A few years have elapsed since the road opened. By now Janick resumes her life as a traveling magical wine merchant, sometimes offering discretionary bank accounts. However, the Bank of the Frontier’s main customers are merchants dealing in magical wine, lumber, charcoal, carts or plows.

Several landowners buy magical plows from Seloniel, sometimes asking for yokes, or even suits of armor sometimes. The sale of magical plows even earned Seloniel enough money for her to buy her own carpet for delivering the products. And yet, as the village thrives on tax-exempt status, Seloniel realizes something is wrong with Janick when she comes to the manor house. Which is also the headquarters of the Bank of the Frontier.

“Hi Janick! I came to deposit the money from the sale of a magical plow” Seloniel states the purpose of her visit.

“How much?” Janick asks her fellow witch.

“What’s happening? Your face has turned yellow! Did some magical accident happen to you while casting alcohol magic?” Seloniel asks her before preparing the deposit, upon realizing that Janick’s skin and eyes have turned yellow.

“To be honest, there’s so little we know about the long-term effects of alcohol magic on its practitioners, and not simply because there just isn’t a whole lot of them” Janick answers her, while feeling a little dizzy.

It's dangerous for me to self-diagnose. As much as I would have loved to consult Madritza, I wonder what my options are if Madritza proves unable to help me. After all, often people think of life witches as healers, and it’s common for a life wizard to become a rental healer, Janick might be wondering about how the tendency of life wizards to specialize the way non-magical artisans could.

“How much are you depositing today?” Janick asks Seloniel before counting the money and then has Samka, Janick’s brand new page, write a journal entry into the bank’s ledger for the money so deposited. She turns to Samka: “Please take care of the bank while I am away”

Janick walks to Madritza’s farmhouse and knocks on the door. Madritza seems to dread people knocking on her door, and reluctantly peek through the hole.

“It’s not about Samka, it’s for myself!” a dizzying Janick asks Madritza. “I don’t know what’s happening…”

“Your eyes have turned yellow!” a surprised Madritza yells at the alcohol witch. “And your face, too!”

I didn’t interact with Janick much. She always seemed to be flying around, hauling gold on a carpet. I am not sure if she’s actually using any magic other than to fly the carpet, Madritza reflects on her dealings with Janick while the Bank of the Frontier seems to attract magic-using customers on top of merchants.

“I don’t think anyone would have wanted to hex me” Janick retorts, while she starts having abdominal cramps.

“Just because I am a life witch doesn’t mean I can use life magic to heal! Also, even if you hired a rental healer, most of them can seemingly heal injuries or other common ailments, but not necessarily the kind of illness you are suffering from!” Madritza starts to think about what Janick could do. “Life wizards tend to fall into two categories: yes, your healers, who travel the land in search of patients, but I belong to the other category, the farmers”

In the rental healing world, the kind of healer she describes is called a first responder. First responders aren’t going to cut it, Janick struggles to think of where she could get some medical assistance. At the same time, my own life is of interest to the Order of Magic, especially since so little is known about the long-term effects of casting alcohol magic. Unlike fire magic, where it’s known for generations that you can get short of breath, hypersensitive skin and brittle bones with long-term use of fire magic.

Frustrated by this visit to Madritza, the alcohol witch goes to the baker’s shop to notify Seloniel of her leaving town.

“I need help that I can’t get in town” Janick notifies Seloniel of her leaving town. “It has to do with my body turning yellow”

“Just pull through. If it turns out that your days are numbered, make sure you write down everything you know about alcohol magic for the Order of Magic to pass down the knowledge to interested parties!” Seloniel prays for Janick. “Remember: you’re the one people associate with alcohol magic!”

“I hope it’s curable, but I feel like I might need to cast less alcohol magic. That said, I can’t be sure”

Janick then leaves the baker’s shop, and takes off on her carpet for the headquarters of the Order of Magic, wearing its mantle. She wonders how will the Order react to her arrival and potentially opening up to examination for medical purposes.

When she arrives at the headquarters, a little dizzy, she feels like so little has changed since she left the palace for settling down in landlocked Laverton. Upon arriving at the palace’s main gate, the sentry asks her for the purpose of her visit:

“I am Lady Janick, I came here because my skin and eyes have turned yellow” Janick tells the sentry, with a pinch of dizziness-induced despair in her voice. “I need medical help before it’s too late!”

“If it’s not our favorite alcohol witch!” the sentry deadpans her, but notices that something is amiss in her. “You seem to have lost weight since you last came here! Please follow me to the infirmary”

For years, Janick wasn’t seen in public without wearing clothes that cover nearly her entire body, be it the mantle of the Order of Magic, gowns, tunics or otherwise. So when the sentry takes her to the infirmary, she’s in for a most unpleasant, if delayed, surprise.

When a healer, after a while of laying on a bed, finally gets to her, she is taken to a single-bed room used specifically for examining patients.

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“Please take your clothes off for a few moments” the healer instructs her, revealing more than just yellow skin.

What lies underneath the clothes frighten her: several spots with visible veins radiating out from them, more of them around her liver, but a few on her legs and back.

“Was I jinxed, hexed or, worse still, cursed?” Janick screams upon seeing these telltale signs of her ailments. “Where did these red spots come from?”

If it was a jinx, hex or curse, I wonder what I did, or fail to do, that might have resulted in such. Especially as a banker since unsatisfied magical wine consumers usually don’t voice complaints to me. They just drink someone else’s wine afterward. But what if I wasn’t hit by any of these things? Would it then be some long-term effect of me using alcohol magic over and over? Janick appears to be worried about the causes of the illness.

At the same time, the healer casts a spell to search for jinxes, hexes or curses within Janick’s body.

