The Alchemist Path - Chapter 11 Into The Deep

Morning rose and everyone rushed to gather up their belongings and march on. It could be safer to travel as a group, but it was also ill advised, as such not so heroic behavior was heavily frown upon in the wide lands of the Albanian Empire.

After settling her morning body’s functions, and settling with jerky and grass yet again for breakfast, all the not useful herbs she gathered last time were disposed of, as she tested them in the night, sadly no other hidden gems appeared and none of the good ones where usable at the moment, also one was slightly poisonous, luckily her talent warned her in time for spitting it out, of the new bunch aside for the shae and the valerian, all were deemed trash and removed from the storage bag.

Shae

Type: wild flower

Commonly know as girlfriend scammer as its bright colored flowers can be mistaken for red carnations.

Properties: Mildly poisonous if ingested directly, refinement for the removal of impurities recommended, if mixed with common grass and valerian in a range of 2 shae, 1 common grass, 3 valerian results in a highly toxic drug, mix with caution.

Can be used to improve poison resistance if small dosis are eaten diary by individuals with appraisal or a derivative talent.

Valerian

Type: Herb

Flowering plant with sweet scented pinkish flowers.

Properties: Sedative, antispasmodic.

Normally used to alleviate menstrual cramps and insomnia, can be used to create a highly toxic drug if mixed with common grass and shae.

from this she could infer some information: her talent was most probably named appraisal and for a “recipe” to be obtained out of it all of the ingredients had to be previously “appraised”

was she doomed to put every single thing she encountered in her mouth for the appraisal to work? what if it was highly poisonous or even radioactive or something? won’t she die? there were a lot of regents useful for mixing medicines in her old life that could melt her thonge upon contact, in a world of magic, demons and immortals where danger looms in every corner she couldn’t feel reassurance in thinking that everything would be fine because it’s her talent, maybe she could find another way to activate the talent.

So yet again with more questions than answers it was time to move along, almost every one else was gone from the clear in the woods and a late start didn’t sound really useful.

the weeping forest got its name not because being full of tress like weeping willows, but for a special kind of magical best that had the forest as its home, a brief passage of the history book mentioned this forest as it was a place where a prince suffered his untimely demise at the hands of a assassin of the neighboring Hareding Kingdom. Which resulted in the start of the 10 years war know as the “Queen’s spite” because at the end of the war both sides lost the king and emperor and ended ruled by their spouses.

The weeping cat is the undisputed ruler of the weeping Forest, this little magical best is just slightly bigger than a common house cat, and often pass it’s time as one, sleeping happily in a high place, the problem lays in that it has the same kind of mind as most felines: it loves to hunt and play. So it hunts even when not hungry just for entertainment.

It’s name comes from the fact that it’s species has the natural talent of a minimized banshee cry. It’s howl sounds like a sorrowful crying maiden and can stun creatures that hears it in close proximity or alter the senses of its prey, the closer the prey the more effective the howl, so even if the size is just that of a big house cat, if it wills it, a common colorless aura human can be easily slayed, luckily for the quest takers, it rarely attacks big prey since it gets bored of them soon.

The dense foliage of the mountain forest and the small size of the weeping cat makes it the top of the food chain since its nimble reflex and special trait gives it the advantage even when confronting bigger beasts.

Dyeing at the paws of something that looks like a house pet, that would be quite and embarrassment.

As the mountain path started to diverge from her destination Lazuli realized it was time to abandon it, she remembers that eventually it would start to rise to the summit but sadly after thinking and analyzing the information she had it would be impossible for her to reach the summit following the path in lest that two weeks as she hoped.

clean water and food wouldn’t be a problem, at least for a week, the way up the mountain was hard but not impossible as the tree roots made something barely resembling a natural staircase.

The real problem lays in surviving predators, if one was lucky the weeping cats would leave them alone, but the same could not be said of the wild beast which the cat feast upon. Even some plants could kill a person in this type of world, so Lazuli proceeds with caution, observing her surroundings while walking without rushing. Since she doesn’t even have a knife if something attacks her she’ll be doomed.

At this point her careful observation yielded fruits as she glances a fluffy tail and a pair of perking ears at a branch of a neighboring tree, so without taking her eyes of the weeping cat she changes her course to avoid it.

Weeping cat

Type: low level magical beast

Curios but lazy almost harmless, will avoid humans if not angered.

Caution: it’s howl will affect anything orange aura and bellow.

Loves sniffing blue periwinkle and sometimes it has been used to successfully tame weeping cat cubs.

Loves sniffing blue periwinkle?! Lazuli was surprised and mad, she had blue periwinkle in the morning and she tossed it aside as the information on the plant was that it was an evergreen perennial, frequently used in cultivation asgroundcover. So it seems that not all uses of a plant would be depicted in the first explanation, more data should be gathered.

After moving to a safe distance, calming her emotions and going over the information in her head it finally hit her: She activated her talent by looking and concentrating on the cat.

Immediately Lazuli started to scrutinize her soroundings, concentrating on the trees, when she analyzed 3 of them in a row a round of dizziness assaulted her.

The use of the talent wasn’t as free as she had thought, at least not with her eyesight, it took a toll and she suddenly felt tired, thinking to recuperate, Lazuli found a place to sit down, not before checking for possible danger, took a piece of jerky and grass to eat and begun to meditate in hopes of regaining enough energy to carry on.