The next few hours were a test of the stranger’s problem-solving ability.

After the weird debate was resolved, the stranger got the help they needed. They memorized a location on the map and set off to a point not far from the heron pond. River. Whatever.

The gate into the city was less than a soccer field away from the building’s front stoop, very convenient, and the main road led directly to the market. Now, they were supposed to go on a side road to get a bag.

How? Who knows, but the people at the big building pointed them here, so it was a start.

The stranger spent half an hour wandering up and down the road, weaving in and out of side streets and alleys to try and find an obvious bag-making business. It was becoming frustrating, especially since the stranger knew where to find a bag – the leatherworker had a few for sale. That gear was undoubtedly out of their price range of free, but… maybe the uncle could help.

The merchants were confused but content to see the red-haired man again. There was no more work for the stranger, however, so they didn’t know how to handle the beggar-laborer’s presence. It took a long series of hand gestures to explain what the stranger wanted.

The auntie showed them a spool of thread and a needle, taking them outside to point at the hanging sign. Ah, a… sew-ist. She pointed back in the direction the stranger came from and they did an awkward head nod as a thanks, turning to leave.

There was a shout from inside. The stranger felt a hand grab their arm, halting their progress. What was wrong?

The uncle came out, gesturing for the stranger to come inside once more. Okay? They watched as the uncle wrapped a pile of small leather shapes into a parcel, tying it off and pinning on a quick-scrawled note.

The merchant reemphasized the destination – the spool and thread – before pushing the parcel toward the stranger. Oh! For a delivery. That made sense.

Before they could pick up the package, the uncle set two small copper coins on the counter, indicating again that it was for them. Payment?

The stranger picked up the coins and flipped them over. They were squares with rounded corners, a small slit cut diagonally in the center. The text was unrecognizable but present; a floral design stamped into each corner.

The auntie slapped her husband’s shoulder with a complaint, nudging him and pointing across the counter to something.

The merchant brought a small leather pouch over, with strings on the edge. It was not unlike a dice bag, just much sturdier. He pointedly took one of the copper coins away and handed the pouch to the stranger.

(It was a discount, as Symont was not an unkind man. He would have felt terrible giving this foreigner two loafs only to take them away for an empty purse. And his wife may have killed him for the perceived stinginess.)

The stranger was delighted by this turn of events. They grinned at the merchant, simply enthusiastic about making progress. Shoes, now a coin purse and a coin? They were moving on up! They would be a noble in no time flat, at this rate.

They grabbed the parcel for delivery, intent to make the small payment worth the uncle’s time. The tailor – that was the word – was easy to find now that the stranger knew what they were looking for. Clothes were the obvious ware of a tailor, so the stranger failed to consider simple bags to be available there.

The tailor sat at the edge of a cobblestone intersection, large windows on each side with flower troughs underneath. The heads of multiple young women turned from their work desks by the window to look at the stranger as they entered. An older woman approached, her twisted hair formed into a bun and set with a ribbon and a lovely copper hairpin, a floral design on the bend.

The stranger ignored whatever was spoken, not like they had a choice, and offered up the parcel to the woman. She took it and read the note as the stranger looked around. The main part of the shop contained a lot of shelves and boxes, large closets lining the back wall. A few fabrics were on display, but the merchandise itself was tucked away for safekeeping.

They heard a huff from the woman. It was interesting those kinds of nonverbal sounds still translated, because that huff had clear intent, especially when the woman eyed the stranger with such a dismantling gaze.

Her thoughts were further clarified as she picked at the stranger’s loose clothing, pulling at their shoulders and underarms, unimpressed with how badly it fit.

It was serviceable, but hardly up to the tailor’s standards, even for the most laborious of commoners. They deserved half decent clothing too.

She disappeared into the backroom; the girls giggled amongst themselves. The stranger only glanced their way with a sheepish look. They were clearly young, teens or barely college age. There were any number of teenage girl concerns that could have caused that giggle, most of them about social standards, so the stranger highly doubted the answer was their looks, no matter what novels might imply.

The tailor pushed a cloth satchel into the stranger’s hands when she returned. They didn’t have time to look it over before she grabbed their shirt, tugging at the linen and doing something quickly.

When the stranger looked down, there was a note pinned to their chest.

Great. Another prominent moment of feeling like a toddler.

Soon enough, the stranger was whisked away, trailing behind one of the girls across the city. They could smell the destination before they arrived, a sharp acrid odor infused with soap.

