Heading Out

Just as Gryn had assured our family, the first part of the journey was through the east gate and would take several days of walking. However, we only followed the hard packed clay highway for a mile or so on the first day before angling out into the forest northward. Eastward passed through another few settlements situation along the outer edge of the mountains, turning north at all brought us in the direction of the mountains themselves.

The forestry was not exceptionally dense around our large town, most of it had already been cleared long ago for construction and even the older pines in the area were probably not much more than fifty years at the most.

However, after most of a day of expedient travel with only a few breaks for rest or to check a map, the trees started becoming older and the undergrowth became more unruly. There was not yet any need to start hacking and chopping our way through, but so far from civilization the insects became unruly as well.

This meant I had to carry a walking stick to knock down the plethora or critter nests and webs that were in the way.

The land closer to town was also well traveled for any number of reasons, so I never saw any plants of use or value besides simple wild foods. However, as the trees and wildlife grew more various, so too did the byproducts. Near the end of the first day we came across something of interest, the remains of a few small game animals that were mostly missing and rotted.

Among them grew several mushrooms, the caps of which could be brood into a curative tea or simmered until broken down as a paste for treating certain wounds. The stalks, however, were toxic because they contained all of the rot from their food source and could be used to make both poisons and acids. In an alchemist's hands, however, once broken down the desired components and properties could be separated into a much stronger version of its previous self.

Potions that could stimulate regenerative healing and an acidic compound that, when mixed with alcohol, could break down most organic matter.

However, the most common finds were things I did not even bother collection. One of them was a low-class herb that could be bought by the pound in coppers in town used for its mana concentrating roots. The petals themselves contained magical energy that could be extracted into a literal mana potion, but the roots had greater value in regenerative mana potions that worked over time.

The gain from a petal potion was not even 10% for me anymore and they were originally of the lowest quality.

Even with the value of the roots I was not willing to overload myself with these plentiful plants at the start of the trip. There was a bush of worthy size in every direction I looked now and there would be droves of them later. My goal for now was seeking out the harder to acquire living samples.

Thankfully, late in the morning of our second day, I found something with my outstretched senses.

This something was a hive of bees native to the mountains who, like most creatures, sought magical plants and the low-class iramana bushes were a prime source. These bees made their honey and wax from mana enriched pollen and nectar, making both of them prime substances to use in a variety of crafts and medicines.

The honey alone was used to make a magic replenishing mead in its most mundane usage while an alchemist could extract curative properties for local diseases and ailments. The wax, on the other hand, was used in some of the higher class crafts for leather working and even for Conduction enchantments in treating certain wand materials. Basically, magic wax could increase the conductivity and durability of anything that could be absorbed or treated by it.

Bringing down the hive was as safe and easy as it could get, I simply reached my consciousness inside of the large papery structure and unanimously crushed every living thing inside with not even a tenth of my physical strength. With that same will, I scooped out the dead matter that was no longer of use and then separated several vials worth of enriched venom with transmutation. Even enriched, the venom was not very strong, but its properties could be added to the mushroom stalk acids to increase both their potency.

The hive itself was a little less than ten pounds and required a quick gloss and cork with transmuted plastic before I could safely store it in my ruck. The hive was not very heavy, but it took up more space inside than I expected which forced me to move it closer to the bottom among my clothes beside the jerky. In the future, I needed to be more careful about what and how I store things in the main pocket.

There were more sightings of wildlife, but these were this world's more mundane creatures. A few of them were ordinary, such as squirrels, but there were sometimes larger small game like what looked like a badger with thick keratin plates along its back and sides. Despite its appearance, it was as rare for these animals to variate as it was for squirrels.

A scale-plated mammal just happened to evolve here in this world.

Even though I wanted to stop and measure the experience of everything my extended senses came across, Gryn often refused to let me deviate from the course to chase a wild goose. However, whenever I sense something from up ahead, he would prepare the young archers in advance to take the kills.

At the end of the second day when we started coming across denser underbrush that required changing directions and a tree large enough to camp in, we camped. Instead of making camp in a large crown of outstretched branches, everybody chose their own locations throughout the tree. This seemed odd to me, but the others all seemed relatively prepared.

