Crimson Sands

by J. Arthur Klein

Next to the fire a gauge that was shaped like a thermostat with an indicator bar that was hovering in the middle of a green zone. The indicator dropped below the green zone and the pile of firewood glowed.

  I thought I had this part down. I had to turn the skewers when the ball turns red and keep the fire hot enough. Got it.

  The grill was set up for the three uncooked skewers I had, but I wondered if I could cook more at once if they would fit on the grill. I would have to try again and see when this was done.

  I put all three skewers on the fire and a forty five second began ticking down. When the lights turned red, I rotated the meat, and a delicious aroma began to fill the area.

  The fire got a little low, so I reached over for another piece of wood and almost missed turning a skewer. After one or two seconds, the red started pulsing and I caught a whiff of burning meat but manage to save it.

  The whack-a-mole aspect of the recipe got more intense in the last ten seconds and I was hard pressed to keep up, but when the timer hit zero all three skewers were glowing green. I pulled them off the fire and set them on the last plate.

  *** Cooking completed successfully! Meat Skewer x3 created! ***

  *** You have received 30xp! ***

  *** Congratulations! You have become more skilled at Cooking and have reached Cooking Rank 2! ***

  I grabbed another bunch of onions and my second slab of meat and added them to the ingredients plate, made sure the fire was going strong and then started work on another batch.

  When cutting up the meat this time I noticed I was given twenty seconds instead of the original fifteen and the tolerance for my deviation from the lines was a bit more lenient.

  I managed to keep my losses this time to only a few bits, giving me enough meat to make another seven skewers.

  I played the pattern game and managed to only mess up one when I accidentally grabbed the pepper instead of the salt at the end.

  It turned out that the grill could actually handle up to five skewers at a time, but I was hesitant to try that many when I remembered how crazy the mini game had gotten towards the end the first time.

  I decided to be cautious since I wasn’t in a rush and cooked them in two groups, the first with four skewers and then the remaining three.

  I lost one on the last batch when the fire got too low at exactly the wrong time and I had to choose to either sacrifice a single skewer or possibly lose all three.

  At the end of my first venture in to cooking I was the proud owner of eight Meat Skewers, and a quick glance at my crafting skills showed that my Cooking skill was already three quarters of the way to the next rank.

  Compared to my other skill progress, it seemed that crafting was a lot quicker to level.

  Looking at the clock, I saw I still had a few hours left before my slot was up, so I decided run through the rest of my recipes to get some footage for the stream channel and see how high I could get my cooking.

  The recipe for Travel Cakes was straight forward. Made of oats, flour, water, and nuts, it didn’t have as many steps, since none of the materials needed to be prepared before mixing.

  When I started the craft, the plates and cutting board used for prepping the skewers were highlighted in red and a ghost image of a bowl, spoon, and skillet appeared.

  The cooking kit came with scrubbing brush for cleaning, so I cleaned off the plates and cutting board and returned them to the bag. I set up the bowl and skillet and crafted away.

  Mixing the batter was another timing mini-game. I had to stir at various speeds that changed as I added ingredients in a set order at timed intervals. After mixing I got a message saying I had completed that stage with ninety percent accuracy, resulting in nine portions out of a possible ten.

  The next stage was a dexterity challenge in combination with the fire maintenance and timing from the skewer’s recipe. You had to add a portion of the batter to the skillet, wait for the cake to begin to glow, flip the cake in the skillet, and then catch it successfully and wait for the other side to finish.

  By the end of the set I would have paid a small fortune for a spatula. I was terrible at the flipping part and managed to ruin seven out of ten cakes.

  On the plus side, I did get an achievement entitled ‘Feed the Fires’ when I dropped the fifth cake into the fire. No xp but it at least made me laugh. I reached rank three in cooking too, so it wasn’t a total waste.

  The next recipe I tried was the baked potato. It was pretty much a no-brainer and only required the fire, some wet palm fronds, and a potato.

  I cleaned and put away all of the other tools as they weren’t needed and wondered what type of weird mini-game I’d need to play to bake a potato.

  Maybe because I was at rank three already, or maybe the dev’s couldn’t think up an interesting mechanic for something as simple as wrapping a potato in wet leaves and putting it in the fire for a minute, but that was pretty much all there was to it. And the percentage in skill increase was similarly miniscule at one percent.

  The Lentil soup was almost the complete opposite. It incorporated elements from all of the other recipes. First, I had to chop up the potatoes and carrots using the same mechanic as the meat in the skewers recipe, then soak the lentils and drain them within a very restrictive timer.

  After that I had to mix it all together in the stew pot with water and spices using the same method for mixing the batter in the travel cakes recipe, and then finally cook it all over the fire, maintaining proper heat while simultaneously stirring the stew at various speeds dictated by the whims of the game.

  The one batch of soup brought me half-way to rank four, even with some mistakes along the way.

  In the end I had around seventy percent of the maximum possible yield.

  I cleaned up the cooking kit and packed it away, except for the pot that was still full of stew. I wrapped up and packed away the travel cakes and all but one beef skewer, the potato, and a small bowl of the lentil stew.

