The next morning dawned bright and cheerful, and Elijah rose to the sound of birdsong. For a few moments, he just lay in bed, enjoying the morning for the peace it represented. It would have been so easy to let himself get wrapped up in all the terrible things he’d seen and done. Yet, for all the danger of the new world, it was also incredibly beautiful. Remembering that was key, he was certain.

After all, attitude was a choice. If he focused on nothing but the most negative things, then his outlook on life would be tainted as a result. Yet, if he chose positivity and optimism, it would infuse his life with the same. Certainly, Elijah knew he would descend into plenty of valleys – he’d been in quite a few already, and it would have been naïve to believe that he wouldn’t revisit them – but he also recognized that he’d seen a lot of peaks as well. Choosing where to place his focus was what separated happiness from misery. And he knew which one he wanted to embrace.

So, he rose with a smile on his face as he confronted the day’s tasks. The first order of business was to enjoy breakfast. He didn’t want to hunt or fish – and he definitely didn’t feel like going and killing a crab – so Elijah decided to make a circuit of his grove, pulsing Nature’s Bounty as he picked berries. From the outside looking in, the berries all looked similar, but to Elijah, each one tasted slightly different. It was like they were all sorts of berries in one, and as a result, there was plenty of variety to keep him on his toes.

Once he’d finished eating – and putting his stamp on the grove – Elijah headed back to the cabin where he investigated the results of the previous day’s work. The hide wasn’t quite ready yet, but that wasn’t surprising. Mundane hides would take at least a day for the brain solution to seep in, but Elijah had fully expected the magical bear pelt to take much longer.

The same was true of the lavender infusion. It would likely take at least a week for it to complete, and in that time, Elijah had a major task to undertake – he needed to carve a new staff.

The Staff of Natural Harmony had been with him almost since the beginning. With it, he’d accomplished a host of miraculous deeds, ranging from conquering towers to defending his island. It had been his constant companion, and without that comforting staff, he felt almost naked.

But he was also excited about the possibilities before him. When he’d first created the Staff of Natural Harmony, he’d had no idea what was going on. He hadn’t even realized what he was doing when he’d spent weeks pulsing Nature’s Bounty and One with Nature. And almost by accident, he’d created something that he now understood to be quite unique.

Most people couldn’t create a Simple-Grade item at all, much less by accident. The only downside – if it could even be considered such – was that the result had been bound to him from the moment of its creation.

“Guess I’m not going to make a living as a staff-maker,” he said to himself with a grin as he set off into the forest in search of the perfect stick. But that grin quickly faded as he came to realize just how many choices there were. If all he cared about were dimensions, there were a near infinite number of solutions. So, he chose to focus on something else – the ethereal signatures of each branch.

That narrowed it down to three possibilities, each powerful in a subtly different way.

The first was straight, and the tree from which it had grown had a powerful current of ethera running through it. However, when Elijah focused on it, he couldn’t help but feel that it was a little too wild. It was hard to quantify, but it felt like someone had tried to bottle a storm.

And to Elijah, that just didn’t feel right.

So, he moved on to the next, which felt more appropriate in temperament, but the current was much weaker. However, the third felt perfect, with a powerful but steady flow of ethera that put Elijah in mind of what he felt from the ancestral tree. The only issue was that it was anything but straight. Instead, it looked almost like a shepherd’s crook, it was so bent.

But when Elijah finally reached the tree, he couldn’t deny that he felt a certain affinity for the branch. Sure, it was crooked, and if he wanted to, he could certainly straighten it out. However, he felt that it would have lost some of its uniqueness if he did that. In fact, the more he looked at it, high up in the tree, the more he forgot all about the other two options.

So, without any further hesitation, Elijah climbed the tree and, with a heavy-bladed axe, chopped the branch away from its tree. In the past, he might have chosen not to do such a thing – his notion of what a Druid was had been skewed by Earthly ideas – but now, he realized that it wasn’t so much about preservation at all costs. Rather, it was about living with the environment without taking things too far.

Or perhaps his current impression was wrong as well. He knew that it was a fluid thing, and, more importantly, he was still learning and adjusting. So, what he believed today wasn’t necessary going to be true tomorrow. Or in a year. Certainly not in a decade. And that was fine. He intended to take things as they went, and if he discovered new information that necessitated an adjustment in philosophy, then that was what he would do. Anything less would be idiotic.

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So, with the branch in hand, Elijah climbed down from the tree and set off across the island toward the cabin. Once he arrived, he checked the hide and discovered that it was ready for the next stage. So, after scraping the hide clean, he gathered four large rocks, arranged them at the four corners of the frame where he’d stretched the hide, then placed the frame atop them, suspending the hide almost a foot above the ground. Then, he climbed atop it, and stood in the center. As he did, the hide stretched, which was the point of the exercise.

