Traveling with the caravan fell into a routine easily enough. Guard Sergeant Gohren thanked Cerise for sharing her limits. Then he watched her family all work on their Staves skill, and he added them to his training roster.
"If you're going to train, you're going to do it right, and that means making sure my guards know what you can and cannot handle. Besides, the more I can pay you in knowledge, the less of an ox's back-end I feel that we cannot pay you in good coin," Gohren said, and so her father had accepted.
Mykhal was accepted as a temporary guard, and his training was a little different. The [Scout] who had been tasked with his evaluation, Elar, was given rein to train Mykhal. Gohren said it was in part for Elar's benefit, as the [Scout] was hoping to promote to sergeant himself but needed a teaching skill up to Practiced before his application would be considered.
Elar had Mykhal running laps around the caravan before breakfast and dinner, "to work his pools", and he had sword practice while Cerise and her parents drilled with staves. During the day, Elar had Mykhal drilling his archery, and by week's end, her best friend began killing rabbits and ground fowl to add to the guards' cook pot.
When they overnighted in towns, Mykhal always had night watch. He would get some coppers for his half pay, which he turned over to Cerise's mother to add to the coppers her father made for his odd jobs about the caravan.
During the conversations over meals, more of their story came out, but they had all agreed not to say that the men they had spotted cutting their neighbors' throats had been yet other neighbors, and no one pressed them for more details, especially when it came out that Mykhal was orphaned now, and was Cerise's best friend, not her brother.
At first, a few of the younger guardsmen flirted with Cerise. She was polite, but she did not try to hide her disinterest. A couple grumbled about her being a cold fish. When one of the more disgruntled said it at the dinner meal, Mykhal asked, "How old do you think we are?"
"She's hardly a bare Novice. She's got to be sixteen at least, probably closer to twenty," the grumbler said.
"Thirteen. She will be four and ten this harvest," Cerise's mother said.
"Oh," the grumbler said, seeing the cook responsible for their recent upgrade in food quality angry at him. Then his eyes rounded as her meaning caught up to him. "Oh! Oh, I'm sorry, little sister!" He turned a bit green at his mistake.
The churches took a dim view of pedophilia, which for humans meant one person being under fifteen. Some people barely tolerated that, holding that the true age of adults, the Age of Responsibility, should be twenty for humans. Beastmen, or Xylines they were called properly, were held to a similar standard, while draycons were supposed to still be youths at thirty. Elves and gnomes, Cerise had heard, took longer still.
Cerise was as polite in accepting his contrition as she had been with his flirting. It wasn't that she didn't understand what happened. She didn't care. As she saw it, he had not flirted because he liked her. It was a game to him, and when he failed, he had proven himself a sore loser. His contrition was not for how he treated her; it was over his mistake in thinking she was old enough to play his flirting games with.
There had been enough [Miners] in Trall like that for Cerise to learn there was no good for those weak enough to be pushed around in calling out such poor minded people. Let word get around, and the respectable, stronger people would take care of things.
In Trall, that had been people like her father. In the caravan, it was the guard sergeant and the caravan master.
Gohren said, "Miss Cerise, my apologies. I, too, thought you were of age. Had I thought otherwise, none of my guards would have bothered you that way. Mykhal, you're under age, too?"
He said, "I'll be fourteen at mid-summer, sergeant, and I'm a classed orphan. My word to a contract binds me."
Gohren nodded. "That it does."
----------------------------------------
Just as Elar worked Mykhal to "grow his pools" by constantly draining and refilling his stamina, so too did Cerise work her own pools.
She was more conservative with her mana, in part because she needed it to Heal and more because mana soreness really sucked. She took to running laps with Mykhal, and then using her Greater Cleanse to take the sweat off them.
When her mother discovered the cleaning magic her daughter now possessed, Cerise became her chief dishwasher.
That left Cerise only the time during the two caravan breaks during the day to pester the [Wagoneers] for tips on how to gain Animal Handling skills. It took her a week of enthusiastic helping to unlock the general skill and another of learning the individual beasts to actually learn the skill itself.
Once Cerise had recovered from her first bout of mana soreness, she put her Triage Aura back up and walked up and down the length of the caravan. She also used that time to continue her foraging, this time focused on healing plants and grasses that she could weave into cordage as she walked.
