Alric had acquired a stack of notes.
That was not strictly true. Brannick had acquired the stack of notes, in the same way a man acquired a fish by standing nearby while someone else waded into a river, attacked the river with a net, and returned wet.
Alric had asked. Brannick had smiled.
Two days later, a bundle of copied apothecary notes had appeared on Alric’s desk along with a herbology book thick enough to suggest that plants, as a category, had become serious. Alric had decided not to ask too many questions.
Not asking was a useful skill he was finding as of late. It saved him having to wonder why Adventurers’ Guild had connections to too many industries that involved blood, pain, poison, swelling, strange mushrooms, illegal mushrooms, and emergency healing. There were only so many reasons adventurers knew apothecaries well enough to borrow notes from them.
There were also only so many reasons they knew herbologists. Alric chose peace and not to think about it.
Peace, in this case, meant sitting in his office with the door closed, a cup of tea cooling beside his elbow, three sharpened charcoal sticks, two empty sheets, and a stack of copied notes that already looked more useful than several guilds he could name.
He looked at the stack in front of him. Alric grinned, he knew this was about to become a problem, but this was the interesting kind of problem.
“Right,” Alric said.
No one answered, which was ideal.
The first page was written in a careful hand. The letters were close, regular, and small enough that the writer either trusted eyesight too much or had spent a lifetime saving paper by squeezing danger into margins.
At the top was a name. Granny Wax.
No title or guild office or other formal classification such as Mistress Apothecary of North Market or Licensed Herbal Practitioner in Good Standing, which Vale would no doubt have found deeply reassuring and deeply credible.
Just Granny Wax.
Alric stared at the name for a moment and felt immediate respect.
There were names that asked to be believed because of rank. Lord Merenholt. Captain Rein. Baron Isewald. Names that came with offices, seals, uniforms, paperwork, or men behind them prepared to explain the consequences deliver the consequences.
Granny Wax required none of that.
Granny Wax sounded like a woman who had looked at a dying man, a crying child, three idiots, a poisoned dog, and a boiling pot, then decided she had time to save two of them and would select according to attitude.
Alric turned the page. The respect deepened, the notes were excellent.
These were not arranged like a scholar had once loved plants from a safe distance, these were working notes. Each herb had the same structure, or close enough to the same structure that Alric nearly smiled.
Name. Appearance. Common preparations. Effects. Dose. Stronger dose. Warnings. Overdose. Interactions with other herbs. Notes.
Alric leaned back slowly letting out a low whistle.
He was struck by the compulsion to one day find Granny Wax and buy her something warm.
He read the first entry properly.
Common marshroot. Bitter. Used in fever teas. Mild stomach complaints. Overdose caused vomiting, shaking, and loss of feeling in the lips.
Alric paused. He read that line again. Then the next.
Children receive half measure. Elderly quarter measure unless strong constitution is known.
He looked toward the window for a long moment.
“How did you find that out, Granny?”
The room did not answer. He decided not to put his not asking questions skill to use, after asking the question he didn’t want to think about.
Alric turned back to the page and wrote on his own sheet.
Granny Wax. Trust cautiously. Practical notes. Dose ranges. Overdose signs. Find out if alive.
He paused, then added:
Possibly terrifying.
The next several entries were useful but not what he was looking for. Pain herbs. Sleep herbs. Something that reduced swelling but made the patient sweat enough that the note recommended extra cloth beneath them. A moss used for burns if boiled first and never used raw, caused blisters that glowed in the dark when used raw. A flower that helped with childbirth pains but caused dangerous bleeding if brewed too strong.
Alric read more slowly after that.
His old world had been full of medicine before doctors had understood why medicine worked. This world seemed determined to prove it through brute force. People found things. Tried things. Survived things. Failed to survive other things, which someone nearby hopefully wrote down before making the same mistake with confidence.
A great deal of human knowledge had probably begun with the sentence, that berry killed Uncle Jon but the goat seems fine.
He turned another page. Mana leaf. Alric stopped.
The name was written plainly, then followed by three local names, none of which helped him. He reached for the herbology book and searched the index.
The book was less friendly.
It was arranged by region, then plant family, then by some system that had clearly made sense to herbologists and no one else. Eventually, after muttering at it twice and accusing the index of personal malice, he found the entry.
Mana leaf. Also called bluevein bitter, mage’s tongue, old-man leaf.
“Old-man leaf?”
He looked back at Granny Wax’s notes.
