“Potions,” Saul muttered. “We need to have more potions.”

“I don’t know why you say we,” Zorea grumbled, “since it’s impossible for us to share them. They can only be used by you!”

They were out in the narrow valley south of the village, trying to make the most of the last of the fall season before the snow came. Saul, and everyone else for that matter, considered it too dangerous to be out in the forest at this time. Instead, he and Zorea had headed south, wandering through the low valley that sloped gently down between the high cliffs of the mountains toward the south, away from the village.

Ingredients grew sparser here. The ground was less fertile and more regularly used than the forest. Still, Saul was chafing at the inactivity in the village. He needed something to do.

Jerryl was drilling the soldiers in various formations and responses to an attack they might use when the warlocks finally acted, but Saul was restless. He wanted to get to the fight, but it was not coming.

He sighed. Zorea was right; when he tried to hand a potion container over to one of his friends, they found that the item snapped back into Saul’s hand. If Brand or Zorea tried to pick the container up from the table, it vanished and reappeared just out of reach.

For some reason, there was a block on Saul being able to pass his created potions over to his friends.

Still, he knew Zorea only grumbled because she too was beginning to feel the strain. For the soldiers, there was a clear course of action with a fight at the end of it. They didn’t need to worry about what to do next. They just had to wait for orders.

For Saul, the coming fight was a critical moment. In this battle, he felt sure there would be something more than simple victory of a military engagement.

This, he felt, was a point where fate turned.

“There’s one,” he said, pointing off to the left.

His Detect Ingredients spell was active, and he’d caught a glimpse of a small, white-outlined plant growing up at the base of the nearby cliff wall.

Zorea wrinkled her nose. “Sour nettle?” she said disdainfully. “I’ll never understand your magic’s idea of what plants are good for the creation of potions. But, very well, I’ll gather it.”

She picked the plant, then worked her way along the cliff edge to collect more. Saul saw a different plant highlighted by his magic at the other side of the narrow valley and began picking them.

It was a dark, sticky leaf with a strange, cloying smell to it. Zorea glanced over shoulder to check what he was gathering and shook her head in exasperation.

To be sure, there was no rhyme nor reason to the arrangement of plants that the System gave Saul as ingredients for potions. He and Zorea spent a great deal of time searching for ingredients as they waited for the first snow to fall.

* * *

Waiting on the edge of an attack that would not come was draining for everyone. The preparations were made and, every day, they were just waiting for the snows to come.

In the evenings, with Brand cooking a simple meal, more often than not, they would sit around in Saul’s little hut. Saul created potions, and Zorea watched, curious to see what strange combinations would come out.

The first thing they learned for certain was that different combinations of plants would produce the same potions. The basic versions of the Healing, Strength, and Courage potions were the most common, and the category with most diversity was the poisons.

These had strange names, and their effect was much less obvious from their titles than the more positive potions. There was no difficulty in guessing what a concoction named Basic Strength Potion might do, but the difference between Basic Soul Poison and Basic Leech of the Flame were less intuitive.

Not all the ingredients they collected combined to create portions. In fact, most of the plants had no practical value whatsoever according to Zorea. They ended up with quite a collection of these useless herbs and roots that had been highlighted by his Detect Ingredients spell but did not seem to have any immediate use.

Saul chose to carefully dry these and powder them anyway, guessing it would only be a matter of time before he found the complementary plants that were required to create potions from them.

Despite the setbacks, they had built up a stash of nearly twenty individual containers of potions by the end of the week.

Aside from the Leech of the Flame and Soul Poison (of which they had two each) there was a single container called The Bloody Hand which, unlike the others, did not have any indication of its level. When examined, almost all the other potions referred to themselves as Basic, but not The Bloody Hand.

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The only other exception was one of the healing potions called itself an Elementary Healing Potion. Clearly, this was better than Basic, but just how much better and how exactly the hierarchy of potion levels increased remained unknown.

Saul was glad to have the ability to create magic potions, and he was looking forward to using them in action. However, he still had a great deal to learn about this new ability.

One more reward came with the creation of potions, and Saul was very glad indeed of it, though he did not tell his friends about it just yet.

Creation of magic potions was rewarded with the special green Glade XP that he had unlocked when he had achieved the milestone Level 10. During that session in the Workshop, he’d been confused by the apparent contradiction that, despite the fact that unlocking Glade magic seemed the only way to gain the special Glade XP, he also needed Glade XP before he could unlock the Glade magic.

When he visited the Workshop, he found to his great satisfaction a steadily growing pile of glowing green coins building up in the space on the Resource Table that had been upgraded at Level 10.

He visited the Workshop regularly.

