to being there. His eyes were an empty bluish green, and it was easy to tell that he would be handsome if he smiled.
Next to him a wolf leaned against his leg, whimpering faintly. The man laid a hand on the wolf's head, fondling his ears.
"It's not your fault that some busybody interfered," he said, still staring at the clearing.
He strode forward, long green robes whipping around his legs. Faint faded patches of colors stained the hem. His creased brown boots crushed the newly grown grass under his feet as he approached the center of clearing.
He stopped at the edge of the circle, frowning. The circle had only seemed empty due to the dearth of the thick green grass growing everywhere else in the clearing. The circle itself had little shoots of green starting to penetrate the dark soil. Here and there, as if artfully sprinkled, the shoots showing were a curious greyish-green color.
"Dryad's Grace, is it," the man ground out, pursing his lips.
The man clenched his fists. Then he turned to walk back to the wolf who had laid down, licking a wound on its leg.
"Lavcheg, sorry," the wolf grunted as he neared it.
"Once again, it's not your fault, my dear one," Lavcheg said, squatting down next to the wolf. He pulled out a bottle filled with a thick blue liquid. It swirled within the bottle at every small motion. "Sit still, Glug."
He carefully unscrewed the cap and poured a small amount on the wound on Glug's leg. Glug yelped but held still. A few short seconds later, the wound vanished, replaced by tender new skin.
Lavcheg stowed the bottle away. Then he paused, his attention snagged by something in the green grass.
He walked to the anomaly and peered closely at it. It seemed to be a withered vine of Water Berry.
He picked it up and rubbed the stem between his fingers. Then he turned and stared at the road, his mind whirling.
"Come, Glug. We need to go visit Kai'en'cha." Lavcheg said, standing up. "There might be gossip about our busybody there."