After the meal that evening, the guards sang her mother's praises. Even some of the women asked her to marry them. Cerise's mother laughed the proposals off and joked back that they really had her husband to thank for her cooking as he went out of his way to find her challenges to help her favorite skill to grow.

Cerise smiled along with the laughter, but she was nursing a worse headache. She didn't know if you couldn't Heal the ache from learning new skills, or if it had more to do with using her Pools as deeply as she had. The Stamina cost hadn't been bad, but her Mana Pool had emptied and then started into her Stamina.

While she pondered her skills, an older woman as tall as her father walked over to the guards' part of the camp. She had on travel robes, more of a long jacket over relaxed fitting trousers, tucked into calf-high boots. Her steps had that knocking sound of wooden soles, a sign of a [Cobblers] handiwork.

Cerise had thought it strange to hear tell of people who made their living solely by making shoes, of all things. It didn't take much to sew up a pair of soft leather legs, and barely any more frustration to sew up a double layer sole to attach, or replace worn soles.

She had tried putting wooden slats between the leather of her sole soon after seeing a caravaneer in the village with his fancy boots, but she quickly took them out again. They made walking feel funny, all stiff and hard.

Gohren called a happy greeting to the woman, and quickly introduced her to Cerise's family and Mykhal. Caravan Master Sanyel had sharp eyes and a ready smile. The guards were respectful of her in a relaxed manner that spoke of good relationships. Her eyebrows rose when several of the guards thanked her for hiring on a gods-sent cook.

Gohren cleared his throat at the inquiring look Miss Sanyel sent his way. "She's Advanced in cooking and you said I had discretion, so I'm paying her from discretionary funds."

Several of the older guards looked startled, and some smiled while others looked thoughtfully approving.

Miss Sanyel looked somewhat skeptical, but before she said anything, Gohren continued, asking, "Have you eaten yet?"

"No," Miss Sanyel said, drawing out the word.

"Kip, a bowl for our master!" Gohren called.

The guardswoman caught dishing herself up a second helping nodded and grabbed one of the spare bowls to fill up, too.

The caravan master accepted the bowl with grace and spent a moment examining the food and inhaling its scent before she took out a spoon from her belt pouch and began eating. She ate slowly, considering each bite, and it seemed to be some kind of spectacle for the guards, who quieted as they watched, keeping any commentary to low murmurs that barely reached their neighbors.

When she finished, Miss Sanyel said, "I'll be joining you for meals it seems, and if you find the [Wagoneers] heading over, too, I would not be surprised. Do make them bring over rations for the pot. And keep receipts for your spending. The accountants will want that."

"Yes, Miss Sanyel," Gohren said, grinning, even as his guards cheered.

Sanyel turned to Cerise's father. "So, we found a [Healer], a [Cooking Adept], and a [Scout] among your troop. Tell me, Rhene, are you a hidden master, too?"

He shook his head and smiled bashfully. "Oh no! Someone has to be the ordinary one among us!"

Cerise's mother laughed. "The 'ordinary' one who makes it all possible! Why, back when I told my scrape grace over here that I wanted to be the best cook in the land, do you know what he did?"

Miss Sanyel arched an amused eyebrow and dipped her head to better hear the tale.

"He goes off into the woods and gathers up every plant he can find for me to try cooking, and then he ate everything I cooked! Even tree roots! The smoke from baking with Apple or Maplewood adds a faint sweetness, especially to meat, but you either have to be that darling of mine or starving to eat wood!" Her mother laughed. "That's just the man he is. You want something, and he'll find a way to make it happen, and then he'll hold you to the doing."

Cerise's father tried to hide how he puffed up with pride at her mother's loving look. Tried, but failed. "Bergin, dear, I think the good caravan master was politely asking what I can contribute to the caravan."

Miss Sanyel nodded in affable agreement.

Her father said, "I have a [Carpenter] and a [Miner] class, and I can take up a third yet. My Expert skills have to do with rocks, but I am bordering Advanced with some of my carpentry skills, and Wood Sense feels like it'll jump ranks with just a small push."

That got an interested nod from Miss Sanyel, and she asked, "You found a synergy with [Miner] and [Carpenter]?"

Her father shrugged. "Tunnels need to be braced somehow. It's not a synergy so much as a situation where both skill sets are useful."

"That's sensible. If you have any skill to bend wood that won't cost a day's layover, we have some spare wheels in need of maintenance. It's piecework, and usually handled by Novices when we stop at one of our houses, but I have coppers in my budget for that, and coin is coin."

