We made it back to the rocky outcropping valley much quicker than we had left it and I packed the snake meat and skins into my pack. We didn't go back the way we came through the little valley, however. We changed direction and went to where Victoria had chosen as the meeting place for the horse and cart to pick us up, which also took us into the right direction of the first plant I had found in my research.

It took a while on foot to reach the new area while going over rough ground. We soon reached a road, this one much better maintained than the old one we had found near where we had been dropped off. There was another safe area several miles away and we reached it just in time for supper.

Victoria ate smoked meat and several fruit that she had brought and I expertly cooked up the snake meat by boiling it first and then roasting it on an open fire and adding appropriate spices. She stared at me and her stomach rumbled as the smell of the delicious meat filled the area. I didn't say anything as I cut off a choice piece that was several inches wide and long, speared it with a fork, and handed it to her.

She glared at me, as if I was forcing her to try it, then she sighed and took the fork. She smelled it and her stomach rumbled angrily at her as her mouth watered, then she closed her eyes and took a tiny little bite from it.

“Oh, my GOD!” Victoria gasped when she tasted it and shoved the whole thing into her mouth. Juices dripped down her chin as she chewed on it and she didn't try to wipe it away as she thoroughly enjoyed the taste of the snake meat. “It's delicious! Absolutely delicious!”

I didn't tell her that I cheated a little and had sprinkled a little bit of refined fungus powder into the pot while boiling it. The magic it added was significant, especially since the snake itself had grown up in a similar magic filled area. The other bit of spices I had added when roasting it was just to give a bit of a pop to the flavor.

Victoria abandoned her smoked meat and sat right next to me as she silently begged me with her eyes for some of my meal. I chuckled and cut the large piece I had on my plate in half and handed her half on another plate.

“Thank you!” Victoria exclaimed and dug into the meat with enthusiasm.

No wonder mages would kill for the secret to fungus powder. It makes them like rabid animals when they taste it. I thought with amusement and watched as Victoria abandoned the fork and plate as she picked the meat up with her hands and bit into it.

“Ohhhh, that's so good.” Victoria said, almost in a moan, and kept eating.

I ate my piece of snake meat and supplemented it with the smoked meat she had discarded. She didn't notice at all because she was too wrapped up in her meal.

“I'm... sorry that... I doubted you.” Victoria said between chewing and swallowing. “I never thought that snake meat could taste like this.”

“When prepared by me.” I corrected her assumption and she gave me a questioning look. “I've had years of experience making less palatable things taste good enough to eat. I even taught the cooks at the basic training base a few tricks.”

Victoria looked surprised until she took another bite of the snake meat. “Okay, that's not hard to believe. I am eating the proof, after all.”

I nodded and we finished off the meal a short time later. I put up the tent while Victoria deployed the mage lights and erected the protective barrier. We went into the tent with our packs and then climbed into our bed rolls. She turned onto her side and looked at me as she rested her head on her pillow.

“David, why didn't you bring one of your protection wards that you've told me about?” Victoria asked.

“I honestly thought there would be some wildwood around here. I know that the trees are scarce in normal areas; but, to have absolutely none available? It's a surprise.”

Victoria smiled knowingly. “You're not going to admit that you forgot?”

“No.” I said without looking at her.

Victoria's hand reached over and she turned my head to look at her. “Did you bring your enchanting tools and equipment?”

“No.” I said and she laughed. It was a very pleasant sound and she didn't try to do it softly or restrained herself.

“Oh, that's... that's funny.” Victoria said and caressed my face before taking her hand back. “David, you are precious... and it's nice to know that you're not perfect.”

“I'm not?” I asked and that set her off to laughing again.

Victoria calmed down after a few minutes. “You're close. So very close.” She said in a whisper and her hand moved out from under her blanket as if to grab me, then it retreated. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.” I responded and looked up at the top of the tent before I closed my eyes.

It was another quick and long night. Thanks to my hyper-aware state, I was both asleep and awake. Just because we were no longer completely surrounded by dangers, that didn't mean we were safe.

An hour after we bedded down, the sound of hooves clomping down the road made me wake up. The night was pretty silent, so the sound had carried pretty far, because when I slipped out of the tent silently, I couldn't see the horse. I moved off to the side of the tent and towards the sound. I was almost a hundred feet away from the tent before the horse came into view.