The dye workshop was downstream from the launderer, and neither smelled particularly good.

The stranger didn’t know which they would prefer, though they realized almost immediately that the dye shop was the worst choice. It reeked of chemicals.

They were pleased to realize that the chemicals were, at least, not urine. Maybe there was some magical process for fixing and cleaning the fibers, and the dyes themselves just stank.

The foreman took the paperwork from the stranger; the tailor’s girl refused to step foot in the place. He eyed the stranger over before setting them to work.

It was backbreaking. Scraping hides was nothing compared to this. They were set to mind a series of massive boiling cauldrons, each filled with colorful liquid and fibers. Every cauldron needed to be stirred and turned in order, then the process began again.

Wet wool was heavy; it felt like the stranger was using a long stick to flip over a large man dozing in a pot, over some chaotic fantasy Waffle House flattop.

The stranger lost track of time, but eventually they were given new orders. The new task involved scooping the dyed wool from another set of cauldrons and moving it into a third, heat-less series of cauldrons by means of crate after crate of wet wool.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

When the sun began to sink lower in the sky, the stranger was permitted to quit. They were handed four more of those copper coins and waved off.

With both exhaustion and satisfaction, the stranger carefully headed back to their room in Fern’s house. There was a slight jingle now from their coin purse, nearly silent but there.

It was slow progress, but still progress.

Stella caught a glimpse of the foreigner the next morning. He looked tired and moved slow, fingernails stained with muddled colors at the cuticles. There was no curiosity about the foreigner’s whereabouts the day before; he smelled like a dye shop.

Yet, he threw a satchel over his shoulder as he left for the day, waving goodbye at Stella.

The guildmaster’s orders remained harsh, but maybe there was some truth to his methodology of sink or swim.

Today’s new challenge was navigation.

The stranger did not yet possess a map – it was next on their mental list – but they were confident in their skills.

The city itself was big, massive even. The stranger remembered playing video games of medieval fantasy with dingy villages of two or three houses, the larger ones with smiths or herbalists. This city had a castle and every sort of merchant you could think of. Surely it had to be the capital of the kingdom.

But their point was much simpler: big castle on raised rocks easy to spot from far.

The stranger couldn’t get truly lost until the castle was out of sight.

The southern edge of the city was built into a port, allegedly. The stranger had yet to venture that far into the unknown, given their last efforts to explore ended so violently.

They were currently on the northern end. The northeast, to be exact. The stranger’s destination was to the east and up a little bit. There were rivers running from the coast inland, which was where they could find the plants.

The stranger sighed internally. They were too distracted the first time they looked at the map, thinking it would be a wetland, but an inlet from the sea meant this would, invariably, be a salt marsh.

They were correct – which explained why there was a fetch quest for forty-six plants found very close to the city, instead of it being a chore for an off-day for the merchant.

It was beautiful. Long open expanses of tall grass, dotted with patches of high-stemmed flowers, all flooded with water. There was a curving river through the middle, swallowed up by the tidal flood but denoted by the lack of tall vegetation.

The stranger found a low-branched tree near the edge of the marsh and tied their satchel onto a limb, emptying their pockets into it. Marsh hunting meant waders in their old world; all they had were trousers and a shirt now. All the nice things went into the bag for safekeeping.

With just their knife, the stranger went to work.

The plant that looked like a peacock feather or a round, green wheat stalk was easy to find, as it was the most predominant plant other than a standard thin reed. They found snails and crabs in the nearest patch, only getting their boots a little damp. Thirty pieces of this plant made a dense bundle that the stranger tied off with some grass.

Next, the lichen. Less easy to find, but the stranger knew where to look. Lichens loved rocks and trees, but did not like being submerged. They wandered along the periphery of the marsh, looking at other types of lichen until finding the one they wanted. It was a vivid, neon green with stalks growing upright like tiny little mushrooms.

The stranger picked a piece off to examine but their fingers started to sting immediately. With internal scolding for not obeying basic nature smarts, they washed their hands in the salt water quickly. The stinging stopped but their fingers were a pinky-red and felt odd to the touch. Not quite numb, but close.

That… would require some extra effort to obtain. It would be stupid to put the lichen directly against any of their belongings or other plants, in case the painful part was an oil or liquid. They needed a big leaf or a container, none of which were present.

With some frustration, they put the problem to the back of their mind, looking instead for the dotted lilies.