“No jinxes, hexes or curses. However, this calls for a different kind of test. Please close your eyes…” the healer casts another spell on her for diagnosis purposes.

The healer then looks at her intently, looking for internal damage using magic. That’s no good: multiple organs are affected: an inflated spleen, kidney problems and her liver is severely damaged! The healer then has some questions for her about her drinking habits, thinking that what she could do next might be affected by her drinking habits.

“Can you describe your drinking habits?” the healer asks her.

“I might be drinking diluted magical wine when thirsty, but I don’t drink that much. However, I cast alcohol magic regularly, and selling it on the market” Janick seems to have headaches mounting.

“Alcohol magic? All I knew until now was that you used alcohol magic to make wine and to heal surface, flesh wounds, but no more than that!” a clueless healer feels like he should see the effects of casting alcohol magic. “You claim that casting alcohol magic had side effects. What are they?”

“As far as I am aware, the more powerful the spell, or the more alcohol magic I use, the drunker I get. When we killed the electricity-stealing dragon, I was knocked unconscious as if I drank six to eight cups of wine at once as a result of casting several alcohol spells. On the marketplace, I can cast about three or four butts of magical wine before I pass out” Janick explains to him before the healer suggests something to him.

“If I may, you might want a scroll to write down what you know about alcohol magic for use by future wizards”

“I mean, I might have taught myself how to read, but I don’t write very well. I might need a copyist to get that done” Janick retorts. “I can barely write journal entries in a bank account!”

I may as well buy myself a self-refilling quill! This place sells writing supplies as well as bookbinding services! I can always start with buying a few sheets of paper… Janick muses before she asks her next question.

“I wonder if there’s any treatment for what I suffer from” Janick asks the healer.

“I guess there’s life magic, but you must remember that using life magic on internal organs to heal such afflictions may cause cancers down the road. In fact, often people who are frequently subject to being used life magic on get cancers later in life” the healer warns her. “You will need to make a lot of sacrifices”

“What kind of sacrifices?” a worried Janick asks. “I had holy magic used on me once for healing, but I don’t think I ever have life magic used on me directly for healing”

“I’m afraid I have more bad news for you. Even with life magic curing you of your ailments, if you were to attempt having babies, the risk of miscarriage is so high that you may as well be barren”

Janick then starts crying; up to this point, she believed that she still had time to get babies. Looks like alcohol magic is dangerous to rely on as a source of income in the long run. My body seems to have suffered from years of using alcohol magic on the marketplace over and over, she keeps to herself before the healer lists other sacrifices she needs to make to make life more bearable.

“Even if you decided to have the spell cast for the cure, it’s best if you can avoid salted food to the extent feasible. And, of course, drink as little alcohol as possible”

“I think I should return to my old room, there’s a lot for me to think about” Janick then tells the healer, before returning to the room she briefly held at the headquarters.

But not before buying enough sheets of paper to have some copyist at the employ of the Order of Magic write down what she has to say about the main spells of alcohol magic.

Namely, the alcohol cloud, the alcohol conjuration, and the rubbing alcohol spell. In addition to that, some subtleties about the use of each spell, and what practitioners should be aware of, especially when they wanted to conjure alcohol for a living. Or the topical nature of the rubbing alcohol spell causing the alcohol to be absorbed more easily by the target’s body through the skin. Or so her mental outline goes.

After spending the rest of the day dictating the content of the codex to a non-magic-using copyist, when the time comes to eat, the copyist is wondering what was happening to her. For some reason, the copyist seems to be a little concerned about her.

“You seem a little down, milady” the copyist points out to Janick.

Janick starts crying again. “It seems like I’m going to die childless! What do I have to show for my use of alcohol magic? My name might be associated with alcohol magic now, but what legacy will I leave at death?”

“You killed the electricity-stealing dragon, too…” the copyist tries to comfort her.

“The electricity-stealing dragon, while an ancient threat, wasn’t legend material"

“I might want to add a few biographical notes, about what you accomplished with alcohol magic, albeit as an appendix, space permitting” the copyist asks her.

The Bank of the Frontier is the other item people will associate with me; however, I don’t think my name will be associated with banking as much as it will be for alcohol magic. Nor should I want it to be the case, since the BotF has a mostly regional reach, and even then is used mostly by lumber, cart and cask merchants, using financing, Janick reflects on the legacy she wishes to leave. She is also reminded of the interest payments for all the bank customers being due soon.

“Do you have any idea of how long it will take to write down the entire thing?” the copyist asks her.

“Maybe a few days, a week or two at most, so I believe the final version will be short”

Good. The cold, hard truth is that, while non-magic users picture Order of Magic members as being people reading and writing thick tomes, in reality, most spellbooks are not very long. Often short enough to fit on a scroll, especially since good spellbooks should be concise, the copyist starts thinking of the charges he could be billing Janick for the alcohol spellbook.

“Remember that, for new spellbooks intended for public use, two copies must be made, since, by law, one copy is for the Order of Magic, and the second copy is for the Supreme Council’s library. Also, the first copy will always take longer than the second” the copyist warns her. “So you will be billed by the end of the first copy for both copies”

“That’s ok, if that’s the price of ensuring the survival of alcohol magic…”

I guess, I need to plan for the future of the Bank of the Frontier, and the village’s as well, because I know I will die childless in a few years. And Seloniel will probably die in a few years, too, Janick comes to a grim realization of just how much of a toll casting alcohol magic has taken on her. And she also wonders how long this spellbook is going to be, and its price along with it. I guess, I can hand over the bank and village to Seloniel at death, if she’s still alive by then, but it would just delay the problem.