The next few days passed in a slow march of mostly boredom, though Kori did learn a great deal about how the Clan was run. It seemed that each day different Elders were in attendance in their chambers for the morning, though the Chief was there every day, for members of the Clan to approach and discuss practically anything. From needing more dens dug, to wanting to trade for more barrels from the surface town, to an emergency meeting after a goblin scouting party was found in the far tunnels, impaled on one of the trapper’s contraptions thankfully, and a multitude of other subjects.
Her afternoons spent cleaning the entirety of the Chieftain’s den and some of the workshop, though she was not permitted to even step foot in his sanctuary, where he preforms his spiritual rituals.
The only bright part of these days was her time with the Matron in the evening, though it turned out her new teacher was actually another apprentice herself. To Kori’s disappointment it was not her somewhat sibling Korg but another apprentice by the name of Vri. In her final months of her apprenticeship before getting her class, it was hoped that Vri would benefit from teaching in a one-on-one environment to help prepare for her first time teaching an entire clutch of hatchlings.
Their evenings together were quite fruitful, with a notification of a new skill happening on the very first night.
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Now this was not too surprising, as Kori had learned her numbers diligently in her early learnings with her clutch and simply hadn’t applied those skills over the course of the last half a year since unveiling her status and being able to acquire new skills. But it was still nice to see it happen so quickly. With the first of the skills acquired, they moved on to the more difficult of the trainings, at least in Kori’s opinion, [Basic Calligraphy], while reading and the basics of writing were covered in her earlier years it turned out that Calligraphy was not about just writing, it required patience and practice to write well, which decidedly does not include Kori’s idea of the written word, which in Vri’s words was ‘less legible than goblin scratchings…’
The evenings spent writing in charcoal on slates, over and over, as Vri corrected her form, her posture, her way of handling the charcoal stick, and generally everything else about Kori’s attempts to write in an acceptable manner were frustrating and slow. So, when Spiritcaller Ortik declared on the morning of the fourth day that he would begin teaching her about herbalism after the meeting, she was quite excited to start learning something actually interesting. This excitement worked against her for the rest of the morning, standing in her place within the Elder’s chambers, listening to various complaints, proposals and reports, her only reprieve being sent to fetch an absent Elder when their input was deemed necessary.
As the meetings and discussions finally ended for the day and Kori followed Ortik back to his chambers he began discussing the plans for the rest of the day. “Now apprentice, you have had a few days to acclimate to your new duties, so today we begin on your first lessons. Today you will begin work towards gaining the [Basic Herbalism] Skill.”
Arriving to their destination and guiding Kori into his workshop, he continues the lesson. “Herbalism is a Skill that is centered around knowledge. It is acquired by learning the basics and then proving your knowledge in one of a number of different ways, either by properly identifying and gathering plants, mushrooms, and other natural ingredients from the environment around you, using those plants to treat ailments or injuries by creating poultices, tinctures, or other treatments, or even by using them in creating food, though that last one can be very difficult to actually implement successfully and a bit wasteful.” Ortik shakes his head as he says the last, a hint of humour at the thought of learning herbalism just to season food.
“Today I will be teaching you about 3 of our most useful and commonly used ingredients. First is Luminous Cave Moss, a cousin of our ever present staple food that grows near water sources and damp soil. This moss is used to create poultices to heal wounds and sores, and when ground and steeped in hot water the resulting tincture can be used to treat bandages to stave off infections.” Ortik continues describing the properties of the moss while retrieving an earthenware container from a shelf, opening the box he shows Kori the pale yellow-green moss inside. “Properly harvested and dried the moss will maintain its properties for several months, though fresh is always better for poultices.”
The description continues and includes details such as differentiating the moss from other types, habitats, harvesting methods, drying methods, storage and preservation. All told nearly an hour is spent on discussing this single type of plant.
“Now, for your first test. Take this slate,” Pulling a slate about the size of her head from a shelf, “And write down everything I just told you about Luminous Cave Moss. I expect your writing to be legible and concise. I will return in a few minutes.” With that he walks out of the workshop, leaving Kori with a slight dumbfounded look on her face.
Seriously? He expects me to write an hour worth of details on this little slate in a few minutes?
She quickly begins creating notes, first about what it can be used for then beginning on the barest details about identification, harvesting and storage. When Ortik returns she has covered the front of the slate and moved on to using its reverse, which much to her and Ortik’s displeasure caused the front half to be smudged significantly, still decipherable but decidedly not legible…
“I cannot say I’m surprised. Though I did not expect you to ruin your efforts by attempting to use the reverse of the slate. While potentially a clever idea, you must consider the consequences of your actions before implementing them.” He shakes his head, not as upset as Kori expected for having seemingly failed his little test. “You seem to have gotten quite a bit of the lectures material but failed in terms of presenting it in a usable manner. This was to both test your memory and to teach you a key detail of learning new information, taking notes. While you are learning it is a valuable method of preserving that knowledge for your use.”
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“Now, we will move on to the next ingredient we deal with regularly. Drift Mushrooms.” As he speaks, he catches Kori’s attention as she recognizes the name of the ingredient.
“Are those the mushrooms that Drift Spores come from, Spiritcaller Ortik?” His title feeling more natural to add to her question now, though she still refuses to refer to him as ‘Master’. Kori isn’t sure why she refuses to use that it, but every time she thinks of it, she feels a revulsion to the term itself.
