Now that I wasn't in my soul repeatedly inducing damage, Mother Tin was able to help me heal the last of my injuries. I ignored her healing method's indignity and even managed to thank the caring woman when she was done, but the damage was still severe. The direct physical injuries were mostly healed already. The high-end healing potions were able to heal the damage I experienced from my reckless behavior. Combined with Mother Tin's earlier efforts, they saved my life. Despite the healing, my body had used vast amounts of resources. It had even begun to cannibalize itself in its efforts to heal me.

When I realized how many ribs were showing and how my muscles had worn away, how close I came struck me. If we had been home, I might have survived with multiple Mothers healing me. Being on the road, I only had the excessive numbers of healing potions because I was unwilling to waste my supplies. If I had been just a bit lazier or had a few less expensive stores, I wouldn't have made it. Mother Tin hadn't said it directly, but she made it clear she wouldn't have been able to keep up with the continuous damage.

I was now healed, but that didn't negate the severe malnourishment I was now suffering under. Snowy had taken to stuffing me with food after her practice, while Abby took on the duty during breakfast and lunch. For the first few days, I was either asleep, eating, or red-faced as I passed waste into a chamber pot that Abby would empty. My apprentice took pains to embarrass me over having to clean my chamber pot, which quickly cleared me of that emotion. I was the master, she was the apprentice. Part of an apprentice's duty is to be embarrassed by their master, not to embarrass them. The first week passed in a blur of sleep and recovery, but then my need for sleep waned, and I began to take small steps in recovering my physical condition.

I was bouncing back relatively fast. 'Healing potion abuse' is the generic term for someone who used healing potions to excess. It was a well-known condition, usually suffered by nobles and young masters of merchant houses, and considered a viable training method by some Trainers. It caused a marked reduction in the body's ability to heal itself and a tendency to revert back to the pre-abuse state. The idea was to force-feed them high nutrient food, healing potions, and drive them through harsh training. When their body rebels against the healing potion, slow the activity and maintain it at the lower level until the body recovers. If the exercise load is reduced too far, the body will quickly revert the growth. I was on the flip side of the equation. My body wanted to be stronger, faster, and generally healthier. The healing potion abuse was keeping my body from recovering. As the build-up of magical components drained out of my body - and my foul waste said it was - I was rapidly reverting to my pre-injury state. It was a rarely experienced effect, but one I was desperately glad to have.

While my first week was a stretch of unconsciousness with marked wakefulness, my second week was the reverse. I was awake and wanting to move but mostly unable, and reduced to short periods of sudden sleepiness.

That second week was hell.

I wanted nothing more than to dip into [Meditation] and investigate the many shards of Skills floating inside my soul. I could feel the thick magical gas wafting through my inner space, calling for me to dedicate it to one of my Skills. Worse, I could sense what felt like the barest glimmer of new Skills revolving around recovery, poking at my mind. Everything I was, and all my training nearly screamed at me to practice my new Skills, but I managed to resist. While my body had recovered, my soul felt bruised and sore. As much as an incorporeal semi-hallucination could feel sore anyway. This didn't mean I stayed out of my soul or free from [Meditation] entirely. I performed careful excursions into my soul while under Abby's nervous gaze. My intent was to examine the damage and not touch or play with any of the many fragments. What was interesting to me was the discovery of soreness when viewing my Skill list. I could feel the same sensation of running my tongue over a cavity that I felt when gently touching the crystals inside my soul. Another exciting discovery was that some shards didn't show themselves as Skills within my Skill list. Instead, they felt like a small aspect of a Skill waiting to fit like a missing piece in a crystal.

These little adventures into my inner world were short-lived, mostly hands-off, and I limited them to no more than once a day. The oddest part for me was having Abby watch over me. I wasn't used to having someone I could trust regularly protecting me like that. I would dip into the deeper parts of [Meditation], and spend the time looking around my inner world, and come out to find that only seconds had passed, or hours. There didn't seem to be any kind of correlation for how much time passed. But no matter what, Abby was there waiting for me when my eyes opened.

Since I could not directly assist in Snowy's training, beyond the most superficial of overseeing while she practiced, we switched to less direct training methods. Our current efforts were working toward expanding Snowy's mastery over her [Arcanum of the Blood] Skill. The ability required her to maintain an even breathing pattern, which was difficult during combat due to the jostling and being hit. Snowy found it oddly difficult to maintain her Skill when she wasn't using her native tongue or when trying to follow all the polite social rules. It was charming to me that trying to remember the right way to bow was more difficult for Snowy than the stress of having someone try and cleave her head from her shoulder. We were trying to figure out how to stretch her [Arcanum of the Blood] Skill or see if we could discover the last unknown hidden effect. If she could expand her Skill and grow it into a tier-two Skill, its power would only grow. Bloodline Skills were almost always more potent than standard Skills, which came with the downside of being even harder to expand or grow. Snowy's current practice focused on the blood pulse effect.

