The cleanup from the crocodile hunt went smoothly, with the crocodiles being placed into enchanted canvas sacks and the Sarcosuchus secured to the back of the wagon. I was surprised the wagon could hold all that weight, even with the hunting team having gutted it to ease the load.

When I’d spoken to the hunting team regarding the siren lilies, Killian had brought it to my attention that normally lilies will enter a dormant state during colder months.

Which would explain why a plant that should have been easily found was nowhere to be seen. On the bright side, my wagasa was recovered and only appeared to have gained a few scratches during its time under the ownership of the crocodiles.

“It sucks, after all that I still didn’t get my siren lilies.” I complained to Markion as I sat perched on the side of the chariot.

“You could always try the herbalist stores in the city.” He suggested, but I shook my head with a sigh.

“I tried, and none of the three stores in the city had any. Though considering they are ‘out of season’, it makes sense. They probably wouldn’t have worked for what I wanted anyway.” I grumbled, crossing my arms over my chest.

“Sorry, sis, I don’t know what to tell you.”

“It’s fine, I’ll just…” I started, but a high-pitched shout interrupted me.

“Marky!”

Turning my head at the sound of a woman’s voice shrilly calling out, I saw a group of four centaurs trotting along carrying a palanquin with sheer, blue curtains aloft.

“Ah, fuck.” My brother muttered, flicking the reins he held to increase the rhino's speed, but it was a futile effort.

Snickers from the group of riders surrounding us preceded them digging their heels into their mounts and galloping away from the slower chariot. The only one who didn’t rush away was Dorian who was plodding along far behind us, weighed down by the Sarcosuchus.

As the palanquin reached us, and the centaurs matched our pace, the curtains pulled back to reveal a beautiful, blonde-haired woman whose appearance sent my heart racing. Danica? No, it couldn’t be, because she didn’t spend time in virtual worlds and even if she did, Danica was in prison. Wasn’t she?

“What do you want, Bianca?” Markion snapped, ignoring the woman as he tried to get the rhino to speed up.

“So mean,” the woman whined, giving an exaggerated pout.

Not Danica, then. The nose isn’t quite right, and she looks younger than Danica. This girl looks like she based her appearance on a picture from one of the magazines Danica used to model for.

“I just wanted to talk and see if you’d given any thought to what we discussed. Maybe you’d like to join me to talk privately.” Bianca crooned, reaching a hand towards my brother and just managing to scrape her long nails across the metal shoulder piece of his armor. Is this Danica pretender trying to hit on my brother?

A mixture of anger and amusement warred within me as Markion’s face screwed up in a disgusted grimace. My choked laughter drew the attention of the elven Danica wannabe and she scowled down at me as I sat perched on the opposite side of the chariot.

“Who’s your little friend?” She asked, sitting up from her reclined position and opening the curtain to reveal more of her body, which was clad in a skimpy silk dress.

“She’s my sister; now, if you don’t mind, we’re busy.” Markion replied gruffly, moving to shield me from the woman's gaze.

“Your sister?”

Sneering, the woman gave me a slow, assessing look before saying something so stupid it actually made her more like Danica than her appearance did. The sneer on her face brought back memories of the last time I’d seen my stepmother.

“You don’t look like his sister.” The false Danica stated, and I struggled against the desire to leap out of the chariot to claw her eyes out.

When he didn’t answer, I glanced at Markion who was staring ahead with a blank expression on his face, like he was trying to pretend the woman didn’t exist.

“That's because my father got black out drunk one night and made his way into a cow farmer's barn, and well, Tada!” I exclaimed, waving my hand at my brother with a dramatic flair, as I tried to dispel my rising anger with humor.

This woman wasn’t Danica, but her mannerisms and behavior were so close to hers that they were driving me over the edge. It was a struggle not to see Danica in this woman, as everything about her mirrored the woman who tormented me every day. I’d been doing so well at trying to keep myself from breaking down, yet this woman was able to shred every ounce of control I had with just one look.

This statement had two of the buff -ooking centaurs letting out muffled laughs, and Markion was almost slumped over the front of the chariot, wheezing for breath, but the woman on the palanquin looked less than impressed.

“I see you both have the same twisted sense of humor,” She commented, before turning her attention back to Markion.

“Marky,” crooning, the elven woman once more reached for my brother, but he turned to give her a cold look.