“Yes apprentice, the spores are an important part of the mushroom, they carry an affinity for Air and are used in many runes and rituals that need to invoke the element.” While not pleased with the interruption, Ortik does at least acknowledge her connecting the concoction that she had previous experience with and this new ingredient. “We will cover affinities later when we discuss Ritual magics. For now, the mushroom itself unprepared can be quite dangerous, I expect you to pay close attention, if you fail to do so you will suffer the consequences when I have you prepare a fresh specimen later.” As he speaks, he retrieves another container, this one much smaller, its contents looking like scraps of thin brittle grey leather more than a mushroom. “This is the prepared version of the mushroom; it is perfectly safe if done properly. If not, it can be a powerful hallucinogen before rendering you unconscious for several hours and causing vomiting and fatigue for days afterwards.” Kori backs away slightly as he mentions the symptoms.
“To prepare the mushroom you must first remove the spores from the underside of the cap, as the process will ruin them for other uses, this is done with a tool such as this,” Holding up a thin piece of stone with a blunt curved end on it. “Once removed they can be preserved in a liquid of water and yeast from the brewery for several months. You must be careful to avoid breathing in any loose spores while working, it is best to be gentle and work with slow smooth motions to avoid releasing them, you won’t get as ill as eating one, but it can be unpleasant. Very unpleasant…” A flash of discomfort across his visage as he says the last part makes it seem he is speaking from experience.
While Ortik speaks Kori takes several notes, trying to keep the points she writes out both neat and short with only the essential details.
The lesson continues for quite some time, going over again the ways to identify the mushroom by its grey stone coloured cap and white stalk, how to harvest it without disturbing the spores, how to prepare it to eliminate its toxicity while condensing its medicinal properties, namely its use as a sedative and pain reliever, before moving onto the complex method of preparing it.
“Now, it is important that you remove the stipe, the name for the stalk of a mushroom, thoroughly. Removing all of the white flesh of the mushroom until all you can see is the grey flesh of the cap. I will demonstrate this process, as it is important it be done properly. It is better to waste a little bit of the cap than it is to risk leaving any of the stipe” Retrieving another container, he pulls out a mushroom with a cap larger than both of Kori’s hands splayed out. “This is a fresh Drift Mushroom; the spores have already been harvested from the underside of the cap.” Showing the damaged underside that has been scraped down to grey flesh. “Using a knife, you cut here, at the end of the stipe,” Doing so as he explains. “As you can see there is still a small amount of white flesh left behind within the cap, use the knife to dig that out as well.”
His explanation continues on from there, detailing a process of drying the caps over hot coals before re-hydrating them in fresh water and salt, then drying again. “If done properly you should be able to soak them in water for an hour and the water remain clear. If it turns a muddy colour you will need to repeat the process. If the dried caps become brittle, then you’ve exposed them to too much heat and the batch is ruined.”
The lesson again takes over an hour detailing a single plant and as he finishes Kori finds that she is mostly out of room on her slate. “Spiritcaller Ortik, if we are going over a third ingredient should I fetch my practice slate for additional space to write?”
“No, you will simply have to clear what you have and rewrite it in a manner that leaves space for more. I will give you ten minutes to do so before we begin on your final lesson for the day.”
And he couldn’t say that earlier… It’s like he wanted me to mess up and have to do it again…
Doing as she was told Kori manages to free up some space, likely not nearly enough, to add more notes. Trying to write as small as possible and keeping it at least a little legible is quite difficult when using charcoal sticks.
Returning to the room with a steaming cup in hand, it seems that Ortik decided to make himself some tea during his break while Kori worked at condensing her notes, “You’ll need to do better than that apprentice, your notes are horrendous.” A now familiar tone of amused displeasure that Kori is coming to dislike in his voice as she continues to try to re-write notes. “Now, the final plant we will cover today will be the Stone Nettle. This is a robust plant that can rarely found in the upper tunnels and caverns, we use it sparingly but thankfully a little goes a long way. The leaves of this plant are jagged and covered small hairs that we scrape off before drying the leaf for several days until it falls apart at a touch and then grinding into a fine powder.”
Showing a small pot of brownish powder to demonstrate. “We use this to treat many poisons and toxins, particularly some that the goblins like to coat their weapons with.” Again, the discussion drags on as he goes over every little detail about the plant, how to use it, where to find it, how to harvest it, and more.
Kori finds the discussion fascinating, but the volume of information that has been explained makes it difficult to keep everything straight, the impermanence of her notes making it much more difficult to retain anything, though writing them out is good practice and has seemed to make recalling the little details easier.
“Now, for your test I want you to retrieve the containers I showed you of each ingredient, pointing to a wall of shelves with dozens of nearly identical earthenware jugs and pots. I will name an herb; you will retrieve it and tell me what I would use it for and how I would prepare it to do so.”
Without giving her any time to prepare he immediately asks her to gather Drift Mushrooms, it takes her three tries to find the correct container, but she manages to at least repeat most of the desired details. The other two go a little better, getting the stone nettle on the first try but the moss taking two, a few details missed but a large part correct.
“Acceptable, barely, we will go over these again in a few days briefly and then on to a practical exercise. We will continue this until you either learn the skill or I lose confidence that you will be able to.” Turning and beginning to walk away, “Now clean the workshop and the tools I used to demonstrate, I expect this to be done before dinner.”