I relaxed slightly when I saw the driver that had delivered us to the rocky valley. The cart was moving slowly, as if not in any rush, so I quickly made my way back to the tent and stood off to the side as I waited for it to arrive.

The driver smiled when he saw me and pulled the horse and cart off of the road into the safe area. “Been here long?”

“A couple hours.” I said. “Mage King is asleep already, so I'll help you with your things and we'll head out first thing in the morning.”

“Good lad. I appreciate the help.” The driver said and we quickly detached the horse, secured it to graze nearby, and had his tent set up about twenty feet away from ours. He went into his and I went back into the tent with Victoria. She stayed asleep as I climbed into my bedroll and I went back into my asleep and awake state.

Unlike what some people might think, we were actually in more danger with another person and a horse nearby. They attracted attention and could bring any number of creatures out into the open. There was a lot of meat on a horse.

The night passed by and I woke up as dawn broke over the horizon. I let Victoria sleep, considering the stress she had been through yesterday, and slipped outside to prepare breakfast. The driver came out of his tent when he heard me set up the pot and he dug into his cart. He brought over six eggs and several raw meat patties.

“Do you have a frying pan?” The driver asked and I switched out the pot for the frying pan. “Good lad.” He said and proceeded to cook up the meat.

I offered some spices and he gave me an odd look.

“You do know they don't go together, right?” The driver asked.

“I've heard that from cooks before.” I said and told him what to do with them.

He still looked doubtful as he did as I said, then he added the eggs to the pan between the cooking meat patties and pretty much made it like one mass. He hummed while he cooked and flicked his wrist to flip the entire mass over. To my surprise, the yolks on the eggs didn't break. He kept humming and added the spices I offered as if he always did it that way.

“What's that great smell?” Victoria asked a bit groggily as she came out of our tent.

“Breakfast, Lady King.” The driver said. “Or Mage King? I can never get those right.”

Victoria chuckled and walked over to us. “Either is fine, as long as you don't combine them and call me Lady Mage King or Mage Lady King. Crossing noble titles and mage titles just doesn't work.”

The driver nodded and Victoria sat right beside me, like she had the night before when I shared my snake meat with her. I didn't comment about it and neither did the driver.

“I hope you don't mind using your hands for this.” The driver said and took the pan from the fire. “Just leave it cool off for a bit before...”

I offered plates and silverware for the food and the driver looked stunned, then he laughed.

“Of course you have plates and utensils. What was I thinking.” The driver said and doled out a meat patty and two eggs to each of us.

The three of us ate breakfast quietly. I thought that the meat was actually pretty good, even if it wasn't as good as the snake the night before. Victoria didn't drool as much as she ate, so I whispered a promise to give her another snake meat feed for supper. She beamed a smile at me and nodded.

“I need to remember that spice combination.” The driver said to me. He had seen Victoria's slight drool and was impressed.

“It works especially well on lamb meat.” I said as we cleaned up the area and I doused the fire with some water.

“Lamb? My wife is going to love it!” The driver said happily and went to his tent to pack it up. I did the same with our tent and put everything way. Victoria put on her pack after adding the deactivated mage lights and I put mine on, then we climbed into the cart as the driver hooked the horse up.

After a short discussion with the driver, we were on our way to the next spot. Thankfully, there were no rumors of dangerous creatures guarding the area or even random roaming creatures. The driver stated that the area we were going to was quite peaceful and he could get us much closer than we thought, especially when we showed him the map.

“Your mage guild needs to send people back out here to explore properly.” The driver said with a laugh. “There's a road that was built a year ago between Jaskine Village and Kalman's Pass.” He said and traced his finger between the two places. “The spot you're looking for is right there.” He poked the spot right smack in the middle of the new road.

“Oh, damn.” Victoria whispered.

“We still need to check.” I said and she nodded.

It took us three hours to get there, much faster than we had allotted for in our schedule. When we arrived in the spot, it was exactly as Victoria feared. The cleared away area for the rest stop was right on top of the spot that the plant was supposed to be. We spent twenty minutes going off the sides of the road and into the nearby trees and through the underbrush to search for any possible outgrowth. We found nothing.

“Maybe we'll have more luck at the next spot?” Victoria asked. She didn't sound very convincing.

