Chicken chaser

[Quest complete: Collect the Cores]

[50 exp]

[Poor quality white gem x 3]

Cracking his neck and looking at the sky he judged he had a couple more hours of work to do before clocking off, with nothing too pressing around the camp he decided to follow through on refreshing the quest list and doing some adventuring before he brought Melissa over tomorrow night.

- Clear the Zombies

- Hunt the boar

- Retrieve the Rocks

- Hunt the Bats (Active)

- Chicken chaser

- Gather the Herbs

- Defeat the Boss

- Gather the Fruit

"Damn bats, oh! There are chickens here? Very nice, herbs, Boss? No chance, what is that doing there, tell me there aren't bosses here?"

{Defeat the Boss}

Kill the instance Boss (Rank F)

Mission reward 100 exp, 3 Silver

"Since when were there instances? And the ranking convention? What a piddling mission reward too! This can't be right. System, tell me about instances"

[An instance is an area, typically a dungeon, which is generated and populated by Eden's mana to strengthen System users. Instances can only be accessed or perceived with use of a System and will be generated separately for each individual or party. Instances are being implemented gradually during the pre-convergence period and are intended as the main source of "Exp farm" in the future. The ranking system for instances are tied to the expected tier of "Mobs" within]

"What tier would you expect to find in an F rank dungeon?"

[F tier]

"Right, my bad, what is the recommended level required for an F tier dungeon"

[Level 1-5]

"Give me an example of an F tier mob"

[A slime]

"And another"

[A bat]

".... I know what you're doing System, you're not very subtle."

When the System refused to answer he decided not to push it any further and accepted all the quests on the list, it sounded like these instances were intended as a safer way for humanity to get stronger when they arrived, he'd need to check them out to get an idea of their usefulness for Melissa and Tom.

"It's really not bad timing, I just don't like feeling like I'm being led around is all."

Checking the map he was pleasantly surprised.

"The chickens have a map location! Okay, first things first!"

"13 silver! Oof."

[2 silver, 12 copper]

The chicken coop and run covered about the same area as his large allotment and shed, placing it near to them he could already taste the breakfasts to come.

"Eggs and bacon are almost sorted, now I just need to get a bakery going and I'm golden."

Looking at the map he planned out his trips. The zombie fog was on its own so he wouldn't bother with them, the rocks were to the east of the boar forest so he could do both of those together, the chickens and herbs were close to each other mostly west with the fruits north of them near the lake he fished in, and the instance was even further west from there.

"Tonight it's chicken and herb, fruits if I have time, tomorrow boar and rocks in the morning, instance with bats in the afternoon, Mellisa in the evening and we can go take out the zombies together as a lovely welcome experience the morning after. Done."

Feeling happy with his plan and with a lot to get done he geared up and set out, adding his unallocated stat points to Agility before he did so.

With his stats it didn't take long to arrive at the map marker. These were the relatively open plains he'd seen on his map exploration run and he saw the same spread of wildlife as he journeyed here, the horned rabbit mound he remembered visible to his south. Upon seeing the objective he had been running towards he berated himself for not having seen through the beachhead's sense of humour before now.

"I forgot to read the description again then"

Where he'd hoped to find a flock of chickens waiting to be taken home he actually found discarded feathers and empty indents in the ground. The culprit, as highlighted by his map marker, was lazing on a rock tasting the air.

A dark green six legged lizard stared at him coldly. It was about the size of a labrador and had some yellow, crystal-like, protrusions on the back of its head.

"The chicken chaser I presume?"

Its large tail swished lazily in the fading sunlight as it continued to stare.

"Alright then."

As Daniel summoned an iron spear from his storage and walked forward the creature took notice and tensed, seeing what it planned to do, Daniel launched the spear forward following after it.

The lizard turned and ran, its six legs working in sync allowing it to glide over the open plains, the spear had missed completely and Daniel could only sprint after his target leaving it where it fell.

