I’m awoken by horrific pain. My mind is muddled and disoriented considering it’s daytime now but I have no idea where I am nor do I know why everything hurts so much. When my hysterical screams go unanswered, I’m able to calm down for a split second and see what’s happening around me. For some reason, I’m being dragged along on the ground. Looking up, my left hand is tangled up in the reins from my horse and I’m hanging off of his right side as he trots along while dragging me with him.

“Stop! Stop! Buddy, stop!” After a few minutes of cajoling and sweet-talk, he finally comes to a halt. I can tell he’s extremely exhausted and judging by the bright sky, it looks like he ran the whole night. Holy shit, is this what the trust between a horse and their rider looks like? Pulling out my sword, I’m able to cut the reins and free myself. I’d love to keep the reins intact but I can’t think of another way to get myself loose since I can’t even stand up with my leg the way it is.

Checking on my leg, there’s only the front end of an arrow still sticking out of the middle of my thigh. I’m assuming the bottom half was snapped off by the dragging while I was still passed out. There’s still an entire arrow sticking out of my right shoulder but I don’t think it hit the bone which is the best silver lining in all of this. It looks like the wounds around the arrows have crusted over with dried blood but that also means if I want to pull these arrows out of my body, I’ll start bleeding profusely from them again. I also need to get these wounds treated soon or else I’ll risk an infection. First things first though, where am I?

My horse seems to have stumbled upon a small clearing in the middle of these woods. The winter’s not over yet but this place doesn’t even look like the frost touched it at all and I can see small woodland critters bustling about on the green grass. There’s even a running stream nearby and I could definitely use some water right now. I try to get the horse to stay still so that I can climb my way up but he keeps moving ever so slightly away from me and without a better idea, I lead him over to the stream by pulling the ruined reins while crawling on the ground like a worm.

When we get to it, we both take a few minutes to drink from it. I should boil this water first but I don’t think I have anything in my pack that I can use for that. Wait, now that I think about it, where’s my shield? Miraculously, my sword and both my axes are still secured tightly on my sword belt but my shield’s missing. Maybe the enarmes got torn somehow and then it got caught on something while I was unconscious.

After drinking my fill, I see some white moss growing on a boulder semi-lodged in the stream. If I remember correctly, that’s Pale Hair moss and if it is, that’s exactly what I need right now. I pull out Riane’s journal and flip to the section on moss.

Finding the correct entry, I read her notes on it, “Pale Hair moss can often be found growing in the wild especially near rivers because it has very low nutritional requirements to grow naturally. Its main usage revolves around disinfecting wounds and it doesn’t have high processing requirements to use, making it the standard for medical care throughout the kingdom. I’ve heard on more than one occasion anecdotes from former soldiers barely escaping battlefields with their lives, covered in wounds. They come across Pale Hair moss and chew it in their mouths, mixing it with their saliva, before slathering the mixture onto their open wounds and a few days later, they’re good as new. Interestingly enough, the saliva has a tangible and noticeable impact on how effective the moss is during treatment and without it, Pale Hair moss must be mixed with various other supplements to achieve the same effectiveness.”

Well, there we have it. I crawl over to the boulder and grab a handful of the moss before stopping to think. I think I need to get these arrows out of me first to treat these wounds, right? Dear gods this is going to be painful.

I put the moss away for a moment before crawling back to the woods and collecting sticks, tree branches, and dried leaves. I’m dreading every moment leading up to what I’ll need to do but if I want to get out of here alive and fully intact, it has to be done. I haul everything I collected back to the stream where I start building a small campfire. When it’s done, I pull out a small stick of flint from my pack that I bought back in Ocean’s Rest for 50 copper. When I was browsing the general goods store, this thing in particular caught my eye because it let me cast fire anywhere and I didn’t need to learn any stupid spell to do it.

Once the fire comes to life, I carefully pull down my leather pants until the arrow and the wound is fully revealed, making sure not to disturb the wound any further. I grab the handful of moss and chew it thoroughly for a few moments. It doesn’t really taste like anything at first but once the juices start building up, there’s a nasty bitter taste that spreads across my tongue. When the moss turns into a pastelike form, I put it off to the side before grabbing one of the wooden tubes filled with Schon and stuffing it sideways into my mouth. I pull out my sword and hold the tip of the blade in the fire until it becomes red hot. When the blade looks hot enough, I bite down hard on the tube and take a deep breath before pulling out the arrow in my leg.

I grimace at the pain but I know this is only a tiny taste of what’s to come. Blood leaks out of the reopened wound and I smear the Pale Hair paste over both the entry and exit wounds on my thigh. There’s a stinging feeling that’s quickly replaced by a cooling sensation. After I wipe away the remaining residue, I brace myself and bite down as hard as I can on the tube before placing the red hot blade against the exit wound on my thigh.

