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The Wiki didn't have much on Alchemy—just a dozen pages filled with basic descriptions and primitive recipes. Unwilling to fall into the same trap that the developers had laid for newbs, I signed up for a complete manual. In less than a minute, it arrived in my inbox—a two-hundred page behemoth of an e-book. Apparently, the request was common enough to justify an automated mailing response. The size of the manual humbled me, but no one said it was going to be easy. Which was good news, really. It meant that a man of intelligence could always make a few bucks doing it and not get bored in the process.

I glanced at the table buried under heaps of armor. I just had to try all that stuff on. I changed into thicker clothes, ticked them off as optional and put on all the items one by one. I literally felt stronger. The life/mana bar went through the roof.

Someone knocked. The door swung ajar, letting in Taali. I turned to face her. She froze for a second.

"Holy cow. If this isn't Dark Lord! You think I could try on the crown?"

The next morning was busy. Taali and Bug were supposed to be coming at ten o'clock and I had lots of things to do before then. We planned our first mission—two days into the woods. Our agenda: farming, profession leveling and fine-tuning our teamwork. The other two had agreed unreservedly. With the weekend coming, they had plenty of spare time for a quality outing that promised decent dividends of both experience and mana.

Despite the fact that Taali had left rather early, I hadn't gotten much sleep the night before. I'd been studying professional manuals. That's
 
manuals
, in the plural, as I'd soon realized that alchemy had to be leveled alongside the flaying and herbal skills. Otherwise I'd have to rush to the auctions every time I needed some ingredient or other, which would cause my production costs to soar. So I'd ordered two more manuals and a detailed farming map of the area, then spent the rest of the night going through them.

In the morning, I had a quick bite to eat and started doing my Master Guilds rounds. I first went to the Alchemy Guild to get my apprenticeship status. Now I was free to level it up to 50 after which I was supposed to go back, this time to pay some solid gold for being promoted to journeyman.

You had to pay your way through the professional stages, seven of them in total. But at least my choice of professions was only limited by the size of my wallet and the amount of hours in a day. Talking about my wallet. I still had to splurge thirty gold on a basic alchemy kit that included some scales, metering spoons, measuring tubes, and a few basic recipes. I also had to buy another hundred vials for the duration of the raid. Good job you could stock them up twenty per slot, otherwise I had no idea how I'd have packed it all up.

Next, I visited the Herbalists and the Rangers Guilds: the latter, to study flaying and buy a skinning knife. I didn't actually need to hold it in my hand as long as I had it on the inventory list. That was almost it. One practice left to do. I searched the city map for the Happy Palate restaurant. According to the guide book, its owner accepted all and sundry for apprenticeships. The book was right: soon I acquired a fourth profession plus a set of spices and recipes in the vein of Spiced Wolf, Fox Relish and Smoked Bear. Almost everyone here had leveled cooking at some point, at least its first free stage. Which made sense: it would be stupid to starve to death next to a freshly killed rabbit. And once you reached the Famed Master stage, it opened your way to some very interesting recipes.

My inner greedy pig was past all hope by then. He even managed an occasional half-hearted nod when I was reading through the list of dishes available for skill points 450 and above.

As in:

Smoked Dragon Fillet

Level required: 100

Use: Restores 990 Health and 990 Mana over 25 sec. Must remain seated while eating. The character becomes well fed and gains 20 points both Strength and Constitution.

Apart from its apparent gourmet value, the freebies that came with the dish were motivation enough for any player to level cooking.

By ten in the morning, everyone was present and correct. Even Taali chose not to play the spoiled diva and logged in two minutes before time. Remembering our past experiences and the older players' advice, we set up our resurrection point right in the inn's courtyard.

Taali and I managed to do it ourselves; then I had to change Bug's bind point, too, as the kid knew no magic. To do that, we accepted him into our group, after which I selected him as target and cast the spell. Immediately a system message popped up,

Player Bug has agreed to the changes made to his resurrection point.