It didn't take long for the lizard to out pace him and Daniel found himself following it further and further south west before accepting his failure.

"What a waste! And it's almost dark, dammit!"

Agility was his highest stat, his strength and endurance were not low either. The fact that this creature could out run him so easily undermined his whole build.

"At least it doesn't seem to want to fight."

Watching the marker getting further and further away on the world map he turned and headed back for his spear.

"Night time herb picking I guess."

Returning home after an uneventful bit of gathering he stored the herbs, the uprooted specimens and the cuttings he'd gathered to plant later.

[Quest complete: Gather the Herbs]

[50 exp]

[Dried Siphle root x 3]

After checking the quest objectives for the Chicken chaser quest he checked out the Store panel and searched for the reward.

"Damn it, System, why can't I buy fertilised chicken eggs on the store panel?"

[Functionality locked]

"But I can get them from a quest reward? How do I unlock that function?"

[Base Agriculture level of colony 50, Livestock buildings tier 1 or above x 2, 1 or more colonists with animal husbandry auxiliary skill]

"How do I see my colony's agricultural level?"

[Functionality locked]

"Well how do I unlock it then?"

[General advancement of colony]

"Right, fine, I'll leave it alone. You know you could just tell me to ignore certain areas if I'm supposed to be doing something else right? I'm not buying this whole poorly programmed thing you're doing. For that matter you could have given me a heads up before I bought the bloody coop! Why wasn't that locked out? Forget it, I'm hungry"

After a meal of bear meat, buns and pear he headed off to bed, resolving not to let this sour mood carry over to his fresh start tomorrow and his first instance dungeon run.

.....

The next day he was feeling better about his mistake and his interactions with the System, knowing that from tonight he would have some actual real people to talk to over here was a great comfort and he found himself straightening up the cabin in excitement.

"I should plant the herbs and cuttings this morning, she's got to see the potential from the start."

A sour look towards the empty chicken coop before moving it into the Colony construction panel and he managed to move forward with his day.

Planting done he checked the map to see the chicken chaser not far south of where it was last night.

"No, I want that pig this morning, speaking of I better check out the stone gather quest"

{Retrieve the Rocks}

Retrieve 5 x 400KG blocks from the Kobold quarry

Mission reward 300 exp, hamper

"I'm sorry, the what quarry? "

"System, what is a Kobold?"

[Small imp-like creature, work driven, rock loving, average height 2.5 feet, rudimentary earth magic, cultural level low]

"Like a goblin?"

…

"What is the cultural level of goblins"

[Cultural level low]

"What tier are kobolds?"

[Tier D]

"What tier are goblins?"

[Tier D]

"Okay, just go to the goblin mine and steal some rocks, better keep some space in my storage."

After packing some food, potions and his weapons he sprinted to the woods, it didn't take long to come across a large boar, his strength having advanced to the degree that he could kill it with a single spear, he nodded in satisfaction.

"I think they do respawn, I can always be sure to find them here."

He would still be happier when he could have some domesticated ones in the colony though, if they were just normal boars then he was reducing their numbers unsustainably here.

Even with his sprinting it took almost an hour to reach the quarry map marker, it looked like it was a natural break in the mountains which these creatures had started to mine out of, assuming they didn't have some special way to make half a mountain fall down.

As he approached more slowly he saw the kobolds at work, they seemed to be in twos and threes scattered around the layers, large earthen huts clumped together in the centre of the space.

Looking at the sheer cliff faces he recognised there was no way to move in stealthily, the only viable entrance a track leading in between two hills. As he advanced the land dipped down and he had even less vision of what was close at hand. Moving cautiously he arrived at the entrance of the quarry, a single small hut to the side close by.

"Shenaq shen shek?"

"Shen shaq! Se qil so!"

As soon as he'd stepped out from between the hills a voice came from the entrance of the hut, he saw his first kobold walking towards him with its hands outstretched, palms showing and its sharp little teeth visible in an open smile.