The next morning I collected my books and headed off into the Free People’s Land. Five hours later I pulled my wagon into the town square of one of the villages. I saw many old and young people and a few sick people, but very few people healthy adults. After getting out of the wagon an elderly Orc came over to me and introduced himself as the Headman of the village. As they only seemed to have forty to fifty people, they weren’t even big enough for a mayor. “Master Gronf,” I said, bowing my head slightly. “I have come to offer free medical aid to the people of this nation, and to locate a captured trade caravan and its people.”
“I heard that there was a group of traders captured about a week ago. I haven’t seen them or their goods, though.” Gronf said. “Our settlement is too small to receive much in the way of relief supplies. Your best bet would be to try some of the larger settlements near where they disappeared.”
“Do you know where that is?” I asked. Maybe I could narrow down my search.
Gronf shook his head and started coughing violently. After thirty seconds or so it stopped and he put away the handkerchief that he held over his mouth. I saw some flecks blood on it. “I’m sorry, but the rumors didn’t say where they were captured.”
I nodded. “In that case, can I ask you to inform the villagers that I will treat or do a checkup on anyone who wants me to. If I don’t finish today, I’ll stay tomorrow as well.” Gronf nodded and went to start rounding up people.
I unpacked a field medical tent I borrowed from the front and started trying to set it up, but it was designed to be set up by a two person team. After fumbling getting the poles to stand up for the third time a thirteen year old goblin boy ran over and helped me hold the posts, dropping his spear. He introduced himself as Gronf’s great grandson Gril. Apparently he would be allowed to join the military in a few months when he turned fourteen, but for now he had to stay behind and protect the village from wild animals and monsters.
By the time we had the tent set up people were starting to gather around. The first one to enter was the headman. He had some sort of lung infection, so I was able to use Disinfect on his lungs and cure him. I was able to treat most of the people like that, but some had broken bones that I needed to set. Apparently, about half of the elderly had brittle bones. I handed out nutrient potions to everyone and kept healing them. Malnutrition was a big issue here, so I left them several crates of nutrient potions, telling them to drink one per week, so that their malnutrition would be solved. There was a serious food shortage in this country. After several battles during the summer many of the nation’s crops had been burned by Farin’s troops. By then it was too late in the year to replant most things. Most of their food now came from hunting, but the wildlife was becoming scarce.
I stayed in the town that night, being given an extra room in Gronf’s house, and set off the next morning. Two hours down the road I found another village, this one having around three hundred people. There a middle-aged Goblin man who was missing a leg from the knee down greeted me. I introduced myself and was allowed to set up my tent to help the people. This time it took the rest of the day and until after sunset the next day to treat everyone, by which time I was exhausted mentally and physically. I gave the Mayor enough nutrient potions for everyone to have two, though. I was almost out of them, so I would have to collect all of the ingredients to make more while I was on the road. Once I was certain that everyone that I could treat was treated, I set out for the largest town in the area. It was actually outside of what was once father’s county, but only by five kilometers.
I traveled until it was almost sunset, stopping every thirty minutes or so to gather the better nutrient sources I saw. Seeing an abandoned mine along the forest path, I stopped, started a fire on the flatted tailings pile, the safest place to build a fire in the woods, and set up what I had to make massive doses of nutrient extract. I hadn’t found many good sources of protein, but luckily I had a solution for that. As the water started heating up to the point where I could extract the vitamins from some of the shrubs and grasses I had picked in the grassy areas, I used one of the few earth utility spells I knew and vibrated the surface of the nearby dirt. Insects and worms swarmed out of the ground, and I quickly picked them up and filled a jar with them. After filling two jars, I checked the water. I was using a large clay jar about twenty liters in size to make these extracts. I brought it so that I could water myself or the horse if there wasn’t a stream or lake nearby, but now I was using it as a massive pot.
Once it was at the correct temperature, about as hot as a good cup of tea, I threw the plants in and smothered the fire. The coals could keep it in the proper temperature range, and if it started getting too cool I could add a stick to the top to heat it up again. I then set up my tent and built a second, smaller fire to heat up some instant soup rations. They were basically bits of meat, dehydrated animal stock, and dried vegetables. This world also had something like hard tack and something like pemmican for emergency rations, but this tasted the best out of the options.
As my soup finished I heard a voice from nearby. “Smells good. Mind if we have some?” From the greeting, I wasn’t sure if I was just dealing with hungry hunters or if they were bandits.