  I warmed the skewer and potato over the fire and dug in. The beef skewer wasn’t anything extravagant, but it was good. The onions added a nice flavor to the beef in combination with the salt and pepper and were nice and crispy. I finished off the skewer and was rewarded with a buff.

  *** Meat Skewer: +5% HP/MP/SP out of combat regeneration. Duration (8 hrs). ***

  I took a bite of the potato, and well, it was a potato. I didn’t have any cheese, butter, sour cream, or bacon, so it was a pretty bland meal. I tried adding some salt but while it improved it a little it didn’t make it any more appetizing.

  The lentil stew, however, was quite tasty. I thought about trying to add in some of the meat next time, but I figured that would be a separate recipe.

  I ended up mixing the baked potato into the stew to covered up the blandness. When I finished the entire bowl, another buff appeared.

  *** Lentil Stew: +1 Wisdom, improved eyesight and perception. Duration (8 hrs). ***

  Looking at the pot of stew, I realized I had nothing to carry the remaining stew in. The recipe had produced enough for eight servings even after my screw-ups, and I had nowhere to store the leftovers.

  After some thought, I decided to see if our scouts would be interested. Keeping them well fed would help the caravan after all, and maybe earn some good will.

  I put out the fire and put away the cooking rack, strapped my spear and shield on my back and went in search of the caravan guards, stew in hand.

  I moved past the other fires, seeing that most of them belonged to the dwarven merchants whose caravan this was until I finally found the scouts camp.

  There were four men seated around the small campfire. As I stepped into the light of the fire, I felt a cold blade pressed against my throat from behind.

  “What do you want Saa?” a voice whispered into my ear.

  I slowly raised my hand holding the pot and responded, “I came to see if the scouts wanted some lentil stew?”

  The blade came away from my throat and I turned to greet the fifth
scout. His deeply tanned skin looked a little strange on his Karillian features, but enough time spent in the desert sun would leave its mark on anyone.

  “Why bring us food? The dwarves feed us, and you for that matter,” he asked suspiciously.

  “To be honest,” I said, “it was either see if those who could most benefit from sharpened eyesight wanted it or bury it in the sand. I have no way to carry it, and I’d like to clean out my pot. So… do you want it?”

  The scout chuckled, “One thing you learn as a caravan guard is never turn down a good meal,” and led me to the scouts’ fire.

  The other scouts glanced up as we approached and nodded a greeting to their companion. One of the scouts, a Quetzl by his look, stood and spit into the fire.

  “Nolan,” he rasped, the likely result of the thick scarring visible on this throat, “why do you pollute our fire with this Saa scum.”

  I glared at the Quetzl but kept the retort that came to mind to myself. After all, these guys would be responsible for keeping the caravan safe as we traveled along the northern coast and having them on my bad side was definitely not my idea of a good thing.

  “Keep yer shit to yourself, Tototl,” the scout, Nolan said, “If we let everyone’s own personal bullshit run things your soggy ass would be back in Tael’va. The Saa’s brought us some lentil stew. If you don’t want any I’ll be happy to eat your share.”

  The Quetzl scout grumbled something about the food likely being poisoned and then moved away from the fire.

  The remaining men, a bedjvain and two sun weathered humans brought over their bowls and I gave them each a generous helping.

  The scouts ate in silence, the bedjvain and Nolan finishing their bowls first.

  They left shortly thereafter for their shift on watch and two other humans arrived shortly thereafter. I dished them out the remainder of the stew and then bid them good night and headed back to my own wagon, watching out for the Quetzl lurking in the shadows.

  I made it to my wagon safely, cleaned out the pot and put it in my pack. According to the game clock I still had about three hours left to play, but I was tired and could use some rest.

  If I logged out early I’d be able to take the bus home, post my videos, and get a decent amount of sleep. I might even be able to have breakfast with my family before logging back in the next day.

  Perfect, I thought and climbed into the wagon to log out.

  *** Congratulations! You have completed another session of Sosaku Online! ***

  *** Session Duration: 15:02:36. ***

  *** Your character is currently within a designated safe logout area. As such, you may leave the game without a delay timer. While logged out, your private room will be inaccessible to other players or NPCs. ***

  My trip home was uneventful. I managed to catch the last bus of the night and walked the rest of the way to my family’s apartment.

  The bus stop was close to a twenty four hour convenience store, so I grabbed a prepackaged sandwich and a soda and ate it during my ride.

  I walked through the door just around midnight and headed to my room and got cleaned up for bed.

  After drying off, I popped open my laptop and got to work on my stream videos for the day. There wasn’t much action, but there was still a lot to cover.

  First, I cut together another episode of the narrative story, going through the discussions with the djinden, gaining passage on the caravan, and the first day of our journey to the Sun-gate.

  Then I put together another video that focused on the cooking process, focusing on each of the mini-games and how they blended together the entire cooking experience.

  I posted both videos, set my alarm for 7AM, and hit the sack.

  ...