Triage and Diagnose did synergize, and when one of the oxen started to develop colic, she knew when she could treat them with some Calm Root and when they needed her to Heal Toxins or Heal Diseases, and by the distinction just how long it had been since they ate whatever disagreed with them.
There were the occasional showings of monsters. Most were smaller, and obviously monsterized natural beasts, dire beasts. A dire cat stalked them for a few days before the guards managed to trap it. Cerise's mother made the monster meat palatable, and everyone who ate the meals prepared with dire cat flesh gained a bit toward their next levels. It wasn't actual experience, but it was a small thing that made skill gains, especially with physical skills, easier.
Cerise's mother tanned the hide for more coppers, and the guards all got a bonus of a full silver for the pelt, bones, and the mana cryst.
After that experience, Mykhal wrangled permission from Elar to switch to quick hunts in place of his evening run. As often as he came back empty-handed, he also returned with dire foxes, almiraj, and once a tusked deer.
All the beasts he brought back had mana crysts, though small ones, and while the meat was a welcome addition, it was nowhere near as beneficial as the dire cat's had been. They still added coppers, and a silver for the tusked deer, to their family's coin purse.
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In the towns where they overnighted, they slowly began to acquire the tools and other goods they would need for their new life.
When Cerise's Animal Handling reached Beginner-4, Tamrin, the [Wagoneer] she helped that first day, returned her help by going with her to offer his advice on selecting a draft beast for their own.
"Oxen are favored by caravaneers because they have Good to High Might and quick Stamina recovery. They can sprint for short distances with rest afterward, and their Health Pools are between Moderate and Good. Horses have Moderate Might for the most part, but also Moderate Endurance, which lets them run for longer, but they also need more rest. For both, a wise caravaneers carries grains to supplement their grazing, between one and two fists worth per day.
"Now, if there are mules to be had, they're more like to go monster, being naturally sterile as they are, and depending on their temper that can be good or bad.
"Horses are stupid, and if one turns dire, they're still easy enough for someone at Practiced Handling to control. Mules, though, are not long eared horses. They're smarter and they remember. If you're ham-handed with a mule, they'll hate you even after you learn better, and if you're at all timid with them, they'll have no respect for you.
"But! Treat a mule right, pay attention to their instincts, and don't let them bully you, and you will find far fewer better guard cattle than a mule. Maybe, maybe, a caracasas, but those birds do better more to the south, and they're really only good mounts for a gnome."
Cerise drank in Tamrin's lecture all the way to the town stockyards. She still wasn't comfortable with the big settlements with so many streets and buildings, and the press of people. There had to be at least five villages worth of people in the smallest of the towns they passed through!
The wide-eyed looks she and Mykhal gave the first few towns the caravan stopped at had brought friendly teasing from the caravaneers. Some had fondly reminisced about their own first experiences with seeing a settlement where you could not learn everyone's name, and others warned about how much bigger the cities were.
Most towns were built around the ruling noble's estate and were named after that noble's House. Depending on how old the noble's House was, or how long they had held the land, the towns gained either a prefix of Va' or Sa', or a suffix of -holm or -seat, and if a branch House held distinct lands, the newer acquisition would be the new title-seat.
They were currently in Alsthir Cyrseat, of the Daarong Hirselland. They had passed through an Alsthirholm a few weeks back. The Cyrseat sat close enough to the river Orm to have docks, which give it more trade options and reason to be bigger than the -holm.
Which meant Tamrin had time to explain the vices of donkeys and draft goats, and to praise the utility of mountain camels, despite their disgusting habit of spitting.
At the stockyards, Cerise saw a centaur for the first time. A small group of them were doing chores while another spoke to a neatly dressed man with a fine over robe, like Miss Sanyel wore.
"Ah! What luck! Looks like we have some members of the Long Horn tribe in town! We'll talk to them first as their [Herd Masters] are all at least Adepts, and have been managing their bloodlines for Elven generations. Even their culls are good stock, and they'll barter a bit of service for a discount, especially to someone that will take care of the beasties."
They waited long enough for the fancy dressed man to depart, then hailed the centaur's spokesman.
