A fiendish smile graced her lips as she continued. “This is a recording artifact that has been bound to the life threads of both my apprentice and me. It has been secretly recording our actions within the shop since your arrival, and should anything happen to either of us from this point on, it will shatter and send its recorded contents to the council recorder.” Then, with an added conspiratorial tone she stated. “I do have backups just in case you are able to secure that avenue, which will be sent to other powerful figures throughout the city who owe me favors. Those individuals and groups shall obviously remain undisclosed.”
The previously calm appearance on the Paladin became still as if he were standing upon a lightly frozen lake, ready to plunge through the ice at the slightest incorrect movement. He appeared to be struggling to put up a firm front, but his rigid body betrayed him. Instead, he spoke carefully and with halted words. “Why Apothecary Victoria, I would never renegade on a deal. I did breach common curtesy in your shop, and for that I apologize.” He waved his hand to the pile of coins sitting on the counter before adding. “We will continue the transaction with the aforementioned price.” His gaze drew to the recording sphere as he stated that.
Victoria apparently was satisfied with such and placed the tray containing the vials on the limited counter space. As her hands went for the money, the paladin waited quietly until it had been gathered before he then took hold of the frozen tray. After examining it carefully, he made the entire thing vanish much like he made his earlier money bag appear. Apparently, he likely had a spacial storage as well.
Before leaving, the paladin made purposeful eye contact with both me and my master. I assumed that after this, I was more fully on his list of individuals to be wary of. It was kind of a dangerous compliment, but I would take it.
Victoria was the one to break the quiet standoff as she addressed them with professional politeness. “With our dealings done, I would like to invite you to leave my humble shop.”
A grunt was her only reply as Paladin Eckhart abruptly turned and near stomped out of the shop. His unhappy apprentice followed quickly in tow.
Only after the shop door closed, did Victoria let out a breathy sigh. Then to my surprise she began to laugh. “Hahahaha!” Holding her hands together in glee she stated. “I have been waiting so long to be able to hold something like this over his head. And now I have it!” Raising the clear sphere up to eye level she smirked.
Looking over to me, she met my eyes and gave a deep nod of her head. “Were it not for you, I likely wouldn’t have been about to gouge him of as much money as I did. Be warned though.” Her voice turned deeper and more grave. “He likely will be on much better behavior in the next short while he strives to create a more favorable view of his actions. This will be done in order to counter the possible leaking of this to the council.”
Her smile turned bitter as she added. “Admittedly, if he can build up enough merits in this time frame, then even the proof of this recording won’t be enough to overly trouble or cause him to lose his position within the council or city patrol. In the interim though, you should be safer than before.” Casting me a sidelong glance she concluded with. “Just don’t be surprised if one day you get knifed in the back once he has more firmly established his positive image.”
That was certainly a daunting concern. I didn’t know what kind of time frame I had to work with, and seemingly neither did my master. Hopefully, I would have enough opportunity and time to build up my own strength to leave the confines of this city, before Paladin Eckhart deemed his ‘good deeds’ to be enough to offset the cost of revenge.
In any case, that was a concern to ponder at a different time. I had a test and learning experience in the form of plant and herb identification to return to.
The shop remained peacefully quiet as I resumed my halted lesson, and I was able to complete all of the plant labeling and assessing before any more clients dared to return to their shopping.
Victoria appeared very pleased with my results. She only had to correct me with three different herbs, which from the small samples she had procured, the differentiating details had been severely lacking between those three. I then made special effort to solidify those few differing aspects between the three within my mind and memory. They each had differences in odor, tactile feel, and overall essence. Such was not clearly stated in the literature I studied. When I taste tested them, they were still mostly just bitter as most of the plants were.
I honestly wasn’t sure why I felt drawn to taste most of the scattered samples, but something inside of me urged me on. I ever went back to the ones I had skipped before completing the test, in order to avoid their affects. With great care, I applied the smallest of portions of the more volatile plants upon my tongue, spitting them out almost immediately upon satisfying the inner drive to test them. I wanted to reduce the impact such dosing might have on my person. My master certainly raised an eyebrow a few times at my antics, but she kept her peace.
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Upon completion of the test, Victoria swept away all traces of herbs within her spacial artifact. I still had not seen what it looked like as she always appeared to pull things out of her clothing. These things were impossible in size to fit comfortably, simply disappeared or appeared in hand as she pulled them out or put them away.
Shaking my head in bemusement, I aided in throwing away the placemats and labels as those were both disposable.
* * * * *
The next seven days I was sent on several delivery missions with my apothecary book in hand to review 30 pages every day. I was nearing the end of the book at a rapid pace! Ever since my new cognitive improvement, my memorization skills had drastically improved, and it showed across a spectrum of tasks and responsibilities. I was incredibly satisfied with how it aided me during my sparring and training sessions with Monroe.