"That it is," Cerise's father agreed. "I have no better tools to work with than my daughter's knife, so I would have to see what you need to say if I can do aught for you."

"We have tools for emergency repairs you can use. Check with the Quartermaster in the morning -- after breakfast."

----------------------------------------

Cerise's dreams were strange that night, and all jumbled up. She dreamed of using sticks to make woolly, hole-riddled cloth, and coloring fine paper to glue into books that she wrote in with pens filled with inks that became fluid when passed over flames. She dreamed of building shelving from beautifully planed boards and "screws", threaded nails that were twisted into wood instead of hammered.

She dreamed of books as far as her eyes could see, and "screens" filled with words that changed at the tap of her fingers. Fragments of magical stories played out before her on yet more "screens", the characters speaking in their own voices as moving drawings or actors showed what the characters did or suffered done to them.

When she awoke it took her a moment to shake off the fog of her dreams. Her head still felt tender, but not quite so much, and she thought to turn her Diagnose skill on herself.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Mana sore: souls can handle only so much mana at a time. When that amount is exceeded, the overflow into the body causes fine tremors in the muscles or circulatory systems, resulting in possibly unnoticed tremors, head pains, and minor swelling of the extremities. If mana continues to be pushed through a soul beyond soreness, Mana Sickness may result, bringing with it risk of cardiopulmonary failure: stroke or heart attack.

Treatment: rest for 1 to 2 days, avoid mana use during rest.

Extreme cases may require Soul Surgery.

Cerise blinked, then went into her profile and turned off her Triage Aura.

Some of the words that came to her from her Diagnose skill were vaguely familiar. She knew what they meant even if she could not recall hearing or reading them before.

She fumbled out of her blankets and crawled out of the tent she shared with her mother. She saw the barest hint of light on the horizon, giving her just enough illumination to spot her mother giving the cauldron from the night before a quick clean before she started making the breakfast meal. She headed over and said, "Mama, I'm going to empty my bladder, then look for wash water. Want me back sooner?"

"No, you're fine," her mother said. "Find a guard to point you to the spore hole."

Cerise nodded and rubbed her face. She did as her mother suggested and returned, passing the same guard.

"Are we near water? I'd like to fill my water bag," she said.

"Quartermaster has barrels with water gather runes. Around here they fill back up fast, so just fill from the spigot. Those barrels are strapped to the sides of the supplies wagon," the guard said.

"Thanks!" Cerise waved, her eyes bright with the idea of magic items. Maybe she could practice sensing the mana near them?

She had noticed that Mana Proprioception was focused on her own mana, which seemed to synergize with her Heal skills. However, she hadn't felt any mana outside of herself with that skill. At the worst, she knew how to relist Mana Sensing. She wasn't sure if she would have to lose Mana Proprioception, but she really liked the idea of finding magic in the world. Also, having two closely related, even overlapping, skills would either synergize and make them grow quicker or impede and slow experience gain for both.

She gathered up the water bags from her and her mother's tent, and then from the tent Mykhal and her father were sharing. Both men gave her half sleeping grunts. "Oh hush!" She said, "I'm filling the water bags!"

Mykhal pulled the blanket back over his head, but her father started rousing.

The Quartermaster frowned when he saw her head over. Keeping her voice lowered, she relayed what the guard told her, getting a nod and accepting wave. "Just odd to see a [Healer] at common chores," he said.

Cerise shrugged. "Chores need doing. I've got two good legs, and two good hands, and two good eyes. That's more than enough to put the work in, yeah?"

That got a grin. "And a youth that likes to work! Will wonders never cease!"

Cerise giggled as she started into filling up the water bags. "Oh, I don't like it, but my parents taught me that what you put off grows. And it's easier to enjoy things when you don't have something dreadful waiting, so twice as much reason to put off fun and be done with chores sooner, you see?"

"Your mother cooks and raises saints? Your father is a very lucky man!" The quartermaster said.

"You know, he tells everyone the very same thing. He says that's why he works as hard as he does for us. Only fools bask in Fortuna's grace, and all."

They chatted amiably while the Quartermaster filled boxes with foodstuffs. Cerise worked in her question about how the runes on the barrels worked.

"Ah, I'm no [Rune Smith] to tell you the details. What I do know is that they pull moisture from the air, the kind that makes for muggy days. It helps keep molds from growing in our foodstuffs, and when it rains, I have to open the pour spouts to keep the lids from floating off."