Chewed fresh: used for headaches, especially in scribes, mages, night readers, and those who work under enchanted lamps. Bitter. Cooling. Do not swallow whole unless intended.
Alric frowned. That last phrase...
Do not swallow whole unless intended was the sort of sentence that meant someone had swallowed it without intending and then everyone had watched and took notes.
He read on.
If swallowed: heaviness of limbs, sudden tiredness, aching in knees, wrists, and back. Some report feeling aged. Some report hollow chest. Symptoms pass quickly in ordinary dose. Excess causes collapse, grey pallor, cold sweating, trembling hands, and confusion. Do not give to children.
Alric lowered the page. For a while, he did not write.
He looked at the desk instead. Not at anything on it, just at the space between the notes and the cup of tea, where his mind could place the sensation properly.
The hero’s sword.
The memory came back with unpleasant clarity. The day he had refilled it twice and learnt his limits.
Heavy limbs. Hollow chest. Aged. That was a strange word, but close. More like every part of him had become aware that it was made of joint pain.
Alric picked up the charcoal.
Mana leaf, swallowed. Similar to mana exhaustion? Like sword-charging that one time. Heavy limbs. Hollow feeling. Joint ache. Quick passing.
He underlined quick and scratched at his head briefly.
He leaned back in his chair. Staring up at the ceiling, his chair protested but he didn’t notice.
If the herb drained mana, then the tiredness makes sense. Sort of. The body complains because something had been pulled from it. Fine. That makes sense.
He had no better theory yet, and this world had already made a habit of turning stupid sentences into useful categories.
But if it drains mana, why does it pass quickly? Battery and I need a nap afterwards, it usually takes a day.
He tapped the charcoal against the page.
Is the dose tiny?Do ordinary people recover quickly from a small drain?How is mana stored?
He did not like any of those answers enough to trust them.
The note did not say the user felt restored afterward. Nothing like strength returned better than before. It said the symptoms passed.
He wrote:
Possibilities.
Small mana drain. Body recovers naturally.
Herb interferes with mana use, not mana amount.
Herb absorbs mana, then releases it back.
Herb converts mana into something else? Body complains during transfer.
Granny Wax’s “quickly” may be days.
He looked at the fifth line and circled it.
Quickly was a dangerous word. Quickly to a man waiting for tea was different from quickly to a man waiting for bleeding to stop. Granny Wax seemed practical enough that she probably meant something measurable, but she had not written the measure here.
That was unfortunate. Alric turned back to the herbology book.
Mana leaf grew in damp shaded gullies. It disliked full sun. It was harvested best before flowering. Leaves bruised easily. Drying reduced headache use but not the swallowed effect. Gatherers were warned to avoid storing it with spirit moss, glassmint, or bitter ash.
Alric sat up slightly. Glassmint.
He did not know why the name caught. Perhaps because he had seen it elsewhere, perhaps because the book had bothered to warn about it. Plants that were not allowed to sit near each other were either delicate, reactive, or involved in someone else’s expensive mistake.
He wrote the name on a separate sheet.
Glassmint.
Then he went back to the mana leaf.
Buyer notes had been added beneath the herbology entry in a different hand. Alric noticed immediately because the letters changed from scholar-neat to adventurer scrawl.
Mostly apothecaries. Alchemists buy all grades. High grade rarely reaches open market.
Alric smiled despite himself.
The herbology book told him where the plant grew. Granny Wax told him what it did. The buyer notes told him who cared enough to fight over it with money.
Buyer notes were wonderful. Buyer notes were gossip getting serious.
He wrote:
Mana leaf. Apothecary/headache. Alchemist/stabilising? High grade controlled. Swallowed effect may indicate mana binding.
He paused. Binding was not the right word, it was too confident, he crossed out binding and wrote:
mana interaction.
That was safer. Vague, but safe. He continued through the stack. The work settled into a rhythm.
Read Granny Wax. Find herb in the book. Note effects. Note where it grew. Note who bought it.
Try not to imagine how many people had overdosed before Granny Wax gained confidence, he also avoided the thought that Granny Wax may have gained confidence by intentionally overdosing people.
Some herbs were dull in the way useful things could be dull. Feverroot. Coughbark. Red willow. A seed that helped with stomach griping unless crushed too fine, in which case it caused the same stomach griping with more vigour.
Some herbs made him put down the charcoal and stare.
One dried fungus, powdered and mixed with honey, helped people stay awake through night watches. Too much caused visions, rage, and the belief that walls were whispering. The buyer notes said guards purchased it unofficially, which Alric found both alarming and unsurprising.
