We settled in for the ride after that, chatting about our favorite desserts. They'd never heard of chocolate, but when I described the pods to her Amelia said that some rich people like to roast the beans and drink it like coffee, another rich person beverage.

I told her she has something special coming for her once I get my hands on one of those pods. It's a pretty intensive process to go from bean to bar, but I should be able to use magic to speed it up.

While we chat I'm also working compressing wood to make stronger arrows. I'd very much like an arrow I could fire more than once, and I still have that idea to make a wagon for us. It's slow going, but I make some decent progress by the time we reach camp.

Thanks to our early start, and the pace we set for the first half of the journey, it's barely past noon when we stop for the day.

"Are you ready for your first lesson?" Apricot teases the blonde after she unsaddles the horse.

"Should I clean up first?" I may not be human, but my biology mimics them closely, including sweat.

"Let her try without first." Apricot decides. "You smell a lot better than most humans would after running through the forest for a couple hours, and then riding a horse for a few more."

I just shrug and toss out the mattress, and set the big cushion on it to rest my back against. Amelia is blushing furiously, but she isn't saying no, so I beckon her closer with a simple order. "Undress me."

...

"Not bad for your first time." Apricot pats her on the head. "And, don't worry, you'll get used to the taste eventually. You're lucky, Sorrel is actually fairly sweet tasting as far as guys go."

"You did a good job, Amelia." It certainly wasn't the worst blowjob I've ever had. That reward goes to my high school girlfriend, and her braces. "Now, come here."

"No, it's gross." Amelia tries to shy away when I pull her in for a kiss.

"Heheh." I chuckle and kiss her anyways. "Baby, it's just a little cum, and you swallowed most of it anyway." I make her look me in the eyes. "I'll never ask you to do anything I'm unwilling to do myself."

"Aww." Apricot gushes before getting her own kiss from each of us.

"Now, do you want me to return the favor, or make some pastries first?"

"You bake!" Apricot nearly shouts. "I'll give Amelia her reward for a job well done."

...

"Mmm. This, this is good." Amelia says after taking a bite of the mock-pecan pie.

We're all sitting around naked eating pie. Apricot gave Amelia her reward and then talked her into a second lesson while the pies were baking. That was more of a lesson for me though, as I had to focus very hard to keep the magic going while being distracted.

"I'm glad you like, I can't wait to get some pecans and make it for real." I lean over and lick up a bit that dropped onto her chin. "Delicious." I stare her in the eyes to make sure she knows exactly what I'm talking about.

"Dammit!" Apricot curses out of the blue. "There's a wagon coming up the road."

"Nng!" I groan and look around for my pants. "You think if I close up the hedge they'll just keep going?"

"No." Amelia growls while pulling her dress on. "It's probably a representative of the enchanters guild getting their quarterly shipment. They'll know this road, and just chop it down thinking it grew together since their last trip."

"We'll just have to postpone your training for later." Apricot teases after donning her clothes.

"Cleanse!" I hit us and the mattress with the cleaning spell to get rid of the lingering scent of sex, and then move our stuff off to one side of the campsite.

"Good idea, I could still smell us even over the pies." Apricot shoots me a thumbs-up and starts stuffing her face with her two slices of pie. Yes, I made both the cherry, and mixed berry, along with a couple of oatmeal ones.

"Here you go Stormie, yours has cooled off enough by now." I hold up the modified oatmeal pie I made for him. I used applesauce instead of eggs and cut way back on the sugar, but it still turned out alright, if his reaction is anything to go by.

"Oh, hello." A middle-aged woman, with mousy-brown hair that's starting to go grey at the temples, guides her half-empty wagon into the free side of the clearing. "You're... Amelia, right? I remember seeing you when I was up here in spring. How's your Aunt, has her leg healed up yet?"

"Yes." Amelia nods. "She's all patched up; my friends and I were just heading back to Riverton. Your name is Ferne, yes? See, I told you they were from the enchanting guild." She directs to me after the woman nods in the affirmative.

"Yes, yes." I roll my eyes at her. "I'm Sorrel, by the way. And, the gluttonous one is Apricot." She's already finished half of both pies.

"Wha? We skippe. bre..fas." She mumbles out around a mouthful of cherry pie.

