NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter 17 – First Potion
I slowly walked back into the town of Vale, it’s getting late in the evening and the city seems a lot quieter than earlier. Most of the stalls seem to have closed for the day.
Upon entering Vale itself, it was only a 5 minute walk to the Vale Pavilion.
The same man is behind the counter, “Welcome back, customer.”
“Thank you. Can I please have my room?”
“Here you go.” He says with a business like smile, and passes me the key to room 311.
“Thanks, is dinner ready?”
“There is a menu that you can choose from when you enter the dining room.”
“I’d also like some hot water after dinner, please”
“So, that’ll be 20 copper.”
I reluctantly lower the rucksack and get out 20 copper coins, “By the way, would this be good for firewood?”
I ask, taking a branch out as well.
“Is that a branch?”
“Yes.”
“The heat released when these are burned is too great to be used in a normal house. The Master Blacksmith uses them, but he is troublesome to deal with, so I will suggest you sell them to the Explorer’s Guild.”
“I will do that, thanks.”
“The first floor of the Dungeon only has Needle Woods, the second floor has Green Caterpillars, and the third flood has Kobolds.” The Vale Pavilion Receptionist provides me with some useful information.
“Is the Explorer’s Guild still open?”
“Yes, they will buy your things, if you go immediately.”
“Thank you, please look after this.” I pass the room key back, quickly leaving the Pavilion.
I head down to the Adventurer’s Guild--the inside of which is larger than the Explorer’s Guild.
There are only 5 - 6 people around, and the setup with a notice board and counter, is almost identical to the Explorer’s Guild.
“I’d like to sell some loot, please.” I stand in front of the counter, this will be my first time selling in a Guild.
There is a woman, in her mid-twenties, standing behind the counter.
“Place the items which you wish to sell, on this.” She presented a large tray.
“Okay.” I pull the items out of my rucksack.
There are only 33 branches, since they didn’t drop with certainty like Horned Rabbit Fur, and the 3 normal-looking leaves.
“I take it that you aren’t part of the Adventurer’s Guild?” She asks with a bored tone--obviously reciting a script.
“No, I am not.”
“These leaves are one of the raw materials for antidotes--if you join the Adventurer’s Guild, you can but antidotes for half-price, as long as you only sell the leaves here and nowhere else.”
An antidote to poisons is necessary for any Adventurer…who knows when you will get poisoned--it may have been a bad idea to enter the Dungeon without having any on me.
“How much do Antidotes cost?”
“If you don’t join the Guild, it is 1 silver per bottle.”
“I see.”
It’s a fairly high price, but not too high.
The woman behind the counter held up a hand, “However, you can remove most poisons by just eating the leaf--it is less efficient to do so, and not something that can be done mid-combat. We also sell the leaves for 80 copper.”
“I see, well, I won’t sell the leaves.”
“Okay, just a moment then.” The woman disappears into the interior of the Guild carrying the large tray of branches.
I look around the Guild, and suddenly one of the walls go black, some people come out of the black wall.
It looks like Dungeon Gate, but normal Dungeon Gate can’t open outside a Dungeon,
Two Adventurers came out, “The town of Tehera, send us there!”
One of them said, before the wall, which had returned to normal, became black again.
The two Adventurers disappeared back into it.
It seems like a variation of Dungeon Gate, I wonder what it’s called, and how to unlock it. Maybe the Explorer has Dungeon Gate, allowing them to move inside Dungeons and Adventurers have this… ‘Field Walk’?
While I am considering, the black wall appears again and more people come out. Six people this time, one of them is one of the Adventurers that disappeared just before.
They then walk out of the Guild building.
“Sorry to have kept you waiting, here you go.”
Upon hearing the voice, I turned my head to see the woman who had returned with a plate. There are 6 silver coins, and 43 copper coins.
I guess it isn’t bad for a branch, but it’s not overly high.
At this rate, a gold coin a day is just a dream. Maybe it would be different if I stay in the Dungeon longer, or go to a deeper floor.
I see if other Potions are sold here, and find out that there are Disinfectants, Stamina Recover, Health, Anti-Paralysis, Anti-Petrification, and a Cure-all. They are around 100 copper each; I buy 2 Anti-Paralysis, and 2 Anti-Petrification Potions.
