After nearly an hour, I slowed down and tried to catch my breath. I had zigzagged, backtracked, muddied up my tracks, disguised my scent, and did everything I could to make sure that nothing could easily follow me. I came to a stop and realized that I was almost three quarters of the way back to the house and slumped against a tree to rest, because I hadn't run like that since basic training.

I waited a few minutes before I used Sense Magic and the only thing around me that glowed slightly, was the tree in front of me. I chuckled at so easily finding a wildwood tree and cut it down and cleaned it of the smaller branches. I tied it up in a harness for easy dragging, then walked the rest of the way back to the house.

I didn't have the energy to jump any of the waterways after a run like that and used the tree to cross them instead. I laid it down, walked across it, and picked it up again. I continued on and made it back to the house an hour later, dropped the tree beside the front door and went inside. I glanced at the wounds on my hand and sighed, because they were magical and couldn't be healed by normal means.

There also wasn't enough flat skin around it for me to do the cross cut trick and apply healing potion to heal them, either. The damage was too extensive. I sighed and went to my bedroom and climbed onto the bed, not bothering to clean myself of the dirt, dried blood and mud. I laid on my back and fell asleep right away.

The day and night passed before I knew it and I woke up the next day. I groaned at the stiffness in my muscles from over-exerting myself and sat up in bed. I knew right away I had lost an entire day and cursed under my breath, because I didn't have anything to show for it, except for the felled tree and a slightly mangled hand.

I was glad the broken finger and dislodged bone in my wrist were only pressure wounds and not magical wounds. They had healed with the healing potion and I wasn't crippled. The furrows that the panther's claws had made in the flesh and skin were already getting stiff and I opened and closed my fist to test the movement. If I was careful, I shouldn't be too hampered by the damage.

I sighed and went to grab my pack, took out my enchanting tools, and went to my work room. I set up for some extensive enchanting and then went outside. I quickly cut up all of the tree into coins, not caring to keep to the one foot wide restriction I used to have. I knew that I could make them any size between the normal size and four inches, so I managed to get a lot of two inch thick wooden coins out of a forty foot long tree.

I didn't really have a lot of time left to get to carving, barely a full day, because on the last day I was going to have to deploy them. However, I had lots of time to use my number ten potion trick to make more wildwood while I carved. I was going to need a lot of enchantments to do what I wanted. I set up all of my potion stations for number ten potions and started carving.

The first enchantments I made were the 'men keep away and ignore' enchantments. They didn't need the full suite of camouflage or pain, so I easily switched them out for extended time and magic reservoirs and blew through them like nothing. When the potions were done twenty minutes later, I used the large molds and a single uncut wildwood coin with the potion to create a five foot by five foot wildwood panel that was two inches thick.

Each coin gave me 25 square wildwood pieces for enchanting and I had three molds, so every twenty minutes, I had another 75 things to enchant. It was awesome. I could use the potion to increase the ingredients I had to make potion and used the potion to increase the wildwood I had available, and I enchanted for half the day without break.

I stopped for lunch and divided up some of the water beast for prepping and cooking, the rest for the smoker. I wasn't sure when I was going to be back, so it was more make-work than anything else. I finished by the time the food was ready and ate my fill, then switched the enchantments I was making. I had enough of one and switched to the one that I had made for the supervisor mage.

I changed the men rune for the creature rune and also altered the pleasure bonus and magic reserves. I didn't want them swarming the canal banks and becoming easy targets. I wanted them to be right nearby for when people tried to get past the 'keep away' enchantments, because I wasn't stupid. I knew they would somehow figure it out and I wanted them to be discouraged from doing so.

They would know how dangerous the marsh was, because I was going to force it on them. I worked for the rest of the day making the 'creature lure' enchantments and piled both of them into my boat. I had so many of them that I had to start bundling them together in tarps and then piled the tarps on top of each other.

I was a bit too tired to leave right away, so I went inside the house and went to bed after eating a bit more fried water beast. I slept for several hours and then got up, grabbed two cases of number ten potion, since I was going to be using a lot of it, and left the house. I pushed the boat back into the waterway and quickly made my way all the way back to the village and slowed down when I got to the harbour.

I watched the docks as I slowly passed them and entered the canal that the army used for travel. Once I was out of sight, I sped up to get half a mile away and stopped beside the widened wall of the canal. I climbed up and went fifty feet into the trees and attached the 'keep away' enchantment on one side of the tree and the 'creature lure' on the other side of the tree.

I chuckled at the combination and made my way back to the boat. I activated both and shivered as I felt the need to get away from the side of the canal. When I was ten feet away from the bank, it lessened and I smiled. I went to the other side of the bank and did the same thing. When it was set up on that side as well, I rode my boat nearly two hundred feet away and did both sides of the canal again.

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I worked on and on, never stopping, for the rest of the night and for half of the day. I had to be very careful while around the relay stations, using my camouflage enchantment, and set up those wards behind and around them. Unlike the canal, they would have to move around and patrol within their grounds, so I allowed that. They would have to stop if ordered to go any farther than that, though.

