Shayrow woke up with a snake on his face.

“Good morning, Eiss,” he mumbled, carefully plucking the reptile from his head and draping him over his shoulders as he sat up.

Shayrow glanced around, noting that he was the first one to wake up. Jelro was sprawled out with most of the animals around him. Adif was curled up at the base of the tree. Kestek was tucked under her currently-visible wings, which looked like large dragonfly wings made of purple-tinged glass. Luss was under his cloak, snoring.

Even though Shayrow was unbothered by the cold, he got to work rekindling the small fire so that the others could warm up by it when they awoke.

“Are you cold?” he asked Eiss, since the snake hadn’t moved at all after being picked up.

Eiss didn’t answer, probably because Shayrow couldn’t understand him.

Shayrow searched for a rock, finding one of a decent size that he set on the fire to warm it up. He carefully pulled it out after a few minutes, testing the temperature of its surface before he set Eiss on it.

The snake stretched and flicked out his tongue.

“You’re welcome,” Shayrow said.

“Since when do you speak snake?” Jelro teased, making Shayrow flinch.

“What did he say?” Shayrow inquired.

“He said ‘thank you’,” Jelro confirmed. “It’s hard for him to do mut’st when he’s cold.”

“I figured.”

Adif sat up, yawning.

“G’morning, everyone,” she mumbled.

“’Morning, Adi,” Shayrow and Jelro chorused. Eiss hissed, and Shayrow suspected he was saying the same thing.

Kestek twitched, and her wings suddenly vanished from sight. She bolted upright in an unnaturally graceful way, looking startled.

“Oh,” she said. “It wasn’t a dream.”

“Is that a good or bad thing?” Jelro teased.

Kestek shrugged. She moved closer to the fire and started poking at it with a stick.

“What kind of food do we have?” Kestek asked.

“Nothing right now,” Jelro admitted. “Why?”

“I thought I could cook something,” Kestek said. “Maybe some toasted bread with amispe, maybe some baked egnaros... Unless that’s too fancy—I can just fry up some rice or something.”

There was a long moment of silence.

“We’ll get whatever you need from the market,” Jelro said, jumping to his feet with Adif right behind him.

“Oh. Okay.” Kestek didn’t seem to know what to say, so she gave a list of what she would need to cook the morning meal she had in mind.

Jelro and Adif took off for the market.

“Where did you learn to cook?” Shayrow asked Kestek.

She shrugged.

“I don’t really remember. I’ve been cooking with my family since I was little. My grandmother taught me all of her favorite recipes, so I started collecting more recipes so I would have loads of them to pass on.” She sighed. “That’s why I started in the apothecary class. I like mixing things and creating something new with the ingredients I’ve got.”

“But...?”

“I don’t like all the illness and blood,” Kestek confessed. “Sprites don’t get sick, so I don’t have to worry about catching any of the illnesses, but it was breaking my heart seeing all the sickness that I would never have to worry about.”

Shayrow lowered his head.

“It’s not a line of work for the faint of heart,” he quietly said. “I know that.”

“What made you want to be an apothecary instead of a swordbearer?” Kestek inquired.

“As well as—not instead,” Shayrow corrected. “I’m still a swordbearer. I simply am also an apothecary.”

“Oh. Well, uh, what made you want to be an apothecary?”

Shayrow hesitated.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Kestek said. “I just thought I’d ask.”

“I... lost both of my parents to an epidemic,” Shayrow murmured.

Kestek’s eyes widened.

“Both?” she whispered.

Shayrow nodded.

“My grandparents, too. Everyone but a few cousins and my uncle.” Shayrow took a deep breath. “I was one of the lucky ones. I had the antibodies and therefore didn’t get infected.”

“I... I’m so sorry,” Kestek mumbled. “That’s terrible.”

“Aye. It was.” Shayrow traced his fingers over the hilt of his sword. “That was when I realized that not all battles can be fought with a sword. Some enemies don’t even have to make you bleed to kill you.”

“How long ago was it?” Kestek tentatively asked.

“A little over two years ago.”

Kestek looked horrified.

“How did I not know there was an epidemic?”

“’Coz it didn’t infect sprites. Dhampyres were affected disproportionately. We lost nearly a fourth of our population.”

“A fourth?”

Shayrow dismally nodded.

“That’s terrible.” Kestek shook her head. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s all right. It wasn’t your fault. We weren’t prepared for it.”

“What was the disease called?” Kestek curiously asked. “What kind of sickness was it?”

“Plasmidkhor,” Shayrow answered. “It directly attacks lifeblood, twisting cells until they’re unrecognizable. The system begins to attack itself when it senses the ‘invading’ cells, and the fluids in the veins thin until the body essentially collapses upon itself.”