“No, I’ve told you before, and I’ll tell you again. I have no interest in joining your guild, I don’t care what you can ‘offer’ me. I am a founding member of Eternia and have no intention of leaving my guild for Dreadmere.”

Dreadmere? The guild of that scum, Ge hong?

“Markion,” the woman’s tone was almost scolding now. “You’re making a mistake; my guild is the strongest in Kaledon. That little guild is nothing more than a bunch of scavenging bottom feeders. You have a chance to…”

Bottom feeders? Really? Shut up, just shut up before I.. Drawing in a shaky breath, I screwed my eyes closed as I tried to drown my rage.

“Have you ever heard of the Stonefish?” I asked, opening my eyes, and glaring at the woman who just kept droning on and on. Why didn’t she leave when Markion told her to? Why does she insist on destroying my life, no matter where I am?

“What?” Danica asked, and I laughed, of course she didn’t, she’d killed all her brain cells with that toxic perfume she drowned herself in.

“The Stonefish is an ugly little bottom-dwelling fish that when stepped on, will inject high quantities of venom into its victim, which is intensely painful and can be fatal.” I informed my stepmother sweetly, as I dug my fingers into my pouch.

“What does that…”

“Don’t step on me, unless you want to get stung.” I told her coldly, flinging the metal dart I held straight towards her and watched with pride as it hit her barely covered chest.

Watching with glee as the moment the dart hit her, she let out an agonized scream and fell back onto the cushioned floor of the palanquin where she writhed, shrieking in pain. The centaurs holding her palanquin came to a halt, dropping the palanquin to the ground and whilst two of them went to tend the woman, the other two drew swords.

Laughing, I grabbed four more darts from my pouch, and flung them at each of the centaurs as Markion pulled the chariot to a stop. Sliding down the side of the chariot, I continued laughing as tears poured over my cheeks.

“Kads, oh, Kads.”

Big arms wrapped around me as my laughter faded into choked sobs, and I buried my face into my brother's armor-covered chest. As I struggled to regain my composure, the sound of Dorian’s voice called out, causing me to stiffen in Markion’s hold.

“It’s okay, just stay in the chariot.” Markion said softly, rubbing a hand over my back as the wagon carrying Darion pulled up on the scene.

“What happened?” The healer asked, but I refused to turn in the healer's direction, not wanting him to see I’d been crying.

Huddled in the chariot, I wiped frantically at my face as Markion jumped down.

“Don’t ask, just keep going. We need to get out of here.” My brother called out, waving for Darion to keep moving.

As the sound of the wagon faded, I looked around for Markion, seeing him dragging the palanquin, along with the unconscious Dreadmere guild members off the road into the forest. As Markion jumped back on the chariot and pushed Buster to move along as fast as possible, he let out a low chuckle.

“Kadia, do you even know what you just did? That woman is the Dreadmere guild leader's daughter, they literally call her the ‘princess’. The last person who angered her was hunted down relentlessly until they reset a new character and went into hiding.” He informed me as we sped along the road, easily catching up to the wagon.

“Oops?” I choked out, sniffling a little as I pressed a wet cloth to my wash. “I’m sorry, she just—”

“I know, I feel the same, probably not as much as you, though.” He sighed, shaking his head. “You’ve potentially just set us at war with Dreadmere.”

“Weren’t we doing that anyway, though?” I asked confused, didn’t Darius and Noctus say this morning we were going to be working with the Whispers guild to bring down Dreadmere?

“Yes, but not like this.” Markion moaned, pressing a hand over his eyes. “What are you even doing with poison darts? Damn, I can’t decide whether I’m pissed at you or proud of how badass that was. That Stonefish line was smooth.”

“Well, Tink saw my scorchers and asked if I could help her make poison bolts for her crossbow. I’m not very good at using weapons like swords and thought I could maybe use a crossbow like Tink, but it was just too clunky for me to get the handle of.” I told him, shoving the cloth I’d been using to clean my face back in my bag, as I settled into a more comfortable position. “Tink suggested I use a sling and clay balls filled with poison, but I kept catching it on my tail when I tried to swing it around. Our next idea was to use throwing knives, which developed into throwing darts because I actually know how to throw them. These are just dipped in poison, but the second model she designed has a compartment that can be filled with one milliliter of liquid that will inject on impact.” I told him excitedly, holding up one of my darts for him to see.