As he stood there, gazing at the Resource Table, he caught the distinct impression that there was more of this table to be revealed in time. If he looked at the table from the corner of his eye, there was more surface area to be examined than there had been before. When he looked directly at it, however, there was no sign of it anymore.

Even when he could see it, the impression was vague and faint, and this made him feel certain that even if, as he suspected, each different kind of magic had its own special flavor of XP reward, it would be a long time before he would unlock the other ones.

So, he pushed the thought from his mind for the moment and concentrated on building up the Glade XP he needed to unlock the Glade sphere of magic.

Progress was frustratingly slow. Though he could not expect too much from crafting Basic level potions without a clear understanding of what he was doing.

Once I have a fuller knowledge of the potion making skill, and a better understanding of the different recipes and possibilities available, I am sure to be able to gain greater rewards, he thought. For now, the focus is on learning.

One important revelation came while he was exploring the magic of the School of Earth. He had impressed everyone with his ability to move large amounts of earth quickly. The four rings of defense of the ditch and ramparts now enclosed the palisade of the village of Harkin’s Holdfast, but the reality was that the Earthshift spell was not directly from the School of Earth.

That spell was defined by the System as Builder class magic, and though it had been unlocked at the same time as the School of Earth, it was not the same. It had not appeared as one of the School of Earth spells in the list that had been presented, and it did not feel like an earth spell despite surface level similarities.

Saul had, therefore, given special attention to the other School of Earth spells. He had sneaked away from the village to test out Earthquake and Mud Golem, but it seemed that—for now, at least—he could not use them unless he was in a combat situation. As an experiment, he had tested the other Tier 2 spells—the ones that were specifically geared toward combat—and found that as a rule, they didn’t work unless he was actively fighting, or was at least about to get into a fight.

The exception to this was the Heal spell. This was a Tier 2 spell but, unlike the others, it could be conjured when out of combat.

When he’d tested Heal on Zorea, however, there was a flash of white light, but nothing had happened.

“I suppose it’s because there’s nothing wrong with me that needs to be healed,” she said with a shrug.

“Or perhaps it’s because we’re not in combat?” Saul speculated. “After all, it does specifically say Combat after the spell description.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “You forget I can’t see your marvelous readouts,” she said tartly.

Saul concealed a grin at her annoyance. “Sorry,” he said, and she glared at him.

Saul was beginning to notice Zorea’s jealousy of his ability to use the System. This was not something that worried him over much, however, it made him wonder if, at some point in his magical journey, he might find himself able to share the abilities that the System gave him.

That seemed like a lot to ask for. No matter how marvelous the System became, it seems highly unlikely he would ever be able to share it with another.

That said, it was a strange and unprecedented way to approach magic. There was no way of telling what would come of it in the end.

As he examined the different spells in the School of Earth, his attention was drawn by the spell called Cultivate.

He experimented with it when he was on his own, out in the valley to the south of the village. Nothing happened at first when he cast a spell on a stunted plant. But when he returned the next day, he found that the plant was not only healthier, but had grown in size.

This was an exciting discovery, big enough to cause him to risk a brief trip up into the forest. Apart from the warlock scouts, the Raptor Riders had not reported seeing any significant activity. So, Saul considered it worth the risk to make a quick trip up to the edge of the forest to gather a few plants.

He collected the plants that were the ingredients for the Basic Healing Potion recipe and carried them carefully back down to the village.

There being nowhere appropriate to plant them within the village, or around his own small hut, he took them round to the back of the village and planted them in the fertile soil there.

Then, he turned his newly discovered Cultivate power on the plants.

The following morning, Saul found to his great delight that the plants had more than recovered from replanting. They were also much bigger and healthier than they had been when he had to collect them in the first place.

Quickly, he gathered the leaves from the tops of the plants and returned them to his hut, where he crafted more basic healing potions.

Of all the people in the village, Saul was probably the least affected by the waiting. He had something to show for it. Progress was slow, but through his experimentation with his new spells, and particularly the use of the Earthshift to make the ditches, Saul was able to gather enough Gold XP to reach Level 12.

Often, they thought of the villagers who had left. They would have passed through the outlying villages by now, and maybe even the larger towns.

They would be spreading the work of the need of Harkin’s Holdfast. It was even possible that Dryan had reached the Blackrock castle in the southlands by now, carrying messages for the queen herself and for her master-at-arms.

It seemed optimistic to hope that a strong force of reinforcements would already be on the way, but Saul and Captain Jerryl could not help but hope for the possibility. Soon, the battle would come, and when it did, Saul and his allies would be fighting for their lives.

Then, at last, the first snow fell.