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Critters and the museum

Out on the land there is more to find than Grown and ore: critters to net, fossils in the ground, and trees to shake. Rosamund Pomeroy, the Curator in Aldhearth, keeps a museum of all of it.

Critters and the Bug net

Make a Bug net at a Workbench: 3 sticks and 3 wheat. While it is in your bag and you are out of town (not on the floors of a dungeon or a delve), critters come near you:

• one every 20 to 45 seconds, 6 to 14 columns from you, on the surface or in the caves as its kind likes;
• at most two at a time, and each stays 45 seconds before it leaves;
• they are yours alone: nobody else sees them or can catch them.

To catch one, hold the net and left click the critter (tap it on a phone) when it is within two and a half tiles of you. Come close slowly: if you were moving faster than half your walking speed within 4 tiles of it in the last half second, "It flew off. Come close slowly." Walk up to about five tiles, then step in with short taps.

What comes depends on the land, the layer, the time of day on Aldhearth's clock and the weather:

Common kinds are worth 8 to 20 gold, the less common 30 to 60, and the rare ones (about 1 roll in 20) 120 to 400; the Trade Post pays half of that, as it does for everything. Sell them, let them go (drop them), or give them to the museum.

The Critter log is a tab of the Bestiary (B): what you have caught and how many, and for the rest, where to look. Catch every kind of a land and you are paid 80 gold for each kind there, once. Catch all twenty and you are the Bug Catcher.

Fossils

Out on the open surface (not in a town or its ring, not in a hunting ground), a fossil crack shows in the ground near you now and then: a small cracked mark on grass, dirt or sand, seen only by you.

• At most 3 a day (Aldhearth's day). The first comes a minute or so after you go out; the next one 2 to 5 minutes after you dug the last, 10 to 40 columns from where you stand.
• Dig the cracked tile for an Unknown fossil. If you walk away, the crack stays where it is until the day ends.

Take Unknown fossils to the Curator to have them assessed (free): each becomes one of twelve fossils, worth 300 to 1,500 gold, more likely one you have not given the museum yet.

The museum

Rosamund Pomeroy, Curator of the museum, stands at the east edge of Aldhearth's Grand Plaza. Talk to her and choose The museum:

• Assess turns every Unknown fossil you carry into a fossil.
• Donate gives her one of each fish, critter and fossil. It is taken from your bag, and she pays you a fifth of its value in thanks (at least 5 gold). The museum keeps a record for each character, and each kind is taken once.
• The window shows the three wings, Fish, Critters and Fossils: what you gave and how many are missing.

A finished wing gives you a title and a small bonus for good:

Shaking trees

Right click the trunk of a living tree out in the world (a log with leaves or needles on top) with nothing in your hand, or with something whose right click does nothing else, such as a pick or the net. Each tree can be shaken by you once a day (it is known by the bottom log of its trunk), and at most one shake every 1.5 seconds. What comes down is yours for the drop rule's 15 seconds:

A hornet nest stings you for 8% of your life (never your last point) and lets out a Hornet: a critter worth 120 gold if you can net it before it leaves.