“You’ve always been good at darts, even dad stopped playing with you because it wasn’t fun when you always won.” Markion said, letting out a sigh. “What’d you put on em? Looks painful.”

“A poison, with some diluted scorcher venom. It’ll burn like hell for a few seconds, it’s more of a shock thing. I didn’t think they’d pass out like that,” I told him, furrowing my brow.

“You can explain what happened to Darius, this is your fuck up.” He told me with a smirk as we saw the group of riders milling about on the road ahead of us.

The reaction from the guild leader was almost the same as my brothers which was first shock, anger and finally, amusement.

“I guess it is a good thing you’re about to disappear into the desert for a few weeks. We’ll lock down the guild hall and release the recipes before we go. Hopefully they’ll be too busy trying to work out who gave out their guild’s secret recipes to put too much effort into retaliating against us.” Darius mused, shaking his head before ordering the group to stay quiet regarding the situation .

“The Whisper guild will be the ones distributing the recipes, so we won’t have to worry about them knowing it was us who supplied them.” Noctus added with a grin before leaning down to where I stood in the chariot.

“You better be planning to share some of that scorcher venom,” he drawled, and I smiled, pulling out a dart.

“Sure, where do you want it?” I asked, holding the dart up as though preparing to throw it at him.

“Bitch.”

“Vixen.” I corrected, much to the amusement of the group, and pulled out a tiny glass vial of scorcher venom

“Unless you have a glass vial, I can’t give you any. It eats through anything else, even metal. It is ten gold a drop.”

“Ten gold?” The vampire spluttered, looking at the vial I held.

“If you want it cheaper, you’re welcome to milk the scorchers yourself.” I told him with a smirk, and he shuddered, shaking his head.

I decided not to tell the vampire that I’d ‘tamed’ two of the scorchers thanks to Yuki’s guidance and thus milking them for venom wasn’t as dangerous as it sounded. The other scorchers had been dissected for research, and I’d learned quite a bit about the lizard's anatomy from the experience.

Their ability to breathe fire was achieved by spitting out a mist of saliva which was highly flammable. This spittle, when placed into contact with the venom, would ignite, creating the explosive flamethrower effect. Something I’d learnt from first observing my bonded scorchers blowing spit bubbles which would catch fire.

I did want to bond with more than just the two scorchers, but as I was using a dominance bond, two had been my limit. When creating a dominance bond, I needed to push my mana into the creature and imprint my mana’s signature onto the creature's mana. The mana that was used to imprint myself onto the creature would not regenerate and would remain as part of the bound creature.

It would take me a while to grow my core back to the point it had been before bonding the scorchers, though it would be faster if I was hunting creatures and gaining mana through their defeat.

Kaledon did not give out experience in the same way other virtual worlds did, fighting a creature here would see a person gain a portion of its mana. Mana could also be gained passively by absorbing Mana crystals or being in a mana-rich environment.

Once we reached the guild farm and dropped the crocodile corpses off, I spoke with Calidus, who would be overseeing the processing of the crocodiles. After hearing what I wanted, the Onikuma also offered to render down the crocodile fat, which I agreed to split between myself and the kitchen.

Two hours later, we arrived back at the guild hall, where I immediately set to work copying out the recipes which our guild had agreed to supply to the Whispers guild for distribution.

The Dreadmere guild had three potions and one salve they sold, which they claimed were new creations of Ge Hong. The light foot potion, a wound healing potion, a paralysis poison and the daylight salve for vampires. Taking in consideration that all the recipes were creations of Egenor Barothlas of Calisium, I guessed Ge Hong must have a book or grimoire written by the historical alchemist. I’d been disappointed that I couldn’t buy any alchemy grimoires fromGaia’s deal, but Darius concluded it was because they were unique items.

“That’s the last one,” I said with a sigh, dropping my pen and massaging my cramping hand.

“I didn’t expect the recipes to be so long. They’re practically a book in themselves.” Noctus commented, picking up the vellum journal.

“It isn’t just the recipe,” I said, looking up at Darius, and Noctus who stood crowded around my desk. “I’ve included information on each component used and Egenor Barothlas’s notes regarding the potion. I’ve also added a fourth potion which- looking at these in order of difficulty, might be the next one Ge Hong claims and sells. It is called the far-sight potion, and according to Egenor Barothlas’s notes it will allow the drinker to see objects clearly up to five hundred meters away for up to ten minutes, depending on mental fortitude. If you lack the ability to focus, it will wear off sooner.”

