My little detour done, I make my way back home. This time I manage to avoid picking up any fares.

"Sorrel." William calls to me from his field as I'm riding past. "I'm sorry to bother you, but could you take a look at my crops? You looked busy earlier, but I noticed after we talked this morning that the grain is already starting to show signs of that damned blight."

"Already?" As surprised as I am by that, I'm even more surprised after examining the plant he points out to me. "Man, this is weird. It looks like four separate diseases, but my magic is telling me it's all the same fungus. May I take this plant?"

"Of course." When he agrees, I transplant the wheat plant into a wooden pot and store it away. "Do you know any ways to combat it?"

"Well, my go-to for fungal infections is regular treatments of Neem oil." I rummage through my memories for a moment. "Unfortunately, the Neem tree doesn't grow in the part of the world, but quite a few oils are just as good. I'll make those later, but for now, let's try my second choice of baking soda in soapy water."

I mix some up, only to realize that I don't have a sprayer. It's not a difficult design, but not one I want to screw around with right now. So, I just turn the wooden bowl I'm using into a sphere with a spray nozzle on one side. Shrinking the sphere causes the liquid to spray out in a mist.

"The problem with baking soda is that some plants just don't like it, and it can cause problems in the future if you use too much." I explain while misting half a dozen plants. "We'll see how these are doing tomorrow compared to their neighbors, in the meantime, I'll prepare those other oils, so we can test them."

"Thank you." He bows his head to me and then chuckles softly. "I thought for sure you were going to do some grand magic fix the whole field with a wave of your hand."

"Heh, it might take a bit more than just a wave." I laugh along with him. "But, even if I use magic to cure this field, how many others are still affected?" I gesture up the river at the farms that stretch for kilometers. "I'm only one man, so I'd much rather find a remedy that doesn't require me to visit every farm around Riverton."

"I suppose that makes sense." He nods.

"Yeah, I'll do it if I need to, I just hope it doesn't come to that. Everything would be much easier if I can find the right treatment and then distribute it to everyone." That's not just me being lazy, either. Magic is great and all, but what happens the next time there's a blight and I'm not around? "But, even if I can find a good treatment, I still recommend that you and everyone along the river switch to non-grain crops for at least a year."

"Aye, a lot of us are already planning to." He laughs again. "There's going to be a lot of beans on the market next year."

We chat about farming for a bit more before I head home. I got tired of looking at an empty house, so I took a few minutes to add some basic furniture. Since this is all place holder stuff, I just went for comfort and functionality over looks.

Now that I had someplace to sit, I did just that and got to work on Frankenstein again. Cursing every few minutes that I chose this to be the first book I translated for Amelia. But, I somehow manage to get most of it done by the time she and Apricot got home.

"Sorrel? You in here?" The sun was starting to go down, and I was so caught up in translating the book that I didn't bother to turn on any of the lights I got from Ro's shop. "Oh, we have furniture now."

"Hahah, yeah." I sit up, stretch my back out, and pat the cushions on either side for them to sit down. "I'm gonna replace it with something nice soon, but I needed somewhere to sit. Did you have fun at work?"

"Oh, it was a mess." She sinks down next to me, and Apricot chooses to lay down on our laps. "Apricot was a great help though." She says while stroking the tired-looking pixie's hair. "You know how she always has to explore and investigate every new place? She did that to the whole warehouse and then was able to tell us where everything was."

"My brain hurts now." The winged woman puts on a show of rubbing her temples.

"Yours isn't the only one." I smile down at her. "I was just working on the book again, almost finished it too."

"Ooh, thank you." Amelia snatches up the book. "And, sorry we missed you earlier, Roddy told us you stopped by."

"Did you get a good horse?" I ask, thinking that I need to put up a stable now.

"She's no Belle, but I got a good deal for her. Do you mind giving her a looking over, she seems healthy to me, but I can't see inside like you can."

"Of course." I lift Apricot into my arms as I stand up. "But, you've got to run a bath for us afterward, please."