While I was monitoring the forest around the clearing in which the monstrous tree grew, everybody took out these pegged copper canisters from their kits. In these canisters they fed some dried grass and tinder and for those with enough magic to cast a flame they quickly started the can smoldering after pegging it into a nearby branch. After a few feedings, the cans smoked thickly and filled the tree with a thin veil of insect deterring smoke.

Afterwards, everybody got together on branches around the crown of the tree where Gryn and Carth took out maps. Then, they started openly debating where they should go as if they really did not have a destination. It was pretty comical in a sense that there had been so much mystery because there was no actual answer.

The general idea was to get to the mountains, this was clear from the names of locations they would bring up, but otherwise they were all unsure of what they ultimately wanted. Eman and Layla, whose parents owned and ran a tavern near the Guild faction houses, were relatively up-to-date on the seasonal changes in migrating beasts or recently ripening herbs.

Something that did not surprise me was that the main purpose of this trip, and probably all of their previous outings, was to stockpile experience and to come home with something worth money.

I had no problems with this and had already studied maps of our town's surrounding areas. Through alchemy studies, I knew where to find what kinds of things, and the foothills of the mountains were riddles with caves and streams as well as some valleys. Because the mountains themselves were so magically rich, the local wildlife was sure to be plentiful and varied.

Because of my own desires, I offered up search criteria for places that matched what I wanted. I wanted somewhere with magical plants that beget magical wildlife, so I wanted somewhere rocky but still somewhat forested, with water, and either spends more time in dark than sun or vice versa. Finding somewhere that was illuminated more than it was darkened would probably prove to be harder than darkened because of the presence of the mountains and foothills.

The others then debated over the actual wildlife that lived there and would probably be too strong for us to outright fight. Nobody but Gryn knew my actual Strength, but everybody knew I had the strength of an adult ever since childhood. However, Gryn and I were the only ones capable of any complicated or combative magics so the overall power of the group was limited to our weapons.

Could I make explosive glass arrowheads to make our archers stronger? Yes. Would we completely lose whatever profit might come from the larger game we killed? Also, yes.

The others did not have enchanted weapons, but all of them had still been imbued with a fair amount of energy which raised the basic stats of their weapons. Some of them were from minor magical treatments such as the two bows present, but the rest were all bladed weapons actually imbued with some mage's energy. That mage was probably Gryn.

The quality of the imbuing, of course, was determined by the overall quality of material used. While everybody Eman and Layla had simple cast steel knives with between five and ten percent, Carth and Hilda had more expensive and larger folded steel weapons which had ten or so percent conductivity. Though they were nothing like the magic worked on Gryn and my weapons, they still had enough potential magic to damage incorporeal bodies.

It was not likely we would come across anything like that. Unless we came across something like a massacred herd of animals that had been left out to rot and waste, dangerous dark magical creatures were not likely to appear. Wisps, on the other hand, were something like undead but instead formed from the coalescence of magic and were non-aggressive as well as non-physical.

When a wisp dies, though, its pure energy body converts into a powdery substance known as stardust. Stardust is a low-class enhancing substance which can be added to almost anything to increase the affects of magical enrichment in alchemy. In crafts, adding stardust to curing vats for leather would let mundane people create imbued materials or mixing with iron could create a more ductile magic alloy.

Needless to say, stardust was a highly sought after material and it was plentiful in magically rich areas. Similar to Feng Shui where energy was attracted to and gathered around water, ambient magic energy in this world was also attracted to water.

Anywhere with combined presences of different elements with water, such as my preferred locations, were breeding grounds for magical creatures and variations.

Finally, after almost an hour of debating the more tangible beasts that we could expect to come across, a destination was decided. Somewhere called Gilded Gorge which was actually known to me because of the region's water-bourne iramana variation known as the manalily. While it was listed as a middle-class herb, the manalily still served the same purposes as the iramana plants.

Only, the manalily was twice as potent even in its petals because of its hydroponic cultivation.

There were a number of shallow valleys in the regions that were dried remains of tributaries or floods from the mountain rivers. However, There were only a few gorges for each of the rivers that eroded away massive exits from the mountain. Gilded Gorge was home to a giant waterfall which had created a lake in the ground beside the mountain and its overflow eroded one of the largest valleys in the region through the rock.

All we needed to do now was meet up with the river a few hours after breakfast and then backtrack to the gorge.

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