Darius, rubbed a hand over his chin with a thoughtful hum. “That’ll certainly stir them up. There have been rumors Dreadmere’s ranged fighters are the most skilled at long distance. Noctus, go deliver this to Van.”

A swirl of shadow engulfed the vampire, who disappeared from sight.

“One of these days, I’m going to invent an anti-vampire potion or something to stop him doing that in my lab.” I said, scowling at the spot where the vampire had been.

Darius chuckled. “It isn’t hard, just light the room to the point there are no shadows large enough for him to travel through.”

The guild leader then inclined his head towards the tank holding my two scorchers. Both of my scorchers, now named Sting and Scorch, were clinging to the walls of one of the caves, their bioluminescent tails creating a soft orange glow in the cave.

“What happened to the rest of them?” Darius asked, raising a brow.

“I dissected them,” I told him, grabbing the journal I kept near the tank and flipping it open to show him the diagrams of the scorcher anatomy I’d drawn and telling him what I’d learnt about the creatures.

“Have you made any progress on a cure?” He asked, flipping through the journal and stopping at my notes about the venom.

“Not a cure, but I did discover something interesting, and I think I may be close. Wait over here.” I called out, directing the guild leader to a nearby bench.

Moving to the ice box, I pulled two vials of blood from the makeshift fridge compartment and carried it back over to the bench. Setting two test tubes in the wooden holder, I added a small amount of blood from each vial into a test tube, then pulled out my vial of scorcher venom.

“This test tube contains blood from a scorcher, and this tube contains my blood. Now watch the reaction when I add the venom to my blood,” I instructed as I dipped a slender glass rod with a very small lip at the bottom into the vial of venom.

Carefully I scooped up a small amount of the thick venom and dropped it into the test tube containing my blood. The blood in the test tube began to bubble and boil the moment it came into contact with the venom. After several seconds, what was once red blood, was now a thickened, black mass that filled the jar with tiny plumes of smoke.

“Now I will add the venom to the scorcher blood.”

This time there was no reaction from the blood, and even adding a second drop of the venom left it completely unresponsive.

“So, the scorchers are unaffected by their own venom?” Darius asked, glancing at the two test tubes.

“Yes, and I think this is the key to finding the anti-venom. If I had a centrifuge, I could separate the blood cells, platelets and plasma. Normally, anti-venom is created by injecting low doses of venom into a donor animal whose body will begin to create antibodies to fight the venom. Those antibodies are then extracted from the plasma and used to create anti-venom.” I explained, looking down at the blood with a sigh.

“Tink is mulling over some ideas for a centrifuge using enchantments to spin it, but I don’t think it will be something we can manage anytime soon.”

“Is there another way to make it?”

“No, the only other thing I can do is create something to treat the symptoms of the venom. This is a fantasy world, so maybe there is a potion that can act as an anti-venom.” I told him as I poured the blood into my disposal barrel and cleaned out the test tubes.

“I’ll leave it with you, then,” Darius said, glancing around the lab. “Have you packed up everything you intend to bring?”

“Yes, I’ve sorted out portions of everything here into jars to bring with me. What I’m leaving behind is only the stuff Taurie needs and what arrives while we are away. Taurie will be sorting and storing it all for me. I’ll also be bringing my scorchers as Taurie didn’t feel comfortable looking after them.”

“We’ll be leaving at four in the morning to line up for the portal.” The guild leader reminded me.

“I’ll be at the main doors at a quarter to four.” I promised, getting a nod in response from Darius who left the lab to go finish his own preparations for the trip.

Finally alone, I moved to the bench near the door where a leather pouch lay with a scrap of paper.

Kadia,

These are the darts I have finished working on. There are a hundred standard darts and twenty-five injectable darts. This pouch will recall all darts within a fifty-meter radius once activated and has been made to fit your belt. The outside of the pouch has six slots that can hold darts for easier access. I also placed a bracer inside the pouch which can hold another six darts. As we discussed, the fletcher’s have used white feathers with no dye and have supplied dyes separately so you can dye the feathers to match what you use the dart for.

I have yet to put together a working prototype for a dart gun, but I feel the idea I have is workable.

Good luck in Valonia.