Kestek looked a bit pale. Shayrow quickly apologized for the unnecessary details.

“I understand now why you switched out of the apothecary class,” he noted. “You don’t even like speaking about blood.”

Kestek sheepishly shook her head.

“I was wondering,” she said, “why you carry around that satchel. Wouldn’t it be easier to carry your things in a storble?” She pointed to the two marble-like objects hooked on her belt.

Storbles were in fact a brilliant invention in Shayrow’s opinion, as they were orbs that fit right in the palm of a hand and could carry at least a ton of items without ever feeling heavier. Then they could be shrunk to the size of marbles to be carried around.

“Well,” Shayrow said, “I did try to use a storble for my ingredients once, but they got unfortunately jumbled up in the process. A satchel isn’t much trouble, anyhow.”

Kestek shrugged, clearly not in agreement, but she didn’t try to further the discussion.

The two of them busied themselves with keeping the fire going, and Shayrow did a headcount of the animals, confirming that everyone was present except for the owl—who had gone with Jelro and Adif.

Luss finally woke up, stretching out and yawning.

His gaze fell on the fire, and he moved away from the flames. Kestek gave him a puzzled look.

At that moment, Adif came rushing back to the camp with Jelro right behind her, carrying a load of food from the market.

“You won’t believe it,” the elf girl breathlessly said. “Last night, a manticore attacked the town!”

Kestek gave a stifled scream.

“Is anyone injured?” Shayrow wondered.

“Is anyone dead?” Luss unenthusiastically added.

“Two of the guards lost some blood, but no one died.” Adif looked quite frankly amazed.

Shayrow was amazed, too. Manticores were vicious monsters that killed for sport and left no remains of their victims, seeing as they could eat bones.

“It was during a nixie burning, and the nixie turned into an elephant,” Jelro said, which seemed like a strange remark.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Kestek crossed her arms.

“Easy,” Luss said. “Manticores are afraid of elephants. They’re the one animal that they won’t kill.”

Shayrow was caught off-guard. He hadn’t expected Luss to be so knowledgeable about something outside of his class.

“Wait, really? Where did you learn that?” Adif asked.

“Some independent studies,” Luss replied, looking bored.

Kestek started going through the ingredients that Jelro and Adif had brought back, making sure that she had everything she needed.

And then she raised her hands and started using magic.

Shayrow watched, intrigued. Dhampyres weren’t natural magicians the way sprites were, so he hadn’t seen a lot of magic while growing up.

He glanced over at the others to see their reactions. Adif was staring in awe, and Jelro looked impressed but less surprised. Luss seemed genuinely blasé about Kestek’s magic, which struck Shayrow as odd seeing as Luss was supposedly a human.

Like dhampyres—elves, merfolk, and humans were not natural magicians, although some family lines possessed magic. It was more common among merfolk and humans than elves, since many merfolk trained to become sirens, and there were plenty of humans that were wizards, mages, witches or warlocks, et cetera.

Few species were natural magicians when compared to the many species that existed in the world. The most common were sprites, fairies, enchanters, and nixies—but there were dozens of others.

Thanks to Kestek’s magic, the food was ready in no time.

Shayrow couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a hot meal right off the fire. He possessed no cooking skills of his own and usually relied on whatever food was being sold in the market. Being a dhampyr, he technically could drink blood if he ever wanted to, but he had never had the desire for it—or the need.

Adif was nowhere near an accomplished cook. Jelro had come from a culture where fire was essentially useless. And Shayrow hadn’t known Luss for long, but he was starting to suspect that the strawberry-blonde had a fear of fire.

“Forget not having a class skill,” Luss said through a mouthful of food, “this is the best thing I’ve ever eaten in my life—no joke.”

“I second that,” Jelro said, pretending to swoon. “You would’ve been the first student ts’osen by a group if there were a cooking class.”

Kestek blushed.

Adif picked at her food, apologizing for not eating much. But for an elf like Adif, all she needed was what most plants needed—sunlight and water.

“I know a recipe for tlis,” Kestek offered. “I can make you some, if you’d like.”

Adif blinked, looking surprised.

“What kind?”

“I can make loam, clay, and peat.”

“I’ll, um, take peat, if that’s not any trouble...” Adif trailed off in a mumble.

“I offered it,” Kestek pointed out. “I wouldn’t have offered it if I minded making it.”

“True,” Adif said, weakly smiling.

Kestek got up and left to search for a few ingredients.

“Remind me what tlis is?” Luss said.

“Mud,” Adif answered, making everyone laugh. “Well, mostly,” she said after they’d calmed down. “It’s an Elvish drink. We mostly drink it to obtain nutrients we can’t get from the sun.”

“Oh, so a vitamin boost,” Luss said.

“Of sorts.” Adif shrugged.

