Shelby turned in the quests at the job board and performed a wiggle of joy as a series of alerts popped up:

  "Done in record time!" Shelby clapped for herself a few times, "It looks like we got some bonus items for doing the quest quickly too! Is that a normal thing, AIDAN?"

  "Yes, contract quests have internal timers that decrement at a set rate, depending on their level, distance, and so on. We completed these quests within their first period, so we received the maximum bonus."

  "Hmm, so sitting on quests after we complete them isn't the best way to go. Good to know. How do I tell how many coins I have?"

  "They're listed on the bottom of your inventory. You can also see a list of all obtained currencies on the tab named as such, including Obligations and Codex Tokens."

  Shelby opened her inventory, which had nothing in it except for a [Spirit Banana], two [Spirit Kumquats], and a small line of coins on the bottom. One of the coins was dull and grey with a white '24' next to it. It was the leftmost coin of 5 types, which increased in luster from left to right. She tapped her chin, "I suppose those are like the pennies of this world?"

  "They are the least valuable currency. But, to give you a sense of their scale, ten tin coins would buy you a meal at the inn we are currently loitering outside of."

  "Ah, so they're more like dollars. That's a great payout then!" Shelby beamed at AIDAN.

  "I think you will find that your costs will rise significantly as you continue to play the game. A meal appropriate for a level 10 character would cost approximately 200 tin coins."

  "AIDAN!" Shelby gaped, "That's highway robbery..."

  "The benefits from higher level food are proportionate to their cost, and your income will increase commensurately as you level up. Please do not worry overmuch about this matter."

  Shelby nodded, then tabbed over to her currencies tab, which was entirely empty except for the tin coins. Hey! Where is my Plin token?! Shelby glared at the screen before she realized what was wrong, Right... different character. That means I'm not friendly with Plin on this character either... She shook her head out, focus.

  "One last thing before we pick some new contracts, is there a way to see how much we have left to do before the town levels up?" Shelby asked.

  "Yes, you may see the advancement of this region by examining your map. Focusing on a region will display some statistics about it, including advancement progress."

  Shelby focused on her mini-map until it expanded out into a full map that took up most of her field of view. Copperglade was the only area she could see that wasn't obscured by a blur. It was a small peninsula region surrounded by water on the eastern, southern, and western edges, and it had a wide connection to another region to the north. Even within the region, most of Copperglade was faded out, with just a few areas shown in full detail: Copperglade Village, Southern Tanglewood, and Western Rootmarsh. On the right side of the map was a pane detailing what she was examining, with some useful information about the overall region and the individual area she was currently looking at:

  Another information overload, woof. Shelby stopped reading partway down the list since there was nothing left but blocks of question marks. She intuited that they were obscured because she hadn't personally observed the missing items. She frowned. No wonder those rats were so strong, that area wasn't meant for level 1 players. Oh well, you live and you learn. At least the region advancement is more than halfway done.

  She closed the map and sighed, "I think I get it. Well, should we do some more contracts? You said we should head out west, right?"

  AIDAN bobbed, "Yes, we should strive to find the Apprenticeship trainer in that direction while we complete quests. I believe there is a job board in the area we are looking for, so we should be able to turn in our completed quests there."

  Shelby turned back to the board, "What looks good to you?"

  "I have highlighted three quests. Two of them will allow us to work on completing the Nature Spirits Codex milestone, and another has a particularly large Advancement reward."

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  Shelby accepted them without looking too closely, although she did notice the third quest's objective was to hunt a creature whose name she didn't recognize:

  Resinlings? Isn't that fancy wine?

  The mini-map expanded back out to encompass the areas near town. The usual fruit rat locations were marked, and a new set of orange circles appeared much farther west of town. Since they were headed to the opposite side of town, Shelby and AIDAN walked back by the training yard and quest master's shack, up to the market area and then across the wide dirt road to a sparsely inhabited area. Shelby could see a few lights flickering in burrows to the north, but other than those handful of homes there was nothing but wilderness. The land was gently sloped upwards and Shelby could tell that the trees on the horizon were capping gently rolling hills, like she was looking into a layered diorama. They took an overgrown and winding foot path up the closest hill, eventually crossing over a shallow stream at the bottom of a ravine by walking across a broad flat root that arched over the gully below. The trees in this area were less dense than they were to the north, and it seemed like their roots preferred to grow across the many small streams caving out ruts all throughout the hills. Each root sent down long fibers to drink from the wet and black loamy soil that accumulated beneath. Shelby was glad the roots were there to provide natural bridges, because the ravines were also overgrown with the thorny shrubs the whole region seemed to be lousy with.

  After a few more crossings, they arrived at one of the green circles on the mini-map and Shelby quickly found and executed her tether trick on a fruit rat, shoving it down into one of the gullies with a shield blow and then sprinting away before it could recover. The rat seemed to be slightly stronger than the ones to the north and east, because it took 4 damage from her attack, 11 damage from her tether and 3 from the thorn bushes before it died, and it also awarded her with 12 experience instead of the usual 10. She confirmed on her map that this area was for characters level 4 - 6, but since the rat was only slightly stronger than before she didn't worry about the level difference too much. She did worry, though, about retrieving the sparkling body she had flung into a pit of brambles. She managed to push aside the thick, prickly weave of vines by crouching behind her shield as got close enough to touch the rat, but she took two points of damage disentangling herself on the way back out. Stupid thorns... The rat didn't even have the quest item, just another bunch of [Spirit Kumquats].

