Chapter 6 — An Inheritance

“Argh! I can’t believe they took all the large copper and steel pots at the general store. I guess our crappy iron ones just aren’t good enough for them,” Ria muttered as they returned to her kitchen to start on dinner.

“Weight might have been an issue. Hopefully a need for more iron to make steel doesn’t incentivize them to come back,” Jarrel pointed out.

“Don’t say that! It might come true!” Ria objected and placed a tin cookie sheet on the table.

“Seems fortunate that they showed no interest in Hilla’s baking tins. Might not be too hard to hammer one of the larger ones into a decent enough pot for making soup stock,” Jarrel suggested.

Ria paused in the middle of moving her foraging basket to the table. “That… might actually be a decent idea… assuming that the blacksmith’s mallets weren’t taken.”

“Ah… though a wooden mallet should be enough,” Jarrel countered and started preparing the wood for the fire. “Is there a red wine I can use for cooking dinner?”

“Should be.” Ria nodded, wide-eyed. “Is there anything else you need?”

“Hmm, a small amount of sugar and flour, and an onion or leek. I can use an apple if you don’t have sugar.”

The ingredients were all readily found in the cellar, and by the time she had returned, an iron skillet was already warming over a cheery fire.

Jarrel gladly received the ingredients and assigned Ria the task of chopping a selected set of herbs. Deer fat greased the pan and in went the steak strips, followed by sliced mushroom pieces.

Ria watched interestedly, only barely minding her herb chopping as Jarrel added the wine and other ingredients to the fat drippings to make a savory smelling sauce.

“Done with the herbs?”

“Ah… yeah.” Ria made a sheepish face as she handed over the cutting board.

The steaks were flipped, and a handful of herbs sprinkled over. After a few more minutes the steaks were plated, the sauce drizzled, and more herbs sprinkled on top.

Ria had never seen her mom or dad cook anything like that. A moment of staring passed before she realized that the fire was going unused and quickly put her jerky soup back on the stove to reheat so it wouldn’t spoil. The mushroom drying would have to wait until later since the flames were still much too hot.

“Sit and eat. It’s best while still warm,” Jarrel urged as he placed cups by their plates at the table.

“Where’d you learn to cook like that?” Ria asked. Now that she was seated with the meal before her, she could only think that it looked like something a noble would eat.

The gruff hunter opposite her grinned at her reaction and winked. “Learned it from a noble’s chef while traveling with a caravan. This dish was Rella’s favorite. By the way, I only gave you enough of the wine for a mouthful—just for taste—hope you don’t mind.”

“No, I appreciate it.” Ria really didn’t mind. She’d seen what drunks looked like and wanted no part of that, thank you.

When Ria started reaching for her fork, a throat clearing sounded out.

At first, she was confused, then her cheeks grew red with embarrassment. “Thank you for the food.”

The meal really was excellent. It wasn’t long before she was washing the cleared plates and Jarrel was adding the remaining unsalted venison to her boiling soup.

The rest of the evening was spent drying the mushroom slices and storing them in jars for winter use.

Even though it was hot in the kitchen and she was sweaty, Ria nodded off in her chair while waiting for a batch of mushrooms slices to finish drying. When she awoke, she was in her bed and the morning light was filling her room.

Ugh. How embarrassing. She had tired herself out and fallen asleep like a little kid.

Ria took a few sniffs of her clothing… she had also missed the chance to clean off the sweat with hot towels. At least, Jarrel hadn’t changed her clothes.

Resigning herself to a cold bath, Ria snuck downstairs to grab the water pail. As expected, Jarrel was sleeping on the floor of the side room with blankets and a pillow that he found somewhere.

A quick look around the kitchen was enough to realize that Jarrel must have stayed up late to finish drying the mushrooms. Ria was grateful, but he was going to be eating them too, so it was only fair.

Sneaking back upstairs, she toweled off and changed into her play clothes. From the way the discussion about going to Crysellia ended, Ria was pretty sure that today would be spent doing some kind of training.

Jarrel was still asleep when she put the mostly empty water bucket back in the kitchen—which was good, because there was something that she wanted to do.

Slipping outside quietly, Ria jogged over to Jeni’s house and into the secret room. Her goal was to retrieve the crossbow and the grimoire. She didn’t want to lug the hefty tome back to her room if she couldn’t read it, though.

Ria took a deep breath and opened the grimoire's front cover. A loose paper falling out caused her to inmmediately freeze in place, though relief flooded her when she realized that the paper was a folded letter and not a loose page from the aging book.

The letter was addressed to Jeni, and Ria felt bad about reading it. According to the letter, these items were to be Jeni’s inheritance—gifts from Jeni’s grandmother intended to pass on knowledge and to give Jeni a head-start at becoming a mage. Ria apologized to her missing friend, but right now, these items might help her survive, and she was sure that Jeni would forgive her that much at least.

After reading the letter, Ria was glad it had been there, otherwise she would have never realized the importance of each of the items.

