I sit at the fire, savoring the warm blazes as I urge Life to grow beneath me, the earth answering my will with a large root that jumps out of the ground and twists itself like a snake, slowly turning into a perfect place to rest my back.

Such “extravagant way of using essence” of mine earns me a long stare from Fliytch, one that I can only answer by raising my shoulders, a poor response, but it’s indeed extravagant. Although, a needed extravaganza I would say. Fighting while using but a fraction of my strength all the time is more tiring than I imagined, and after a week and a half of it my muscles need a deserved good rest.

Again I see myself hoping for a hot bath, it would make wonders for both my body and mind to soak in a almost too hot water for a few hours. But the closest place that would have such luxury stays at least a week of traveling, so I can do little more than hope for it.

A shame that none of the two waters practitioners here have the kind of gift needed for heating the water as we could just create our own particular hot baths when desired, but I suppose that if it was something common to have they would not pay so much to bring the fire people from their desert.

So, sore - and having accepted that this will not change soon - I take the jug of cheap wine at my side and give it a drink, it tastes horrible, but the alcohol makes me a little better. The taste is also a good way to fight that old habit of mine, drinking to forget is useless way to lose both time and money, and I refuse to fall for it again. Denying the desire to drink though, will only make it worse, so I just feed myself with the the worst tasting wine until I can't even smell it without wanting to throw up.

Probably not the most best method but what works, works, I suppose.

Those two buffoons and they damned family are the ones to blame this time, selfish to the bones they are, unwilling to wait even a single week more even after everything they did for the boy. Twice they almost killed him, and twice we let it slide without any real compensations, still, now that he needs only a little time they pay him by hushing us all.

dishonored bastards they are, all of them.

If the boy could get at level before going things would not be so bad, essence would make his body strong enough to survive a few hits or to run away if needed, just as it would make healing him faster, the essence no longer being rejected as Eisg worked.

But no, they refuse to, and the contract obliges us to obey, to follow. And so it does to the boy. I put his name myself on the contract after all, once more I acted first and thought later, and once more put the life of another at risk because of it.

If not enough problem, a non-practitioner entering Briddell against all odds with almost no training or experience, we'll be entering it to hunt, and fighting will be not an option. We'll try to protect him of course, but it would be ingenuity to believe that nothing bad could easily happen.

If only I held more strength, one that would not bend against any other, things would have not gone this way. But I don't, and they did. So here I'm, gain reminded of my weakness, of my roots that dry by the years, and of my stagnated strength.

To touch the earth, to control it, to be one with it, and to be part it. Small words that represent enormous walls in the way of an earth practitioner. How many people died while trying to surpass those walls? Too many to count, their strength dried out, never to grow anymore.

Will I join them Four? Will I continuously be forced to watch people die while seeking a power that should be shared but it's not, until the rest of my days, only to die regretting it all? Is that everything that you have for me?

Can’t stop myself from thinking back, for the first time and to the very beginning, when Fa first told me about the wonders of practitioners. I remember barely sleeping that night, the moon going high on the sky as I lost myself in fantasies of strength and power. But after all this time? Twenty years after all that fighting and blood, and I’m still so weak that I can’t even rebuke a third-rate practitioner just because he has the backup of a low class big family.

In the end, we’ll go, wanting or not, and that’s the harsh truth. The world is no fair for the weak. The power of a family easily able to crush the group and I’ll not put that weight on them, not when they have theirs lives to live and families waiting for them at home.

I'm really sorry for the boy for putting him on this, for taking from him the right to choose take the risk or not, but the best that I can do for him now is to promise that if he lives, things will change. Take the time that it will take I'll grow stronger, strong enough so I'll not be pushed back anymore. So hear my words Four, hear my words and crave them in stone so to never be forgotten, because such is my vow.

I just hope that the price for taking that decision will not end being another life.

Who knows, maybe I'm just over thinking and worrying too much, the boy will let himself die so easily, maybe I should be thinking on what I'll do with him after we leave the forest. Maybe I should just him back with me and keep his training while doing mine. Ma is always complaining about not having grandchild to dot on, doesn’t she? It’ll be good, the farm is too lonely for her alone and I haven’t come back in a while anyway.

Ther-

My thinking is interrupted as the trees hum in my ears, not with the urgent usual tone but with warning one that informs that there are people coming in my direction. Anyone that comes closer than a hundred meters will be easily detectable with the amount of trees around, so it's not a surprise - and one of the reasons that we kept ourselves on Briddell. The higher levels camps are not secure as this one for us - If we can ever call Briddell a secure place of course - they have better cores naturally, but as here I can simply sense the beasts from afar the number of cores we get covers for their lower prices.