For the next hour or so, Elijah paced back and forth across the hide. A couple of times, the frame slipped, but for the most part, everything held together. More importantly, the hide stretched quite a bit, and when he was done, he tightened the twine holding it in place, then applied another coating of the brain solution.

Once again, he covered it, intending to leave it overnight.

Then, Elijah headed back to the grove, where he started carving his staff using the same flint-bladed knife he’d used when making the Staff of Natural Harmony. His skills as a whittler still weren’t perfect, but with his high Dexterity, the results were far better than they had been with his last staff.

Yet, he took his time, starting at the bottom and slowly progressing up the shaft. However, that first day, he only made it about a foot before the sun began to set. That was fine, though. A key component of the process – at least according to Nerthus as well as Elijah’s experience with the Staff of Natural Harmony – was time. His ethera needed the opportunity to infuse the staff. So, as impatient as he was to finish, Elijah forced himself to take his time. Anything less, and the results would be unimpressive.

The next day, he made more progress, and he applied another coating of brain solution to the bear hide. And the third day was much the same. On it went for the next week, with Elijah spending every waking moment on his various projects. Finally, on the eighth day, he reached the point where another coating of the brain solution would render the hide unusable, so, he moved on to the next stage: smoking the hide.

With that in mind, Elijah built a large teepee of sturdy branches, upon which he rested the hide, fur-side up. Then, he built a fire beneath it. Once that was done, he gathered a bunch of moss, which he used to cover it and keep the smoke from escaping.

After that, he returned to his carving, which had progressed to the bend. When he’d first begun, Elijah had had no direction, but over the course of the project, he’d developed a good feel for what he wanted. Or perhaps it was what the branch wanted to become. Whatever the case, Elijah knew precisely where it was going; the only question was whether or not he had the skill to make it work.

So, with his knife in hand, he set about carving one of the most intricate pieces he’d ever whittled. The whole time, he continued to flare Nature’s Bounty and One with Nature, hoping to push as much ethera into the process as he could.

It took four more days before he was satisfied.

And when he finished, he received a notification:

Congratulations! You have created a unique item [Serpent Healer’s Crook]! This item will serve to enhance any healing spells cast by the wielder. Grade: Simple

“Healer’s Crook?” Elijah muttered. That didn’t sound as useful as his last staff. But then again, it was still Simple-Grade, so he expected it would be powerful. Even if the description said it would only enhance his healing spells, that was okay. He didn’t really rely on his damage spells, anyway, and he suspected that the limitation would make the enhancement the Serpent Healer’s Crook did possess that much stronger. He would have to test it out to make sure, though.

More importantly, it felt appropriate. Perhaps he would create something better sometime in the near future, but for now, he was excited about the idea of being a more powerful healer. The ability to heal was one of the things that set him apart, and besides, he enjoyed making people better. So, he wasn’t disappointed with the results of his hard work. Just surprised.

But one thing he did like, and unequivocally, was the look. The shaft was carved to look like the scales of a great serpent, and the head followed the same motif, resembling a cobra. He had originally intended it to resemble a dragon, but as he’d carved the curved branch, his movements had taken on a mind of their own, almost as if the staff had rejected his original plan in favor of the snake motif.

And Elijah was pleased with the result.

So, armed with his new staff, he returned to the cabin where he found that the bear hide had completed the smoking process. And judging by how soft the leather felt, it had been incredibly successful. Still, after going back to the treehouse, he used a large amount of cleansing powder to ensure the whole thing was perfectly clean.

And he was pleasantly surprised by how soft and pleasant it felt.

In fact, he was tempted to simply use it as a blanket, but he ultimately decided that doing so would be quite a waste of effort. Because he could feel the ethera wafting off of it. If it had started off as a Simple-Grade material, Elijah knew it was now pushing the limits of the grade.

By that point, his lavender oil was entirely infused as well, so he strained it, then, after ensuring that it smelled the way he wanted it to, Elijah proceeded with the final step of making his soap. Like before, the process was simple enough – just mixing the fat and lye over heat, while adding in a bit of the aromatic oil – but Elijah took his time, continuing to flare One with Nature as well as Nature’s Bounty along the way. And eventually, the substance reached a pudding-like texture, and he poured it into a series of molds he’d created.

It would take a couple of weeks to cure, but Elijah had high hopes for the soap. For now, though, he’d completed his tasks. So, he needed to return to Ironshore, then get ready for his next step.

Before that, though, he had one more project he wanted to begin. That would have to wait until morning, though. Night had already fallen, and he needed some rest. So, after showering – and using the last bar of soap from his previous batch – Elijah went to bed. With any luck, the next day would work out the way he hoped.