Chapter One Hundred And Eighty Seven - My labels created a ‘paper trail?’

Amongst the regular students of the Ascending Mountain Institute, there are of course those favoured by Teachers and selected as their personal students in order to depart their worldly experiences to, beyond the usual (or unusual) curriculum, but there are also students that the school felt should be nurtured for the greater good of the school; core students. Potential core students might reside in the inner or outer school, they might be aware or unaware that they are being watched carefully by the mysterious Head Master and Vice Head Master, they might not even be aware of why they have been selected as potential core students. But eventually, they would be offered a place amongst these unknown elite students, offered a great deal of resources and access to secret levels of the library, in exchange for their loyalty to the school and their silence.

One such child under the careful eye of the Head Master was Delphi. When her twin roots became active, they turned out to be a light and water mutant combination that was so rare that it was almost unheard of. She had been offered a place at the school at the age of eight, although she was fourteen when she finally enrolled. She began as a mage, but her gifts truly lie in her healing abilities. These were in thanks to her special, complimenting roots. She was also gentle in nature, did not favour the combat arts, and when she was nineteen, she transferred to the Healers Hall in order to focus solely upon this path as a Healer Apprentice.

She'd not yet been approached about being a core student, but it was merely a matter of time.

At this moment, Delphi was checking the Hall's inventory. The Healers were good at saving lives, determining illnesses and injuries and prescribing pills and potions, but not so good as to ensure those pills and potions were in stock. Delphi happened to like to keep busy, therefore regularly took upon herself this task.

Still, although she had made herself responsible for inventory, did not mean that there was not a rota amongst the Healers for this sort of thing, just that they often forgot or convinced themselves it was someone else's turn to deal with it. Pharmacist Clawse' Healer Uncle had been reminded that he was meant to have checked the inventory this month, but he'd been delaying it almost the entire Moon and only happened to get around to it now as it was his superior's turn next month and he didn't want to face that woman's criticism. Not that she was say anything harsh, just that she would give him that look... one that indicated far more than a scolding lecture could, one that could cause a chill to run down even Teacher Corne shudder in discomfort.

Thus he felt nothing but sincere gratitude from the bottom of his heart to discover that Delphi had already taken stock for him and written a few requests of the alchemist schools.

Delphi simply smiled, waving away his thanks with a gentle gesture and continued to replace all of the jade bottles back in their wooden containers, ready to be placed away until one of the Healer's personal stocks of common pills needed restocking or until a rarer pill happened to be required. The Healer noticed that a pile of bamboo lengths had been placed upon the centre table, which also was covered with jade bottles.

"What are these for?" The Healer enquired.

"Oh," the girl replied with a shy smile. "I was labelling the jade bottles. Some of the jade bottles are quite dusty, becoming opaque with age. It's inconvenient to keep opening the bottles up to see what they contain, the pills will eventually spoil if this continues. It was be such a waste to lose some of the rarer and expensive pills due to continuous checking."

He noticed a bottle that she had already placed one of her bamboo tags upon, the calligraphy upon it in fresh ink. "I feel like I have seen something like this done before," he said aloud, before recalling that it was the delicate tag upon that jade bottle of excellent pills Corvus had in his collection and a rising excitement swelled within him.

The girl blushed and nodded; "Hmm, I did obtain the idea from elsewhere. But his labels were so much better crafted and the words carved upon them, meaning they were less prone to fading or smudges. Must have been created by a delicate hand." Her nose wrinkled as she cast a critical eye over her own bamboo tags and sighed. "Mine are so ungainly in comparison!"

He chuckled and offered words of encouragement; "That you would take the time to do all of this is already worthy of note. Don't be so hard upon yourself." He patted her shoulder. "Other Healers and Teachers, though, might remind you not to rely on labels to identify the pills in the end. Must also use one's knowledge to access the contents, thus not to select the wrong pill because the label told you otherwise." Delphi nodded, understanding the Healer's teachings.

Picking up the nearest pill bottle, he bitterly noticed that the label claimed that inside the bottle were One Heart Pills, before asking; "Do you happen to recall just where you saw the other labelled bottles?"

Delphi nodded and put the rest of the One Heart Pills into the wooden container. The Healer passed her the one in his hand so she could close the container. "There was a boy trading them at the Five School Market Festival. He was with others from the outer alchemist school. To be honest, all of his pills were of the common sort and quite average in quality. I assumed that he labelled them so to attract attention." She smiled as she recalled the groups of female students cooing over the cuteness of the labelled bottles. "It certainly worked."

The Healer grinned, excitedly; "the outer alchemist school, you say?"