“I only made a single serving, but I can make more for you and your friends if you want.” When I said that, six men stepped out from the darkness, one human, one dwarf, two boar-men that looked like twins, a wolf-man, and a two meter tall Ogre.
“Sound’s good.” said the human. He must be the leader. “You making a potion or something?” he asked, pointing to the large jar.
“Pretty much. I’m an alchemist. Lots of folks around here look malnourished, so, while I don’t have enough food to feed them all even a single meal, I can make nutrient potions from some of the local ingredients so that they get the most out of what food they do eat.”
The Human looked at the Dwarf, who shrugged. The wolf man, however, seemed to be nodding. “That made sense to you?” he asked the man.
“Yeah, it does.” said the wolf man. “I used to give those potions to my pregnant sheep, back before my farm was burnt down by those Farin bastards. If he’s making them for us, he’s a good guy.”
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Look at how well off he is. He’s probably a Farin merchant or noble.” said one of the boar men.
“Is that true?” asked the human.
I nodded. “I am Viscount Cameron Starshine from Starshine city, son of Count Virgil Starshine, Lord of the city. I am also an intermediate healer, a combat healer, and an alchemist, and am here treating the people of the area on behalf of the followers of Keshan.”
The Boar man looked angry at my statement, but the Dwarf held him back. “He may be a Farin noble, but he’s at least treating us like people.”
“Treating you like people maybe. Everyone knows they hate us beast-folk.”
“Not me,” I responded, pouring more soup mix into the pot of water. I had poured the rest of the soup into a bowl and set it over to the side, otherwise it would overcook. “I’ve always treated beast-folk like anyone else.”
“So, you’re telling me you don’t own any beastfolk slaves?” he asked.
“Actually, I own two, but I treat them the same as my human employees.”
He snorted in disbelief. “Really? So you take advantage of your female employees and beat your male employees?” The other one said.
“I’ve never laid a hand on either of them, either in the physical or sexual sense. In fact, I promised all three of my slaves that they would have complete freedom to choose their own sexual partners, and that I would never hurt them unless they betrayed me. Even if they do, I doubt I’d beat them. If it was bad enough, I’d probably just reassign them to the worst labor at the palace until I could find a descent replacement master to sell them to.”
“You’re a damn liar!” the first boar man said and jumped at me. I stood up and stumbled backwards and his brother and the dwarf held him back.
“Calm down, Geral.” the Ogre said. “We don’t know that he’s lying. Maybe he is one of the decent ones, even if he is a slaver.”
“There are no decent slavers.” Geral said.
“Well, I’m not a good person because of it, but if I didn’t buy them, someone worse probably would have. At least with me they are no worse off than any servant or worker I might hire, which is better off than most beast-folk have it in Farin.”
He just stared at me after that. Fifteen minutes later, the soup was done, so I removed the pot from the fire and picked up the rest of the soup from before, pouring it in and mixing it in to warm it up. “Ok, go ahead and get some if you want.” I said, getting myself a serving. “Don’t have any bowls you can use, but you can have the rest of the soup.”
The men pulled out various cups and bowls, mostly made of wood, and started ladling out soup. I ignored them and checked the large pot. As it was ready, I tied a cloth over the top of other pots and started straining the mixture. After several pots, it was fully strained, so I rinsed out the pot and added some more of my stored water. To that I added the insects and worms, and started warming the water up again. I needed to get the water to a low boil, then let it cool down to room temperature. Normally people without alchemist or even apothecary training would make these things in huge batches, as it was a simple process which simply took a long time, but now I had to do all of the steps myself.
The men finished eating while I was doing this. The Boar man might not like me, but at least he trusts me enough to eat food I prepared. Though that might be because I ate out of the same pot.
“So, you’re feeding people bugs now?” The human asked me.
“Good source of protein.” I said. “If you want, I’ll drink a final potion in front of you to prove that it’s safe to drink after I finish.”
He shrugged. “It would help, though I’d like to take some of it with us once you’re done. That’s the only decent meal we’ve had in the past week. We ate a few small animals we caught, and foraged a few wild plants, but they’re getting a bit scarce this time of the year.” As it was early winter, most edible plants were dead.