"How on Earth did you get fresh-baked pie out here?" Ferne asks with an amused smile. "I thought I was losing my mind when I kept smelling it from the road."

"Just a little culinary magic." I conjure an apple from storage and walk over to her horse. "Hi there girl, what's your name?."

"That's honey, though she's named for her coat rather than her temperament." The enchanter looks a bit astonished that the horse is taking to me so well. "She's normally as prickly as a thorn bush."

"Stormie's the same way." Amelia says, while helping the woman unhitch her wagon. "Sorrel's just got a knack for horses."

Meanwhile, Honey is licking at my hand trying to get another apple from me. "Sorry girl, that was my last one." I swear she gives me puppy-dog eyes when I say that. "Alright, alright. I'll grow some more, just give me a few minutes."

I walk back over and pick up my staff; taking out the small branch I found stuck to one of the apples, I stick it in the ground and flood it with growth magic. The tree is only half grown by the time I need to take a break and recover my mana.

"That's one hell of a spell." Ferne comments. "I suppose I have you to thank for the upgrades around here. But, why did you use a branch instead of a seed?"

"Oh, you never know what apple you're going to get when you grow from a seed." I explain while refilling my magical tank. "I like the way these taste, so I used the branch. Normally you just graft the branch onto an existing sapling, but magic took care of that."

A few minutes later, and a large fully laden apple tree fills one corner of the clearing. I refill the empty bushel and make a couple more to hold the excess, before 'chopping' it down and adding the wood to the pile in back.

"I'm so jealous." She sighs. "I joined the enchanting guild because I have zero potential for magic. But, I'm about as good at enchanting as I am magic, so they stick me with these runs when I'm not doing the most boring paperwork ever."

"Well..." I draw out the word a bit awkwardly. "I can't do anything about your job. But, I can offer some pie, and fix up that rickety mess of a wagon for you." Luckily Apricot left a few slices.

"Oh, I couldn't ask, and I really shouldn't have said anything." She taps a flask at her waist. "But, it's such a boring ride..."

"You should be a bit more careful." I warn her. "Amelia and her brother were attacked by a couple of bandits just a few days ago. Given the timing, they were likely waiting for you." That sobers her up right quick.

"No." She looks to Amelia who just nods. "Is your brother alright?"

"He took an arrow to the shoulder, but Sorrel was able to patch him up." Amelia hands the woman a slice of the mixed berry pie and pats her on the knee. "Don't worry, the bandits were captured, also thanks to Sorrel, and Captain Leonard has upped the patrols in the area. I'll ask him tomorrow to keep an eye out for you okay?"

"T-thanks. And, thank you Sorrel." She bows to me and almost drops her pie. "I'm going to give Dorothy such a chewing out for this. She's the head of the Riverton branch and has been cutting corners lately. I would normally have a couple guards with me, but her exact words were 'Oh, it'll be fine, nothing ever happens.'"

"Huh." I furrow my brows. "I'm probably just being paranoid here, but umm... Could she have had something to do with the bandits?"

"What? No! Dotty would never do anything like that." She waves my suspicion off as silliness. "You may have some crazy ideas but you sure can cook." She takes another bite and closes her eyes in bliss.

I let the subject drop, but I'm still going to pass my suspicions on to the guard captain. Amelia's look tells me that she feels the same way. Apricot, on the other hand, just looks sleepy

"Well, I'm going to try out those new arrows I was working on. Do you girls want some music?"

"Something mellow, please." The pixie yawns. "I wanna take a nap."

"Yeah, eating a pie and a half will tend to make one a bit drowsy." I snark back at her but put on my [Afternoon Nap] playlist. "Come on Blackthorne, I need you to be a bow again." It shifts for me as soon as I pull out the bowstring.

"Where did you get that music box?" The enchanter instantly perks up and starts examining the speaker box. "How does it work? I don't see any Runescript anywhere."

"It's just a conduit for my magic." I give her an apologetic look. "All the songs are in my head, I'm only using that to play them."

"Oh." She went from excited to dejected in the blink of an eye. "I should have known I wouldn't have come across an interesting piece of enchanting. All the guild makes are replacements for basic household spells."