"Pardon, please, are you the negotiator for your squad?" Tamrin asked.
The centaur, male to go by his voice and flat chest, turned to them. He wore a robe that ended at his knees, laying along his equine back until it split for his tail. That back was closer in height to a pony's, maybe twelve hands tall, and the man half of him would have been appropriate for a human between sixteen and eighteen hands in height. That still put him two heads taller than Cerise, and a head taller than Tamrin.
"I am," the centaur said. "To whom have I the pleasure of speaking?"
"I'm Tamrin, a [Wagoneer], here to give the young Miss [Healer] Cerise some advice on the selection of her first draft beast. She's traveling with our caravan, for the Nykimopia Consortium, but the beast will be for her family's use."
"It is a pleasure to meet you, then. I am Fa'Lin Swifthoof. Do you need your beast to pull or carry its load, and what is the skill rank of the one who will care for it?"
Cameron nodded to Cerise, and she said, "Carry for now. We might get a cart later, but none of us have a Driving skill, and my Animal Handling is halfway through Beginner. But, the caravan master said it will be another month before our paths go different ways, and I'm hoping to gain more divisions from what the [Wagoneers] have been teaching me."
She grinned as she added, "I'm hoping my initiate class will be a [Beast Healer] or at least a [Tamer] type!"
Fa'Lin's expression did not change, staying politely affable, but he seemed to be considering somewhat. "Will you allow me to test your skills as I show you our available stock?"
Cerise nodded. "Okay."
Fa'Lin led her to where the other centaurs were, and pointed out the horses and oxen. "Co'Rant, Emma, we have a buyer to test!" He called out. The whole group looked their way, and two waved then began separating out some of their cattle.
"For the first test, point out the best of these beasts." Fa'Lin challenged. He added to Tamrin, "No helping, please."
"Well, best for what?" Cerise asked. "And, may I get closer?"
"Best for you, and yes," Fa'Lin answered.
Cerise moved with calm deliberation into the corral. She avoided facing any of the cattle directly as she approached, trusting to her side-eyed glances to keep track of the beasts.
When they were in range of her Triage Aura, she paused. One of them needed a deworming tonic. Another had bruises on his flanks like he kept getting nipped. Another had a bad tooth that was bordering between diseased and wounded.
It was an effort to keep her lips closed, but if she gave her service before negotiating a price she might not be able to pay the asking price for the sturdy mare that she took an instant liking to.
She sidled closer to the mare, still taking an oblique approach, and stopped when the mare tossed her head. Cerise ostensibly looked around, as if she were a part of the herd and reacting to the mare's unease.
The mare took a few steps closer to Cerise, and Cerise sidestepped in place, edging just a little closer. When the mare was close enough to sniff her, she made a show of sniffing the mare back.
With small, calm movements, she soon had an arm over the mare's shoulders and had her moving toward Fa'Lin and Tamron.
"Beginner rank Animal Handling?" Fa'Lin asked, looking skeptical.
Cerise shrugged. "It is a broad skill, and I haven't had a lot of practice with it yet."
"And why did you pick the mare?" He asked.
"She has good conformation, she's alert, and the other cattle were happy to be near her. Unlike a few of them, she doesn't have any nipping bruises, either. Those bruises show you have a biter in the herd. That the ones bitten act like they're safe around her shows she is not the one who does the biting, and that she doesn't have those bruises shows that she will not be bullied. She's also one of the calmer ones, and listened well when the herds were being separated."
[Animal Handling] advances to Beginner-5.
Fa'Lin narrowed his gaze. "What is it?"
"I just got another division in my Animal Handling skill," Cerise said with a smile.
She paid out a silver coin for the mare and common grade pack tack, along with her services triaging and treating their herd.
The mare she named Daisy.
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-6
Heal Wounds: B-3
Heal Toxins: B-2
Heal Diseases: B-1
Triage: B-8
Stabilize: B-2
Diagnose: B-4
General Skills
Slots: 1, Used: 1
Acting: P-6 (I-9)
Animal Handling: B-5
Appraise: P-1
Blades: B-9
Cleanse, Greater *†: B-3
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-3
Stealth: P-0
General Skill Unlocks
Mana Sight
Mana Scent
Mana Hearing