Cat With a Raygun

Kleo was excited to show off her new Guidebook as everyone gathered together in The Rusty Cup. Her new class wasn't exactly what was expected, as it was unheard of entirely.

“I saw a few options that I'd never heard of before, but considering the name of one matched the weapon Joe made for me, I felt like I had to pick it. Now I'm a Sniper.”

“So what are the primary attributes associated with it?” Ferric asked.

“It's the same as Scout, Agility and Wisdom. Of course I'll also need a good source of Vitality for the Farmer profession.”

After much discussion among the townspeople a list of twelve skills was agreed upon: Agriculture, Endurance, and Stamina Growth for Vitality, Ranged Weapons, Stealth, and Running for Agility, Listening and Observation for Wisdom, Defense and Pain Tolerance for Toughness, Mining for Strength, and Reading for Intelligence. The last two were to round out her statistics a little, as she didn't want to completely ignore any one stat, especially if, like Eleanor, she ended up learning spells that required mana.

Of course, Joe had never heard of the Observation skill, it was watching things, looking for things out of the ordinary, looking at fine details, and the like. It was basically like Listening, but for the eyes. It made sense that Joe had never developed it himself since he never bothered to keep watch when he was traveling on his own, using his Listening skill to handle that aspect of things. He certainly couldn't apply Observation in his new travels when he zooms past the landscape with no time to see much of anything. Still, he might try to learn it at some point.

Along with her new, unheard of class, Kleo got her first spell. Of course Joe asked her to cast it to show what it did, learning it for himself in the process. It was a familiar spell to Joe, but worked differently from how he previously knew it.

Telescopic Sight (Level 1). This spell allows for viewing things at a greater distance than normal vision allows. The maximum distance that could be seen is a number of meters equal to the caster's Agility multiplied by the spell's level.

Stamina cost: 10 stamina per minute

Joe gave both Kleo and her father the new farming tools he had made, and showed Tyrik how to use his. He explained to Kleo that hers wouldn't do anything until she learned the two different Farmer spells, but she was nevertheless excited to have it. She wanted to work on unlocking Agriculture as her first skill to qualify her for the Farmer profession, so she and her father went out to the wheat fields to work.

With Kleo's training planned and accounted for among the other residents, Joe took his leave and went to Trenos to find out where copper ore was being mined. There were several mines across the kingdom, it turned out. Rather than pick the closest, Joe decided to go for the furthest one from Trenos, a small community of mountain gnomes called Petrosia, which was nearly 2000 kilometers south of Lefpool.

Seeing no reason to delay, Joe began his trip, using Backtrack to get to Lefpool. Before leaving town he checked for gossip to see if there were any surprised awaiting him, but no one mentioned anything out of the ordinary, so he left along the southern road and began his usual method of travel using Speed Boost while running.

The terrain flew by. Even with his new speed, Joe knew it would several days to travel that distance, so he did his usual practice of going home at night. The next day he got up before dawn to attend to his crops, then went back to Trenos to do some more secret reading before the library opened. Over the five day trip Joe gained 4 levels in Running, 2 in Reading, 1 in Stamina Growth, and another 2 in Listening.

Joe also spent the time practicing spells, along with the ones he used at home. His Speed Boost went up 2 levels, Speed Plant Growth 1 level, Move Water 1 level, and Deflection Field also went up by 1 level.

Move Water (Level 10). This spell allows the caster to move up to 1 liter of water per spell level for the spell's duration. The caster can control the water to a greater degree while being moved by the spell, such as diffusing it into a light rain or mist over an area.

By spending 4 times the stamina cost, the caster can set a pattern of movement to continue without active direction for a set time limit, until ended by the caster, or until it exhausts the supply of water at the start of the pattern. The movement can extend up to 5 meters per spell level.

Stamina cost: 25 stamina per minute

The newest function of Move Water makes it much better at irrigation, as Joe could irrigate entire fields easily from the river, just like he'd seen Ferrite do when she first demonstrated the spell for him. Deflection Field was almost at the next enhancement level, so after Joe got to Petrosia he would focus on pushing that the rest of the way to level 15.