The crystal-topped staff was a focus tool that would help with sensing and manipulating magic. Jeni’s grandmother recommended touching it at all times while doing the practice exercises in the book.

The book was, as expected, intended to teach the basics to new apprentice mages. Jeni’s grandmother had listed the practice exercises that she thought would be the most helpful.

A collection of wands, each of which would perform a different defensive spell when supplied with enough magical energy, from lightning, to shielding, to causing the target to fall asleep.

The robe was called a ‘sky robe’ and would increase affinity with the air element. Sadly, there was no way for the robe to fit Ria.

The beautiful glittery pale-gray cloak was a ‘cloak of protection’ and was impervious to most non-magical attacks. What was even more surprising… Jeni’s grandmother wrote that the cloak would resize to fit the wearer.

The last item was a plain-looking belt-purse that apparently was a special kind of magic storage. Ria didn’t really understand all of the words, just that when Jeni was ready, she would be able to get her next set of books and items.

So, the things she could use right now were the cloak, the staff, and the book. Ria carefully started putting on the cloak, and it rapidly shrank to her size. The speed of the change was startling enough that she let out a gasp and jumped back.

Calming herself down, she twirled around to watch how the cloak billowed out at the edges. Though not exactly light, the cloak was much lighter than she expected.

After witnessing real magic for the first time, Ria was getting excited, and she eagerly reached for the magic staff.

The wood of the staff felt vaguely… warm? Maybe? When nothing bad happened, she took hold of the staff with both hands. Whether to say if she felt any different while holding the staff… maybe? If there was a change, it was subtle.

Ria liked that word, ‘subtle’. Her mom used it all the time when talking about pairing similar fabrics and when doing delicate embroidery, particularly light on light or dark on dark. Though in this case, ‘subtle’ probably meant ‘wishful thinking’, and Ria began to worry again whether she had any talent for magic.

She pushed those defeatist thoughts away and grinned. Today she was going to learn about magic!

Ria plopped down on the floor with the beginner tome and the staff across her lap. She turned to the first page of the introduction… and already, there were big words that she didn’t know the meaning of. A groan escaped her lips. Of course, it would be like that. She could still get a general idea of the meaning from the context, but she was going to need her mom’s dictionary to help her read this… or maybe a dictionary from the village mayor’s house.

“Ehem.”

The book almost went flying from her hands at the sound, but she caught it at the last second and spun around to see who was there, wincing at the sound of the staff clattering to the floor.

A grinning Jarrel was standing in the doorway. “So, this must be where you found that magic dagger. I was wondering, you know.”

“H-how…?”

“How did I know you were here?” Jarrel asked, doing his best not to chuckle.

Ria nodded.

“I’m a hunter. You were gone when I woke up, so I followed your footprints. Easy, really.” This time he did laugh.

“No way…”

Jarrel seemed to look her over with a thoughtful expression. “Hmm. I was going to take you out to the woods and start your hunter training, but maybe you’d prefer a different sort of training.”

Ria frantically shook her head, denying it. “No! I want to go! I mean, I do want to learn magic, but that will probably take a long time, …and I might not be any good at it, so I definitely want to learn how to survive as a hunter, too!”

Laughing at her, Jarrel held up his hand to slow down the words that were spilling out from Ria and to reassure her. “It’s fine. It’s fine. There’s no reason you can’t try both. In fact, back in Crysellia, there are special scout units that use magic to help them sneak around and talk with each other even if they are far apart.”

A blank expression came over Ria. “Oh… I had no idea there were people like that.”

“Yup,” Jarrel affirmed and slowly walked over to join Ria in front of the display wall. “So, what’s the deal with the alchemist having a secret cache of weapons, armor, and supplies in his cellar?”

“Jeni’s grandparents were adventurers,” Ria explained simply.

“Hmm… that doesn’t explain the supplies. Still, this stuff is really nice,” Jarrel admired, checking out first the armor then sliding one of the swords partway out of it’s sheath. “If I can get used to this armor and these weapons, our chances of surviving the highland wilderness will definitely improve.”

When Jarrel picked up the crossbow, Ria let out an, “Ah-,” sound that made him chuckle. “Oh? So you’ve got your eye on this one, huh? Suppose that’s not a bad idea. Drawing a decent bow would be impossible at your size, so a winch-loading crossbow is likely the only way you’ll be able to take down a target at range.”

Ria turned red with embarrassment. She was already hogging all of the mage stuff.

“Hahaha, don’t worry ‘bout it. This here bow looks promising… well, assuming I’m strong enough to use it,” Jarrel said and took down the bow so he could inspect it.

“Uhm. Are you sure it’s okay to just take everything? These things are Jeni’s inheritance from her grandparents, for when she gets older. Won’t it be hard to give it back if we go to Crysellia?” Ria worried.

“Yup, it’s fine. We should take whatever we can use. Anything we don’t take will fall into the hands of bandits eventually. If the alchemist’s family makes it back safe, we can always try to make it up to them later. For now, we just have to worry about our own survival,” Jarrel said and started taking down the armor to get a better look at it.