It's hard to find anything – every spot runs dry quickly and I damage most finds right away. The herbs yield cumin, lovage, thyme, basil and oregano. The new sources are more interesting: in a battlefield wreckage I find two unidentified fragments and a leather sleeve, which I put on and repair right away, and in a rift outcrop some rift wood.
All my belongings after a quarter of an hour of gathering: some herbs and vegetables, a tulipwood branch, fragments and rift wood.
The gathering went on: eggs and silk in an egg mass, more fragments and a studded leather cap in a battlefield wreckage (straight onto my head), a long horn and hooves in carrion, a rift crystal in a rift outcrop, clay and a rock in mineral debris, and blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, lingonberries and hazelnuts in the bushes – with thorns as a bonus. On the way I passed a venerable feral canid.
And finally something got me. I went at an adolescent rift beast with a branch, an adolescent black bear joined in, and in under a minute I was dead. I respawned in Freedom Outpost West – with nothing, all my belongings stayed with the body.
Starting over: an empty inventory and a freshly broken birch branch.
After respawning I gather everything again: logs, woad, flowers, oleander, sprouts and acorns. While I'm rummaging in the undergrowth, an aged drakespirit flies out of the dark – with one bite it hurts my thigh badly, causing internal damage.
An aged drakespirit – a flying drake spirit in the red gloom of Jackal. With just a branch I don't stand a chance.
I got away from the drakespirit and keep gathering – rosemary, oregano and mint. In the bushes I come across another Jackal native.
A venerable ferropod – a huge snail with a rusty, scaly shell. According to the developers' preview it's one of Jackal's new mobs and it drops iron.
Without stamina you walk very slowly, and every climb uphill is torture. I pass more freshly founded settlements – Sunset, Moonhaven, Rinjas Used Cars, Meals Ready To Eat – where people are already digging and cutting trees. On the way red mushrooms, garlic, silk and tar from an egg mass, some meat, and for a boost I suck on an egg. Most importantly, though, I finally have two rocks – on Jackal that's a real treasure.
Night is falling. Between the dark red trees the green pillar of the portal in town is visible.
I had to go back to spawn, because the lack of water made walking really hard. I return to Freedom Outpost West and finally drink from the fountain. Right then an announcement comes that the server will restart in half an hour – a Jackal-only hotfix to increase the density of some resource nodes. I wasn't the only one complaining that it's hard to find anything.
Drinking from the fountain in town. In my inventory: herbs, mushrooms, bear meat, silk, tar and two piles of stone shards, 20 kg each.
Before the restart I still managed to roast some meat and open a bank account in Freedom Outpost West (the bank won't take stone shards). Then another round of gathering: mint, rosemary, onion, garlic, parsley, cumin, a carrot and raspberries with thorns. Along the way I learned the name of those red trees – it's the desolate tree; there's also a frond tree nearby.
Three minutes until the hotfix that's supposed to increase the number of resource nodes, because it's hard to find anything here. I've set up next to a rock face – maybe after the restart a mineral node will spawn here.
My spot by the rock, with a desolate tree on the right. Waiting for the restart.
Continued in: Jackal – a cave with iron
