The sound of Zosimos’s warning cry woke me as I blearily opened my eyes to peer at my shadowed surroundings. I was still in the chariot, though I was no longer sitting propped up against the side and was instead laying curled up on the floor. Someone had given me a pillow and a fur blanket and, from the sweaty animal smell of both, I was sure that someone had been my brother.

Crouching near my feet was a strange-looking creature, and as it took a step closer my sleep-addled mind finally caught up with what I was seeing. The thing in the chariot with me was a raptor, covered in feathers with a pair of winged arms and powerful looking legs. Yellow eyes stared into mine and a soft trilling chirp sounded from the raptor’s throat. In response, a second feathered-covered reptilian head peered around the open back of the chariot, its gaze finding me as it moved around to join the first.

Hands still under the blanket, I slowly reached for the bag strapped to my thigh, trying not to make any movements that might spur the raptors into attacking. The first raptor wasn’t fooled by the blanket, as its eyes shifted to the spot where my hand was the moment it began to move.

A low thrumming sound preceded an arrow flying through the air as it embedded itself into the second raptors side. The one inside the chariot spun, leaping out to run high-speed towards the trees, but it was met by an arrow seconds after leaving the chariot. The next figure that appeared was the lightly tanned face of the wood elf archer, his green eyes filled with concern as he looked at where I was huddled on the chariot floor.

“Are you hurt?”

“N-no, just- didn’t expect to see that when I first woke up.” I croaked out, my dry throat making my voice sound worse than Zosimos.

“It might be best if you come sit round the fire with the rest of the group, your brother was meant to be keeping watch over you, but it seems he fell asleep.” Killian said, placing a foot on the back of the chariot and reaching down to offer me a hand up.

Ignoring the proffered hand, I hopped down from the chariot. The large form of my brother was sitting with his back pressed against the side of the chariot and a third raptor lay dead next to him.

“Little shits were trying to steal his pouch, they’re worse thieves than Noctus.” Killian quipped, kicking out a booted foot at my sleeping brother who just kept snoring.

Even in virtual reality, he sleeps like a log. I reached out to grab one of the bovine ears and twisted it with a hard yank.

The response from the bull was instantaneous as he let out a bellow and tried to stand, but I kept my grip on his ear, using it to hold his head down.

“Kadia, what the fuck.” he wheezed, his hand coming up to grab my wrist.

“I almost got eaten by raptors,” I informed him bluntly, releasing his ear and yanking my arm out of his grasp.

“Wha—raptors? Ah, fuck, I fell asleep.” The Minotaur blustered, finally noticing the small raptor laying next to his leg with an arrow sticking out of its side.

“I thought you were meant to be some strong barbarian fighter? I mocked as I turned to walk towards the fire where everyone was gathered.“So far you’ve been killed by crocodiles, and didn’t even notice a raptor basically giving you a lap dance.”

It seemed the group around the fire had heard my comment, as the clearing was filled with boisterous laughter and jokes about making sure to tip the raptor some coppers for the dance.

Heaving a sigh, I pulled my timepiece from the pouch on my belt to see it was just after three in the morning, two hours to sunrise.

“Miss Kadia, are you hurt?” One of the men around the fire asked, and I vaguely recalled he was the man driving the wagon.

“I’m fine, the raptor didn’t attack me.” I told him as I sat on a log next to Darius.

“I noticed you were favoring your right leg, and your armor on that leg is torn. You don’t need to hide it, I can heal, so you don’t need to wait for your injuries to heal naturally.” The healer said, standing to move around the fire towards me.

“The damage to my armor was from when I was first attacked by the crocodiles. My leg is fine.” I told him, pulling my right foot back and tucking it behind my left leg.

“But—”

“She said it’s fine. So fuck off and leave her alone.” Markion snapped, towering over the blond healer who backed away with his hands raised.

“Markion, he was only trying to help.” Roderick defended as the healer returned to his seat.

“If Kadia says she is fine, then she is fine! So shut the fuck up about her leg.” my brother retorted, his fists clenching at his sides.

“Markion, calm down. He didn’t mean anything by it.” I chided, before glancing at the healer. “My leg was injured when I was younger and has been painful ever since. I favor it sometimes because I forget that it doesn’t hurt anymore.”

As I spoke, I reached up to tug on the skinny tail poking out the back of my brother's armor. “Sit down, your big butt is blocking the firelight.”

“Kadia, you don’t like me touching your tail, so stop tugging on mine.” My brother grumbled, moving to sit on the ground beside the log I shared with Darius.

