I recharged the wards to full capacity and debated on if I should replace them, then shrugged. I could probably get another couple months out of the newer ones and that was a bit of an iffy proposition. I could spend half an hour making new ones to get a full year out of them or I could keep the existing ones and get 8 to 10 months out of it. Since there were frequent breaks during the school year, wasting time doing something that wasn't strictly necessary was just that, wasting time.

I dropped off the sacks of weapons in my work room and added water to the stew pots in my potions room and went back out to the boat. I had actual work to do and hoped that the local flora had recovered since the last time I had been there. I was always careful to never over-harvest an area to let it regrow naturally, since they were resources that I had constantly needed.

I retrieved my pack from the boat and went back inside and detached the canvas sack with the pieces of cookie bread in them. I opened it and shoved a piece into my mouth with a sigh and chewed on it. It was good even without being covered in butter. I looked around and my home was almost devoid of any resources, which was disconcerting, because I was so used to having access to a bunch of ingredients at the dorm mansion.

I chuckled and looked at the empty space in my potions room where I could easily build my own containers for ingredients. I wouldn't have time to do that, gather them and prep them for storage, and brew. I only had three full days before I needed to go back and that wasn't a lot of time for what I needed to do.

My original plans had to change, now that I had proof that the army and mages guild were going to expand the route a lot wider than what the plans originally called for. In fact, the widened and dredged one they now had was already a violation of the agreement between the king and myself. The problem was, it happened before I had signed the papers and there wasn't much I could do to put things back.

What I could do was stop them from expanding any farther, so that's what I was going to do. I checked the water in the pots and it was simmering nicely, ready for ingredients. I grabbed two large canvas bags and for the first time in a while, left my bandoleer. It would only get in the way. I also didn't bother getting dressed.

I left with the sacks and dove into the marsh as if I had never left. I was back in my element and it seemed to welcome me back. The tangling vines barely brushed me, like a caress, and the snakes didn't pay me any attention. I killed any spider I came across, because I wasn't stupid, and quickly found a nice ingredient gathering area.

I half-filled a canvas bag and hung it over my shoulder, counterbalanced with a rock, and moved on. I went to where the better and rarer ingredients were, and I arrived much sooner than I ever had before. My army training with all that extra weight, had increased my unencumbered speed to a ridiculous level, even for me. I wasn't untouchable, especially for the ambush predators like the marsh boar, that waited until I was in mid-stride before charging at me.

I almost laughed at its angry face when I barely dodged the tusk it tried to gore me with. “Yeah, that was close.” I commented and it huffed at me and pawed at the ground with its hoof. “Look, I don't want to kill you right now, even though I don't really have a lot of food with me.”

It let out a roar and charged anyway, as if I had been taunting it. I jumped and grabbed a branch to get out of the way and the boar's tusk clipped the tree. It half-stuck and half-severed the tree. I actually did laugh as the tree toppled over and I had to jump free before it slammed into the ground. I turned around and the boar was trapped in the crease that his tusk had made and the tree folded over.

“I'm tempted to let you go.” I said and it squealed at me. “No? All right.” I said and sliced its throat and then slid the knife down its belly to gut it. The boar barely flinched at the movement and then the light slowly left its eyes as it bled out in seconds. I cut the tree and set the boar's tusk free, then cut the tusks off and shoved them into bag with the counterbalance rock.

I skinned the boar and tied it up with a normal vine. Feeding a tangle vine was not a good idea, unless you wanted to be completely covered in less than an hour. It was one of the only plants that I knew of in the marsh that subsisted on the blood and flesh of living creatures. I couldn't tell you how it did that, considering I've never found a mouth of any kind on them.

I went over to the next gathering area and smiled as I looked at the rare ingredient. It was one of the main ones for the strength potion and I gathered up as much as I could. It had definitely overgrown and I wasn't worried about taking too much this time, since it would be the last time I would be there until next summer. There was no way I'd be back here during the winter break, since moving through the marsh in winter was a death sentence.

I sliced up the boar meat and added it to the bag with the rock, which I removed, now that I had the meat to act as a counterweight. I rolled the pelt up and put it in another bag and tied it around my waist. With everything secured, I moved on to the next best area to get the rest of the ingredients for the strength potion.

It took me nearly an hour to get them all, along with a few other choice ingredients, and I headed back to the house to start brewing. I picked up the spider carcasses on the way and would create more death spider antivenom as well. It was always good to have it on hand, just in case.

I didn't find any diamond snake, which meant I had missed their migration to the warmer parts of the marsh. It was fall and coming up on winter, so they would be hunkering down and not moving around as much. The lazy ones would still be out lurking for that last big meal, though. I chuckled at the thought, because that's what I was doing. I was lurking around to get one last meal of ingredients and potions before going home for the winter.

