36 Cover Story

Our trip through the forest was uneventful, though it was much slower than we would have normally taken it. That was because Ivy was walking with us. We tried to find the location that the magician left the trail, but we were not able to find anything. I knew that she would be able to keep up with the horses if she wanted to, but I am not sure that the others would believe it. Also it was also good to let the horses rest a little more. We could take it a little slower for one day. We did not talk about anything important. Ivy was asking many questions, trying to learn as much about the world as she could. It must have been hard not having anyone to talk to for 700 years.

It was late afternoon by the time we reached the far side. We decided to set up camp here and not try to travel any further that night. Ivy could really do with one more night of lessons and some more time to talk with others before she returns to her solitude. After everyone had gone to bed, I had her practice each of the exercises that I had written down for her at least once. That way, if there was anything that she did not understand, *cough* (like my lack of explanation on how not to pass out when draining your power) I could help her before we parted ways. As we went through the exercises, there were some small things she needed help on, but nothing as blatant as my previous mistake.

Teaching her the exercises took us the whole night. By the time we finished, it was time for breakfast to be prepared. Seeing the look of excitement in her eyes, I gave her permission to go help. Gray and Emily had bought some sausage and eggs in town yesterday which we would eat this morning.

I was reluctant to leave Ivy. I could not help enjoying watching her excitement as she helped the others prepare breakfast. But there was no way for her to accompany us, because she was not strong enough yet. Nor did we have a horse for her. It was really too bad…. But despite all my efforts I could not find a solution.

It seemed like Ivy enjoyed the eggs. To the point that I was worried for all the birds that lived in her forest. I ended up giving her the egg that was prepared for me (I was not going to eat it anyway). We finished up eating and packed up everything. We were ready to go when I say Istan walk to Ivy and bow down to her at a perfect 45 degree angle. I had no idea if that meant anything special to the elves. It was a (bad) habit of mine to ignore them whenever they started to bow.

"I would like to present you with this gift," he said as he presented a pot to her.

"Are you sure you won't need this?" Ivy asked trepidly.

"We have a spare, so you do not need to worry," Istan said.

"Just take it," I said. "It is going to be hard to cook food without a pot. You can't exactly make a pot out of wood. It will just burn when you put it over the fire."

"Thank you very much for all you have done for me." She bowed to me. Her bow was a great imitations of Istan's.

"You should thank Istan for the pot. I had nothing to do with it." I responded.

"I meant for all the things you have taught me." She said while rolling her eyes. She was still a teenager it seems. "And thanks for the pot Istan." To which he bowed even lower and started to mumble something. But I will just leave that be.

"I really enjoyed teaching you." I said with a smile. "Once we finish this issue, in a few short years at most we will meet up again so I can teach you more." I gave her a hug and said goodbye.Ivy did not seem upset with our departure at least. But I guess that she always knew that this was coming. I hope that she trains well.

All I can say is that traveling was really boring after spending that time with Ivy. We passed a few small groves of trees on the way, but nothing substantial enough to support a spirit. We stopped at a few villages along the way. I did my best to avoid staying the night in them. However, there were a few times we arrived late in the afternoon. It would be too suspicious if we did not stay in the village at that point.

Night time in the villages was not as bad as I thought it would be. I am guessing that since there is so little plant life in the village to start with, the spiritual energy could not drop much lower when the sun goes down. Still I would much rather be sleeping outside. I was not used to trying to get comfortable on a bed. Well, it was not like a restless night meant anything to me. Especially in a village, since I would regain almost no strength if I let my consciousness go. But not moving at night would save energy.

We had now crossed over into the kingdom of Yana. It was still seven more days until we reached the capital. That was where we would begin my search. Not only was it apparently fairly centralized, which would aid in our search. But also, I knew that the magician was very strong for a human. Strong people tended to gather in locations of power and influence. If he was not there they would at least know about him. Starting our search in the capital did not mean that we were not going try gathering information from the villages that we passed. It was just that unless we found something, we would keep going on to the capital.

One issue that had mostly slipped my mind, but Gray had brought up again was that our funds were running low. I could not really complain about our poor estimate. I had brought no money with me on this trip. Who was I to point fingers when I had done nothing to help? Even though Emily had traveled a lot she had always done it on foot or by coach. She never had to deal with taking care of horses and did not know how much that cost.

It seemed that Yana was a lot more developed than the -- Franklin Dukedom I think it was-- and it would be harder for us to avoid the towns. This also meant that we would be needing to spend more money for lodging and to care for the horses. I had thought about what to do since we left Ivy's woods a few times. Taking jobs would only slow us down. I wanted to avoid that if we could. We could hunt food along the way to sell. But again, the more time we took to hunt, the slower we would go. Emily could sell herbs and medicines for a living. But it would be hard to do that this time of year. I could help with that. I guess I could grow food, but those crops at this time of year were cheap and it would take much of my energy to make enough to be worth selling.

To be honest, I had a better idea but I needed to ask what everyone thought about it. As we stopped for lunch, I decided to bring up my idea. "We need money, right? How about we sell my medicine? From what the innkeeper said, the first day I left my woods, we should be able to make good money selling that."

I was expecting everyone to like that idea but all of them said no.

"What's wrong?"

"That medicine would draw too much attention to us. We already stand out a lot as it is with two elves and three young ladies." Gray replied. "How can you catch your pray if you are shouting that you are trying to catch it?"

"Making that medicine took too much energy from you. It would not be safe," Istan added.

"It's really making the flask that takes all the effort. If we buy some vials and fill them up, it would be a lot easier."

"It is still too effective," Emily said, "I have been working on my medicines for hundreds of years and I rarely see anything better than what I can make. But what you make is so many times stronger. You can't find anything even close to as effective as it is."

"I can make weaker versions too. But I have never seen the point. It takes me the same amount of effort to make the weak one as the strong one, so why not make the strong one?" They were not going to accept my reasoning so after thinking for a moment I asked, "What would you expect from a high quality medicine?"

"Most will just slightly increase the speed that you heal at. If you have a fever, it would reduce soon and break in a few days."

Gray then responded, "If we want to make money quickly we will need to have something that is about 50% better than that. This also would not draw too much attention."

After thinking for a minute I remembered one of my early tests with Faun. Let's give that one a try. I took an empty cup and filled it with water. I could save even more energy if I used the water outside my body. I stuck two fingers into the water. One started to absorb the water while the other started to secrete the medicine. I continued this until the concoction had reached the desired concentration.

"How about this one? It is not effective on plants, but it will work on most animals, humans and elves included. It will reduce or stop bleeding and large cuts will start to close. A broken bone will mend in about ten days and it will cure most illnesses. However, it will not restore blood loss, and serious trauma can still be fatal even if this is given quickly."

"I am not sure," Emily said with a frown. "That is still very effective."

"What if we just continued calling her a sorceress? It could help explain why her medicine was so much better." Leafia said.

I smiled, "I think that is a good Idea Leafy."

"We can also use that to explain why we are looking for that magician. He said that he was trying to research medical herbs. We could say that Laurel wants to consult with him." After many stern warnings, it seemed that Istan had finally gotten used to calling me Laurel. I was relieved. I was getting tired of reprimanding him.