A yellow flower reduced pain in joints if steeped gently, but if boiled too hard made the pain worse. Alric wrote heat sensitive beside it and underlined gently because at least Granny Wax had the decency not to mention dawn.
Another herb seemed to make wounds clot faster but increased fever risk. He wrote useful but dangerous and did not trust himself to add anything else.
The more he read, the clearer the pattern became.
This world had medicine. Real medicine. Neither safe nor understood. Often buried under tradition, dosage by spoon, instructions like steep until properly dark, and warnings that assumed everyone knew what trembling of the wrong sort looked like.
But it worked. Which was also annoying because he couldn’t dismiss it.
Alric took a sip of tea and discovered it had become cold. He drank it anyway because leaving it seemed like admitting he’d forgotten it.
The next entry made him stop again.
Sunspur.
The name sounded cheerful enough to be dangerous.
Granny Wax’s notes described it as a narrow-leaved plant with orange tips, dried in bundles, sometimes chewed by couriers and road workers. Effects: warmth, alertness, reduced weakness after long exertion. Mild dose brought clarity and steady hands. Strong dose caused racing heart, anger, thirst, and shaking. Overdose caused feverish heat, chest pain, and collapse.
Alric leaned back. That was a stimulant. It sounded a lot like caffeine. Something close enough to a stimulant that his old world had several versions and most of them had ended up in small cans with aggressive branding.
Vodka and energy drink.
He searched the herbology book.
Sunspur. Dry slopes. Rocky fields. Common, prefers full sunlight. Quality improved by stress. Alric briefly wondered if plans in this world developed character arcs. Bought by apothecaries, caravan factors, army suppliers, and alchemists. High demand before winter campaigning.
He wrote carefully.
Sunspur. Alertness/warmth/stamina. Alchemists, army, apothecary. Possible stimulant. Dangerous heart effect.
Then he drew a line and added:
Not for casual drinking without dosage.
He stared at that sentence.
Then, because honesty mattered, he added:
Probably for casual drinking eventually, but not at first.
The next promising herb came half a dozen pages later.
Hearthleaf.
That sounds like something a noble poet would name while trying to impress a woman who liked gardens and the indoors at the same time.
Granny Wax’s descriptions were less romantic.
Hearthleaf, dried. Used in recovery teas after fever, overwork, winter weakness, and blood loss when food can be kept down. Mild dose improves appetite and warmth. Strong dose causes sleepiness and heavy sweating. Overdose may cause dangerously low wakefulness. Do not combine with deep sleep herbs.
Alric found it in the herbology book after only one false start, which he took as a personal victory.
Hearthleaf grows near old ash beds, burnt woodland, and rich soil after fires. Common. It was harvested in year round, dried slowly, and stored away from damp. Buyer notes: apothecaries, alchemists, estate infirmaries. Often purchased with Sunspur and Glassmint by Alchemists.
Alric stopped. He read the line again:
Often purchased with Sunspur and Glassmint.
That was not a recipe. It was better than a recipe in some ways.
Recipes lied. Recipes said heat until it remembers dawn and expected decent people to continue living afterward.
Buying patterns were harder to romanticise.
If alchemists bought Sunspur, Hearthleaf, and Glassmint together, then those three belonged in the same family of use. Something taken by tired people. Injured people. Overworked people. Adventurers who had done whatever adventurers did before limping back to complain about prices.
Alric wrote:
Sunspur + Hearthleaf + Glassmint. Restoration preparations. Stamina restorative? Recovery tonic? Post-exertion? After magic use?
He looked back through his notes until he found Glassmint.
Granny Wax had it listed under cooling herbs.
Glassmint. Chewed fresh to clear nausea. Infused to settle shaking hands after strong tonics. Cooling effect. Helps prevent sour stomach. Too much causes numb tongue, slow speech, and foolish calm.
Alric stared at foolish calm.
He admired Granny Wax more with every page.
The herbology book described Glassmint as a pale green creeping plant with translucent stems. It preferred shade, water, and stone. It was gathered carefully because bruised stems lost potency quickly. Buyer notes: apothecaries, alchemists.
Sunspur pushes. Hearthleaf recovers/supports? Glassmint balances/settles.
He frowned. Too clean.
He crossed out supports and wrote:
probably supports.
Then he crossed out pushes and wrote:
may stimulate.
Then he stared at the whole line and muttered, “You are not allowed to become confident just because the sentence looks tidy.”