I quickly had three different potions brewing not long after getting back to the house. A strength potion, a fortifying potion, and spider juice potion. I had two pots of each going and nodded at their progress. While they were going, I went to my work room and remembered that I had used up the wildwood coins I had stored here for the kracken tubes.

I'll need to go looking for a wildwood tree. I thought and went back to the potions room. I hadn't passed one yet and would have to deviate from what I wanted to do to find one. Then again, if my guess was right, it might be very profitable if I checked a certain area. It was where I had found one the last time, too.

I finished the potions and bottled them up, put the crates by the door for easy access, and grabbed some rope and my bandoleer. It was time for a special trip and I took off through the marsh at my best speed. It felt exhilarating to let loose like this and none of the animals that I came across knew what hit them as I dispatched them as easily as I had the soldiers and mages. I would gather them up on the way back.

It took me several hours to reach the spot that I had been wanting to check out for a while now, since the last time I had been there, it was a burned out husk with nothing left in it. I slowed down as I neared the area, because my vigilance technique told me that something was there. I couldn't tell how many, because they overlapped for some reason, so I peeked out from the underbrush to look at the old fungus bloom area.

Marsh panthers! I thought, my eyes wide. What in the world is going on? How are there so many?

A dozen marsh panthers were sprawled out in the area, some on top of each other asleep, two more of them were mating and making a lot of growling and snarling sounds, and another one seemed to be strolling around.

I knew he was a patrol guard, since he was constantly looking around as he strolled. I didn't know if he was the oldest or just the strongest, since I didn't really have a lot of other panthers to compare it to. I was also in a heap load of danger. I couldn't move fast, because they would all notice immediately and I would be swarmed. Even with a magic knife and being strong and quick, I wouldn't survive having fifteen marsh panthers tearing me apart.

I very carefully slunk backwards and crawled out from my hiding place to make a very tactful retreat. I had a crazy idea to draw one towards me by using some of the pure fungus powder I had, then dismissed it, because they had great senses of smell. I would draw nearly all of them to me if they smelled it as soon as I poured a little out as a lure.

I knew it would, because despite all the panthers scattered all over the place, I didn't see one fungus bloom or a tasty mushroom. That made me sad and I hid my feelings as I muddied my trail and scent, to stop them from following me directly.

I heard a branch break and froze still, crouched down on the ground, and couldn't detect anything with my vigilance technique. Either it was something new that I hadn't met before or it was something that had learned how to avoid being detected. The last part would be scary, because it would mean I might have been followed this whole time and not known anything was there.

I stayed still and turned my head to rest my ear on the ground. I heard rustling grass with the ear sticking up and light thumps from my other ear on the ground as something with padded feet approached my position. I took a long and very deep breath and pretended that I was going deep underwater for the Hag. My heartbeat slowed down and I didn't breathe at all as whatever it was came closer.

I barely managed to not choke as a bright white panther stepped into view. It was nearly a size and a half bigger than the others and magic seemed to flow off of it in waves. I immediately locked my body up to stop my trembling as it sauntered over to me. It didn't deviate or change where it was looking, which meant it knew I was there.

I didn't move, even knowing it knew I was there, because it could kill me before I tried to escape. I held my breath and waited to see what it was going to do. It walked over to me and bent its neck down to put its head to my spread out hand. It took several sniffs and let out a bit of a growl. I still didn't react, even though that was clearly an 'I don't like you' growl.

It moved up to my arm and smelled the caked on mud and drying dirt. It let out a huff and moved on up to my shoulder to do the same thing. It stopped when it reached my bandoleer. It let out a growl and darted forward to bite it. Its teeth sliced into my shoulder and I still didn't react. The bandoleer snapped it its mouth and the white panther worried it and spat it out.

My eyes looked at the potion vial it just had in its mouth and I cursed mentally that the number ten potion hadn't broken open. It would have made this so much easier if it had. I might have even lived. I could see the blood on the panther's muzzle and it licked its face automatically, then it froze. The tongue darted out and licked even more of the blood and it let out a purr.

Uh oh. I thought as its eyes went to my bleeding shoulder.

It moved forward and gave my shoulder a long and slow lick, then it coughed and spit out the dirt and mud. It did it again and the purr intensified.

Before I knew it, the panther had laid down on top of my back, had its front paws on my upper arms and its back paws braced on my calves, and it was lapping at the slow flow of blood from the four tooth wounds on my shoulder. Its rumbling purr shook my whole body and I was completely trapped with no way to fight against whatever the thing wanted to do with me.

It had me pinned completely and I was going to have to take a breath soon. I hoped so, anyway. The damn thing was a few hundred pounds at least and I wasn't sure my lungs would be strong enough to work under the weight.

I also had no clue what I was going to do.