“Yes, don’t you remember? Urseon brought you in yesterday. You were nearly dead. I gave you medicine...of course, you don’t remember, you were nearly dead, as I said,” the little man chattered, climbing up on a tall stool to reach up to a high shelf. Kalmond moved forward to steady the stool, lest the man tumble down. “Here,” Alchemist said, finally finding what he needed on the shelf. “This potion will help.”
Kalmond popped the cork on the potion and downed it without question. He’d do anything to get rid of the toxic feeling that seemed to coat him like slime. He felt a bit better, but when he checked his stats, stamina and strength still showed minus signs beside them.
“Oh dear,” Alchemist exclaimed, climbing down. He was one of the few humans shorter than a dwarf. “I’m afraid any potion I can provide now will only be a half-measure until I get some sprite water.”
“Why didn’t you say so?” Kalmond said. He produced the sprite water bottle from his inventory and handed it over immediately.
The old man gasped and snatched the bottle from Kalmond with surprising speed. “Come!” he exclaimed and ran back into the depths of the cluttered shop.
Kalmond followed to a back room even more packed with bottles of every shape and color. In the center of it all sat a long stone table supported by rough-hewn logs. The table was strewn from one end to the other with mixing bowls, bottles, mortars and pestles, bones wings, dried insects and bunches of herbs. Interspersed throughout were lit candles, some burning beneath glass beakers of bubbling liquid.
“My workshop is open to you any time, Bear Dwarf,” Alchemist said. “Anyone who can convince a sprite to give them their water deserves to use anything that I have.
“Thank you, Alchemist,” Kalmond said. Access to a potion workshop was just what he was looking for. Maybe the town wasn’t as much of a waste of time as he thought. In the corner, there was also a weapons bench.
The little man made laps around the table, grinding herbs here, mixing bubbling liquids there. Kalmond watched in fascination as Alchemist finally took the vial of sprite water and added a single drop to a large beaker full of a viscous, violet brew. He swirled the beaker, chanting arcane words, and the liquid turned blue, sparked, then became perfectly clear.
“Here,” Alchemist said, siphoning off some of the liquid into a little shot glass. “Take this.”
Kalmond shrugged his shoulders and tossed back the shot. “It’s...water…” he said. “You made water?”
“Not just water,” Alchemist replied. “The purest water. Don’t you remember? I told you the story of my friend from whom I borrowed…” Alchemist trailed off, then folded his arms across his chest. “Oh, that’s right. You didn’t want to hear my story.” The little man cleared his throat and continued. “Using the knowledge contained in my esteemed colleague’s tome, coupled with the brilliant work of Boris the Dwarf I—”
“That dead loudmouth?” Kalmond exclaimed. “That boris?”
“That dead loudmouth,” Alchemist said haughtily, seeming to grow several inches taller, “Was, in life, one of the greatest potion makers and magical theorists in the Nine Circles.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Kalmond said, stroking his ginger beard.
“Thanks to Boris and the work you’ve done, you certainly will not be damned. This water is part of the solution to our problems. You must now add it to the source of the poison water.”
Ding! A bell sounded, and text drifted down from that nowhere place that announced the completion of quests.
Quest Complete: bring sprite water to the alchemist
An XP bubble rose up from Alchemist’s head that showed 690 points earned. A moment later, Kalmond stood in a column of light that signified his transition to level eleven.
Kalmond the stone dwarf
Level 11
XP 11022
STA 29
STR 27
INT 26
AGI 27
CHA 27
MAN 24
MLVL 561
Hit Points 9644
Another gong and another XP bubble rose, this time, from the dirt floor of the shop.
Quest Complete: find the source of the poison water
New quest: bring the antidote to the source of poison.
“What?” Kalmond asked, looking around. “I didn’t agree to that! Another quest? What the hell…”
He’d been planning to straight-up grind through the levels, finding monsters and killing them, and now that he was a proper thief, looting and robbing along the way. He expected to find a castle, a ruin or a dungeon or two to stroll through as well, collecting loot and maybe crafting some things at random locations. Now he found himself roped into the problems of Dundree. He’d lost a day after nearly being killed, and now had only three days left.
