Frostbitten Wayfarer

A few more weeks flew by, and the summer came to an end. Most of the forest near Flester was filled with coniferous trees that kept their beautiful green leaves, but many were deciduous. Their leaves turned to different shades of yellow and orange and fell from the branches, covering the ground in an autumnal tint.

None of the people who joined them were farmers, but they did have a gatherer as well as a merchant who had some experience as a farmhand when she was younger. The two of them cleared away a large swath of land to plant their crops in. Mostly brul, but they had a small section full of fruits they promised. For the time being, nothing was more than colourful leaves poking out of the wet dirt, but in time they would bear fruit and the village would feast on the succulent sweet treats.

Both of the apartments that the carpenters built, as well as Joe’s new inn had small gardens popping up around them as well. Wooden boxes filled with dirt, bits of green leaves and stems just starting to poke out of the dirt. Most of the people who joined them started their own, and some had even labelled their boxes with markings in the wood sides. Herbs, for the most part.

They had an alchemist — Julia, and Jeffrey spent most of his time by her side learning. She seemed excited to have something to take her mind off the still tender trauma of Flester’s destruction and Jeffrey was more than happy to soak up all the knowledge he could. The two slaved over the large iron pot that Zoe had scavenged from Flester early on, as well as some additional tools that Jeffrey found on his trips into town.

A small building was made for the two of them to have somewhere separated from the rest of the village for their alchemy, to keep the toxic fumes and possible dangers away from the village proper. Julia had some experience creating pet food, but needed to wait for the brul to grow before she could make it.

The recipe seemed to be normal pet food mixed with some mana herbs at the right temperature and time. Slikreet was the only ingredient Zoe recognized, a white branch she used when she first learned alchemy. One part slikreet to two parts lijar and five parts jorgi mixed together and infused with just the right amount of mana made enough to enhance a full pot of cat food. But the food itself needed to have a significant percentage of brul — or some similar grain, to hold itself together well enough that the mixture wouldn’t fall apart when combined.

With just ground meat, the food wouldn’t hold its shape well enough and the jorgi mixture would break, making a slimy mess that wouldn’t do anything more than revitalize your cat’s fur. Or at least that’s the explanation Julia gave when Zoe asked about it. She supposed there was a lot more going on that Julia expected Zoe to just not understand. And she was probably right, Zoe thought. Alchemy had never been a particular interest of hers and the specifics tended to be lost on her.

At some point, Zoe got a notification in the corner of her eye and smiled.

*Ding* You have received a message from Lila Jurgenhill.

She urged the system to show her the rest of the message.

Hello Zoe, this is Eliza again. I understand that Lila’s not sent you a message since the disaster struck. She’s fine, she just didn’t think you’d be worried about her. I don’t know if you were or not, but you two never struck me as particularly close anyway. But she’s fine, you don’t need to worry about her if you were. I was preoccupied with a job until a couple weeks ago, and only just made it to Korna a few hours ago. I’ve been sending off letter after letter to everybody I knew, hoping they’re okay.

It’s awful writing these messages, you know? I’m not sure if you know the specifics of how Lila’s skill works, but as soon as I give her this letter and she sends it, she’ll know if you’re alive or not. If you’re dead then the letter won’t go anywhere, since there’s no destination.

Terrifying, really. I’ve written so many of these letters since I got here. And so many of them still sit here on the table next to me. I find myself getting distracted, fearing the end of the letter. As soon as I put this pen down and hand the letter to Lila and it doesn’t send, you’re dead. Dead and gone. And I know I’m not doing it to you, I know it’s not sending the letter that does it.

But there’s dozens of these letters here next to me. And until I sent them I had no idea if the recipients were alive or not. In my mind, you’re alive right now. You’re in your cave, fighting off the fires leftover from the elementals wrath. Maybe you’ve got a new skill or a new feat from it, maybe you unlock a new class. Who knows, but in mind you’re there. You’re standing strong in the face of adversity. And when I give this letter to Lila, and feel that pulse of mana as her skill tries to active, and see the letter leftover in her hand. It is that moment that you’ve died to me. It’s that moment when the hope turns to dust and leaves misery behind in its place.

I know we weren’t very close, but I cared for you. Much like an aunt might care for her niece’s nephew. I enjoyed watching you grow and experience the world through with your fresh perspective. You taught me much, and I’m glad to have taught you much. And I only hope that you are still alive that we may continue to learn from each other’s discoveries.

Nora came back not long after, with another delivery of food that Emma was thankful for. She tried to convince Emma to return to Korna with her, but Emma was adamant that she’d be staying at Zoe’s place until there was some way to transport the cats without traumatizing them further.

Zoe wrote down a letter for Nora to send to Eliza.

Hey Lila and Eliza. I’m okay, we’re starting a small village at my home now actually. It’s a little concerning cause I’m not sure how to keep my home private, but I can’t just kick everybody out and leave them on their own cause I want a little privacy. Maybe I move to the other side of the hill at some point, I dunno.

It was pretty bad, at the start. But we’ve had time to accept it now. Seeing Flester in the distance, destroyed like it is. It’s not pleasant, and I don’t know if it ever will be for me. Let alone the people who grew up here as kids.

But I’m doing well. I’m glad you’re well. I plan to come to Korna next summer if you’ll still be around. If you’re near Flester before then though, come say hi. I’d love to get the Space skill finally. I think I almost had it last time.

Joe told Nora about the folks in Kaira library who might be interested in heading to Korna, and she said she’d stop by there on the way back.

