Gathering and selling

1. Go to the place

   Woodcutters work in the woodlots and miners in the quarries, spread across the land; a herb meadow has a herb-woman and a fishing spot an old fisherman. /job, /gather or F2 > Work > Show the way marks the nearest one with work still standing on your compass (all felled? the one that grows back first, and in how long).

2. Work

   Woodcutters and miners work with the tool in hand: draw your axe or your pick, face a tree of the woodlot or a rock of the quarry and swing - each blow that bites fills a small ring at the bottom of the screen, and everyone nearby hears the axe in the timber or the pick on the stone; a full ring brings the tree (or the rock) down, and what lies there gives three loads (see below). Herbalists and fishers talk to the keeper, or use F2 > Work here: the character sets to work and the trade's task opens on screen (see below) - fine work puts a full load in your sack, middling work about half. You then rest three seconds before the next load. Each place gives you 8 loads (a quarry 9), then needs 15 minutes to recover - every worker has their own count, so others working the same place do not use up yours: move on to the next woodlot, quarry or meadow meanwhile. The small line under each load you bring in shows the place's count. A fisher must stand at the water's edge, within 10 metres of the fishing place.

3. Carry

   Your sack holds 120 loads, and the Toil skill adds more. A horse or a cart no longer makes it bigger: each carries its own load, shown under the sack in your pack (B) when it is within 8 m - see Horses and Carts. A sack fuller than its size keeps its goods; only more is refused until it is below.

4. Sell

   Put your loads up at an auction house (its auctioneer, or /ah beside him - see The auction houses), or sell them to other players, face to face or from a stand of your own. The market no longer buys or sells goods: its keeper is now the convoy master (see Convoys).

Woodlots and quarries

The trees of a woodlot and the rocks of a quarry are real: you fell them and break them, and they come back. Draw your tool, face a tree (or a rock) close enough to hit it, and swing as you would in a fight. Each blow that bites fills the ring at the bottom of the screen ("Felling", "Hewing"); a full ring brings it down - the tree falls with a crash and lies as a trunk, the rock breaks into a pile of stones. The trunk or the rubble then gives three loads, one ring each, with the same goods, double and triple loads, gear bonus, daily and place limits and experience as any load. When it is used up it disappears, and a new tree (or rock) stands there again 3 minutes later.

With your axe in hand, a small yellow mark hangs over every tree of the woodlot you can work: v over one standing, + over a trunk that still has loads, a grey x over one another woodcutter is at. Trees without a mark are the land's own and give nothing.

The tools

When you take the trade, you are given its tool: a woodcutter's axe or a miner's pick (woodcutters and miners who held the trade before get theirs the first time they come into the realm). It shows your name. The miner's pick has the look of a crow's-beak hammer. This first one is the only one given.

The first time you come to a woodlot or a quarry, a small card explains all this; /howtowork or /gather there shows it again.

Wild herbs and mushrooms

Anyone can pick the herbs and mushrooms growing in the meadows and woods: walk up to a plant and use it. The game picks every plant of the kind in a small circle around the one you use, and each pick gives you half of what the game would give for them, and always at least one - your Survival perks count - a herbalist picks more, by their level: a second one now and then as a novice, two or three most of the time as a master (the same chances as a load, see the table below), and each pick trains the trade a little. A card shows what you picked. A picked bunch is gone for everyone for about 10 minutes, then grows back. Herbs picked this way count at every bench, like the herbalists' loads. Picking faster than a hand can (more than 40 a minute) leaves the herbs in the ground.

Rare plants in the wild. Now and then a pick turns up a rare plant besides its herb, straight into your sack: mandrake, or one of the forbidden herbs (henbane, hemp, ergot rye, wolfsbane, the opium poppy), in the same proportions as at a herb meadow - mandrake, henbane and hemp the most, the opium poppy the least. A herbalist finds one about every 14 picks at level 1 and every 10 at level 10 (a few an hour for a steady picker); the Mandrake lore perk (level 4) makes mandrake 30% more common (50% from level 8). Only herbalists find them. Someone who knows no contraband recipe comes upon the forbidden herbs half as often (mandrake more often instead). A golden card shows the find to you alone; with a full sack the plant stays where it grew. A herbalist's pick may also, rarely, turn up an ancient mandrake, the rare find. The herb meadows and their work are unchanged.

The trade's task

For herbalists and fishers, each piece of work is a short task you play while your character works: a few seconds of skill, so a held key or a macro gathers nothing. The task takes the mouse and keys while it runs; Esc gives it up. It gets harder by one step every three levels in the trade: a novice's task is easy (1), a master's a little stricter (4). Your character keeps working in the trade's pose until the load is in your sack.

Moving away, mounting or falling ends the task with nothing, and so does a task that never answers. The three-second rest still follows a spoiled or abandoned task. Being quick does not make you gather faster: the work always lasts the time your level takes (13 seconds for a novice, down to 5 seconds from level 8), so stay put until it ends.

Buying goods

Crafters who have no time to gather buy their ore, coal and herbs at an auction house, from the gatherers' listings and the realm's own stock there (see The auction houses), or from other players. The market no longer sells goods.

What each trade finds

The base price is what a good is worth: a fair guide to what to ask for it at the auction house.

The fish

For fishers, one spot gives double catches each hour (/hotspot). A fine catch turns up a river pearl about once in 200 catches, and once in about 133 from level 8. The reel fills faster as the fisher rises: from level 3 each level makes the reeling about 6% shorter, about half as long at level 10. From level 3 each level also makes the work itself 3% shorter (24% at level 10), so a faster reel is not waited out.