“Then don’t wave it in my face.” I told him as I pulled a clay vial out of my bag and threw it towards Noctus. The vampire hadn’t been at the hall when I’d been searching for him earlier in the day, so this was the first chance I’d gotten to show him my completed potion.

“That is the finished light foot potion,” I informed the vampire, who broke the vial's wax seal and inspected the contents.

“You’ve tested it?”

“I wouldn’t be giving it to you if I hadn’t. I can fully confirm that the Larnurma flower oil was the missing component.”

In the end, I didn’t even need the Larnurma flowers to confirm it, as I was able to buy the recipe when selecting items to purchase with my settlement. I still couldn’t get over the fact that there were so few recipes.

In the book, there’d been only a hundred and sixty-four recipes, none of which looked new. From what I’d been able to translate, I guessed they were all related to alchemists from Kaledon’s history. The alchemist who was said to have created the light foot potion seemed to think he could fool people into believing he was someone with a lot of skill, when really he just found some recipes, and was taking credit for them as his own creations.

Noctus nodded. “Van was less than pleased to discover that the alchemist he was dealing with was feeding him false information. He doesn’t have an alchemist of his own, so he was using the Dreadmere guild’s alchemist to verify alchemic information, and it was him who sold Van the recipe. Coming from what he thought to be a trusted source, Van didn’t bother getting it verified by a third party.”

The vampire raised the vial towards me with a smile, before he tilted back his head, downing the contents in a single gulp.

If he was smart, he would have saved it for the fight with the crocodiles. I sighed as I watched the vampire get to his feet and move into the forest with a rush of speed. He could have at least said thank you.

“Miss Kadia?”

“You can just call me Kadia.” I told the wood elf archer, who was glancing between me and the forest where Noctus disappeared.

“Kadia,” Smiling, Killian turned his full attention to me. “You said that was a light foot potion? Would you happen to have any more that you might be selling? It doesn’t often appear for sale publicly.”

“I have nineteen vials left of the basic light foot potion that is effective for approximately three minutes. The guild cost per vial is two gold or I’ve got five vials of an improved version that is effective for at least five minutes for five gold.” I informed Killian, and Darius snapped his head towards me so fast I could almost hear his bones cracking.

“You improved it? Who authorized those prices? A dose of light foot potion is ten gold on the public market.” The guild leader said, and I raised my hand up defensively.

“Bron did, we spoke about pricing when I began selling tinctures, and he said to set the pricing at a price of fifteen percent above the cost of the ingredients. The only rare ingredient used is the Larnurma flowers, and I only needed two drops for the entire batch; cloud moss, and the feathers were both easily attained.” I explained while quickly recalculating the production cost to make sure my math wasn’t off. “The improved version has added ingredients to promote energy recovery, as the effects of the potion wear off when you run out of energy. A light foot potion burns a lot of the body's energy, thus the reason why the time it is effective can differ per person. I’ve also noted that using the potion after consuming a meal will also boost the effectiveness slightly.”

“Firstly, that pricing model is only effective for low grade tinctures, so we will not be using it for higher-end potions. Secondly, you’re fucking amazing.” Darius said, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and giving me a one-armed hug before quickly letting me go as I made a sound of protest.

Embarrassed by the attention I was suddenly receiving, I ducked my head, wishing my hair wasn’t pulled back in a braid so I could use it to hide behind.

“I don’t have that much gold on me right now, but I can get it once we return to the city.” Killian offered.

I glanced at Darius. “Darius, I don’t think it should be sold for that much gold, not to the guild. I’ve already given the recipes to Taurie, along with my original glass retort. She’s started practicing the first version of the potion while I experimented with the improvements, adding cat tongue extract and so on. It really isn’t something that is hard to make, once the ingredients are prepped it’s just a matter of combining them.”

The guild leader sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You gave the recipe to a novice ranked guild member?”

“You said to teach Taurie to make basic items so I didn’t have to worry about them.” I reminded him. Why is he mad? I was only doing what he said to do.

“You consider the light foot potion to be a basic item?” He questioned, arching a brow.

“Yes.” It’s not like it’s hard to make, and the effects are minimal.

“I will trust your judgment then,” the guild leader conceded, turning his attention to the archer.

“Guild price is two gold for the basic potion, and five for the improved.”

“I’ll take all you have of both please.” The archer declared, pulling out handfuls of gold from a pouch at his waist.