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My leg spasms frantically at the pain and I nearly drop my sword as I fight to keep it there through the torturous pain. For some reason, I can hear a young man screaming for his life and it takes me a second to realize I’m the one that’s screaming. I can barely see anything through the tears in my eyes and when I finally can’t take it anymore, I pull the blade away from my thigh and begin to sob uncontrollably. My pitiful whimpers are the only sounds in this whole clearing aside from the gushing stream next to me. There’s a gruesome looking scorch mark where the arrow came out and realizing all that charred flesh was mine was traumatizing. Dread fills me when I realize I still have the underside to cauterize and then I still need to work on my shoulder.

I hoped, I really hoped the second time wouldn’t be as bad but I think it was honestly worse. Midway through, I had such a strong inclination to bash my head into a boulder over and over again just to stop the pain. I’m pretty sure I fainted during the process somewhere because I couldn’t remember when I laid down on my back or when I dropped my sword. Once both wounds on my thigh were shut and the tears on my face dried, I sat there for a few minutes feeling more drained than I have ever felt before in my entire life and I didn’t think I could handle cauterizing my shoulder as well.

I did the only reasonable thing I could come up with and slid off the top of the tube I was biting down on and poured all the Schon contained within into my mouth. The bitter taste was a welcome distraction from the immense pain. Once the drug started to kick in and my face numbed, I pulled out the arrow in my shoulder and it was so much more pleasant than before. By the time I was ready to burn the wound, I was already drowsy and nearly dozed off a couple of times. When the red hot blade was burning my skin, I could still feel it but it was different somehow. It was like I was detached from the pain and I more so felt it as a third party than anything else.

It’s hard to describe but after both wounds on my shoulder were burned shut, I slumped backwards and fell asleep right there on the grass next to the stream. When I woke up, the moon was already out and it looked like I slept through the whole day. The fire next to me had already burned out and my horse was grazing on the grass nearby. Looking down, I pull my pants back up and wince at accidentally brushing up against the wounds.

When I woke up, I felt incredibly tired even though I slept for such a long time and my whole body ached terribly. Worried, I put the back of my hand up to my forehead because the only time my body aches like this is when I’m sick and it turns out I’m right as my forehead was burning up. This is really bad. I search through my pack for anything that can fight off a fever but there’s nothing in there that can help me right now. Looking around, I can recognize a few plants scattered around the clearing but none of them are what I need right now.

I’m not even doing anything overly strenuous and I’m just sitting on the ground but I’m already working up a light sweat. Not only that but my body feels like it’s freezing even though it isn’t really that cold out. This can’t go on. Grabbing my sword and putting it back in its sheath, I struggle to get up on my feet. It’s painful but at least it’s bearable. I fill up my waterskin in the stream before setting off.

I make my way over to my horse and slowly clamber my way up the mountainous beast. This is the first time I’ve ever thought that horses should be shorter to better accommodate people. I guess I took for granted being able to easily mount up in the past and I didn’t appreciate it nearly enough. When I eventually get on top of the creature, I pick a random direction and guide him towards it into the woods.

All I need is a handful of Uphrona leaves and I’ll be fine. It’s a plant native to the Nasaar Kingdom and Riane’s Journal states that it grows everywhere with how easy it is to grow. You can literally take a stroll in any forest in the entire kingdom and you’re bound to run across Uphrona plants. I refuse to believe I won’t be able to find it in these woods.

The trees in Plainheart Woods are somewhat sparser than in the Cauna Forest and even at night, moonlight filters through to the forest floor and illuminates the whole forest. That’s how we were able to ride our horses through the forest at night even without having torches or brightstones to guide us forward. However, I’m assuming that’s also how the guards found their way to us after they extinguished their torches. For right now though, it’s perfect for helping me sort through all the plants decorating the forest floor.

After searching for over an hour, I think I finally spotted some Uphrona leaves growing in between two overgrown tree roots. Tenderly sliding off the back of my horse, I walk up to the plant while taking out my brightstone in a box and sliding the top open. Bending down on my good knee, I carefully inspect the plant under the stone’s light but I’m quickly disappointed because the leaves have a dark purple underside instead of a faded red. This is a Vifmess plant, a close cousin of the Uphrona plant, but one is effective at fighting off fevers while this makes for a tasty treat.

Sighing, I use my sword to cut the plant at its roots before shoving the leaves into my mouth and enjoying its fresh, savory taste. While I was learning botany from Riane, her number one rule was to always prioritize wild preservation and if she ever saw me uproot anything without planting it again, she’d take the chance to lecture me right then and there. As I’m standing back up, I hear my horse screaming from behind me. Whipping my head around, I see a huge black hound with red eyes biting into my horse’s leg. The horse manages to free itself and immediately takes off into the dark woods before I can get a chance to rein it back in. The black hound leaps from the fleeing horse and lands no more than 10 yards away from me, staring right into my eyes.