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We were strolling up and down the line of wagons. I was huffing along, trying to recover, as Snowy attempted to recite the lineages she had been forced to remember during her morning practice. While she was in her recital, Abby and Mason would randomly throw the lead weights and grain-filled bags at us. The lead weights hurt but were round enough not to trigger Mason's sharpness effects. The grain bags didn't hurt as badly, but they would flatten just enough as they flew to trigger his Skills and leave shallow cuts. Abby, of course, was left throwing only the lead balls. Even with her minimal strength, she would still leave bruises. For Snowy, this was a multi-layer bit of training. [Combat Awareness], practice at even breathing to maintain her [Arcanum of the Blood] Skill, remaining focused on me and her recital, and, finally, use her Skill to detect Abby and Mason.

We were hit a significant number of times.

Despite the repeated failures, it was still good practice. Our training practice paid off since it helped Snowy detect the ambushers.

To be fair, the brigands had obviously decided that they would let our well-armed convoy pass by. There was a large hill of waste quarry rock dumped over decades sitting next to the road. This hillock of rock sat to the side of the road near a small wooden bridge that crossed a stream. When the creek flooded, the rock waste could be used to recover the bank if the bridge was washed away. Using this rock waste, the bridge could be quickly rebuilt, and the road reopened. It was a quick and easy cost-saving measure only requiring the use of prisoners to move the rock. It was likely a labor-saving effort for the quarry owner as well. Unfortunately for our would-be thieves, the rock hill didn't stop whatever allowed Snowy to detect heartbeats.

We were hiking beside the wagons as they slowly rolled forward. My exercise goal was to reach the head of the line and then return, and so far, I was managing to reach the front faster each day. When we began to pass the rock piles, Snowy snapped her head up and around, the gesture I had become used to when her Skill surprised her. She had described it as someone jamming a sharp stick into her mental eye, and so I had some sympathy for her, but it was still a response we would need to reduce. After her movement, she rushed toward the wagons' front, gesturing to each of the soldiers as she passed. When she had enough of them ready, she ordered them around the hill. When Snowy returned to my side, I could practically see her eagerness to find out what was happening. She wasn't a battle maniac like my father, but she had some of the same signs. I was impressed with her ability to resist rushing into a fight without her armor and instead delegating the duty to the soldiers.

When the soldiers returned with four young men and a young woman, each outfitted with crossbows, the wagons halted. The Baron invited me to watch the proceedings, and I accepted since entertainment on the road was few and far between. Snowy was sitting to the Baron's right. The five brigands were tied to chairs before him, their worry practically exuding off them. The soldiers gathered around while their half-ignored bowls of stew cooled as they watched. A court proceeding was a rare thing on the trail. Usually, it was military rules, and while in the castle, they would most often be guarding rather than watching.

"Name?" The Baron asked the oldest man.

"Yosef Miller," he said, pale-faced and sweating.

"And these others?"

Nodding his head to his left, he said, "my sister, Eve, brother-in-laws Harold and Mek, and cousin Ren," he continued, while trying to gesture to each with his head.

"Alright, Yosef. Do you want to explain why you were hiding on the side of the road? On a hidden overlook. With loaded crossbows." the Baron asked, his voice carefully bored.

Still sweating, he looked around to the others and tried to swallow, his voice cracking before he started, "Uh, my Lord? We were hunting."

The response resulted in light chuckles from the surrounding soldiers.

Shaking his head, the Baron tapped one of the bolts from the confiscated crossbows. The ammo was delivered to him with the ambushers.

"That's not a hunting head. Now. Do you want to tell me how many people you have robbed on this road? I'm sure I can go through the records, but I don't want to deal with it if I can avoid it."

Shaking his head again, the man ducked down as if to hide his face from the Baron's gaze.

"Alright, then. You five are convicted of highway robbery. There are two sentences I can legally apply, which do you choose?" The Baron asked, his voice again bored, though I noticed the tightness around his eyes at the pronouncement. As stoic as he was managing, he was not happy.

In the ensuing silence, the young woman, Eve, screamed, "No! The Burgermeister has been taxing our father's quarry blind. He is trying to take it out from under us. It's not right! We had to-"

One of the soldiers behind the woman cuffed her upside the head, the impact hard enough that her chair almost tipped over, the ropes straining from the blow.

The Baron nodded at the accusation, but then continued, "Taxation is a Burgermeister's duty. Despite his actions, highway robbery is still illegal. Now, choose."

Yosef's eyes remained fixed on the ground, his face scrunching up in anger, but he managed to almost whisper his response, "Slavery."

The others demanded the second penalty and were quickly executed, their bodies portioned by the corpse wagon that followed the caravan. By law, bandit bodies were never to be burned in one single location. This was seen as one last insult to those who robbed others and often left their victims' bodies by the roadside to reanimate. Yosef was remanded to one of the soldiers' custody and was quickly stripped of everything, leaving only his short clothes.

He would be sold in the capital, and with his experience in a quarry, he might do well as a rock mover or overseer of other slaves. If he was fortunate, his father might even repurchase him from the capital's slavery pens. If he was unlucky or lacked a Skill that could help him perform his work, he might be picked up as a farm slave. Farm slaves were worked hard until they died and were then portioned and burned to empower the land. Death would be preferable to that life.