I caught a couple fish and cooked them up for lunch, ate them, and kept working. I had plenty of the enchantments and in some areas where there were great patches of ingredients, I doubled up on the 'keep away' enchantments and kept going.

I spent the rest of the day and part of the night placing the enchantments and reaching all the way to the Eastern Kingdom. Unfortunately, the new garrison was well into the marsh, so I couldn't get too close to it. I dropped off a dozen enchantments all over the trees and even in the underbrush, then beat it out of there.

I hopped back into my boat and took off at my best speed. The best part about them making the canal was that it cut the normal travel time down significantly, because the route was practically a straight line between relay stations.

I also didn't attack any of the ships travelling along the route, since I didn't know which ones were carrying my stolen ingredients. I eyed them warily, knowing they were shipping lots of things that could include my things, and sighed when I made it back to the village harbour. I crept over to the waterway to go back to the house and took off at my fastest speed.

I made it home and hopped out of the boat, looked around the place, and sighed that all of the fun and things I had planned to do, were ruined by the tasks I had to do. It pissed me off and I pushed those thoughts away and loaded the crates of things I was taking with me. I had lots of number ten potions, a crate each of Strength, Fortifying, Death Spider Anti-Venom, and Mental Enhancement. They were all the full power versions, too.

I also fixed my bandoleer and refilled the used potions, entered my stash and took out the three books and added them to my pack with the other two, and sealed everything back up. I also thought about digging out my chest of gold crowns to take back with me, then decided that I didn't need to. There was tons of money in my bank account, thanks to all the potions Helena sold and I wouldn't need to bring more.

I looked at my appearance that I hadn't even considered fixing for the whole time I was there, and went to the washing up barrel. I did my best to clean up and then used some cleaning solution to finish the job and dressed in my adventuring outfit again. I locked the house, sealed it with potion, and climbed back into the boat.

I gave my house one last look, a longing look, and drove the boat away at a moderate speed. Now that I was on my way home, I wasn't in as big of a rush as I should have been. I still had lots of canvas bags to fill with ingredients, so I made a few pit stops to gather up what I could. I didn't venture far, since I was clean and didn't smell like the marsh anymore.

I passed the village two hours later and no one paid me any attention, since it was getting late. I sped up when I entered the other waterway to go to the next town and made it there three hours later. I docked the boat into a private slip, which I paid well for, and sealed my crates and ingredient bags under a tarp. I went to the closest inn and bought a room for the night, changed for bed, and slept until morning.

I went back to my boat, which was unmolested, and left the dock at my slowest speed. No one batted an eye at me and when I was out of sight, I sped up to full. I drove the boat for a long time to take me all the way back to the capital. I knew the way now and didn't have to slow down at all. I used the enchantment to camouflage myself a few times as well, especially when passing army boats and any that had family crests.

I made it back to the capital that evening before it got dark and drove the boat over to the Henrietta Longshore Estate. All of the larger estates had water access somewhere on their properties and ours was on the far side of the wildwood tree grove.

“Welcome back, my lord!” An enthusiastic man exclaimed. “If you'll wait a moment, the workers will get you a cart for your things.”

“Thank you.” I said and stepped out of the boat. “I see the outside wall on the property is finally complete.”

“Yes, sir! They finished it just the other day.” The boat tender said and tied the boat up securely. “They're all enjoying their time off until the next job, sir.”

“We sure are.” A worker said and brought over a hand cart and a crew of four men. “A nice relaxing vacation is needed after all of that.” He waved at the eight foot tall wall that was three feet thick. “Do you really want an enclosed walkway behind it like the walls around the mansion, my lord?”

“Yes, but it's not a priority. Enjoy a few weeks off, maybe take another little job or two, then you can come back and be well paid again.” I said and the workers laughed.

They quickly moved my things from the boat to the cart and I walked beside them as we went through the grove of trees. They commented that the horses were all asleep and they couldn't bring one. I chuckled and said that I didn't have access to a horse for years and used to do it all by hand anyway. They nodded, most hearing the stories of my origin and where I came from, and they seemed to be a bit in awe of me. Surprisingly, none of them mentioned my damaged hand.

My eyes fell upon the back of the mansion and a smile grew on my face when even from this far away, I heard my name be yelled by a very familiar voice. I felt the telltale shiver of magic flow over me from a powerful spell, then my eyes widened as a figure burst out of the back door of the mansion and ran towards me at the speed of a horse.

“Gentlemen, step aside if you please.” I said and the workers scattered, knowing what was coming.

“DAVID!” Helena yelled desperately, the glow of magic around her, and I cast Dispel as she leapt at me. Her speed cut drastically and I opened my arms to catch her. She cast something else that slowed her speed drastically again, then she landed like a feather in my arms and hugged me tightly.

“David.” Helena whispered as she stared into my eyes.

“Helena.” I whispered and stared right back.

Then we kissed passionately.