"Oh. Yes, please." Apricot seconds my motion. "Nice and hot too, I could use a good soak."

"Now, that is an excellent idea." Amelia concurs.

"So does this girl have a name?" I open the door to see a dappled brown and white mare loosely tied to the porch railing.

"I'm leaning toward Flicker because she likes to flick her tail around a lot."

"That's probably because she's got a tiny patch of ringworm on the tip of it." I say after finding no other ailments. "And... she's good now. But it's been a day for fungus, I got my first good look at the blight and it is just weird. If my magic wasn't telling me different, I'd swear it was four separate strains."

"Will you be able to treat it?" She asks while scratching her new horse behind the ears.

"Yeah, I'm going to test out a bunch of stuff tomorrow." I answer while walking towards the road so I can throw together a small pen and stable for Flicker. "I'm hoping to find a solution that won't involve me walking every field to exterminate it manually."

"I'm sure you'll figure it out." She says while trying to keep Flicker from eating Apricots hair. "So, how'd things go with Melanie?"

"Great, we got the first batch made." Since my arms are still full of pixie, I use one of my vines to hand her a cube of rubber. "I gave Edsel the first couple tires since he's close to completing his bicycle. Melanie and I talked to someone at the guild and the shop should be fine, but I'm going to have Ed coat the walls in stone to make them fireproof."

The stable only takes a minute to go up; I gave the horse a big stall but left it open so she can play in the pen whenever she wants. A large water trough gets filled by Amelia while I grow and dehydrate some tall grasses to serve as bedding.

"Oh, this reminds me. I was able to modify my draw water spell to work with vinegar, and alcohol, and presumably any liquid I know well enough." This gets both of their attention.

"Ooh, ooh. Show me, please." Amelia practically bounces in place. "Apricot, you'll help me learn it, right?"

"Yeah, I want to see what he did." The pixie bobs her head but makes no move to get to her own feet.

"It wasn't that hard." I say and set one of the barrels of vinegar on the ground. "You just need to loosen up this part of the spell while focusing on the essence of the liquid you want to draw." I demonstrate and can feel both of their magics focus on the tiny blob of pure vinegar that rises from the barrel.

"Oh, that's clever." Apricot says while pulling her own blob from the barrel. "What kind of visualization are you using? I swear you're even more efficient with this than you were before."

"Ooh, I got it." Amelia cheers as a single droplet forms only to drop back into the barrel. "Aww."

"You'll get there, Babe." I smile over at the pouting blonde. "And, as for my imagery... Well, how much do you know about the basic elements and how matter sticks together?"

"Not a lick." The pixie says unabashedly.

"Back home we knew a lot about the basic structure of things." I explain. "I'm just using that knowledge of how everything sticks together as my visualization. I promised Melanie I'd write down whatever I could remember about chemistry for her. I'll make you guys a copy when I do."

"So..." Amelia hesitates. "Instead of thinking about how it smells or tastes, you're imagining its very structure?"

"Exactly." I nod and make a model that looks a bit like Mickey Mouse. "I won't bore you with all the details, but this is basically what water looks like." Two more models join the first. "These are alcohol and vinegar. Each sphere is a different basic element, we call them atoms. The smallest are hydrogen, and these others are oxygen and carbon."

"This one looks like a funny dog." Apricot plays with the ethanol molecule.

"I don't think that's helping." Amelia shakes her head.

"Just stick with what works for you then." I stroke her arm with a vine. "I only found that this worked for me after everything else I tried failed. So, you've already got me beat being able to draw some out just by thinking of how it tastes or smells."

"He's right." Apricot agrees with me. "We can feel around for the essence of a substance, but Sorrel has to know how it's built. Even if he is more efficient, he's also limited by that way of thinking."

"I knew I should have slept through more chemistry classes." My joke seems to have brought Amelia out of the funk she was starting to slip into. "Now, let's go take that bath. I'll finish your book while we soak."

"Yes, please."

***