“Alchemist, do you have any potions that can replace sleep?” Kalmond asked.
“Well no, but I do know where to find a very powerful rejuvenation formula,” Alchemist said, scurrying off to some far corner of the workshop. He returned with a familiar, leather-bound tome. “Matriarch gave me a very special book.”
“Oh no…” Kalmond groaned.
Alchemist opened Boris’s book, and the ghost sprang up from the pages with the sound of a cork shot from a bottle of champagne.
“Pansy Dwarf!” Boris bellowed. He tried to give Kalmond a bear hug, but passed through, ending up behind him. “Where did you go?” Boris asked, circling back around to face Kalmond again. “I see you are still alive, and for this I am glad.”
Kalmond smiled in spite of himself, and replied, “I am glad to see you too, Boris. I must be insane, but I am glad to see you.”
“Ha!” Boris replied. “A sentimental pansy dwarf! In my day—” Kalmond slammed the book closed, making Alchemist jump back.
“Can you just teach me the formula?” Kalmond asked.
“Yes, and I can tell you what ingredients you need, then you can use my workbench,” Alchemist replied.
“Don’t hold back, then,” Kalmond said.
Alchemist produced a feather quill pen and a scrap of parchment, using red ink that looked suspiciously like blood. He spoke the ingredients as he wrote them down. “You will need three blue swamp flowers, two measures of royal jelly and a kindlebloom.”
Kalmond sighed. He had the first two ingredients, but not the second, which sounded exotic. “Where do I find the kindlebloom?” Kalmond asked
“I have some for sale, but it is very rare. You can buy it from me, but I am in short supply. The legends say that a lost northern town called Darkwell. It is surrounded by woods full of kindlebloom.”
“Darkwell…north...” Kalmond muttered. “Right back to the kobolds.” He pulled up his map and used his palm to move it around until he found the northern town where the kobolds nearly killed him. Sure enough, it showed up on the map with the label Darkwell.
“It’s not supposed to work this way,” Kalmond muttered.
Usually, new towns appeared as gray squares on the map as adventurers approached. Town names appeared after the first interaction with a trader or villager who welcomed adventurers by saying something like “What brings you to the town of Somethingorother.” But now it seemed like places appeared as a result of Kalmond fighting there. It seemed that the Realm was responding to his actions in very specific ways. Instead of the dynamic quest engine giving him sets of tasks based on his choices with set world elements, it was creating the world elements themselves after he found them.
Kalmond tabled that mystery in favor of working with his newfound access to the alchemist’s workbench. Now that he had access to a bench, he could experiment with the herbs he found on the adventurers he killed.
The satchel of herbs was a bonanza. Burritobandit was a collector indeed. Kalmond was in luck. The satchel contained six kindleblooms. The other herbs were four wicked grape vines, three devil’s whiskers, eight thurkettles and a single copenberry. As he flicked through the items with his finger, an opaque model of
each hovered in the air above the bench. The bag of herbs contained wolf cornel and something called dranor.
Herbs and ingredients often gave clues to their uses with visual queues. The copenberry had a blood-red hue that suggested it was either poisonous or contained the spirit of fire. Blue or white items usually aligned with the spirit of cold or water. Bright blue items had the spirit of lightning, and so on. It wasn’t always the case, thought. Some plants simply didn’t do what Their appearance suggested. Those were the rare items, though, much like the kindlebloom, which resembled a daffodil with a thin red star pattern traced along the leaves.
He wasted no time and made three wakeful potions immediately. That gave him 60 XP. Then, Kalmond decided to experiment. He mixed together the thurkettle, which had an earth spirit, with devil’s whiskers, which of course had the property of fire. The potion blew up in his face and singed his whiskers. A miniature mushroom cloud of gray smoke billowed up to the timber ceiling.
Next, the dwarf decided to try again with the devil’s whiskers and the thurkettle, but this time added the dranor, which looked like a twisted brown stick. Nothing happened at all. He was getting nowhere. No properties or functions were revealed through his experimentation. He was just wasting time.