- - - - -

Petrosia was like the stone version of Rust's Edge. No forest, just more hills and rocky outcroppings surrounding the village of homes and other buildings all built from stone. The quality was much better than what he and Kerras were capable of, so maybe they might come and ask for pointers at some point. These buildings weren't just stone buildings, they had patterns carved into them in places, extra stone built up in other places to make aesthetically pleasing shapes. The mountain gnomes who lived here clearly valued more than just having a roof over their heads.

There weren't too many active chimneys, despite the chill of early spring. Joe wondered if Petrosia had suffered the same as Rust's Edge and Kela's Landing. He would find out soon enough, he hoped, as he located a squat building near the path to the mine labeled Mining Office with smoke coming from the chimney.

Walking in Joe saw a mountain gnome woman sitting at a desk her size sipping on a mug of something steaming. She spoke up as soon as she noticed the larger felinoid entering her office.

“Hello there. Welcome to Petrosia. Can I help you?”

“Hi, my name is Joe. I've heard that this is a good place to get copper ore. I'm looking to get a large amount periodically. I can buy it, or I can pay for access to the mine itself. I have some experience mining iron ore in another town.”

“My name is Leta. I run things here. We kind of need all the ore we mine to get by, but I suppose I could allow you to mine your own ore. I pay our miners based on the weight of the ore they bring out of the mine. I could sell you what you mine minus the price I'd pay for the same weight to our miners. Does that sound acceptable?”

“Yes, that would work for me. Do you have an extra pick I could rent? I didn't bring one with me.”

“I believe we can work something out, y-” Leta was interrupted by the door slamming open. A gnome man came in clearly angry and fuming.

“Leta! I broke my pick again. I need that last one quick or I'll never finish today's quota,” the man yelled as he rushed towards the desk, completely ignoring Joe's presence.

“By the Stones, Karon! That's the last spare we have. I keep telling you to control your strength, these things can't handle your stats. We can't afford quality tools, not that the fool merchant ever brings anything decent,” Leta started off laying into Karon verbally. “We were going to make extra money if we could have let this guy here use the other pick to mine extra ore. Now we can't do that!”

“Well, sorry Leta, but I'm a Farmer, not a Miner, so I can't protect my tools. What did you expect when you asked me to spend time mining?” the man retorted.

Leta grabbed the other pick from a tool chest and handed it to Karon before he stormed back out. She turned back to Joe looking rather apologetic. “I'm sorry, Joe. It looks like I won't be able to help you right now, we're short of extra tools.”

Joe could sense the situation was more stressful to Leta than she was letting on. His experiences with Rust's Edge when he first got there and then with the abandonment of Kela's Landing led him to believe that these gnomes were on the verge of collapse.

“Is everything okay here? Your farmer doing double duty in the mines makes me worry you guys aren't getting enough to eat.”

“We're getting by, but I appreciate your concern,” she answered.

“Do you guys smelt the ore here, or do you only sell raw ore?”

“I have the Smelting skill, but haven't had the opportunity to make any ingots in a while, so we just sell the ore raw.”

Joe looked around the room noting what available space there was while he came up with a few ideas.

“Well, I'd still like to do business here, I'll just need to take care of a few things on my end first. I'll be back probably in a week or so, if that's okay.”

Leta's face showed relief at hearing that Joe would still be benefiting the town. “That sounds just fine, Joe. Do you need a place to stay tonight, or will you be on your way now?”

“I'll be able to get to my destination today if I leave immediately, thank you, though,” Joe responded.

After Joe left Leta's office he Backtracked to Rust's Edge, specifically to Melanie's smithy.

“Hello, Joe, what brings you in today?” Melanie asked as he entered. She looked to be finishing up on one of those compound bows they learned about from Davis.

“I need to cut some branches off of one of our young steelwood trees. Do you have any enchanted axes available?” he asked.

Melanie went to a rack in the back and grabbed a small hatchet. “Here you go. I made this specifically for those steelwood branches. I figured we'd be harvesting them at some point while still allowing the trees to grow. I haven't actually tested it yet, but I'm confident it will get the job done. Let me know, though.”

Joe thanked Melanie for the hatchet and teleported to one of the larger steelwood trees with branches the size he needed. Melanie's work was done well and the hatchet cut five branches off without any difficulty. A message sent through the Guidebook interface let her know without impacting Joe's timetable. He teleported into his workshop because he had work to do.