  Chapter 18

  The next morning when my alarm went off I dragged myself out of bed, got dressed and headed out to the kitchen.

  I’d timed it so I could have breakfast with my mother and sister and was glad to see they were still home when I entered the kitchen.

  I gave them both a giant hug and we spent the morning together catching up. My sister had aced her exam and gotten into an accelerated program at her college that would let her graduate a year early if she kept up with the coursework.

  I congratulated her and decided to send her a gift once I was out of the house. My stream was making more than enough to cover my expenses so I had a bit extra that I could use to reward my little sis for doing a good job.

  After a nice, refreshing family breakfast we said our goodbyes and I headed down to the bus stop.

  While I waited for the next bus, I opened up my go-to online retailer app and found the new Bluetooth headset my sister had been drooling over for months. A few clicks later and it was on its way.

  The bus pulled up and I boarded, finding a seat where I’d have room to work without accidentally elbowing anyone.

  I checked on the status of my latest videos and saw that the crafting vid was a hit. The narrative video came in a close second, with the comments being as expected.

  The action was pretty nonexistent, and a lot of people were bored by what they termed a “filler” episode, but the number of subscribers had gone up so I wasn’t concerned.

  I responded to some of the more constructive comments, agreeing with the lack of action and saying I expected more “action” today when we reached the coast. I couldn’t be sure that we’d get hit by raiders, but the entire theme of the coastline virtually screamed “Raiders Be Here”.

  My email app chimed and I popped it open.

  =RE: Bug 2.10:39-7a – Possible Exploit – Open Ended Quest Issue

  =Thank you for your report. We have reviewed the logic involved in the dynamic quest creation process and will be implementing measures to ensure that all quests have explicit values set at the time of quest acceptance. NPC logic will also be programmed to flag attempted collusion outside of the scope of the in-game transactions.

  =Classification: Critical, Exposed Logic Exploit.

  =Bounty: 150 Credits

  =RE: Bug 2.18:19-4a – Character Knowledge

  =Thank you for your report. The memory accessing algorithms are continuously being refined. Your suggestions have assisted our developers in their improvement efforts. This wasn’t really a bug, but as it was helpful, we will be granting you a small bonus.

  =Classification: Moderate, Procedure suggestion.

  =Bounty: 25 Credits

  I arrived at the arcade, checked in at the front desk and than made my way back to my reserved pod.

  *** Connecting in 5...4…3…2…1... ***

  *** Connection Established ***

  *** Loading… ***

  *** Reinitializing Neural – Avatar Interface……..Complete! ***

  *** Decompressing Character Skill Database…..…..Complete! ***

  *** Welcome back to Sosaku Online, Kheph Sa’tep. Game time is currently 09:01:29.***

  I opened my eyes to the sight of the canvas roof of the wagon, which was rocking back and forth as it moved. I guessed the caravan had started on its way to get in line for our appointment at the Sun-gate.

  Since I had some time, I decided to delve into my character's memory banks again to see what I could find out about the area where we were headed. I started with Arven’s Folly.

  *** Saa Racial Knowledge check successful. ***

  A general overview of the city of Arven’s Folly began to flow into my mind.

  A fortified port city, Arven’s Folly was built on the ruins of some ancient empire, likely the ones responsible for the Sun-gates.

  It was a free city, not beholden to any of the major powers in the area and was ruled by a council of merchants. They had formal alliances with both the Saa Empire and most of the Njord clans, so the city itself was a relative safe haven.

  The laws within the city were what you would expect in a more western influenced culture. The slave trade was illegal, but it was common knowledge that for enough coin certain things could be overlooked by the c
ity constables.

  Most crimes were punishable by a fine and/or exile from the city, and since the Sun-gate was within the city boundaries, most were loath to risk losing access.

  I brought up my world map and examined the coastline between Arven’s Folly and Sehkem and tried to draw on that same knowledge for an idea of what to expect.

  *** Saa Racial Knowledge check successful! ***

  The road hugged the coastline between the two cities and was maintained by both. There were portions that were more difficult going where the road ran into the natural cliffs of the area, but other than that it should be relatively easy travelling.

  There were several small fishing villages along the way, but most were located in hard to reach places well off the road.

  Prior generations who had tried to settle closer to the water tended to end up being frequently hit by Njord Raiders and so had moved further inland where they would be able to spot invaders and make the effort required to raid them not worth any potential gains.

  Most caravans through the area were well defended, or had paid off the raiders ahead of time. Although paying off one group of raiders didn’t necessarily mean that a second wouldn’t pounce.

  The trip wasn’t a long one but there was always some risk. I started to look closer at the map to identify any potential ambush points but lost my focus as the air began to waiver in front of my face and Kjara appeared about an inch above me and fell, landing on top of me before rolling off to the side and grunting in pain.

  *** Your friend Kjara has entered the game! ***

  *** System Error: Another player attempted to spawn in occupying the same physical space that you occupy. Player’s location adjusted to prevent overlap. ***

  “Oof,” she said, and rolled over to face me, her face inches from my own. She looked confused, her eyes going out of focus for a second as she read the same system message I had received.