"Mhm, I'm actually using this as a replacement for one of the things I lost when I came here." I try to cheer her up. "They were pretty common where I came from, and I'd be very interested in trying to replicate some. Maybe I could pick your brain... Uh, ask some questions about enchanting." I quickly change tracks when she gets a confused look at the unfamiliar expression.

"I'm not the one you want to talk to then." She shakes her head. "I already told you I was so bad at it that they just stuck me with the paperwork."

"Maybe, maybe not." The way her eyes lit up showed true passion for the craft. "Either way, you still know more about enchanting than I do. Well, just think about it, okay? I'm gonna go up the road a bit so the twanging doesn't wake Apricot." I tell Amelia after Ferne shuts me down.

"Alright." She smiles up at me. "But don't go too far, she's already out cold and I doubt the noise would wake her up even if you started firing from right there."

"I'll be safe." I smile at her and walk start walking to the South.

I only go about a hundred meters out before picking a target tree and testing the prototype arrow. It's heavier than a standard arrow, but that hardly matters with the power that this bow has.

*Twang. Swish. Crack.* It flew true and didn't shatter, but still broke after hitting the tree. This means it should probably hold up against a normal target, but I think I can do better.

Taking out some of the firewood I kept in storage and fashion it into an over-sized arrow shaft. Last time I just tried to shrink and compress the fibers, but I need something more. So now, I twist and wrap them around each other as they shrink.

The first try rips the wood apart because the stress wasn't equal. I'm on the right track though and try again on a smaller scale. This works much better, so I just start adding more wood onto this seed. I end up using all the bits from the first try and then some, eventually ending up with an arrow that weighs almost three times what it should, but that I don't think I can break if I tried.

I give it a simple point for a tip, and fuse some cotton into stiff vanes to fletch it. I didn't bother trying to salvage the feathers from this morning's test shots, as I knew I could do this, and have it turn out better.

I nock the arrow and am about to draw it back when Blackthorne starts eating it. "Dude, Seriously? That took me like five minutes to make." Sighing, I go about making another. Now that I know what I'm doing it goes somewhat quicker. "You've got the pattern down now, Right? No need to eat this one."

I test the shaft against the staff before fletching it just to be sure, and thankfully the stupid thing seems to have gotten it down. Finishing the arrow off, I draw and take aim.

*Twang. Swish. Thunk!* "Just what I wanted to hear." I smile and jog over the check it out. "Damn, it came out the other side." Loosening the tree up, I extract the arrow to find it still in perfect shape. I then heal the tree up with magic as a bit of thanks.

I start making another as I walk back to the road. Once there, I sit down cross-legged and make as many as I have wood for, unfortunately, this is only a dozen. But, by the time I finish the last one, I'd gotten the time down to just under a minute per arrow.

Standing, I put the twelve arrows into storage as I've found that it makes for an excellent quiver. The mana used to retrieve items is only a fraction of that used to store them, and I can pull stuff out at any orientation I want. Meaning I can loose an arrow and have another ready to nock almost instantly. I'm not quite at that rapid-fire level yet, but I hope to be soon.

Choosing a larger tree this time, I fire all twelve at it, one after another. I took care to aim for the same spot, but while I hit the tree no problem, my grouping is... well, shit. Collecting my arrows, and healing the tree, I look them over to what I can improve.

"Hmm, it looks like the balance is a bit off." I muse and add a bit more mass to the heads, extending and widening them from simple target points to more of a rounded bodkin point. "Better." I say after test-firing half of them back towards the road.

I then switch from offset to helical fletching, and this helps even more. So, after collecting them once again, I adjust the heads again to add matching spiral grooves. If I was a better archer I wouldn't need these tricks. But, until I can practice some more, I'm happy to cheat a little bit.

*Twang. Swish. Thunk!* A dozen arrows fly out again, and ten of them land in a ten-centimeter circle, with the other two only being a few centimeters outside. Storing them, I fix the poor tree again and unstring Blackthorne.

When he shifts back to normal, I can immediately tell by the weight that he incorporated the compression I used on the arrows. "Not bad, Dude. I guess it was worth you eating my arrow. Let's head back to camp now." The added weight gives the staff a nice heft to it now.

***