I nodded, and continued to watch the fire under the large jar. It was three hours later, after I boiled a kilogram of flour mixed with sand from the mine to get the calories, minerals, and Essence of Nutrition I needed. Once they were ready, I mixed some of each mixture into smaller pots while channeling mana into them to enhance the effects. I drew the magic circle for alchemy on the side of the pot, as I could use the boost in efficiency for such a large batch, and after four batches I had forty liters of nutrient potion and about fifteen liters of extra ingredients. The main limiting factor had been the protein, but it was late at night so I didn’t want to stay up and make more.
After I was done, I pulled out a shot glass from my backpack, which I brought along with the bottles of ‘medicinal’ whiskey, and downed a shot of the potion. It left a weird taste in your mouth, like it was bitter and had a decaying leaf in it, but it was safe to drink. “Well, it’s done.” I said, washing it down with a shot of whiskey. “Tastes like burnt tea, though.” I handed the shot glass and whiskey to the human bandit. “Go ahead and have a shot of it yourself if you want. It will help you get the most out of the soup.”
The Wolf man took a shot of it and coughed. “Why does it taste so bad?” he asked. “I drank one of the ones I bought for one of my animals once and it tasted like mint tea, not this.”
“I had to substitute a few ingredients. It still should work eighty percent as well as the other one, though. Feel free to wash the taste out of your mouth with a shot of whiskey, though. Just don’t drink the whole bottle. I brought it with me to clean wounds, so I still need it.” With that, I entered my tent and climbed into me sleeping bag. Sure, they could attack me in my sleep, but I had to take the risk that they wouldn’t. They hadn’t attacked me already, despite their six-to-one advantage, and while I wasn’t sure that Geral wouldn’t try something, the others would probably keep him in check.
The next morning I found out that I was right, as I woke up to everyone but the dwarf sleeping around the campfire. He was walking around the camp’s perimeter occasionally swinging his battle ax in the air out of boredom. “Oh, hey, Lord Starshine. Don’t mind me, I’m just on watch.”
“You don’t have to call me that. Out here I’m just Cameron. Cam’s fine too.” I did a few stretches. “Well, I don’t have much planned for breakfast, but how does flatbread and bacon sound?” I had brought enough bacon for a week of breakfasts, but with six other people, that used it all up.
An hour later, after we all ate breakfast, they all climbed in the back of my wagon along with the cargo, mostly my rations, camping gear, and what medicine I brought with me. They claimed it was to keep me safe on my journey, but I suspected that either they just wanted me to feed them or they still didn’t trust me, possibly both.
That afternoon we made it to Manasource City, the largest city in the region. It had been built in the middle of a small manacite deposit, and traditionally produced mithril, orichalcum, magical ingredients, worm cores, and occasionally baby monsters which could be adopted. “This is one of the few places where they can still grow more food than they need, as they have magical devices to grow it even out of season.” said Jery, the human leader of the group. “It isn’t enough to fill everyone in the kingdom’s stomachs, but they’ve been getting a lot of immigration because of it.”
The city was run by a half-goblin, half human man named Governor Manasource. He was formerly a Baron, the son of the previous Viscount Manasource and his Goblin mistress, but when the rebellion mostly secured its territory three months ago the three most powerful supporters the rebellion had were essentially upgraded to governors of their regions. In terms of political power they were on par with a Duke, but in terms of military strength, they were on par with a mid-level Count like father. The treaty the three Governors signed, on top of agreeing to free trade, travel for citizens, and mutual defense against outside invaders, stipulated that once they had five Governors and all of them had a certain minimum of military strength and land, they would select a king from among the five governors to run the military and guards only, essentially serving the role of Marquis. They would receive half the troops of every governor, which the governors would continue to cover the expenses of, and would take over the duty of fighting outside threats. Until a king was chosen, though, all decisions which affected the whole kingdom must be ratified by all governors. All of this was explained to me by Bom, the Dwarf of the group. Apparently he loved politics and talking, and that other guys were only happy that he talked to me and not them.
After waiting in line for thirty minutes we pulled up to the gate. “So the church sent us a healer finally?” the guard asked, pointing to the Sunflower that was painted on both sides of my cart. “About damn time. We’ve been asking for two years, but for some reason, even though the gods aren’t supposed to take sides in the affairs of mortals, the church refuses our request.” I suspected that it had something to do with them upsetting the priests of Farin when they started freeing beast-folk, as the priesthood had been teaching for over a hundred years that beast-folk were inferior creatures to humanoids and goblinoids. But I kept my mouth shut. After telling him I was there to treat people, gather information about the attacks on merchants, and resupply, the guard nodded and let us through.