Life was uneventful in the village, and most of the people seemed to enjoy that. They liked their routines, they enjoyed watching the village come together as buildings were raised and crops were planted. There was a pleasant energy that seemed to course through the village as everybody got along and helped each other, a camaraderie that pulled everybody closer.

There were talks of a name for the village. Joe had begun to take a bit of a leadership role in the village, helping organize people and some of them thought it might be nice to name the village Kinsly, after him. Others thought that it might be fun to try and find an anagram of the first letter of all their names, and some just threw out random names in the hopes that something stuck. Flester’s Return was a popular one, but as more of a joke than anything, Zoe hoped.

If Zoe had anything to say about it, then the village would be called Whispering Butte. A bit of a play on Moaning Point, and also just a fun fart joke. But nobody else seemed to find it as amusing as she did. A play on Moaning Point would be nice though, maybe they could be Chittering Knoll.

With her goal of heading to Korna in the summer, Zoe had lots of work to do. At some point, she wanted to try and get all four of the Seasoned classes to see if they could combine into one, but the time it would require could be immense if she got unlucky, and without a proper town to survive in being at a lower level didn’t appeal to her so much yet.

Though, Zoe wondered how well she’d perform on Moaning Point with all of her higher level skills even without her third and fourth class bonuses now.

The enchanter was nice, his name was Doris and he had a small building made not far from the alchemist’s for much the same reason. Zoe was sitting in his workshop, eager to chat about some ideas for improving her home’s privacy.

“So how is your door set up now?” Doris asked her, rummaging through a box full of metal trinkets.

“It’s just the Earth skill, really. It makes whatever earth its enchanted onto move in a pattern I can set, and I just make it squish off to the side to open up right now. But anybody could open it, so I’m wondering if there’s a way to make it only trigger for certain people, or maybe a key or something like that?" Zoe asked, looking around.

The room was barebones, wooden shelves lined the walls and a table sat in the middle of the room with a tall stool sitting next to it. Zoe was sitting on a chair she summoned from her bracelet, since Doris didn’t seem to expect any guests here yet.

“Interesting, interesting. I don’t have the Earth skill unfortunately, but it only works to move around itself? You can’t enchant something and have it move the earth it touches in a pattern you define?" Doris asked as he sat down on the stool with a small pointed metal object.

“I’ve actually never tried that.” Zoe said.

“Mm, yes. Typical for you young enchanters. Experimentation is the key to success. It is just as important to test things you expect to fail as it is to test things you hope will work. Limitations breed creativity, but a creative mind with plentiful options breeds innovation.” Doris said, flooding the metal object in his hands with mana.

“Right, so I should just try and make a key that opens the door instead of making the door open itself?” Zoe asked.

“It’s one possibility, if it works. Perhaps it doesn’t, but you’ll be able to find that out for yourself.” Doris said.

“And if it doesn’t work? What other kinds of options would I have that you know of?” Zoe asked.

“I would never operate on the assumption of failure.” Doris looked up at her.

“No, I think it’ll work actually. I’m just curious while I’m here and already bothering you. What other methods would there be to lock my door?" Zoe asked.

“Hmm, yes. I see. There are some skills that can create keys. I’ve heard the lockpicking skill perhaps ironically does just such a thing. I would have expected it to create tools to break locks, but from what I’ve heard it creates magical locks. You may find a smith who specializes in locks and has skills for creating them, and perhaps learning from them you may get a skill that could be useful for such a thing.

“There are also skills that can identify individuals that you could use for such a thing. I suspect personally that the Identify skill itself could be used for such a thing, but my experiments on such have never been fruitful. One of my classes has its own skill for examining things, and forgive me for refraining from the details, but I am able to utilize it in an enchantment to only permit certain people to use it.

“And perhaps most complicated is a physical key. If you leave a missing piece from your door’s enchantment, and then create another object with that missing piece of the enchantment, then when you bring them together they will form a single working enchantment. Though without a competent class helping you along the process, doing so would be quite difficult.

“But there are many options available to you. I suggest you experiment with what you think isn’t possible to more properly find your limitations.” Doris said. The mana surged from the object in his hands and the metal warped into a silver bracelet.

“Right. Thanks. What’s that, anyway?” Zoe gestured to the bracelet.

“This?" He shrugged. ”It’s a bracelet of fire resistance. I imagine many here will be interested in some additional protection and they might sell well when we restore an economy to this village to be.“

“You enchanted it with the Fire resistance?” Zoe asked.

“Of course,” Doris answered.

“You can enchant things with resistances?” Zoe asked.

“Again I must advise you to rethink where your limits are. Test and verify what you believe, rather than living in a bubble of assumptions.” Doris sighed.

“What about feats then? Or class effects? Could I enchant something with my auras?” Zoe asked.

“There is but one means through which you may discover this for yourself, you realize?” Doris smiled smugly.

“Right, of course. Thanks for all the help, Doris. Best of luck with your fire resistance bracelets!” Zoe said as she rushed out the door.

“And the best of luck to you too. May your endeavours bear fruit.” Doris called out behind her.

Zoe ran back home, the earthen door squishing aside with a touch of mana and rushed up to her workshop.

“Everything okay?" Emma called out from the kitchen where she was feeding the cats.

“Yeah! I’ve got some new stuff to try out though. I’ll be upstairs for a while.” Zoe climbed up the ladder in her library and sat down at her worktable full of rocks and gems with a grin on her face.