By the time the morning was over, the entire front of the building had been transformed. Even the front door had been redone and the hinges were replaced. I also provided some cleaning potion to clear off the windows to make them almost shine in the reflected sunlight. After some wood staining and coloring of certain parts to make them stand out, waterproofing potion was applied to seal it.

“It looks like something the king himself would commission.” The Baroness said as she stared at the thing.

“Frank and his assistants will stay here to keep teaching your men for the rest of the day. They'll need practice to use the potion themselves.” I said as Frank handed me a list of supplies and the Baroness looked very happy. I took her hand and kissed the back of it with a touch of magic. “If you have any questions or concerns that Frank can't answer or deal with, send word to Helena and she'll handle it.”

“Thank you, Lord Drake.” The Baroness said, blushing slightly.

I bid everyone a good day and rode the horse and cart back to the mansion, then handed off the new list of supplies to Administrator Lannin. He quickly arranged for the cart to be filled again and I went inside.

“I see you didn't bother getting yourself dirty.” Hope said with a crooked smile. “Now you won't have to change for lunch.”

“Thank you.” I said and she led me to the dining room. Helena was there and I walked over to give her a quick kiss and a greeting. Greta and Linette were there as well and they both took in sharp breaths as they saw my hand.

“What did you do?!?” The two women asked at the same time, clearly incredulous.

“I assume you didn't tell them?” I asked Helena and she laughed softly.

“I wanted them to see it for themselves.” Helena said, her voice full of amusement.

“Let me see!” Linette demanded and I turned to hold my hand out to her. “By the Son's Light.”

“How bad is it?” Greta asked, her face sad.

“It's... it's down into the muscle and tendons.” Linette said and looked up at me. “I don't know how you still have full use of your hand with it damaged like this.”

That sounded a bit concerning to me. “What are you saying?”

“David...” Linette took a breath and sighed. “Most people would be screaming in constant pain from an injury like this.”

I glanced down at it and back at her face. “It doesn't hurt.”

“Sweet merciful lord.” Greta whispered and touched her sister's shoulder. “Remember what you read about his military career.”

“You mean his career of injuries.” Linette said with a sad face and shook her head. “I refuse to believe that he would voluntarily roll around in a pool of acid, just so he could grow normal skin back when he was healed.”

“Will that work this time?” I asked and I heard gasps from all around me. Even Helena and Hope had reacted the same way.

“David! You can't seriously think that dissolving most of your hand away is a good thing!” Greta spat.

“Well, I know trying to cut the damage away isn't going to work, since the claws dug such deep furrows. There's no way to remove all of the damaged flesh with a knife to let it grow back properly.”

“Oh, god.” Hope whispered.

“Will it work?” Helena asked, surprising the others.

“No.” Linette said with a scowl and looked back up at me again. “For the same reason. I would have to be very selective in the application and hope that I can somehow root out all of the damaged areas, some of which I can't physically see, then pray that a healing spell and perhaps a healing potion will fix all of the damage.”

“I knew it was a mess. I just didn't know how much.” I said and they sighed.

“Before you ask, even dipping the entire back of your hand might not get it all and there's no guarantee that healing spells and potions will return that much of your working appendage.” Linette said. “It might be magic what we do; but, it's not foolproof, as you've seen from the difference between field healing and full healing.”

I nodded at that. I still remembered Diane gripping my hand hard after the field healing from the acid damage and my hand being squishy and dripping blood because of it.

“I'll have to keep it like this for a while until I can fix it.” I said and she looked at me like I was crazy.

“David, you can't just fix it.” Linette said.

“What about my shoulder? Can I just have it cut off and regrow it? The teeth wounds aren't that deep.”

“Not your whole shoulder!” Linette gasped and Greta let out a squeak and a sad groan.

“The wounds really aren't that deep.” Helena said. “Let's sit down for lunch and you can take a look at it afterwards.”

“All right.” Linette said and we did just that.

We shared some polite conversation as I shared the incident about the panthers and then we had some not so polite conversation about my stupidity over going back to the marsh like I had. I tried to explain that it was a dangerous spot and not the marsh as a whole, and neither Linette nor Greta wanted to hear it. The whole place was bad for me and the less time I spent there, the better.

I exchanged looks with Helena and she shrugged as she briefly took my hand. She knew that I liked it there and she also knew we weren't going to convince the other two women of its importance in some of the potions I could make.

We finished eating and we went upstairs to my work room for Linette to give my back a look. She hissed when she saw the small wounds on my shoulder and examined them.

