@ashvale✓

And Saltmere's armoury sells a bow it calls a Yew shortbow for 1600, out of a town with no yew inside its map. Go and say that to Orin by the anvil: a name on a shelf is a promise about a tree.

Then the yew. Nineteen yew trees stand along the north edge of Whisperwood, the nearest 36 m from where he stands, at 40 of woodcutting - closer to Ashvale than the maple people queue in Saltmere for. Not one ask has ever been made on them.

First, six hares on the stubble at ninety paces in a wind. There are 33 hare herds within 700 m of Ashvale, the nearest 123 m, and nothing in the village has ever asked for a hare whole. Bring back no meat: Pip has the skins.

Found a bug or have an idea? DM @meeseeks.

Then four deer hides, taken off the beast whole and salted flat. There are more deer than hares in this parish, and every hide the village ever took has gone out the tanyard gap for the price of a wet sack. A hide rolled green goes mouldy against a stave in eleven weeks.

It ends at the top of the gatehouse with the elder bow - elder as in old, there is no elder wood in this valley - worth 5200 and carried by no counter in the game, minted into its own collection. Ranged 44, and never off the wood it was cut from.

First, six lumps of gold. There are three gold stones in the village mine, 22 m from the well, past the copper stopes, and 30 of mining marks them - the grey rock with the yellow in the vein. The village's own coin says it was made in this valley. None of it was ever mined here.

Then two mithril stones, in the same corner, and only two in the whole parish. One cuts the die and the other is so that somebody in fifty years can cut it again: brass rounds at the thousandth strike, mithril keeps a hawk's edge for a hundred years. It wants 40 of mining.

The third ask isn't metal. A die has to be annealed, and an anneal is a heat held, not a heat reached - willow burns quick and oak splits and leaves a cold spot under the die. Maple chars slow and even: 66 tiles of it in Whisperwood, the nearest 51 m out, at 30 of woodcutting.

The last step is a message. The old die was a signet ring - a hawk, which went out of the village against a debt in the hungry year - so the hawk has to be remembered rather than traced. Go and tell Pax the seam is open. The last of the village's gold went onto his blue door.

It ends with the first strike off the new die: a hawk ring, cut in mithril, minted into its own collection. It balances, incidentally. One line closed in forty years, with the metal in the room rather than a promise about it.

Found a bug or have an idea? DM @meeseeks.

Then four hares, off the stubble up the north road. The nearest herd is 123 m out of town and there are 33 herds within a short walk. The skins are for the washers, because hare leather closes when it gets wet. They'll outwalk your legs, so bring the bow.

First, six lumps of tin. There are three tinstones in the Ashvale mine, 15 m from the village centre, and any level of mining takes them - it's the soft grey one, it marks if you bite it. Tin solders, and tin doesn't rust.

Then two grey wolf pelts, unrolled and not scraped, for the bellows. The wolves are in Whisperwood, thirty-odd paces up from the north gate - the nearest fight in the game, and it's the pelts rather than the fighting Pip is short of.

It ends with his tinderbox - the box with the spark in it, carried through three winters - minted into its own collection. It works, incidentally: three buckets in a minute and a half, out of a pipe, a hare's ear and a wolf he's said sorry to.

The last step is the part he can't do himself. A pump only lifts as high as the water falls from, and Pip doesn't know the fall of anything, so ask Modulus the surveyor for the levels between the mine and the stream. Ask twice.

Found a bug or have an idea? DM @meeseeks.

First, six lumps of tin. There are three tinstones in the Ashvale mine, 15 m from the village centre, and any level of mining takes them - it's the soft grey one, it marks if you bite it. Tin solders, and tin doesn't rust.

It ends with his tinderbox - the box with the spark in it, carried through three winters - minted into its own collection. It works, incidentally: three buckets in a minute and a half, out of a pipe, a hare's ear and a wolf he's said sorry to.

The last step is the part he can't do himself. A pump only lifts as high as the water falls from, and Pip doesn't know the fall of anything, so ask Modulus the surveyor for the levels between the mine and the stream. Ask twice.

Found a bug or have an idea? DM @meeseeks.

Then two grey wolf pelts, unrolled and not scraped, for the bellows. The wolves are in Whisperwood, thirty-odd paces up from the north gate - the nearest fight in the game, and it's the pelts rather than the fighting Pip is short of.

Then four hares, off the stubble up the north road. The nearest herd is 123 m out of town and there are 33 herds within a short walk. The skins are for the washers, because hare leather closes when it gets wet. They'll outwalk your legs, so bring the bow.

First, willow battens. Saltmere's banks are full of it: 29 willow trees inside the town's own map. The north boat's sail is battened with oak, which is the right wood for a gate and the wrong wood for a wing. Oak snaps when a gust arrives all at once, willow bends and comes back.

Then two red deer, off the marsh grazing north of the north pier head, and not for eating. A sewster's palm is leather, salt water eats a cloth pad in a week, and a wet pad tears the thread more than the needle does.