Tink

Setting the letter aside, I opened the small square pouch and tipped the darts into four separate baskets. The injectable darts I left in the pouch, as I wasn’t yet sure what I wanted to use in them. The dyes supplied by the fletchers were in powder form and only contained the three primary colors. After mixing the yellow and red dye in water to make a shade of orange, I dipped the feathers of the first batch of darts into the dye. Those would be the darts I coated in the diluted scorcher venom, with the second basket of darts also getting the orange dye, but with the ends of the feathers dipped in black ink to mark them as having undiluted scorcher venom.

The next twenty-five darts were dyed a color I decided to call bile yellow and were dipped in a concentrated version of the paralysis poison which was one of the ‘creations’ Ge Hong claimed as his own, and was made using Viper vines.

When I first read the description of the Viper vine, it said the vines attacked with a corrosive poison, which, as I’d learnt from observing the live vines brought back by the two tengu, was not true at all.

The vines would attack with a pair of sharp thorns that resembled fangs, and those fangs secreted a substance that affected the body's nervous system; leaving the prey paralyzed, the Viper vine would then strangle the prey.

Once the prey animal was dead, the Viper vine’s roots would grow upwards through the earth where they pierced the prey and drained it of nutrients. This left the prey animal appearing like it had been eaten away, which it had been, just not by poison as the book claimed. That meant I couldn’t trust the information I found in the books I’d acquired, as it was clear whomever wrote the plants and fungi book did not spend the appropriate amount of time observing the Viper vines.

Mary, the wife of David the potter, was now caring for the Viper vines and the Larnurma bush brought back by the two Tengu, Dravern and Helvern. Mary had previously owned a nursery and was adept when it came to growing plants, even those of a more fantastical nature.

The last twenty-five darts I dyed a pale blue and were for the poison I’d found in an attempt to create a cure for Scorcher venom. When Yuki returned from her trip with twenty ice wisp cores, and a pouch full of exotic plants found on the mountains, I’d been ecstatic until they all wilted away to basically nothing. Only the snow flower seeds remained in the mush that had once been a bright blue and white version of a sunflower.

I wasn’t entirely sure why I thought grinding ice wisp cores into powder and mixing it with oil extracted from snow flower seeds would cure scorcher venom, perhaps it was the crow hovering over my shoulder directing me to create the icy poison. The result had been a poison that would freeze a person or creature's blood and internal organs, killing them within minutes. However, the small amount coating the darts would only cause a painful chilling feeling to spread through the body which would last five minutes, before their body's natural warmth dispelled it.

Sadly, freezing ice wisps into poison had been a failed endeavor; with Yuki boosting the ice wisps regeneration with her mana, we only manage to create normal ice wisps. Even placing the wisp cores in the poison made with the snow flower seeds didn’t work. Hopefully, when Lena the Kitsune who’d created the poison wisps originally showed up, she would be able to provide some insight into how the poison wisps were formed.

Once the last of the darts were finished, I attached two of each dart to the pouch and six of the orange tipped darts to the bracer I now wore around my wrist. Each dart was held snugly in place with a loop, and I was protected from the tip, which was tucked beneath a flap of leather that ran around the bottom of the bracer.

After removing my dye-stained leather gloves, I tossed them into the bag attached to my thigh and pulled out my timepiece.

It’s just past midnight. Preparing all those darts took longer than I thought it would. I put the timepiece away and moved over to the tank holding my scorchers. Removing the tank lid, I reached inside and gently removed both juvenile scorchers, placing them on the bench where they sat motionless while I poured some of the sand from the tank into a glass jar.

After transferring the sand, I placed both scorchers, who were just under an inch long, into the jar and covered the top with a piece of leather with air holes punched into it. The leather wouldn’t stop the scorchers burning their way out of the jar if they wanted out, but with the bond I was able to ensure neither scorcher would escape the jar.

I couldn’t place the scorchers into a bag of holding, as the bags weren’t able to hold live beings and even attempting to put a live creature in wasn’t possible. I’d attempted to place a mouse Zosimos caught into one of my bags, and it was as though an invisible barrier was preventing me from putting the creature inside.

Securing the lab, I made my way through the empty forge and into the guild hall, which only had a handful of occupants sitting at the various tables. Finding myself a seat, I pulled out one of the books I was translating for Noctus and flipped it open, intending to pass the remaining time until our departure by working on the vampire books.