With each visit which we moved to twice weekly, he had taken to performing acupuncture on a far smaller scale to various muscles at the beginning, which temporarily paralyzed them. This then forced me to use my underutilized muscles in completing various Tai Chi and Kata movements, subsequently strengthening them and teaching my body to become more efficient. My learning progress gained momentum with great satisfaction.
Back on Earth, even without my enhanced body, but with a heavy wooden staff which I special purchased, I felt confident in taking on a group of 2-3 thugs in real life with what was taught to me. I had even taken to practicing at the local gym, tumbling about on the practice mat provided. A few gym goers had actually asked to practice with me when they watched my movements. Unfortunately, due to it being an exercise only gym, I was informed that the insurance didn’t cover even mock fighting and thus I almost got kicked out for even trying it once with a sparring partner.
After that in reality, I took to performing the Tai Chi, Kata, and self-defense movements only in the pool, with the restraining water as my only resistance.
When not with Monroe sparring, at the falls excavating, or doing deliveries, Victoria began taking or ordering me out on several excursions to find and harvest various herbs. Out there, I was truly able to shine as the fruits of my studies were able to reveal themselves.
Multiple times throughout the week, I would be out scavenging for the day’s request for wild grown herbs. These herbs were ones that Victoria purposely sent me out for in the concocting of personal potions. After successfully making several of the same type of potion, Victoria would then begin encouraging me to adjust various aspects of their creation method. Heating time and level, different processing techniques, throwing in a dash of other herbs, among other changes to see what I could make and discover more of the how and whys they turned out the way they did.
A part of me which was infused with the element of both healing and poison nature would on occasion nudge me in a certain way to try something a little different. Almost always, those little nudges turned into far better products than I had made before. I felt a thrill inside each time something like that happened as it reaffirmed that each of my sacrifices were individually worth it. Each element pulled its weight as an enhancement for my body and mind.
In addition to giving me a unique insight and increased sensitivity to the corresponding element, I was enhanced in super human ways. Earth gave me increased strength and a greater sense of balance. Fire and Ice made me more resistance to their corresponding temperature differences. This led me to being able to sleep and work more comfortably regardless of the surrounding ambient temperature. Additionally, I was told that fire and ice aided in increased strength and stamina. I couldn’t say to what degree, except that it was notable.
Wind and water were favorites of mine as they each had a distinct boosting impact to my skills within and under the water. My time at and under the crashing falls was able to cement my understanding that my lung capacity and ability to swim had undergone a terrifying enhancement. It was to the point that I felt distinctly lack luster in reality.
At one point during my college life, in an attempt to stroke my ego, I would on occasion challenge various lap swimmers to a race. I had never participated in high school or college swim teams, but I had a greater than 90% winning streak against any recreational swimmer that had never been in a high school swim team before. I once had the audacity to challenge a coast guard trainer to a race. Needless to say, he wiped the floor with me. Before I had reached even a third of the pool length, he had already tapped the other side.
Here and now, given the same standard of skill he had then, if we were to compete against each other with my new enhancement, I could confidently say the roles would be reversed. A bemused grin crossed my face at that unlikely matchup.
Darkness and light I’d have to say were quite the interesting pair regarding their positive effects. I conclusively have a very effective night vision which could be activated at will. It was unfortunately limited in its duration before my eyes became over strained, but fortunately, it felt more like a muscle that needed exercising rather than a permanent limitation. After several long ventures to procure various herbs, I had come to love traveling in the night along the outer edges of the wall. During such ventures, I was frequently able to spot various creatures hidden by the undergrowth usually safe and unseen among the shadowy hideouts.
If this were at the early stages of my time here, such adventures almost certainly would have resulted in multiple resurrections after a vicious mauling by magically mutated wildlife. Instead, in addition to my greatly enhanced capabilities; the resulting increased patrols both inside and out of the city fortifications had pushed a great majority of vicious wildlife further away from the city walls. This then led to a huge turnout of bright-eyed adventurous Travelers, tromping around through the vegetation on either various quests, simple curiosity, and actively seeking for wildlife to dispatch with their weapons. Many of them had budding magic and a strengthened physique to test out and learn the limits of.
Apparently, I had made a name for myself among several of the Travelers within the harvesting circle, as they would come to me in the wild for help in finding and procuring some of their own requests. So too did they come often to the shop to purchase some of my deeply discounted and personally concocted potions.
On the side, I had taken a page out of Victoria’s book and specialized somewhat with prank potions. Some of my favorites bought by the women, would induce menstrual like cramps within the men dosed with it. They also bought several libido dampeners and enhancers for their fellow adventurers. Many of the men had bought my own watered-down version of itching powder as friendly pranks to their travel companions and as revenge to slights from others. I made sure to not create anything too strong to protect any potentially innocent victims. The stronger substances I kept for my own potential needs in protection.