“You said a large white panther licked it several times?” Linette asked and I nodded. “I think I can tell. It's a lot rougher here on your skin than in other spots. If you hadn't distracted it like you did, your skin and flesh would have soon broken apart and been torn off by its tongue.”

“It's that bad?” I asked and felt Linette trace out the places that she could feel felt different.

“It is, except it's not as bad as it could be. You were lucky it enjoyed tasting your blood so much at the time. If it had decided to take a bite instead...”

“I know.” I said and her hand slid over the top of my shoulder to lightly grip it, then she reached over to touch the same spot on my other shoulder.

“The teeth marks are deep in only the one spot each, so I feel confident that I can remove the damage, since it's so easily accessible. I should be able to heal it up after an hour.”

“Why so long?” I asked.

“I'm a professional and I never rush. I always try to ensure the best results for the patient.” Linette said.

“All right. Do it.” I said and Helena sat beside me to take my left hand. Greta sat in front of me with a worried look on her face. She didn't say anything, though.

“Are you sure you don't want to be asleep for this? I usually knock people out when I work on them like this.” Linette asked me and I nodded. “I wish I had something that I could pour over the place to numb the pain.”

“Give me a few days and I'll have something for you.” I said and the three of them gasped. “What?”

“Do you really know a potion recipe for that?” Greta asked, clearly surprised.

“No.” I said and she let out a sigh.

“You shouldn't tease...”

“I have to reference the old recipe I do have and then substitute local ingredients to hopefully reproduce the effect, change the preparation times and the brew times for the altered ingredients, assuming some aren't redundant, then test brew it to work out the kinks.” I clarified. “That's why I asked for a few days. I would need time to work it out on paper first, then to fix it physically to get the recipe right for proper brewing.”

Greta opened her mouth to respond, closed it, then opened it again and sighed. “I'm not going to ask where you're getting these recipes.”

“I get them from the Hag's old potions book.” I admitted and Helena gasped.

Greta just stared at me and didn't say anything. I could see her mind working, though.

“I have to change and alter them for use with modern ingredients, which takes time. I mean, I went through a bunch of the recipes I already know a couple of years ago and found a bunch of the ingredients in the recipes have two and three different types of herbs and plants that have the same effect. Most I haven't heard of, even now after all of my ingredient searching at the academy, so I have to substitute ingredients that I do know and change the recipes to work.”

“Good lord.” Greta whispered. “How old is the book?”

“It's dated for a hundred years ago, now that I know how to read it. It's written in mage language.” I said and I heard several gasps. “I assume it's written that way to stop people from stealing the secrets, just like some of the school books are to stop non-mages from understanding the references.”

“David, that's not why we're shocked.” Helena said and hugged my hand. “It's that you did what you did with the recipes long before you could actually read the book.”

“Why? I did the same with the old enchantments book.” I said and the three women gave me blank faces. “I worked with the enchantments for a long time to pull them apart and to figure out each component and what they did. I couldn't figure out the runes, though. Not that I knew they were runes at the time.” I chuckled. “I've been so busy that I still haven't had the chance to go through my school rune book to see what else is there and what I can do with them.”

No one said anything for a while and I turned my head to look at Linette. “I don't feel you removing the wounds.”

“Oh! Right.” Linette said and her hand steadied on my shoulder as she reached for what I would learn later was a razor used for skin scraping. “Please hold still while I work.”

“I'm closing my eyes now.” Greta said and did that. There was a sound of the small razor sliding across the rough skin around the wounds and she winced. Helena didn't react at all as she smiled at me and held my hand.

It took an hour for Linette to finish working and removing all of the damaged areas from my shoulder. She had used a sealing spell to stop the blood from flowing as she worked to cut the flesh away, similar to the one the healer at basic training had used to stop the bleeding of the man's hand I had removed.

She got to work actually healing me and that took another hour. I didn't question her, especially since she had explained earlier that she always took her time to ensure the best possible results with her patients. I was glad that I could feel the magic tingling me right away, which meant I hadn't lost feeling in the area or that the damage wasn't permanent, which was always a worry.

I glanced down at my hand and knew that if I was going to fix it, I had two choices. I could do my best to rework the fifteen pages of the regeneration potion recipe to use the much weaker local ingredients, or I could go back to the marsh and hunt down the ingredients that I would need. That wasn't really much of a choice, really.

I didn't let my feelings show or sighed out loud to let the women around me know that I had already decided that I was going back to the marsh. I needed my hand at full functionality and it was a bit too obvious of a wound to cover up without also drawing attention to it. I needed to make more regeneration potion anyway, because I had a feeling that I was going to need it soon and nothing good ever came from me ignoring those feelings.