The next day, with her new Skill acquired and a much better understanding of just how dumb she’d been in grasping an unknown insect in a room dedicated to producing poisons and other dangerous products for use in traps, Kori was finally ready to do a bit of work in Bolst’s lab.

  With the differences in the tools she had available to her here, she was excited to see what she could make. Though the ointment would be her first project of course. Bolst had prepared a quantity of the luminous moss for her use over the past several days, enough for more than a dozen batches. Needing both the prepared and dried moss and the fresh moss for the concoction, she began her work producing the first. A task she failed miserably at.

  Using the burner and the glassware was so different from the stone and runes that she had used before as to be a completely different process. She burnt the moss long before it was properly dried.

  “Why is this harder? I thought better equipment meant it would be easier…” Complaining aloud about the impediment to a craft she thought simple.

  Determined to figure out how to succeed with the equipment she ruined the next several batches, even managing in one particularly spectacular failure to light the usually moist moss aflame. She ended up using nearly the entirety of the available moss just to produce a bare handful of the dried moss successfully.

  Hesitantly approaching Bolst she clears her throat to get his attention as he’s completely absorbed in his work, “Uhh. Elder Bolst? I ran out of moss. Is there any chance you have more?”

  Jumping slightly as she had startled him, Bolst looks up from his work, “Ran out already? How many batches did you get done?” Looking at her workspace and noticing a lack of any finished products and arching a brow.

  “None… I was only able to dry enough of the moss to make a few batches worth of tincture…” Her tone remorseful as she admits her failure. “The tools here are nothing like what Spiritcaller Ortik uses. It took me all morning to adapt the process.”

  “Why didn’t you ask for help? Kora could have shown you how to use the drying sheet…” Pointing over to a rack full of various tools and supplies that Kori didn’t recognize. “Let me guess, Ortik made you figure out everything on your own?” Getting a timid nod in response before sighing and shaking his head in annoyance at the wasted time. “Well, that’s not how we work here. If you don’t know, ask, understood?”

  “Yes, Elder.” Barely raising her eyes to look at him as she speaks.

  “None of that either. It’s Bolst.” His words showing hints of annoyance and exasperation. “There’s more moss in the cabinet.” Pointing off near the rack of tools to a tall cabinet with glass in the doors. “But it’s just the stuff I keep on hand, it’s not nearly as fresh as the moss I’d gotten for your work. Third shelf on the left, I think. The container is labeled.” Turning back to his work almost immediately after he finished speaking.

  Giving her thanks and scurrying over the cabinet she just barely makes out grumbling from Bolst as she walks away, “Gonna take ages to break the bad habits after that stone headed shaman…” The rest lost as she busied herself finding the moss.

  What she found after rummaging, carefully, through the cabinet looking for the correct container was just as bad as Bolst had suggested, the wilted and partially dry moss having seen far better days. It turned out that using the inferior ingredients was probably for the best though, as the bone white mortar and pestle was harder to use too. It lacked the weight and coarseness that she was used to with the rough stone. Having learned her lesson the last time however, she asked Kora for advice.

  “Kora? Could you give me a hand?” Calling over to the older woman and receiving a quick response that she would be over shortly. Kori continues to try and mash and grind the moss with the tools but finds getting the smooth paste she’s going for nearly as easy as it had been with the supposedly inferior tools. After a few minutes wait while Kora completed whatever she was working on to a stage she could walk away from, she joined Kori at her work station.

  “What can I help with?”

  “The mortar and pestle, it doesn’t seem to work as well as the stone I used before. Is there a trick to it or something I’m missing?” She explains while demonstrating how she was mashing the moss.

  “The porcelain is a bit different. It’s not as coarse as stone, but that’s also why it’s better for cleaning. Using more of a circular motion and adding a bit of a twist with your wrist.” Looking at the contents of the mortar in front of Kori, “You’re also putting too much in, these work better in smaller amounts.” Scooting in alongside her, “Here, let me show you.” She takes the pestle from Kori and uses it to scrape half of the mushed moss into another bowl before she begins grinding the remaining half with practiced motions. After less than a minute and adding a bit of the tincture the moss begins to take on a much smoother consistency. “Is this about what you’re going for?”

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Running her claw through the mixture to test she looks to Kora before responding. “A little smoother, but I need to add mana during this step so I’ll have to do the rest.” Getting a nod in return before Kora hands her back the pestle and moves aside. “Thank you. That was a big help.”

  “You’re welcome. I’ll show you how to use the drying rack next time too. I forgot you’re not used to all of this.” Waving her hand to the room around them. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay, I should have asked for help.”