That was it. We headed for the gates, then toward the woods and further on, directly east, for about four and a half miles. When the town wall disappeared from view, I stopped the group and summoned the pet. Despite my level 32, the biggest stone I had was only 28: the one I'd gotten from the Gnoll Priest all those days ago. Never mind. Soon we were going to fix it.

My heart sank when I cast the summoning spell. This had to be my first field test with my custom-picked skills and gear.

The earth bulged. A zombie gnoll crawled out of a black mole hole. He was 30—not a wonder waffle, but not so bad at all. A regular Death Knight without all those skills and gear would have raised a level 20 pet, 24 at most. I done good, especially considering I only had two top items.

I started adding buffs to him: Fire Shield, Agony Armor, Strength of the Undead, Bigfoot. Their little icons appeared under the zombie's life bar. When you concentrated on any of them, a prompt popped up:

Strength of the Undead. Adds
 
+30 Strength to the summoned creature. Time remaining: 59:31... 30... 29...

The timer kept ticking down. Knowing that it wasn't possible to keep an eye on the boxes in the heat of battle, I set up an audio alarm. Then I configured the quick access panel to farm mode. Stun. DoT. That was it. Time to get going. Or get riding. With that thought, I summoned Hummungus. His current speed was quite low so the others didn't have to run after him. But his presence added extra weight to the group and might discourage an occasional PK. I climbed aboard him and off we went.

I'd only basked in the comfort of Hummungus' saddle a hundred paces before my first find crossed our path. A lit-up contour of a small yellow flower blinked blue in the grass on my mini map. I bent out of the saddle to pick it, then studied it before shoving it in my bag:

Congratulations! You've found a Sunleaf flower!

Your herbal skill has improved! Current level: 1

Now we were cooking! Still, my initial joy quickly turned to impatience when I spent the next ten minutes constantly scrambling in and out of the saddle. Finally I gave up and ordered Teddy to follow me as I walked ahead picking new herbs here and there.

After an hour and a half of leisurely walking, we arrived at the spot the guidebook recommended. We'd already left Green Woods behind with
 
their cute sub-level 10 creatures. Then we'd crossed Thick Woods with their occasional aggros, none over level 20. Finally, we fought our way through Sleeping Woods. Three times we had to protect Bug from various local monsters who thought him an easy prey. Of the three of us, Bug with his level 17 was the smallest, while the local wolves and bears could be anything up to level 25 and didn't wait for an invitation to aggro you back.

Now we'd reached the clearing that formally divided the Sleeping from the Wild Woods. Our collective reason decided it was best for us to split up, at least at first.

Taali and I were going to pull our beasts from the Wild Woods while Bug would go solo and do the same from the Sleeping Woods, then kill his prey not far from us. Taali would then heal him and buff him up while I would send Teddy to help him, making sure my mount wouldn't get more than 50% hits or strip Bug of his experience. That way we could avoid the level gap penalty while giving Bug a decent chance to level up a bit. True that it complicated both mine and Taali's existences, but the pure fun of it and a chance to get ourselves a good friend outweighed the cons.

"Where shall we set up camp?" She looked just too cute with those flowers entwining her helmet. The flowers had been my idea. I'd noticed the joy in her face when I'd bent down to pick the Sunleaf, quickly replaced by disappointment when I stuffed it into my bag.

Setting up camp was one of the great scout skills. I'd decided against leveling it, knowing that Taali had chosen it for herself. The skill had lots of bonuses. The first levels allowed you to choose a flat place and start a fire which you could then use for cooking and lighting and which also had a small life and mana regen bonus. Once you reached higher levels, you could make a stockade, a fire circle, a wickyup and a hut. It was definitely worth leveling once I was back to town, as I really shouldn't rely on Taali always being around.

I had a look around searching for a place that had good visibility and pulling properties and allowed for a bountiful hunt in the absence of other prospectors.
 
Finally I pointed at a clearing some fifty feet away. "That's a good place, my lady."

Taali smiled and turned on her femme fatale look. Head up high, hips swaying, she walked over to the chosen point and began setting up camp. What a child she was, really.

