There we made a fire and I changed back to my human form for the meal. I changed into my clothes while Russell started some food over the fire and Anise and Pettran started to boil some water. We moved slowly through the trees today because Russell kept stopping to gather herbs along the way. I wonder if he is going to do something with the boiling water and the herbs, or if the water is Anise and Pettran’s idea. When I sat down beside Anise, placing my pack on the ground behind me, Anise was holding a pouch of sweet smelling plants and sniffing it. “Hmmm. We haven’t been able to get any Pleo Mint for ages. Not since the Wood Elves left.” She took out a small thin blade and began to peel thin strips of the plants and drop them into the boiling water. Russell took a good sniff of the air around the pot with the water while he moved the meat in the pan around. “There is nothing more refreshing than a properly prepared drink of Pleo Mint Water. There is a lot of it growing around here, I am thinking about collecting and drying a large bundle of them to sell when we leave.” He sniffed the air again and then focused back on the sizzling meat in front of him. Anise looked over at me then at Russell. “Russell you have a high Herbology skill don’t you?” Pettran gave her a sharp look. She ignored him and stared intently at Russell. He nodded. “I do, Elise has the Herbology skill as well. Why? Do you need us to find some herbs for you?” Pettran let out a low hiss which Anise ignored as she nodded. “Yes, a lot of herbs actually.”
“Which herbs?” Russell asked, checking the meat. Anise’s cheery grin fell from her lips as she sighed “We don’t know.” Russell’s head shot up, probably from the tone of her voice. It was low and dark. “What does that mean?” Russell asked warily. The light from the fire reflected off the lens from his glasses. “That is a bit of a long story, one that I am hoping that you might be able to help with.”
“Anise.” Pettran growled. She turned and scowled at him “Pettran we are out here to look for help. We don’t know enough about the different plants around here to harvest what we need. We don’t know what to look for and since nothing about the herbs that we do have in stock is helping we need to find new herbs to look for help with our new problem. If we do nothing then it does not matter that some strangers, who have been nothing but very helpful to us might I add, know that we are in trouble. Everyone will be dead.” Pettran pressed his lips into a hard thin line and nodded. Russell focused on serving the food into small dishes and Anise pulled the water off of the fire to let the now pale green liquid cool. The food and the drink smelled really good. Anise produced some old looking wooden cups from her own pack and filled the two cups with some of the green liquid. She passed one to Russell and the other to me. “If you can share your food and dishes with us it is only fair to share what is left of our dishes with you. You can have the first drink. It is very refreshing and good for calming down the mind and the body.” I took the still hot cup of pale green water and took a sip. I had hoped when I heard the word “mint” that it would be the same kind of mint that I remember. The flood of warmth and the refreshing taste of mint, yes my mint, made my muscles that had been tense since I came to this world relax. Russell took his cup and sighed after the first draft he took. Watching him drink the water was like watching someone drinking coffee from my old world. I hope that this drink is not addictive like caffeine. It is supposed to refresh and relax, not make someone more alert and awake. “Please tell me that this stuff is not addictive.” I begged Anise. “I just got over the withdrawal from my other food addictions. I really don’t need to add a new one.” Anise laughed. “No, it is not addictive, just very tasty and can help someone who is not feeling well.” Russell laughed. “I used to drink this quite often, it is a favorite drink of my Father and was something that he and my Mother both enjoyed. When I was growing up, drinking this was a family tradition that we did while one of my parents would read out loud for the group. When I grew older I would take a turn doing the reading out loud. I have a lot of fond memories tied into this drink.” Anise looked over at me. “I wonder what it is about you that makes one feel safe to talk. I wonder if it has to do with your ability to shift to canine, or if it is because you are a Reborn, or it is just your personality?” Russell shrugged. “It might be that I just got used to explaining things to her.”
“No.” Anise shook her head. “I have the oddest feeling that it is safe to talk to her as well.” Russell and Pettran looked over at me. Russell hummed in thought as Pettran narrowed his eyes and stared at me. “Huh. I never really noticed.” Russell mused. “So long as Elise does not turn out to be some kind of psychotic evil killer, then it could be very useful to have on our side.” Wow, really? “A psychotic evil killer? Really Russell? Is that what you think of me? After all this time?” He handed me a dish of food and shrugged. “We haven’t known each other all that long and most psychotic evil killers are good at hiding it. You never see the knife until it is buried in your back.”
“That happen a lot does it?” Russell did not look at me. “More than you would think.” Anise and Pettran were looking hard at their food bowls as well. I guess that it is not just a common theme in books. How terrible it must be to live in a world where they are so dependent on each other and to have someone you trust betray you. It must be like a small town everywhere, where such betrayals and tragedies are much more devastating than in big cities. “Ahm. Well you were going to tell us why you need our help in finding unknown herbs?” I asked to change the subject. Anise nodded over her bowl of food. “Yes. I should start with a bit of history about the area. These are a large batch of woods, we have several large water sources and are very isolated from the nearest towns. It was not always so isolated. There used to be three other villages in these woods. The pixie and Sprite Villages are still there, but they moved much farther away to the edge of the woods. There was a village of Wood Elves that we used to trade with. They would gather the herbs throughout the woods and hills and sell to us and we would use the herbs in our alchemy and sell the concoctions to them. We were not great and dear friends, but we were not enemies either. We had a neutral trading center where we exchanged our goods and traded with a select few Goblins who came for some of the rarer goods we find in the woods. Not many know that we are here, most of those who come in adventuring like you two, we ignore. I don’t know how open and friendly the Wood Elves were with strangers. A few years back the Wood Elves just stopped coming to the trading center. We had no idea what happened. When they failed to show up for three seasons, we sent out a scout who discovered that their village was empty. We thought that they had just left without saying anything. For a few years we gathered what herbs that we could, the ones we were most familiar with and made do working with those. We thought for a while that they were going to either come back or send others to take over their village since they left so abruptly and without saying anything, but the village stayed empty. We did not think too much about it, I mean Wood Elves are rude and flighty right? Then a few months ago the first few people started to get sick. Our health tonics helped to slow down the progression of the illness but no matter what we did we could not clear it out. While we tried to find a cure, more and more of the village fell ill. Soon more than half of the village was sick and all our stock of herbs was gone as we tried and failed to make something that would help. Pettran and I were sent out as one of three groups to go and collect herbs to replenish our stock. Our job in particular is to see if we can find some new herbs that can help.” Anise shook her head sadly. “We have not had much luck in finding any new herbs that can help.”
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