Unsurprisingly, nobody came to check up on the weird man who’d been staring at his feet before curling into a ball and whimpering.

  Merrick didn’t blame them; he’d probably avoid someone that behaved that way too due to fear of erratic behavior. Doubly so on a settlement caravan, the likes of which always attracted the odd parts of society as volunteers.

  By the time that his new channels stopped throbbing the sun was already lighting up the distant horizon, meaning he’d been near comatose for hours.

  “[Status],” Merrick intoned quietly, conscious of the fact that his sore throat likely meant he’d been whimpering a lot louder than he realized. Or perhaps screaming without realizing.

  He ignored it and focused on willing forth certain elements of his [Status] for observation. His health still showed that it was full which meant whatever pain he he’d suffered hadn’t actually damaged him. Or it had done so in a way that his [Status] couldn’t reflect.

  Likewise, his Magicka pool still showed that he hadn’t expended any of it. He cast a quick [Spark Ember] aiming at the nearby campfire that was being rebuilt in preparation for morning cooking.

  His Magicka rushed through his preexisting channels, notably ignoring all of the new ones, in the pattern he’d learned for the spell and a small spark of red flew forth from his finger into the much larger fire.

  - Magicka: 96%

  “So my [Status] is still tracking changes in value. That means the Goodberry either wasn’t conjured from magicka or it took far less than I’d assume it would.”

  Without a casting class, Merrick’s passive magicka regeneration was abysmal. Unless he was actively using his [Meditation] skill or ingesting consumables like magicka potions he’d regenerate less than 1% of his maximum per hour.

  The amount of energy he felt surging through his body when using [Conjure Goodberry] was far more than two casts of [Spark Ember].

  “Another point toward the skill not using magicka at all.”

  Finally, the last field he observed in his [Status] was the entry for [Conjure Goodberry].

  It was grayed out, something he hadn’t experienced before.

  He bit his lip for a few moments and scowled as he considered his next course of action.

  Specifically, he knew what he must do but had to work up the courage to do so.

  He activated the skill once more.

  More specifically, he attempted to activate it, but nothing happened. He felt a dull throbbing sensation originating from the same place he usually did when over-using his innate skill and decided he’d gathered enough evidence to cement his hypothesis.

  The new tack-on for his innate ability used the same energy that his [Merge] did. Something he was tentatively referring to as anima for the time being, mostly due to the hints he’d gleaned from the class offering back in the dungeon.

  Being grayed out worried him slightly. He’d have to keep an eye on the skill to see if it lit back up and if so, when it did. Perhaps it had a cooldown or couldn’t be activated when he was still feeling what he’d decided to call anima strain.

  Merrick decided he’d been seated long enough and stood to brush himself off as the camp came to life around him.

  After a moment of thought, he glanced around for the remains of the crushed goodberry. It took a few moments, but he managed to identify it in a nearby pile of ash that had been scraped out of the fire while it was being rebuilt.

  He plucked the ashen pulp out of the pile and wiped it down to the best of his ability before slipping it into his nearby satchel.

  He giggled to himself when he realized that the mangled fruit shared the same shrinking and weight reduction properties as the other plants he’d placed inside, meaning it likely still had alchemical viability like he thought it might.

  That was important since, as far as he knew, all of the spells that belonged to the conjuration practice had a time limit before they dissipated back into raw magicka. They couldn’t be used in alchemy since their chemical properties were inert.

  A growling stomach roused Merrick out of his slightly manic chuckling and he raised his eyes to look for food, only to find another set of eyes locked onto his every move.

  Jasmine’s ‘just a carriage driver’ was eyeing Merrick in the distance while slowly cleaning her nails with an exceptionally sharp looking hairpin.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  The smile she flashed to Merrick upon making eye contact send shivers down his spine and he wondered how long she’d been watching him.

  The disheveled young man made himself scarce after redressing himself and wandered over to a nearby fire that already had porridge being dished out.

  “Did you want any meat to go with that? Looks like you had a long night and greasy food always makes me feel better in the morning,” the elderly man dishing out the food asked Merrick unprompted.

  The porridge itself was provided by the caravan’s sponsor, which ever noble family decided they wanted to try to establish a new stronghold out in the western wilderness. It was essentially a required guarantee considering how much food-stuff would be made inedible by the nexus portal system otherwise.

  Meat was not something on the pre-established menu though.

  “What kind of meat?” Merrick asked as he extended his bowl back out, ready to receive a serving regardless of the answer. Food was food and he was still famished from the day before. If anything, he felt even hungrier than when he was fasting regardless of the fact he’d eaten dinner the night before.

  “Rodent,” the man stated as he placed a few suspiciously short strips of meat into Merrick’s bowl, pulled out from a tray of similar specimens kept under a cloth cover nearby.

  Merrick noted the man didn’t specify if it was squirrel, rat, or pet guinea pig. He shrugged and took a large bite of the meat regardless. Squirrel, he decided. His lucky day.