Slowly, Kalmond turned to the thick leather tome of Boris the Stone Dwarf. He grit his teeth and opened the book, producing that cork-popping sound again.
“What are you doing, Pansy Dwarf!” Boris said, rising over the workbench. “Nothing, That’s what, unless it is your goal to poison yourself or blow the place up.”
Kalmond’s face reddened, and he was about to fire off the triggered rage response. Instead, he decided to meet Boris where he lived. “Oh, shut up, you rotten corpse. The only potion you make is for catching flies because you only talk horse dung.”
Boris drew back his fist and swung for Kalmond’s grinning face. “I was making potions when you were just a lusty thought in a cup of mead!” Boris shouted after his fist passed through Kalmond’s head.
“Yeah? Prove it, then,” Kalmond said, spreading the herbs out on the table. “If you are so smart, tell me what I can do with these random herbs.”
“Random! You fool, these are precious jewels of the realm. The devil’s whisker forms the base of any number of burning potions and is especially useful for making fire bombs.”
As Boris ran down the properties of each herb on the table, little XP bubbles rose up from each item announcing two points each for discovering their properties. Boris proved to be very useful indeed.
“So what?” Kalmond said. “You can memorize a few properties. But can you actually make a potion?”
“Fool!” Boris yelled. “Look at my book! Find the section on fire roots, and you might tell me, that is if you can read!”
Matriarch had already unlocked the arcane script, allowing Kalmond to find the section readily. The first recipe on the page was for a fire bomb potion that could be thrown against an enemy, used to build a trap or consumed for fire resistance and extra strength. “What about this one, then?” Kalmond said. “We don’t have the ingredients for this one.”
“Fool!” Boris shouted. “Have you never heard of substitution! You can use herbs with similar properties if you mix them correctly.”
Boris continued to explain the recipe as Kalmond scrambled around the bench trying to keep up with the agitated, rapid-fire speech. He found several herbs on the table with the properties Boris ranted about. He was able to produce three of the fire bomb potions.
“Thanks,” Kalmond said, slamming the book closed on Boris in mid-sentence. Making the potion let him discover multiple uses each herb. That, combined with actually making three fire bomb potions, earned him 77 XP. It wasn’t much, but every little bit counted. The best part about it was that he found three different ways to make the rejuvenation potion with the ingredients already on-hand.
Kalmond walked back out to the front of the shop where the old man sat behind the counter on his tall stool. “Let’s see what you have to trade,” Kalmond said and opened a trade dialogue for the first time.
Confident he’d not have to sleep again, and hoping he would not have to, Kalmond sold his two crafted pillows and sleeping mat for a paltry ten circs. He kept all the herbs and raw materials, including the sheaves of straw. The humble sword fetched fifty circs. He sold all the jewelry looted along his journey for a whopping 220. The armored mages robes fetched 150. That earned him enough to by the entirety of Alchemist’s supply of kindlebloom flowers and many other herbs. When the trading ended, Kalmond walked away with 125 circs in his inventory.
Back at the workbench, Kalmond managed to get four of the special rejuvenation potions crafted, earning another twenty-five XP. He took the rusty dagger to the weapons bench and cleaned it up. The work earned him just 10 XP, but when he was done, the sharpened dagger shined nicely in what little light managed to sneak into the workshop. He kept the +2 weapon out of satisfaction in his crafting skills.
Happy with his progress, Kalmond stepped back out into the village square. The alchemist’s healing water cleared his head, and Kalmond was able to realize that Dundree had changed. The village square was larger. More people milled about, and there were more buildings everywhere.
Kalmond pulled out his map again and pressed his finger on the town icon to reveal the village statistics. Where before, the town reputation slider sat about a quarter, now it was nearly half full. The stats showed forty residents called the town home. Usually, towns grew like this only after players improved them with buildings or trade. All Kalmond had done was take care of the water supply. He came to the conclusion that completing the water quest was responsible for the change as he hurried over to the armorer’s shop to collect his reward.