Those, regrettably, were in the deepest part of the marsh. A high spot among the reeds and grasses was host to a dead tree trunk, dried into driftwood. Bristle-like vines grew around the tree, sprouting pale yellow lilies with three spots on each petal.

The stranger was careful this time. They poked the flower with a single pinky, eyeing both the skin and the flower for changes. Nothing happened. They didn’t want to risk touching the red-bristle material – which honestly reminded them of a plant version of red centipedes – so they chose to cut the flower stems with their knife and catch the flower as it fell. Just in case.

Ten flowers were easy to harvest here. The stranger would have hunted another log if they felt it was to the plant’s detriment, but there were easily six more lilies dotting the red growth that they could see from this angle.

Carrying ten delicate flowers back to their satchel was a separate, equally stupid task. The stranger was hip high in water, feet slipping on algae and sand alike, trying their best not to drop any flowers into the water.

They slipped and took on a broad stance, automatically holding the flowers high to avoid getting them wet. At that moment, they spotted a creature in the distance.

Watching them from a patch of grass and reeds was a reptilian thing, the broad head of an alligator with a shorter face, more like a dog. It had a crest on its back, but that was the only detail the stranger could observe at this distance.

Canine croc. Gnarly.

They didn’t really want to get closer and find out more.

With some concern, the stranger continued and gave the beast a large berth. It didn’t seem like a large enough animal to bother with humans, aside from a warning bite. Would hurt like hell, though.

The lilies were safely placed into the satchel, leaving only the lichen as a problem. They knew where it was (on the border of the salt marsh) and how to get it (it came off easily by hand, or knife), but how to transport it was still unresolved.

Still no signs of large leaves for a makeshift pouch. They could wrap it in something, but putting rash-inducing plants against their clothes seemed dumb.

Okay.

Okay, they knew how to braid. They kind of remembered how basket-making worked from those seemingly pointless girl scout events. There were plenty of reeds and grasses here. If they made a good, solid daisy chain, then tied the braided pieces together, they could make a small cylinder or a basket thingy.

It would work. It would be weird but it would work.

At least they had a knife to assist them. The process took an unreasonable amount of time, as the stranger had to restart their chain several times before remembering the right way. The long straight grasses and peacock plume grass were anywhere from five to twelve inches in length, which was more than enough to use as string.

It was easily another hour and a half before the stranger had a cup-sized woven thing, with plenty of flaws and issues, but functional. They walked back to where they sighted the last lichen and looked for more.

Once spotted, the stranger found some tree leaves to line the cup with, hoping to keep the lichen from dropping any fragments in their bag. This method was much easier on the hands. The stranger used some reeds like chopsticks to hold the lichen while they cut it loose, poking it into the cup.

Finding the six pieces proved to be difficult, however. The lichen only liked the underside of rotting logs and boulder overhangs, presumably so its fruiting bodies could rub off on passing animals.

It was late afternoon by the time the stranger gathered all the plants they needed, and then even later as they sought out their satchel, almost lost, and returned back to the main building. Was it still open? Could they go ahead and turn these in?

Still damp and definitely muddy, the stranger entered the building, glad to see Brass cleaning up behind the counter. They dug through their bag for the papers, showing them emphatically to the man before reaching to pull out the plants.

Brass said something quickly, pushing away the papers back to the stranger. Was it after hours?

No, the thin-framed man grabbed a bag of his own and gestured for the stranger to follow, locking up the building as they left for the day.

They walked together in comfortable silence til they reached the market. Brass pointed at a sign shaped like a mortar and pestle. The stranger eyed the building, wondering if it was open, then turned to thank Brass.

He was already walking away, a good distance down the street, heading into town. Huh.

With a shrug, the stranger went to turn in the materials.

It was common for most merchants to live upstairs, it seemed, because a grumpy person came downstairs when the stranger knocked for a while. They asked some irritated questions, calming a bit when the stranger showed the metal card from the business.

As far as the stranger understood, the exchange went well. The… chemist spotted their still-red hand; they also seemed curious about the braided cage holding the lichen.

The stranger left much richer than they started, earning seven large copper coins with shields embossed on them. Was that good? Probably. How much money was that? Who knows?

They were hopeful about the prospects of buying equipment. Maybe it was just the company they kept, but there were a lot of weapons-carrying people in that business. That probably meant if the stranger wanted to wander farther out from the city, they would need a weapon too.

That was a problem for tomorrow. They headed home, this time before sunset. Maybe Fern had some food they could trade for. It’d been a while since they had a solid meal.