  “What do I owe you?” Merrick asked, using the remaining meat strip as a sort of spoon to deliver the porridge to his mouth. The grease really did make him feel a little better, almost like it was filling yet another resource pool that he’d never tracked before. He must have been more famished than he realized.

  “On the house, just make sure that you drop by our inn a few nights a week for dinner when we get all set up. Figured it doesn’t hurt to get regular customers pre-ordered,” the man chuckled, “’s not like we’ve got a currency set up yet anyways.”

  Another person wandered up and the man ladled them a bowl of porridge and sent them on their way without offering any meat. They must not have looked ragged enough to pass whatever threshold got them the bonus protein from the gentleman.

  “This a husband-and-wife set-up?” Merrick asked as he cast his eyes around the milling crowds in search of the man’s wife.

  He looked back to a raised eyebrow.

  “Husband-and-husband?” he asked, cautiously.

  “Ha! No! Not that there’s anything wrong with that. No, my wife passed years ago. My daughter is tagging along with me to set up a new life somewhere where every corner isn’t haunted by memories of her. I thought you were messing with me. Not to toot my own horn, but my daughter is quiet the looker I’ve had to field a number of questions about her eligibility over the last day,” the older gentleman guffawed loudly, slapping Merrick on his shoulder with a deceptive amount of strength.

  “Ah, no. Must of missed that,” Merrick looked around for an excuse to escape the awkward misunderstanding. Unfortunately, that just exacerbated it.

  “You’re not going to spot her right now. She’s out checking traps and looking for bigger game, my little huntress. Besides, it looks like you’ve already got an admirer over there,” he nodded.

  A quick glance showed that Jasmine was up and about with Pinesol perched on her shoulder. She quickly adverted her eyes and shuffled away when he looked over.

  “Ah, no. Nothing like that, we’re just sharing a carriage,” Merrick explained. “Does your daughter use a bow and arrow, by any chance?”

  “Sure thing, Casanova. But yes, Cheryl is a bow hunter by trade with a scouting class. She’s half the reason I got such a good deal on my future plot of land, one street removed from the town center with half of the building costs waived and the other half on an interest free loan. Just need to source the labor myself, which shouldn’t be hard if I’m offering a place to sleep until housing is put up.”

  Merrick idly scooped up more porridge with the second strip of meat he’d been given before taking a large bite. Rat, this time. That’d be why the man didn’t specify squirrel.

  “I’m going to drop by later and give you a salve for Cheryl to use on her arrows. It should give an all-around improvement to their quality or, at the very least, increase the chance she can re-use them after firing. I’ve just got to whip up a batch first. My name is Merrick, by the way. Alchemist by trade, I’m not actually sure where they’ll end up sticking my workshop,” he put his hand out for a shake.

  “Oh ho, now if you’d opened with the fact you were an alchemist I’d have given you some salt for your porridge. Name’s Hugh. You want me to put in a good word with the daughter?” The future inn-keeper waggled his grey eyebrows with a grin.

  “If you mean sending her my way to buy potions in the future, then sure. Other than that I foresee myself being far too busy to pursue any romantic entanglements for some time yet. I’ve got to focus on perfecting my craft and what not,” Merrick politely declined while pushing the rest of the strip of rat into his mouth and downing it with the last few gulps of his porridge.

  “Ah! There goes my dreams of tying my wagon to yours. How am I going to afford burn ointments for all my kitchen related mishaps now?” Hugh joked.

  “I’m more than happy to take trade in the form of room and board,” Merrick thought for a second before adding, “You can even start my tab now if you want to pass me a few more strips of… provisions.”

  “My kind of man, here you are then,” Hugh handed Merrick a bundle of meat that had to have been sourced from at least three different rodents, wrapped in some sort of cheesecloth, “Now go wash up somewhere so my daughter doesn’t smack me upside the head when I point you out later. For potion acquisition purposes, of course.”

  Merrick shared a light chuckle and walked away after setting down the bowl he’d been given for porridge.

  He looked around while he gnawed on the meat that wasn’t quite tough enough to confidently call jerky. He needed to find a few things and set up somewhere clean if he wanted to make a few potions to replenish his stock and start setting up for future customers.

  His eyes drifted to the filth-encrusted hand that was holding his food a few inches from his face as his chewing slowed down.

  “Perhaps I should find the nearby stream and rinse off after all,” Merrick muttered to himself as he pulled the jerky out of his mouth.

  “Mew!” Pinesol shouted into his ear from where she’d leapt up on his shoulder. He passed her the half-gnawed strip of rat as she ripped into it.

  His filthy hands didn’t seem to bother her one bit.

  Merrick collected a nearby loose bucket and set off in the direction of the woman carrying linens and baskets of clothes, intending to join their line and make his way downstream for his own cleaning purposes.