Cartographer

Stretching in the strong sunlight and enjoying the fresh air Daniel got all of his equipment out of storage and checked over his camp. Everything was as he left it, it must have rained while he was gone as the barrels were full and when he checked on the berry bushes they were coming along nicely with tiny, unripe berries starting to form.

He bought some more pears, some steamed buns, 3 more of each type of potion and 3 more iron tipped spears from the store. Having talked it through with Tom he agreed levelling up should be his main priority, he'd already assigned his ability points while he was back on Earth and was saving his last skill point for the next big jump on Dimensional Transfer.

He would stay here for 4 more days and try to break through to level 14 in that time. Depending on what the quests were he would use them, if he ended up just hunting zombies every day he'd be able to get enough for his goal, basically there was no need for any risks.

- Clear the Fog

- Catch the Fish

- Defeat the Dragon

- Deliver the Food

- Hunt the Bats (Active)

- Pick the Flowers

- Collect the Cores

"What the hell is all of this? A Dragon!"

{Defeat the Dragon}

Kill a giant Komodo Dragon

Mission reward 800 exp, Single slot copper ring

"Heh, at least it's got a sense of humour. Good rewards though, I really need to use those gems after all. Now then, does it mean the zombie fog?"

{Clear the Fog}

Uncover an additional 20 kilometres of your map

Mission reward 400 exp, Boots of the Wind

"Oh, fog of war, right. So just go for a run and get rewards, nice, what about this then?"

{Deliver the Food}

Deliver 10 kilograms of any meat

Mission reward 600 exp, Common quality red gem

"Who to? Why? This is too strange, okay, accept all, let's see the map"

Accepting the quests he opened his map and saw most of the quests had no map markers: Fog, Fish, Bats and cores. The Dragon was marked far to his south east however, the flowers were true south and the food delivery was the most curious as it was back in the goblin forest, not far north of where he'd collected the honey previously. This was the most confusing quest and the one he most wanted to complete.

It was about 9am when he transferred over and after putting his new soaps and lotions away he guessed it must be close to 10am. Withdrawing what he judged to be close to 15kg of wolf meat to make sure he didn't underestimate he placed it in his Storage space and set off, with the goblin hunting party gone he had nothing to fear from the goblin forest and would head there to deliver the meat, but first he was going for a morning run.

West was the direction he'd travelled least and he was fairly curious as to what he might find out there, he didn't think it would take long to loop around to the forest to uncover his 20 kilometres. Such an easy reward was an ideal way to start his morning. As he ran he took in the area and followed the river, seeing that its origin in the distance was probably some mountains in that direction, after an hour he broke north and continued up, he'd seen herds of something further on to the west and the terrain was mostly grassy with shallow pools dotted about.

While passing one he saw a bright green bird hovering above one of the pools, the next moment it let out a savage flurry of air blades from its outstretched wings and swooped down to scoop something out of the water.

Getting further on he saw some rabbits moving about without concern near a gentle mound he assumed to be their burrow, seeing the single unicorn style horn protruding from their heads he made a mental note to explore this area more thoroughly.

He could keep his focus for half a day at least, Tom would be less than impressed if he stuck to the plan for all of 2 hours before he let his stomach guide him again. He was in sight of the goblin forest and approaching it from the west when he heard the objective completion notification ring out. From this angle he could tell the forest was actually a smaller forest blocking the sight of a much larger forest he could not see the end of.

The two were separated by a broad river which ended in a large lake where he was heading in from, slowing when he got close to the lake he decided to stop here for a break, he'd been running for about 2 hours and needed to collect himself before heading into the trees, he could see from his map what he considered the goblin forest would be about 5 kilometres to cross from here and whoever he was delivering this meat to would again be against the mountain side.

"Maybe it's some living dwarves, they don't farm in most stories and trade their gold for food and lumber, I should try to make friends if I can…. maybe hide the mace."

As he was about to leave he went to wash his face in the lake and again wondered at the clear water, he could see some plump shining fish swimming between the reeds and suddenly remembered his quest.

"I should have brought a fishing rod! Okay, I've seen this before"

Withdrawing a spear from his Storage space he crept towards the water and stabbed down with the spear skewering one of the silver pink fish on his first try. He had no idea what it was but he looked forward to cooking it up and finding out how it tasted. Needless to say the disturbance this caused made his next two catches much harder, necessitating him wading in and waiting multiple times.

By the time he'd actually caught all three the quest required of him he was less sure he'd spent the time efficiently.

"I could have got the same amount of exp in half the time by hunting zombies, they probably would have dropped me more to eat too the little foodies"

Considering it an experience worth having for the sake of it he moved on, the completion of quests was perhaps more satisfying than pure grind even if less profitable.

Walking through the forest he listened to the many whistles and cries of the animals living there, he was not particularly surprised to hear one he recognised.

The goblin whistle he heard was far to the north of the forest, by his estimation on the furthest edge; it was a single whistle repeated every 20 minutes or so. As it wasn't the hunting call he was used to and was so far from him he didn't worry about it too much, instead focusing on gathering deadfall in to his storage space that would fit without cutting, he needed to top up his wood supply but didn't see the value in expending energy when he could just gather as he walked.

His route took him directly through the forest without having to walk by the bee hives, as he got within 30 metres of the target location the trees became denser and he had to angle round until he found a single track through them, it had been kept clear by the continual passage of something large and he began to feel slightly trapped by the lack of choices he had.

He was walking almost against the cliff face, looking up giving him a sense of vertigo. When he was within 5 metres of the target he had already guessed what was coming.

"It's another bloody cave."