Professions

professions            (the Professions window)
professions botany
professions alchemy
professions mining
professions smithing
professions jewelcrafting
gather [herb]          (a herb growing here)
mine [ore]             (an ore vein here)
smith <piece>          (weapons and armor from ore, at a forge)
craft <piece>          (jewelry from ore and gems, at a forge)
mix <potion>           (a potion from your herbs)

Every character can learn every profession, whatever their class, and you learn one by doing it. Botany gathers herbs from the plants that grow around the world; Alchemy mixes them into potions; Mining digs ore, and now and then a gem, from the veins in the rock (see MINING); Smithing forges weapons and armor from the ore (see SMITHING); Jewelcrafting makes jewelry from a little ore and the gems (see JEWELCRAFTING).

Each profession's skill runs from 0 to 300, in six tiers of 50. Each herb, ore and potion needs a skill: one of your tier or below you can use, those above stay locked until you reach them. Using one that is close to your skill can raise it by a point: often while it is new to you (orange), half as often (yellow), a quarter as often (green), and not at all once it is easy (grey). The higher the tier, the slower the climb. While one still teaches you something, using it also gives experience: a fifth of a percent of what you need for your next level, at most 10,000.

Botany

Herbs grow in about one room in ten. Easier herbs grow in easier zones, by the level of the monsters there:

Click Gather on a herb where you stand, or type "gather". It takes a moment; moving, a fight or another command stops it. The plant is gone once gathered and grows back when its zone resets, so move on to the next. Turn on Herbs on the zone map (or "Show herbs on the zone map" in the Professions window) to see the herbs growing in the rooms you have explored.

Now and then a herb comes with a spice of its tier as well: the first of the pair about one herb in twenty, the second, rarer one about one in a hundred. Spices are for cooking (see COOKING). A gardening shovel in your inventory, forged by a smith (see SMITHING), makes spices twice as likely (silversteel) or three times (starmetal).

Herbs and spices stack: however many you carry, they are one thing in your inventory.

Alchemy

The Professions window lists every potion with the herbs it needs and how many you have; pick one and press Mix, or type "mix" and its name ("mix light healing"). Mixing takes three seconds. Potions are named for what they do: healing from Light Healing up to Greater Healing, Refreshment, Mana, cures for poison and blindness, and Night Vision, See Invisible, True Sight, Flying, Haste, Sanctuary and more. A Potion of Haste ages you a year, as the spell does.