“Quickly, before the vampire gets back.” He implored, glancing at the surrounding trees.

By the time Noctus returned from his jaunt around the forest, all the light foot potion I had on hand was safely deposited in the archer’s pouch and I was filling out my accounting book to record the sale.

To say Noctus was pissed to discover I’d shortchanged him by only providing him a sample of the basic potion would be an understatement.

He was even more infuriated when Killian offered to sell him a vial of the improved potion at a heavily inflated price and, considering his attitude, I didn’t feel inclined to inform him I had everything I needed in my pouch to brew the potion.

As the sky lightened, the group moved to the trees that lined the river bank and I scanned the water, counting the glowing lights that revealed each crocodile's location as Darius, Noctus and Roderick discussed battle plans with the group.

“Roderick, and Markion will pull aggro to lure them up onto the bank.” Darius instructed, getting nods from the group. “Try not to pull the big one until we’ve culled out the little ones. Conrad, your job is to use your water magic to chill the water as much as possible. I know you haven’t gotten to the point where you can freeze a river like this, but the colder you can get it, the slower those crocodiles will be.”

Markion had moved the chariot to the same position it had been in last time, leaving it just in front of the tree line, which was where I was directed to stay with Dorian, the group's healer.

As the others moved to their positions, I watched Dorian unpack a bag with bandages and an assortment of medical tools.

Seeing the salves he pulled out, I noticed that they weren’t in the vials or jars I used for our guilds supply. David, our guild's new potter, had started using a stamp to imprint the guild insignia onto all the work he did, so it was easily identifiable.

“Why are you using products sold by the Dreadmere guild?” I scowled at the other guild insignia on the healer’s salve jars.

“Huh? Oh, because their alchemist Ge Hong is the most skilled in Kaledon. He has created several new potions—” Dorian started, but I cut him off.

“He hasn’t created anything, the recipes he claims are his invention are potions created by alchemists from Kaledon’s history. He is only following someone else's work and claiming it as his own. The original recipes are all marked with the names of the alchemist who first created them.” I spat, anger rising up within me at the mere mention of the other alchemist's name.

He claims recipes which aren’t his own, and even goes around calling himself by the name of a famous Chinese alchemist. If he was a real alchemist, he would have created more than the three potions he ‘claims’ and would have worked out that adding cat tongue extract would increase the effectiveness of the light foot potion just as easily as I did.

Reaching down, I grabbed one of the tinctures from the floor of the chariot and broke the seal to examine the contents.

“He even waters down his products,” I laughed mockingly, shaking my head. “Here, take your watered-down crap.” Shoving the vial at him, I jumped out of the chariot.

Fucking prick. Best alchemist in Kaledon? He isn’t even an alchemist, he’s a potioneer at best. It is people like him that are the reason the pharmaceutical industry is seen as being full of money-hungry scum. When selfish pricks like this sell subpar products just to make more money, they affect the entire industry. I stalked away from the chariot towards the trees where I boosted myself onto a low-hanging branch.

Seconds after I got myself settled in the tree, a bellow rang out as Markion released a tamer version of his intimidating aura than the one used the previous time he’d fought the crocodiles.

Perched in my tree, I watched as half a dozen crocodiles lunged up onto the bank where my brother and Roderick easily dealt with them. This went on for almost half an hour, with my brother and the Draekin pulling up groups of crocodiles for the team to attack.

At one stage, Bastian the dwarven fighter was almost dragged into the water, but Killian was quick to bring the crocodile down with an arrow to the back of its head. Darion burst into action, and I was surprised to see the dwarf disappear from the riverbank in a burst of light, only to reappear behind the chariot seconds later.

So, he has some kind of teleport spell? I wonder if it only works on those who are injured and how far he can teleport people?.

Watching Darion feed a tincture to the dwarf, I felt a pang of pity for the fighter who was being forced to consume something that could barely pass for a pain-relieving tincture.

This was confirmed by the dwarfs' agonized screams, which were barely muffled by the strip of leather jammed into his mouth.

As the healer placed his white, glowing hands on the bloodied leg, my high vantage point allowed me to see the skin on the dwarf’s leg knitting itself back together. When the flesh was whole again, Dorian washed away the blood with water and helped the dwarf sit upright, offering him another tincture.

“Bastian,” I called out, catching the dwarf’s attention as he reached out to take the vial “Catch.”

I tossed a clay vial to the dwarf, as he caught it, he looked up at me in confusion.