  Shelby tracked down another pair of rats and slowly chipped away at them with her skill. She was surprised to find that her shield didn't completely block damage from the rats as she felt herself take a single point of damage after deflecting a tackle. After the rats succumbed to her ability and she obtained a single Seedling, she asked AIDAN about the damage.

  AIDAN replied, "Shields block a flat amount of damage, and then a fixed percentage of the remaining amount that depends on the piece of equipment. You can view the details of the equipment on your character sheet."

  Shelby opened the character menu and stared at an idling copy of herself, in all his capybara-y grandeur. He was flanked on both sides by a series of empty menu boxes, except for the top left box, which had a round domed shield contained within. She looked at it and focused.

  Shelby whistled, "Geez, shield are a lot more complicated than bread, that's for sure. So it will completely block weak attacks, but I should be careful of strong attacks..."

  AIDAN's legion of flames danced inside him, "You are nearly to level two of your shield mastery, as well."

  Shelby had completely forgotten weapons had levels, "Oh, right. Why was that so much faster when I was a rabbit?"

  "You were awarded additional experience for your Bow level during the tutorial quests. Normal progression is awarded at a rate of 1 experience per monster slain when using the appropriate weapon type."

  Shelby massaged her forehead, "So just a few more, I think..."

  She worked her way through the pitted hills to an area that had an overlapping orange and green pair of circles. It only took a moment to find a fruit rat wandering around the base of a particularly large tree, which had thick beads of red sap running down the creases of its bark. Shelby tagged the rat and then dashed off, looking for a second rat to drag into the fight while the first one's health steadily drained away. As she spotted a second and third, she halted and waited for the tethered rat to charge her. She sidestepped a jumping tackle and caught it on the underside with the edge of her shield. It bounced limply to the forest floor a second later. She secured a second seedling and waited a few seconds for her skill to come back as the rats snapped at each other and hissed. They seemed to be fighting over a particularly thick drop of sap that had fallen from a branch overhead. Shelby stepped forward with the intent of attacking from behind, when one of the two rats stepped onto the sap and sunk down into it, at first only up to its ankles but it was quickly pulled in deeper, compressing down into a small grey lump as it was absorbed into the blood red liquid. The remaining rat hissed at the sap and backed away a few steps before turning and running.

  The sap quivered as the former rat spirit inside dispersed into nothing, then inched its way towards the base of the tree it had fallen from. Shelby cautiously approached it, now noticing that there were a large drops of sap every ten yards around the tree and all over its trunk and branches. She looked up at the canopy and frowned. There were at least a dozen more clinging to leafless branches above. She let the rat-eating sap go and found a different blob of sap on the outskirts of the tree to investigate instead. It didn't react visibly as she got within a few feet of it, but she still hesitated to engage with it. The first sap had pulled the rat into itself... it would be very unfortunate if her shield got pulled into this one. The rats are just hollow spirits though, so maybe they're easy to absorb?

  She raised her shield up high and then slammed it down onto the sap, hitting it for a satisfying 7 damage. As she raised the shield back up she saw what she had feared. The sap was clinging to her shield and flattening out across it, quickly stretching out and peeking its gooey mass around the lip of the shield. Shelby restrained every instinct in her body to drop the shield and back away, instead whipping the shield through the air to dislodge the goop. It didn't fly off, but the force of the swing did cause it to stretch and slide towards one end of the shield. It used the momentum to slip around the edge it was moved towards and slapped a thick red tendril over Shelby's hand. It immediately burned her, causing 2 points of damage and then another 2 a second later. It's not fun to be on the receiving end of repeating damage! Luckily, it was also being slowly torn apart by a spectral vine, so it wasn't getting away without taking damage itself.

  Shelby punched her shield down into the ground, which was soft and covered in dead matter, but she managed to deal another 4 damage to it as it pancaked under her blow. She raised her arm and struck the earth again, and again. After a series of attacks, she was left panting as the sap lost its grip and flopped onto the ground. It had a lot more health than the rats did, at least 25 points, and she had taken 16 damage as it ate away at her hand and wrist. It didn't seem like it damaged the shield, at least, that would have been difficult to recover from. Speaking of...

  These things are a lot more annoying to fight than the rats... Shelby glared at another unmoving droplet of red sap to her right. Is there an easier way to deal with these things? They were incredibly slow, but that didn't matter if she couldn't get away from them. She kicked her heel through the earth. A cloud of dust and shredded leaves floated lazily away. Hmm...

  She approached a pile of sap, apparently a 'resinling' based on the progress she had made on her quest. This one was languishing by a smaller tree on the edge of the thicket, unconcerned with her presence as she loomed over it. She took a deep breath and bopped it with the center of her shield. The thorny tether cut into it and it adhered to the shield, once again quickly spreading out across the surface. She sprinted over to the lesser tree and swiped the shield across the tree's rough bark. She yanked back and the sap stretched between shield and tree until she flicked her arm and the resinling lost purchase on the smooth shield. Yes! She back away, and the sap slowly slid down the tree in her direction. Ha! I win!

  The slime vibrated angrily on the tree as she watched it rack up damage from a couple yards away. Eventually, it compressed down to half of it's volume and, with a loud crack, it ripped a shard of bark from the tree is was stuck to. It launched the fragment of wood at Shelby at a respectable speed, about as fast as an arrow, but she just ducked behind her shield and the wood bounced harmlessly off. She waited until its total damage rose to 15 points, and then she walked out of tether range. The vine pulsed and ruptured, and the slime deflated as it was shredded by a storm of sharp barbs.

  This one had dropped something that sparkled green.