“Perhaps.” I said, just as unconvincingly.

We climbed onto the cart and told the driver where we wanted to go next. The driver tried to not laugh at us and took us there anyway. There was a large house and a farm there, with no traces at all of the ingredient I wanted. In fact, the farm was so large that it crossed into the next field where the other plant was supposed to be. I asked the farmer about how the growth was in his fields and he looked very happy.

“We've got the best yields in this area here...” He pointed to the main field. “...and over there.” He pointed to the other spot in the distance. “I'm starting to become well known for my big cabbages!”

Victoria and I exchanged disappointed looks and climbed back into the cart. We had wasted half of the day on a fool's errand and I reluctantly told the driver of the last spot and showed him on the map.

The driver shrugged and drove us there for two hours and came to a stop. “The place you want is up there.” He said and pointed. It was a steep cliff. “If you're wondering, there's no other way to get up there. It's a cliff all the way around.”

“What is that? A hundred and fifty feet?” Victoria asked.

I walked over to the cliff and spread my hand out as I put my hand on it. I knew the measurement of my hand from the end of my palm to the tip of my longest finger, so I counted how many hands it took to get up there. After a bit of math, considering it took five hands to make three feet, I knew how far it was.

“It's 210 feet high, give or take a hand.” I said and both Victoria and the driver gave me odd looks. “We don't have enough rope to actually measure.”

“You are not climbing up there.” Victoria said, sternly.

“We came all this way.” I said and started to open the straps holding my pack.

“No.” Victoria grabbed my hands. “No, David. I don't care what the plant can do. It's not worth saving if it costs me you.”

“I won't fall climbing up. I'm really good at it.” I said.

“I'm actually not worried about you going up there.” Victoria said and I raised my eyebrows. “It's coming back down that's the most dangerous part. You can't see where you're going or where you're putting your feet. It's much more dangerous to descend than it is to ascend.”

“I'll be fine.”

“No, I absolutely forbid it.” Victoria said. “If we had scaling gear and ropes to do it, I wouldn't object. We have nothing like that. We don't even have harnesses or bracing ropes.” Her hands let mine go and she cupped the sides of my face. “David, please. Don't do this. I'm begging you.”

“But... the plant...”

“If it's up there, it's survived this long. It can keep surviving without you risking your life to take a look.” Victoria said and her thumbs rubbed my cheeks. “I can't promise that we'll come back soon; but, I will promise that I'll get the right equipment to handle something like this the next time we come here.”

I looked up at the cliff face and then back at Victoria's worried face. “All right. Let's go.”

Victoria's worry disappeared and she beamed a smile at me. “We're going to arrive at the little harbour much sooner than I had arranged for our transport back.” She hooked her arm in mine and brought me over to the cart. “Take us right to Nelson Harbour.” She said to the driver and he nodded.

I helped her climb into the cart and climbed in myself. “What kind of transport is it?”

“It's a clipper ship.” Victoria said with a grin. “It's about half the size of the schooner and twice as fast.”

“A clipper ship?”

“They're used as scouts at sea specifically because they are so fast. No normal ship bigger than them can catch them.” Victoria said, quite proudly. “I can't wait to see Cynthia again.”

“That's the ship's name?” I asked and she laughed.

“No, Cynthia is the captain and a good friend of mine. The ship's name is Sprint.” Victoria said and started to tell me about her friend and the times she had travelled on the ship. She talked for the entire ride to the harbour that was over an hour away and she only stopped when the cart did and we climbed out.

The village we were now in wasn't much bigger than Ester's Village. There were only a few shops, including the general store, just like back there. The people looked a lot livelier, too.

“Thank you.” Victoria said to the driver and paid him the rest of his fee.

“Miss, it was a pleasure.” The driver said. “Take care now.”

We waved as he drove off and we watched him disappear from sight. I turned to look at Victoria to ask her what we were going to do while we waited and she gave me an intense stare.

“You promised.” Victoria almost growled.

I had to smile at her glare. “We need to find a fire pit or a kitchen.”

“That's not a problem.” Victoria said and hooked her arm in mine and led me over to the only inn. “I just hope the meat tastes as good as I remember.”

“It was only yesterday.” I said and she laughed softly.

“I was warning you that it better be.” Victoria said with a predatory smile and brought me inside the building.