“That is one of my improved pain-relieving tinctures. Much better than that watered-down shit.” I informed the dwarf, who looked from the vial in his hand to the one still held by his team's healer.

“What makes ye say yours is better, lass?”

“Try it and ask me that again. Or don’t, I don’t really care.” I called out before turning my attention back to the battle just in time to see the Sarcosuchus lunge up out of the water and head straight for my brother.

Ge Hong, just you wait. I am going to show Kaledon what a fraud you are, you’ll be lucky if you ever manage to sell a single potion again.

“Oh, ay, she’s right, this is better. I feel great.” The dwarf exclaimed, jumping to his feet and looking around for his hammer.

“Bastian, you can’t go back. You need to rest some more, recover your energy.” Dorian told the dwarf who shrugged off his hand and ran back towards the battle.

“I don’t need rest; I’m missing the big one.” Bastian shouted over his shoulder as he charged at the Sarcosuchus with his hammer held aloft.

“The tincture has cats’ tongue for energy recovery, and blood moss to help with the recovery from blood loss.” I informed the healer who’d picked up the empty vial the dwarf tossed aside.

“You said the tincture I have is watered down, how do you know that? It is sold as an improved pain relief tincture.”

“It’s not,” I scoffed and dug my hand into my pouch, looking to see if I had any vials containing the original tincture.

“Here, this is the original pain-relieving tincture. It is made by infusing red Amanita mushrooms into alcohol; taste it, then taste your own. There is no difference in flavor to indicate any other ingredients, and the taste is fainter, and the effect is lessened.”

The bellowing roar of my brother drew my attention back to the fight to see Markion straddling the Sarcosuchus and slamming his ax down on the back of its head.

Roderick was in front of the beast, his shield jammed in its jaws, and I watched in awe as the shield buckled beneath the pressure of the prehistoric crocodile's bite. Noctus also straddled the massive crocodile, though he seemed to be there purely for his own amusement rather than actually contributing to the battle.

The Sarcosuchus slowed and stopped moving as Markion continued to slam his ax down on it from above. Cheers filled the air as my brother raised his fist with a victorious bellow.

After doing a quick scan of the river to make sure there were no remaining gold lights, I jumped down from the tree, and cautiously made my way down to where Markion still sat slumped over the back of the Sarcosuchus. Reaching my brother, I stood back a few meters, not willing to go near the crocodile until I was a hundred percent sure it was dead.

“Here,” I called out, holding up a medium-sized vial in my brother's direction, tossing it towards him once he looked up.

“Cheers, Kads,” he sighed, pulling off the wax seal and gulping down the contents.

“What about us?” Noctus queried, swaggering over to where I stood and holding out a hand.

“Two silvers,” I told him bluntly, and he quickly withdrew his hand.

“What did you give him?” Bastian asked, looking at my brother as he let out a bellow and punched the air.

“I’ve been calling it Hype juice, it has a revitalizing effect about three times stronger than the tincture sold by most potioneers.”

“I’ll take five,” Killian called out, moving over to me and holding out a gold coin.

“Don’t drink all five at once, the recommended dose is one a day. When you want more, it can be purchased from the guild hall.” I informed the archer as I handed him the vials.

“Markion didn’t have to pay,” Noctus complained, watching me hand out vials to the other members of the hunting group.

“Markion prepaid a hundred gold, so he doesn’t have to pay me each time.” I informed the vampire who reluctantly handed me two silver coins.

“Cannonball!'' Hearing a loud shout, I looked up just in time to see a naked dwarf leaping into the river followed by the other members of the hunting team with the exclusion of Darius, Noctus, Conrad and Dorian.

“What are they doing?” I asked, bringing my hands up to cover my face and spinning so my back faced the water.

“Washing the blood off.” Noctus told me with a smirk as he sipped on his Hype juice.

“Without checking if there are any crocodiles left?”

“Are there?” Darius asked, looking at the water with a grin.

“No, but they don’t know that.”

“You’re right, they don’t.” Conrad the water mage said, a wicked grin crossing his lips.

Seconds later a shout was heard from the river, though it was quickly cut off as Bastian was dragged underwater. The response from the swimming men was instantaneous as they surged out of the water, racing for their discarded weapons. Face buried in my hands, I listened to the sounds of yelling and splashing as the group searched for the non-existent crocodile which had attacked the dwarf.

Bastian, now on the riverbank, was blustering his way through a tale about how he’d only just managed to break free from the jaws of death, as Conrad did his best to smother his laughter.