With a fast circling of essence and willed thought the humming stops, their job done as I already know who is coming, Eisg and Ainmh are back. .

I’ve asked them to get some good game today, its costume to have a nice eating before going in; we did the same in our first raid together, and in the next, and the next after that. It became a kind of tradition and a happy memory to us all. Unfortunately, and because whatever it is, be it the wine or my bad mood, the prey in their hands, something that should only remember me of good things, does not.

It's is a normal hart, a male, easily seen by his anthers. It's quite big and will serve us all, but it's hardly enough to glut us with meat. Usually I would’ve asked them to bring some rock wild boar, those beasts are one of the weakest and most numerous that you can find in Briddell, they are almost the same in power as a level one practitioner, going all the way to two meters in length with a weight of four hundred kilos or so.

Their name, rock wild boar, come from the fact that they do not form a core and absorb all essence with their muscles and hide, as it’s most earth essence, their hide turn in some kind of rocky, hard fur. They are not that strong, but they move in packs and have strong defense against normal or not covered in essence weapons. If you add all that to the fact that no matter how much of them you kill there is no cores to be gained, they are an opponent to avoid even for us. The blood will attract other beasts and then, you’ll find your group tired, with a floor full of bodies that will give you nothing and hoping that there are no other beasts hidden, waiting to take your lives.

If there is something good about them it’s the meat itself, it tastes quite good and can help non practitioners to build up affinity with essence. Rich people will feed their kids with meat like of those boars, the essence in the flesh will be lightly absorbed by the one eating while making the compatibly with it better with time. Rock wild boar is not the best option of course, their meat have too much impurities in its essence while having a low concentration of it at the same time, making needed to eat a thousands of kilos to see some progress. No, the riches will use higher quality meat, coming from higher level beasts.

But higher leveled beasts are hard too kill, too hard, still, the low birth people seeing the difference between their kids and the rich ones that ate essence for years, and fearing that their children would have the same life of servitude that they had, got their weapons and fought, knowing that even if little, they would be helping.

They were normal people, normal non-practitioners just like the boy is, going against beasts so to get a better future just to their blood despite the fear and the obvious fact that a lot of them would die. And they did, but they managed to kill a single beast, a golden cat, a small feline of no more than a meter and a half by the price of thirty lives.

The bloody meat in their hands and the promises of a better future in their mouths was the only compensation to the wives and children that had no more fathers and husbands.

Later that night, I’ve come to know how unfair the world truly is.

It was a small village a little far than most of things, there was no practitioners and only a few people have even seen one. Only the ones that have gone to a city to sell and buy materials or some other small necessities. And there, they’ve heard of eating beasts flesh.

That’s how everything began. And then, after all the prices paid, we ate.

To put it simple, some ate the meat slowly, in thin slices and others, ate fast, in big mouthfuls; For whatever the reasons that they had, to get stronger fast and get a better life to their mothers, to avenge their fathers, to whatever reasons or dreams that they had, they died without a chance to fight for it.

That’s it, the only difference in the ones that lived and the ones that not was the fact that we ate slower. They died because to digest beast flesh there is the need to be a practitioner, or to soften its essence with expensive herbs

And that's why today we will not eat rock wild boar, but a normal animal.

I get up, the sudden movement calls me some attention but they quickly come back to talking among themselves as I give them not attention. I move, fighting the nausea as I make my way to my tent, a comfy construction of fluffy hide and essence grown wood, hoping for the comfort of it, or the comfort of what is in it.

The inside is way warmer, a huge and welcomed difference from the cold winds that come all the way from Briddell, I fight the urge to let myself fall on the floor and stay there for the rest of the night as I walk in the direction of the small wood chest on the corner, soon seeing what I came for. A small jug, strongly sealed so the sweet sent will not attract any unwanted attention.

After a few seconds of doubt I open it and take a sip, a long sip, letting the bitter taste of memories go away as the sweet wine falls through my throat. Sadly I free myself from the wine, there is too few of it, a single jug for the though days and I feel that there too much of those ahead.

I could bring more sure, although it's expensive I have little to spend in, but that would make little sense as I have problems with wine, wouldn't it?

I seal the jug again, the sweet but not long lasting taste of wine already leaving me as I stride out of the tent, soon being again greeted by the sight of all the mercenaries around the fire. My mouth sour as I watch while Brod cleans and prepares the deer using a large variety of herbs, I notice, but quickly shrug it off as a little spoiling to the group before the harsh days ahead will be good.

The herbs will also make it easier the task of forcing the food down my throat I suppose.