Kestek returned after a few minutes and got to work, mixing up a decent-sized batch of the drink—which resembled mud in every sense except smell. Adif had once used the sugary scent of tlis to convince Shayrow to try it, explaining what it was after he had choked and spit it out.

Adif profusely thanked Kestek and started sipping on a brimming cupful.

“I’ll take some,” Luss suddenly said.

Kestek skeptically looked at him.

“What? Humans drink mud.” Luss was so deadpan that it was impossible to tell if he were joking or not.

“Suit yourself.” Kestek handed him a cup of the tlis.

Luss took a drink and then made a face.

“I forgot how strong peat is,” he said.

“That’s what I like about it,” Adif remarked, finishing off her cup.

“So, what’s our plan?” Jelro asked. “Sorry. I hate to be the one to bring it up, but we need to at least have some kind of plan.”

“What can we do?” Kestek countered. “We were all unchosen, and you dropped. No one is going to want us to do anything for them.”

“Which is why we’ll just go to a different county,” Luss said.

“Or a different realm,” Shayrow added.

“We’re really going to travel all the way to a different realm?” Kestek spluttered.

“Why are you complaining? You can fly.” Luss rolled his eyes.

Kestek glowered.

“Well,” Jelro said, “in terms of counties, we’ve got six to pick from.”

“Aren’t there seven counties in Yaruid?” Kestek asked.

“We’re already in Woei,” Shayrow pointed out.

“The only counties that share borders with Woei are Quregu and Cokal,” Jelro went on, “and Cokal is mostly underwater. Glifaxs is the farthest away, and the other counties are between there and Quregu.”

“Why do you know so much about geography?” Luss asked.

“We studied terrain in the hunting class,” Jelro explained.

“Huh.” Luss shrugged. He tilted up his cup to drain it and then let out a loud belch.

“You’re disgusting,” Kestek said, grimacing. “Humans are disgusting.”

“You have my gratitude,” Luss sarcastically said, tossing the empty cup to the sprite.

“What about outside of Yaruid?” Shayrow asked Jelro, wanting to stay on topic. “My knowledge of the other five realms is limited.”

“Share this knowledge with us, if you will,” Luss droned.

Shayrow picked up a stick and traced a rough picture of the continent in the dirt, pointing at each general section as he listed off the other five realms.

“Asbvaj is to the west, Ehng is to the north, Iash is to the south, Oodb is south of Iash, and Uaff is across Kabvs Sea, connected by the peninsula.”

“Well,” Jelro slowly said, “if we plan on traveling all the way to Glifaxs, we’ll be on the border of Asbvaj...”

“First we ought to see if anyone is willing to give us a task,” Shayrow noted. “And then we can decide on our method of travel, that sort of thing.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Jelro said, bobbing his head. The resident animals made various noises in agreement.

“Jelro,” Kestek said, “are your animal friends coming with us?”

Jelro blinked, obviously not having considered the question.

“Is that a problem?” he responded.

“I was just wondering,” Kestek quickly said.

“Do they have names?” Luss wondered.

Jelro quickly introduced all of the animals to the members of the group, including the owl—whose name was Liaj. She had been only a temporary patient at first, but she requested to come with them.

“Well,” Shayrow said, standing up and brushing himself off, “we had better get going before there aren’t any tasks left for us.”

Kestek handed out something that at first Shayrow thought was candy, but it actually resembled the menthol drops that were to be sucked on to soothe a dry throat.

“What’s this?” Jelro asked, inspecting the amber-colored thing.

“Iltkizt,” Kestek answered, looking confused. “Have you never used it before?”

Jelro shook his head.

“What does it do?” he asked.

“Chew on it,” Kestek instructed. “It cleans your teeth. Don’t swallow it, though. You’re supposed to spit it out after it gets a bitter taste.”

Intrigued, Shayrow put the iltkizt in his mouth, surprised that it tasted minty and lemony at the same time. And it was far more entertaining than brushing his teeth.

“Where do we spit it out?” Adif wondered.

“Just on the ground. It breaks down without hurting anything. My ma used to use it in the mulch for the garden.”

“Huh.” Adif shrugged and popped the iltkizt into her mouth.

The group gathered up their things, made sure the fire was completely snuffed out, then they started off for the market.

“You guys are gonna let me do the talking, right?”

Everyone looked at Luss.

“What—so you can insult anyone we approach?” Kestek retorted. “I think Jelro should do the talking.”

“Mind you,” Luss said, “I’m in the merchant class. My entire skill-set revolves around social interaction.”

“I think we’ll need a small demonstration before we allow you to speak with anyone that has a potential task for us,” Shayrow said.

“Suit yourself.” Luss shrugged, spitting out his iltkizt with impressive distance. “Does anyone have something they would like me to sell?”

~ ~ ~