I turned to Bug, "Any questions? Got everything prepared?"

"Always prepared," he answered sarcastically. "Three hundred throwing knives, four hundred bandages. Beverages, two full stacks."

"What have you got there?" I asked.

"Twenty flasks of ginger beer and the same of tea."

"Excellent. We should renew buffs first, then we can start. Let's go to the camp. She must have everything ready by now."

Just as we approached the fire, a message popped up,

Warning! You have entered a camp set up by Taali.

Status: free access

Within six paces from the fire, mana and life regen grows 1 point per second.

Warning! The camp does not protect you from aggressive creatures!

I nodded my gratitude to her. "Rebuff!"

Taali cast life- and armor-improving blessing spells over the two of us, then raised Bug's and her own Strength. That was logical. I didn't need a strength buff as I was too busy to fight, anyway. In the meantime, I renewed the zombie's bonuses. Hummungus hung about nearby, looking hurt. He really needed some freebies, too.

"Taali? You think you could cast something nice over my bear? I know you can't do it for the zombie."

She shrugged and exploded in a string of spells. A bunch of colored icons appeared on Teddy's panel. "Sixty mana," she said.

I nodded. "I see it. Come on, Bug. You start. We'll keep an eye on you for the first couple of pulls."

He picked up a throwing knife and bolted into the woods. Ten seconds later, we heard an angry growl. Bug ran out onto the road first, followed by a Grizzled Wolf.

I just shook my head. The Wolf was level 24, a bit too much for Bug. The kid reached the camp and turned round, meeting the beast with a blade in each hand. I waited a few seconds and told Teddy to attack.

What with his level 1, Hummungus was too young to tank properly. The best he could do was stay out of trouble and nibble at the wolf's side. Bug didn't hold well at all. His health kept dropping, so that soon Taali had to start healing him. After a moment's thought, I decided to cast a DoT. And again. Between Teddy and my DoTs, they stripped the beast of 30 or 40% life. Bug did the rest. The wolf met a sad end. But in the future, sending Bug solo wouldn't be any good. I had to come up with alternatives.

"Right, dude," I said to him. "I think we overdid it a bit. It's a bit early for you maybe, you can't really stand against them on your own. And if we get busy with our own mobs, then sooner or later we'll get distracted and get you killed."

Bug lowered his eyelids in agreement. Even though we'd already showered him with experience, he wouldn't last long without our support.

"You think you'll come into some cool abilities in the next level or two?" I asked.

Bug perked up a bit. "I think so. I get a bleed combo at level 18, and then a crippling hit with a 13% attack delay at 19."

"Okay. Let's do it this way. For the next hour, we'll work entirely for you. We'll be healing you and taking care of 50% of your mobs' life. Until you do 19. Then we fall back on our old plan. Forget the bandages. We'll do it as fast as we can. Ready?"

It worked. He did the two levels in forty minutes—even faster than we thought. I had to admit I'd overdone it a couple times, accidentally stripping him of his experience. Not overdone it, even. When I'd seen that things were under control, I got cheeky and spent the time leveling alchemy, only pausing to cast another DoT and tell Teddy to attack.

In less than two hours of our journey, my herbal skill had reached 32 as I'd harvested an impressive bunch of various plants, flowers and roots. I checked the available recipes. Apparently, I could now make a vial of Minor Life Elixir and also Agility Elixir. The latter I couldn't care less about, but I was sure Taali and Bug would be happy to use it. In any case, leveling my profession was all that mattered to me at the time.

I reached into my bag for my traveling alchemy kit. I placed two life roots into a measuring tube and added the tiniest metering spoon of magic dust. Then I placed the resulting vial into a special slot in the Transmutation Box and closed the lid. A red light flashed underneath it.

You've failed to make the potion! Try again!

The following ingredients are ruined:

Life Root, 1

A small pinch of magic dust, 1

Oh, well. I raised my head to make sure everything was under control and added the missing ingredients again. The lid flashed green.