“Certainly.” The woman says with a smile and nod, leaving for a short time and returns in a couple of minutes.
She places 4 small glass vials on the counter-top, 2 had white liquid and the other 2 had yellow liquid.
“The white one is the Anti-Petrification Potion, the yellow is Anti-Paralysis.”
I put 4 silvers on the counter.
The woman took them with a nod--it seems that my 10% Discount didn’t work with the trade of Potions; I have no idea why.
“What are the requirements for joining the Adventurer’s Guild?”
“It’s rather simple. Reach level 30 as an Explorer, and don’t join any other Guild.”
Those were rather strict requirements.
I should consider it deeply before joining any Guild--since I can only be in one.
Returning to the inn, I receive the key from the man at the front counter. Instead of going to my room, I enter the dining, which is right beside the foyer. There are four meals displayed on a table at the entrance to the dining room.
“You can choose your meal out of these four.”
There seems to be another worker here, a woman, and she gestured towards the plates.
It seems like she is in charge of the dining room. There isn’t a written menu, since a lot of people probably can’t read. Next to each plate is a number, 1 - 4.
I pointed at one of them, “That one.”
“Certainly,” The woman nodded and then asked another question, “Would you also like something to drink?”
“What drinks are there?”
“Beer, Wine, Tea; if you would like Slime Liquor, then extra will be charged.”
“Just the tea please.”
“Sure. Please sit and wait at any available seat.”
I had an older sister, one who could buy me drinks--back at home; so I had alcohol before, but in a new world with no acquaintances…it probably wasn’t safe.
Just as I sit down, the food arrives. It’s soup in a cup, a hard brown bread, and a stew that has vegetable, and some roast meat. It’s quite a large amount, but people only eat two meals a day.
The bread is about as hard as it looks, but the soup and stew are quite delicious. The meat makes me think of beef, and is pretty good.
After finishing my meal, I return to my room; the sun has mostly gone down and the room is lit red by the last rays of light coming through the cracks in the wooden shutters.
Soon after I enter, the is a knock on the door, “Excuse me, I’ve brought your tub of hot water.”
It’s a man I hadn’t seen before. He places the tub on the floor, hanging a towel on its edge, before leaving.
Closing and locking the door, I remove my clothes and wipe my body; even with just hot water, charging 20 copper seems a little excessive--but it is pleasant enough, since I have been sweating a lot.
After washing my body, I wash my underwear--it’s the only underwear I have. I need to buy a spare pair when I can; as well as soap and detergent if possible.
Finished with the water, I get up and sit on the bed, I should consider the Item Box.
With a mutter, I open the Item Box, pulling the leaves out of my rucksack and placing them into the Item Box. I now have two storage places, the ring somehow strikes me as safer--if a storage space is created by Magic, it’s likely that it can be broken into with Magic.
But it’s number of tabs is equal to my level in the Explorer Class…but as soon as I remove the Class, I can’t open the Item Box, and the items are dumped out--at least they don’t get trapped in the Space or destroyed when I remove the Class.
Time to look through the new Classes I can now set--since there are some new ones since I leveled up.
I open my Class settings.
Soldier - Lv1
Effect: +2 Strength, +2 Endurance
Skill: Rush
***
Swordsman - Lv1
Effect: +2 Strength, +2 Endurance
Skill: Slash
***
Merchant - Lv1
Effect: +2 Intelligence, +2 Wisdom
Skill: Calculation
***
Alchemist - Lv1
Effect: + 2 Intelligence
Skill: Create Potion (Crude)
All of a sudden, I have access to four more jobs.
I can understand how I unlocked Soldier and Swordsman, because of all my fighting--but I have no idea how I unlocked Merchant and Alchemist, maybe because of reaching a certain level in Villager.
Well, Alchemists usually gather herbs, before making Potions--so maybe picking up the leaves counted towards that.
Well, if that was so…why is it so easy to unlock classes?
For now, I put Explorer as the first Class, Hero as the Second, and Swordsman as the third. I am unsure of the differences between Soldier and Swordsman--maybe they unlock different Classes at higher levels.
Well, I won’t be fighting again until tomorrow, so I place Alchemist as my third class and use Create Potion (Crude)--using it on a single leaf…10 Antidotes appear.