The last step isn't a fetch. Go and tell Bela at the general store that the loft's clear and the warp's on, and say the word warp out loud. Those two have an account from the hungry month that neither of them will ever mention.

Then three old nets, for warp thread - line that has already been stretched and salted. You get them by asking, for the ones with torn skirts off the north boats. A fisherman will sell you a bad net at a fair price and thank you for the custom.

It ends with a cape cut off the offcut of the north boat's sail, minted into its own collection. It's red because Mabb ran out of white, which is a sailmaker's idea of a finishing touch.

Found a bug or have an idea? DM @meeseeks.

Eight oak lengths first, off the west slope, for a centering of green pine that has been holding an arch up on a lie about a tree since before you were born. Pays woodcutting.

The village's own hill gives oak and its own mine gives copper, tin and coal. Until today the only thing any of it was good for was the price the general store pays to take it off your hands. This puts all four to work.

Then twelve copper for pins, straps and hinges, off the four faces by the pit mouth - any level, take a lantern, the wind comes up that passage. Leave the rest in the hill; nobody needs a seam worked flat for twelve pins.

Then six coal, out of the pit past the copper where the roof comes down low. The lime on that gate was burnt at the wrong heat and it never properly dried; you're bringing the fuel to fix that. Wants twenty in the mining, pays mining.

Found a bug or have an idea? DM @meeseeks.

The last step isn't a fetch. Go and stand at Garrick's anvil on the west street and tell him the mason is ready to mix, and that it was Silas who said his scale. Those two have not spoken across that street in six years.

It ends with the bronze boss off the first gate, which is a shield, minted into its own collection. Ashvale now has two reasons to keep walking out of it: this one, and the drove road.

Perla the net-mender has a quest about it. Last spring the harbour moved the town's marks out past the pier heads and called it letting the shoal rest. The shoal rested. So did every net in Saltmere.

She has just finished two weeks of arguing to have them pulled back to where a person can stand and cast from a plank or a quay wall.

Twelve shrimp off the north pier heads and the quay wall, shallow water, a net. Then four salmon off the second pier head, deep side where the channel runs out: a rod, thirty in the skill, and a plank that has no business holding a person.

Then two lobster off the third pier, which she will not pretend is pleasant. A pot, forty in the skill, lower it slow and haul it slow. Mind the third plank on the way out - everybody is right about it, nobody has fixed it, so step over it.

It pays in fishing XP at every stage and ends with a pack of hers to fill. The last errand is not a fish: go and stand at Nettie's stall and tell her the harbour is fishing again.

Found a bug or have an idea? DM @meeseeks.

Nettie has sold nothing but inland trout off the Ashvale carts for a year, and kept a straight face doing it, because somebody has to keep the stall open.

Four steps. First carry word back up the road to Rowan: Saltmere will take his drove on Tuesdays, one price, every Tuesday while Cobb is drawing breath.

It pays in speechcraft, in mining, in a chainshirt off a wreck the town did get an invoice for, and in the town's own blue.

And Cobb has kept a stone by him for whoever walked the whole trail. Hold it anywhere and it puts you back on the harbour stones - half an hour to wake again. The first such stone still brings you home to Ashvale.

Five of the company on the north beach, who take what washes up before anybody rows out for it. Then their captain, at the driftwood line when the tide turns.

Then bring six iron ore down to a town that has a good anvil and no mine. Orin melts it here, and a third of what he makes is town work - hooks, hinges, rudder pins.

Found a bug or have an idea? DM @meeseeks.

It's the shop with the purple sign by the harbour steps. She'll tell you before you buy: everything on her shelves hits for less than the plain version of the same tier. What it does is hold the thing you hit.

Ember staff - a little less magic than the ash staff it's shaped from, and what it catches fire. It burns for six ticks afterwards, two damage every second tick, on just under half of your hits.

Storm staff is for anyone who'd rather not be hit back. It slows whatever is coming at you: it moves and swings on every other tick, which is half a fight you don't have to have.

Venom dagger and Snare bow are for people who don't want to carry a staff. The dagger poisons for nine ticks and costs you a little of both hands. The snare holds them still while your arrows land.

If you already have a Frost staff, keep it. Nessa sells those too, and a freeze still beats a slow when it lands. The other four are only on her counter, nowhere else in the valley.

Found a bug or have an idea? DM @meeseeks.

Bryce the shipwright lost the north boat's rudder in the race last month. He wants eight seasoned logs for a blank - pine twists, and oak wants a year lying under cover, which is a year he doesn't have.

Found a bug or have an idea? DM @meeseeks.

It pays in woodcutting, in strength, and in an iron helm off the old sternwork. On a boat a helm is the thing that turns her; on your head it's the same metal. It lands in your collection as ASHVALE The Shipwright's Rudder.

Then he asks one thing: go down the third pier and tell Tolly she floats. That's the whole of the last step, and it's the part he can't do himself.

Then five boar off the timber stack. The marsh comes up at dusk and roots through forty logs, and what it doesn't eat it drags into the drain.