He sat back and let the pieces settle.
Mana leaf was probably different. It interacted with mana somehow, perhaps binding, but somehow absorbing, irritating, returning, or doing something else that would require several people, controlled doses, and a healer willing to stand nearby and judge him. Quiet judgement if it could be arranged.
Sunspur, Hearthleaf, and Glassmint were not mana potion herbs, as far as he could tell. They were stamina recovery. Restoration. The kind of thing people took after depletion, long travel, fever, mid battle, or hard magical work.
A stamina restorative.
A Tea maybe? Syrup? Potion? Distilled extract? Wine base? Honey base? Oil? Some horrible alchemical paste?
The apothecary notes did not give a recipe. That was annoying but also reassuring. Recipes were where dignity went to die.
He had effects. He had buyer notes. He had growing conditions. He had enough to ask Pavise for prices without sounding entirely like a man preparing to poison himself.
Alric looked at the names again.
Sunspur. Hearthleaf. Glassmint.
There was something there. Not medicine exactly. Or not only medicine. His old world supplied the thought before he could stop it.
Vodka and energy drink. He closed his eyes. The thought remained.
Clear spirit. Sharp. Sweetened perhaps. A small dose. Bright flavour. A drink that made a tired man feel alive again. New, novel, dangerous if handled like festival cider by people with brooms and too much civic imagination.
He opened his eyes.
“Magical vodka and energy drink,” he said out loud, he liked the sound of it.
His charcoal moved quickly.
Restorative cordial? Spirit extraction? Low dose. Controlled serving. Not tavern bulk. Not festival. Not festival. NOT FESTIVAL.
He underlined the last two words. The office door received a knock. Alric looked up slowly.
The knock had not been official. It did not believe in paperwork. It was polite, familiar, and patient enough to be dangerous in a different way.
“Come in,” he said.
Seren entered carrying loose paper and gave him a small curtsy. She stopped just inside the door and looked at the desk.
Alric followed her gaze.
The desk had become a small battlefield of herbal knowledge. Granny Wax occupied one side. The herbology book sat open across the centre like a collapsed animal. His own notes spread outward in increasingly desperate angles. Three charcoal sticks lay in different places, each abandoned at the point where a thought had become too quick for neatness.
Seren’s expression did not change.
“Should I be concerned?” she asked.
“Yes,” Alric said. “But not urgently.”
She closed the door behind her and crossed to the visitor chair before sitting down. “So back to your usual self then.”
Alric began gathering the loose pages, then stopped because gathering them would make the system worse. The mess was arranged according to the shape of his thinking, which meant it looked awful but contained memory.
Seren glanced at one page close enough to read before he remembered she couldn’t read his writing. No one else could.
There was, he knew, a reason she had come. Seren did not visit randomly just to discover which new branch of danger had grown from his desk.
“You need something?” he asked.
“Yes.” She opened the folder. “The guards.”
Alric leaned back.
“The issue is not fighting,” Seren began. “They are all adventurers, so they can fight. But fighting is not guarding.”
She set the first sheet on the edge of the desk, carefully avoiding a note that said foolish calm. “People are entering headquarters too easily you pointed out. Not dangerous people, but they could be. Messengers. Workers. Suppliers. Carters looking for Vale. Maids looking for me. People who have learned that if they walk in confidently enough, someone will assume they belong.”
“The guards need to announce people,” he said.
“Yes. And stop people. And know where to send them. And know when not to send them anywhere.” Seren tapped the page lightly, “They also need to understand household work. A delivery man should not be treated like a trespasser if he is expected. A noble messenger should not be allowed to wander because his boots are expensive.”
Seren took a deep breath, “Captain Rein agrees with you. He and Brannick have begun designing a training regime.”
Alric stared at her.
“Rein and Brannick? Together?”
Seren nodded as he considered that.
Captain Rein knew roads, doors, forts, wells, procedure, clean uniforms, and how to turn a brewery into a defensible problem. Brannick knew adventurers, violence, taverns, questionable shortcuts, and how to look relaxed while probably noticing three knives and a loose roof tile.
Together, they might create either excellent guards or a military order with drinking songs.
“Good,” Alric said at last.
Seren’s eyebrow moved.
“I mean it,” he said. “That’s good. Rein knows procedure. Brannick knows the kind of idiot who ignores procedure.”
“That's pretty close to how Brannick described it”
“Did he use the word idiot?”
“He used several words like it. I think idiot was in there too.”