Ander woke up in pain. Morning light stabbed in between the rocks of his shelter. His entire body was stiff and sore, still black and blue from the beatings he had received at the hands of the soldiers, his chest hurt where his rib was still broken, and his arm. Of course his arm. It did seem that the bleeding had stopped, the inch thick scab bandage had done the trick eventually. But of course that wouldn’t do. He had no idea if the wound was infected or not, but he couldn’t risk it. He still needed medicine, and a bath.
Ander groaned as he sat up off the rocks that had been his mattress the night before, and swiped away the notifications. He needed medicine before anything else. He knew nothing of plants and herbs, but he hoped that he might be able to accomplish something with that skill, Walker of Memories. Ander closed his eyes, doing his best to ignore the itchy stiffness of his bloody clothes. He breathed in and out calmly and carefully, and nothing happened for a full ten minutes. Finally starting to get fed up, Ander focused his attention on the idea of the skill. In the very next moment he was in a dark void.
At first Ander panicked, thinking he had somehow killed himself, but calmed as he felt himself sitting on a rock in his shelter. He looked around and all he could see was blackness, but he could feel something… It was hard to judge exactly what he was sensing. It seemed like a billion, trillion or more discrete objects that were also many long and flowing objects. Kinda like a beaded necklace. Ander reached out and touched a bead.
Ander was riding a horse in the middle of a hunting party. They had been traveling for weeks to reach Shianid, and had weeks more to go. Hope rose in Ander’s chest. Shianid. If they could get there, all would be right again. Ander thought of home and family with love and affection that were not his.
“I promise to return to you. You will all be whole again.”
Ander ripped himself away from the bead. But images of a deadly plague, a horrible wasting disease, and the party who left to find a cure, kept running through his mind. Ander understood. Each set of beads was a life, with each bead being discrete moments in that person’s life. There were so many though, and he had to figure out how to sort through all of the different experiences. Ander quested out with his will, calling for someone related to herbalism. The whole world remained black. Ander knew it did. But at the same time, certain threads started giving off colored light of varying intensity. He couldn’t see the light, but he could sense it in an odd way he had never used before. He willed himself towards one of the threads, and got the feeling of an alchemist, skilled beyond any other. Ander felt the potency of the Alchemist’s skills, his ability to conjure drafts of unbelievable complexity out of thin air.
But Ander wasn’t going to get sidetracked. He willed himself to one of the early beads, sensing a skill, new and fledgeling emanating from it. Ander reached out with his will and…
. . .
Scori had not wanted to go with his father into the woods that day. Merchants were in town, which always meant new stories. He could imagine Sam and Gregory sitting below the tavern window listening for the things that the grown ups didn’t want them to hear. Still, Scori tried to make the best of it. He loved going out with his father, just not today is all. Scori had to wipe away a grumpy frown for the eighth time. He jumped to a new rock where he balanced precariously for a moment before leaping to the next.
“Scori.” Father said “Your mother and I have been talking.” Scori froze, and nearly fell from atop his rock. Father smirked at him, and Scori blushed, making an angry face to cover his embarrassment.
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“What about?” Scori hadn’t done anything wrong recently that he could think of. Unless, This couldn’t be about McAllister’s chickens could it?
“Your birthday is in what, five months?”
“Four and three quarters.”
“Ahh of course. It does pay to be specific.” Father smirked again. He did that a lot. “Either way, you are going to be 8 soon. Halfway to being a man. How are your letters coming?”
“Ok I suppose.” Scori jumped down to walk next to Father. “I am not as good as Anni, though I work really hard, but I am better than most of my friends.”
Father looked at Scori for a moment, before giving a bit of a laugh. “Scori, Anni is three years older than you, and you make her work to stay ahead of you. Don’t sell yourself short.” Scori stared a bit at his feet grinning embarrassedly. Of course, that was when the dreaded question came.
“What about your numbers? How is your arithmetic coming?” Father smirked again. Scori mumbled an answer.
“What was that son? I can’t hear you.” Father was outright grinning now. Scori had learned a word recently that described his father perfectly at this moment. Sadist.
“It isn’t going well.” Scori said. Father already knew this. He was having fun hearing it from Scori. “I haven't been doing my lessons.”
“Tut tut. What are we going to do with you? You know fractions are important for what we do, and a lot more besides.”
“Come on, Father,” Scori pouted. “Noone else in the village has to learn fractions! Half of them don’t even know what I am talking about when I talk about it.”
“Yes, and most of them are going to be farmers one day. You are going to be an alchemist. Precision is important when making a proper mixture.” Scori stared at his shoes as he scuffed them in the dirt of the trail. Scori mumbled again.
“Scori, you mumbled again.”
“Fine,” Scori said with a sigh, “I’ll start doing my fractions lesson again.”
“Good. Because you know what will happen if you don’t.” Scori’s face went white. Of all the humiliation…
“I will do my lessons!”
Father smiled at Scori, receiving a scowl in return.
“With that settled, your mother and I have been talking.” That line again. It was either really good news or really bad news. “We have seen your progress, and we think that you are ready to begin training as an alchemist.”
Scori stopped dead in his tracks staring at his father. His father smirked. Again!
“Really!” Scori was so excited that what did a little smirk matter?
“Yep. Even with your recent lapse, you have thrown yourself into your education quite admirably. You are years ahead of schedule. To think, I will have a second apprentice so soon after Anni.”
“YES! Yes yes yes yes yes!” SCori ran about, jumping between rocks and the path until he calmed down. “When do we start?”
“Now of course. Look here.” Father pointed to a gloomy spot near the trunk of an evergreen, where brownish green moss clung to the bark. “This is your first lesson. This is atelier moss. It doesn’t look like much now does it?”
“No.”
“A lesson for you then. Most herbs you will gather don’t look like anything special. Plants must be of at least tier 3 before they start showing overt magical properties. At least most of the time. That is because magic plants are more likely to be eaten by monsters, and so plants like to stay inconspicuous. That means..”
“I know what inconspicuous means father. It means it is difficult to find or detect.”
“Good. Because atelier moss is just like that. It contains a large amount of pure mana in a form that is incredibly good to use as a potion base. Don’t have enough lifevine? Just add atelier moss. The mana in the moss will gain the life attunement when treated properly, allowing you to make many more healing potions with far cheaper materials. And it looks nearly identical to evergreen moss.”
For the next several hours Father led Scori down the path showing his various plants and herbs and how to properly harvest them. The sun was nearly down when Scori felt a light tugging at his mind. Scori looked at his notifications.
Congratulations! You have gained Skill: Herbalism.
Skill: Herbalism is level 1.
Skill: Herbalism
Uncommon
Allows you to gain greater insight into plants and herbs. Herbalism is a knowledge skill. Herbalism allows you to consult The Grand Archive to learn more about plants and herbs. Connecting to The Great Archive requires an ongoing mana cost that decreases with a higher level. Herbalism also allows any identification skill to glean more information when identifying plants and herbs. Recall of information relating to plants and herbs is slightly increased.