  With that they both return to their work, Kori trying to copy the motions used by Kora to finish grinding the moss while letting a trickle of her mana seek out that same feeling of a void to be filled in the paste. Slowly grinding and trickling in drops of the tincture as she goes until she feels it and her mana flows from her hand. She continues her task as she feels the mana fill that empty space until it feels like it’s beginning to overflow and she can sense more of it escaping into the air. With the process better understood she takes the remaining semi-mashed moss and continues, then moves on to creating more until there is no moss remaining.

  Out of what Bolst had on hand, she was able to produce eight batches. Though each was about half the volume as before. She also managed to succeed much more frequently than in her previous attempts, with six out of the eight taking the mana in. Something about the tools or the aged moss or perhaps her growing aptitude with the process made it easier to accomplish.

  Approaching Bolst again and waiting for him to be a little less engaged with apparently giving a centipede a bath as he used a pair of tongs to dunk the wriggling menace in a large jar of what looked like water. Something she was both curious of and terrified by. She was pretty sure this was not an enjoyable experience for the centipede, judging by the hissing sounds being made by the thrashing insect, which did put a bit of a smile on her face.

  Eventually returning the thing to its tank and dropping the tongs into another jar, Bolst looks up and notices her observing his work. “This is what I was going to show you the other day.” Pointing to the jar of now somewhat cloudy liquid, “It took me ages to find a way to get the mucus off of them without harming the centipede. Dunking them in pure alcohol does the trick, then it’s just a matter of slowly boiling that off to get just the toxin.” Pouring the contents into a large metal vat with a weird lid with a twisted length of metal tube coming off the end of it and dropping into another jar, “This’ll take a few hours. How’d your work turn out?”

  “Good! Kora helped me get the grind right. There was enough moss for four batches, but the mortar worked better with less so I made eight smaller ones instead.” A bit of pride as she describes how successful she was. “Six of them even succeeded, which is a lot better than my usual half.”

  Beginning to walk towards her workspace, Bolst responds, “Let’s take a look and see how you did then.” As he nears the bench he looks a little confused, not seeing eight individual little bowls of ointment but just two larger beakers, one with much more in it than the other. “Did you mix them all together?”

  “Yes?” She responds hesitantly. “That’s the successful product.” Pointing to the nearly full beaker.

  “You should not have mixed them.” Pausing and clearing his throat as he softens his tone to somewhat less of a reprimand. “There may have been things you could have learned from each, especially if we were able to appraise them prior to mixing.”

  Somewhat confused by the mention of appraisal, “But we’d need to get Har to appraise them, wouldn’t we?”

  “What? No. I have [Appraisal].” Shaking his head at the glaring gaps in her knowledge. “My only knowledge skills are toxicology, herbalism, and trapper’s insight, so I can’t do everything like a merchant, but herbalism is better for this anyway.” He quickly shares an appraisal with her of her newest ointment.

  Imbued Herbal Healing Ointment

  Tier 1, Inferior

  A topical ointment created from withered herbs and imbued with a small amount of mana. Used to treat wounds and restore health over time. Can treat infected wounds up to Tier 0.

  Health restored depends on volume of ointment applied, restoring 5 health per gram up to a maximum of 50 health at 10 grams, over a period of one hour.

  Created using Luminous Moss and Water

  “Your others restored 100 health, correct?” Confirming he was remembering correctly, “Perhaps not all of them were so bad, but mixing them together left it all like this.” Thinking for a few moments, “Or more likely it was the withered old moss and they all were this bad.”

  “But I thought only merchants could appraise things?” Clearly still confused and not really registering that her ointment had been rated as ‘Inferior’.

  “There’s a more niche ‘Appraiser’ job, and a couple others that can get you the skill. But only merchants get a general knowledge skill.” Falling into a lecture mode, though unlike Ortik his tone remaining neutral and somewhat kind. “[Appraisal] uses your knowledge Skills to create the information. I’m sure my appraisal has more information to it than Har’s did, because I have a more specialized skill.”

  “Much more! That’s neat. How do I learn [Appraisal]? Do I have to start staring at everything and trying to imagine descriptions?” Her enthusiasm at the idea causes Bolst to break down into a fit of laughter at the thought of the little Kobold staring at each of his beakers and flasks with a look of intense concentration.

  “What? No. Though it’d be hilarious to watch.” Another burst of laughter now drawing Kora’s attention over. “[Appraisal] is pretty much impossible to learn on your own. Need to take a job for it.”

  Pouting at yet another thing locked away from her for the next two years. “Oh.”