"Would you mind if I spent some time looking at them? I have a low rank Mana Sensing skill and only got that from the holy place where I got my class," Cerise asked.

The Quartermaster's eyebrows shot up and with a grave face, he said, "Don't go bandying that skill about, young Miss! Slavers pay good money for Mana Sensors in the Novice ranks, and you never know who will take their coin! But if you're going to look, now is probably the best time. The emptier the barrels the harder the runes work."

Cerise nodded, white faced at the warning rebuke. It took her a bit longer than normal to slip into the hunters trance, but she quickly got the notice she had hoped for.

[Mana Sensing] relisted at Beginner-6.

She kept up her concentration until she felt the push of mana ease. She also noticed that her head felt a little less sore.

Her mother came over while she was staring at the barrels, their own cook pot in hand. She filled it from the barrels, and asked Cerise to help her bring the food for the morning meal back to the cook site.

Cerise nodded, grabbing the water bags and the cook pot from her mother, and ducked her head in a respectful way to the Quartermaster.

He nodded back to her, and smiled. "I put my portion in your box, Miss Bergin, and I hear your husband may be able to help me with some of my wheels that need a look over and repair. I'll see you at the breakfast."

"We'll be happy to have you," her mother said before leading the way back to the guards' cook site.

When they were farther away, enough that the Quartermaster would not hear, her mother asked, "What made him so serious at you?"

Cerise wet her lips. She picked her words with care, cognizant of the potential for being overheard. "He's a good man, I think, and I said something about my skills he thought was my saying too much. When we're sure we're private, we can talk more."

"How many about?" Her mother asked, far quieter still.

Also soft voice, Cerise said, "I had to turn off my Aura. I used too much too fast, and I need to rest without spending from my pools. I'll check again at the first stop."

"Make sure the Sergeant knows. He needs to plan around things like that."

"Yes, Mama," Cerise said.

Back at the cook site, she sat down their water-filled cook pot and handed her mother one of the water bags. "I'm going to wipe down and change into the kit clothes. Should I pack up? Or will you want to chance to do the same?"

"Pack up. I wiped down when I rose."

After leaving the water bags for Mykhal and her father, she went back into the tent she had shared with her mother. She was cautious about using too much soap without a stream to rinse off nearby, and it proved to be pretty potent stuff. She changed quickly, and used a bit more soap and water to wash her panties. She looked at the remains of soap on the garments and decided to risk using her new Greater Cleanse skill. The water already in the damp cloth slowly beaded up, carrying soapsuds and fine dirt with it. She listened to her intuition of the skill and poured on more water, at which point the cleansing happened much faster. The water deposited itself in a clear spot of grass near the back of the tent, and Cerise's head hurt a little more, but she had softly clean panties. That were dry, too!

She smiled while she dressed. It didn't feel like that took her too much mana at all. She shook out the blankets before folding them and packed her new things into her rat skin pack. The kit pack was little more than canvas and rope, but it was more than her mother had had to carry things with before.

With everything packed up, it was the work of mere minutes to tear down her tent. She didn't know if all the tents needed to go back to the supply wagon together, so she left it at her tent site and brought their packs over to her mother. Without needing to be told, she took her knife out and started slicing up onions.

Cerise

Race: Human

Age: 13, Youth

Total Level: 7

Class(es): [Arcane Healer Novice]

Social Strata: Commoner, Freeman

Pools:

Health: Low

Stamina: Low

Mana: Low

Attributes:

Focus: Moderate

[Arcane Healer Novice] (7)

Arcane Healing: B-0

Heal Wounds: B-2

Heal Toxins: B-0

Heal Diseases: B-0

Triage: B-3

Stabilize: B-0

Diagnose: B-0

General Skills

Slots: 1, Used: 1

Acting: P-6 (I-9)

Appraise: P-1

Blades: B-9

Cleanse, Greater *†: B-2

Cooking: P-6 (I-3}

Cyphers: B-7

Drawing: P-4

General Anatomy *: B-5

General Craft *: P-6 (8)

Hunting: B-6

Logic: P-6 (I-3}

Mana Proprioception *: B-9

Mana Sensing *: B-6

Natural Weapon Combat: P-2

Oration: P-6 (P-7)

Potion Brewing *: P-2

Quick Stepping: B-8

Research: P-6 (A-4)

Scribing: P-6 (A-8)

Staves: B-0

Stealth: P-0

General Skill Unlocks

Mana Sight

Mana Scent

Mana Hearing