“Bear Dwarf!” Armorer exclaimed, stepping around his counter to give Kalmond a stiff whack on the shoulder. He now had the requisite strength to withstand the rough greeting without staggering back.
Armorer cast an approving gaze over the dwarf. “Come get your armor,” he said, leading Kalmond back into his shop. He handed the dwarf a full suit of black leather armor studded with gray metal. Kalmond put it on and found it fine indeed. Not only did the supple leather give him extra stealth, but it also gave him +15 to his armor rating. That was close to the highest level leather armor could provide.
“Armorer,” Kalmond said with great sincerity. “This is fantastic armor. Thank you.”
The big human stepped forward and put a hand on his shoulder, said, “It is the least I can do for the Bear Dwarf, Protector of Dundree.”
“Protector? I…” Kalmond began, confused.
“But why do you call me by my title?” the armorer said. “We are friends! Call me by my given name.”
“You said your name was just Armorer,” Kalmond replied.
“Nonsense. My name is Arnold. Perhaps you misheard.”
“I don’t think so,” Kalmond said, confused.
“I don’t want to argue with the Bear Dwarf,” Arnold chuckled, “for he is fierce in battle, it is told.”
Kalmond shook his head and opened up a trade dialogue. He sold off the remaining pelts he’d gathered from various kills as well as any other animal parts he picked up along the way. The sale lightened his inventory considerably. With the boots of the ox, and being at level eleven, his carry points had reached 250. That meant he could carry a lot of loot, a lot of weapons or a good amount of both.
He’d redeemed both the sprite water quest and the quest to find the poison water source by visiting Alchemist. That left only the quest given him by the lovely Clothier. The thought put a spring in his step.
He found Clothier in her shop weaving fine silk on an elaborate loom that took up most of the floorspace. “Oh, Bear Dwarf!” she exclaimed. “I’m so glad to see you again!”
She gave him a hug that planted his face in the most pleasant area of her anatomy. Being a Dwarf had its privileges.
“I have your flowers,” Kalmond said, and
he found his voice had risen a couple of octaves. He cleared his throat and shifted on his feet. She took the flowers from him.
Ding! : get blue swamp flowers for Claudia
The XP bubble showed 200 points.
“Claudia…” Kalmond muttered.
“Yes?” she replied.
“But your name is Clothier,” Kalmond said.
“No, silly dwarf. Maybe in your society people are called by their craft. With humans, we use given names. Mine is Claudia.”
“OK,” Kalmond said. “That is significant.”
“But this is for you,” She said, producing a pristine white tunic from her pocket. She handed it to the dwarf, then kissed him on the cheek.
“It will increase your mana,” she said, leaving her hands on Kalmond’s shoulders.
He examined the tunic and found that it increased mana by 5%. He quickly put on the item, grateful that it could be worn under his armor.
“I saw that!” a booming voice called out behind Kalmond, making him jump.
Arnold the Armorer stood in the doorway. His face was deep red, and his fists were balled up by his side.
“I saw you kiss the dwarf!” Arnold bellowed.
“Oh, Arnie,” Claudia said. “It was just to thank him for getting me the flowers.”
“He gave you flowers?” Arnie screamed, clutching his head with both hands. Then he charged. Kalmond ran through the shop and through a back door.
He turned around to face the big man with his arms outstretched. “Easy there, friend,” Kalmond said. “I don’t want any trouble.”
“Friends don’t kiss other friend’s wives!” Arnie boomed.
“I didn’t kiss her,” Kalmond said. “She kissed me. I gathered flowers for the—” The word “flowers” seemed to trigger Arnie. He turned his face to the sky and shrieked like an eagle.
“I challenge you to a fight!” he said, raising his fists.
Ding! New quest: best Arnold in a fist fight
“Oh, you’ve got to be kid—” A ham-like fist slammed into Kalmond’s forehead before he could raise his hands. He staggered back, blinking away stars.
Realm of the Nine Circles: The Grind: A LitRPG Novel Page 13