Six steps. Four at the front and two at the back. The four was different from the two, and the two different from the four. The first was quick and agile, each strike was the focussed needle point of careful keratin. The second pair of pairs trailed many paces behind and lacked much of the adjectives its forward companion possessed. Although, what the behind duo lacked in skill and grace, made up for it with sheer luck.

“That’s right you little deer-thing-you, keep up that slow pace of yours. Go on. Nothing in this sweet little forest for you to worry about, no sir...” Mumbled the trailing pair of two legs.

With a feverish determination, an iron will, and the agility of a common garden worm, the grocer had been stalking a red doe, or what he was almost sure was one, for at least four hours now. The poor excuse for an apple merchant was now hunting in the unknown forest he had accidentally wandered in.

This was not the first time he had hunted a living creature, yet he was most certainly a novice in the trade. Until a mere year ago he had never once had to worry about how food would find itself upon his plate. Nay this particular grocer, in another life, was unable to even comprehend that the pork and pheasant he so dearly loved, were those mundane-looking animals he would sometimes gander upon on his visits to the market. Now his meagre diet consisted of mostly wild nuts, berries, roots and the occasional overly loud cricket. Sometimes he found himself stroking the empty space in which his belly once protruded.

He grunted. The primal sigh slipped out unintentionally, a side effect of throwing the crude spear in his hand with wind whipping force.

The sharpened stick cut the air with a surprising speed, only slowing when it finally lost its battle with gravity and sunk into the ground. “Shit!” The thrower cursed. The leg long javelin buried itself into the dry forest soil that surrounded them all; landing a hair’s length away from its target. In the instant the spear was planted, the red doe immediately began to gallop in panicked hysteria

“Notsofast!” He gurgled to his fleeing target. In the same moment he yelled, he jabbed out the hand that never felt the roughness of his wooden creation. Instead it held a tingling sensation, a warm sensation, a sensation of clandestine visibility. The open palm aligned with the torso of the doe, giving himself a breath to be sure his aim was indeed true; he forcefully tensed the muscles in hand. When they reached their straining limits, he crashed his fingers into the soft fleshy palm, forming a white knuckled fist. As soon as the tips of the fingers touched skin, the doe let out a yelp and fell to the ground.

Before the beast could compose itself, he darted forward, barely looking at the spear as he pulled it from the ground in the midst of his sprint. He sunk the sharpened tree branch into the helpless creature’s long thick neck. As soon as the tip met bone, he yanked it free and placed it back into its meat immediately afterwards. At first the doe screamed, then gurgled, then whimpered, and then nothing. It most certainly seemed cruel and barbaric to repeatedly stab the creature – and it was, but no creature dies from one ill planned strike, it could have taken agonising hours for the doe to finally perish if he only struck it once. At least, that’s what the pained faced hunter kept telling himself whilst he did the deed.

Once he was sure the beast was dead, he pulled out the wooden spear for the final time and dropped it carelessly upon the ground. He quickly followed suit and flopped to the floor. There he sat for minutes, wiping the sweat from his body. When he had regained his breath, he brought the hand that had attacked the doe with an invisible force and gave it a wiggle. The hand itched, ached, and was red from excessive warmth.

“This is exactly why a magician needs a catalyst. Bugger me, I miss my wand.” He quietly whined, massaging the hand with his spear throwing one.

When his hand finally returned to normal and his breath back to its normal rhythm, he stood back up and unsheathed his knife. A small nicked iron blade of plebeian craftsmanship, unfortunately the metal was also beginning to show the early signs of rust. With it, he got to work on his new prize.

**********

“If there is a god, praise him for the creation of salt. Oh, wondrous preservative of the perished organic! Oh, white jewels of thirst. Bless thee flavourer of low-quality pork. You surely outdid yourself with the glorious sparkly white powder, you majestic, not sure if you exist, beautiful bastard.” The grocer exclaimed to warm afternoon sky.

It had now been a little over a day since he had ventured into the unknown forest and in that time, he had created a small base for himself.

In his base was the glowing embers and black remains of a still smoking fire place. Above the ashes, wrapped around three large sticks, was the red doe’s hide, going through its last phases in the tanning process. The grocer new little of tanning, with all of his knowledge coming from lackadaisically watching others performing the task in cities and boroughs. He had scraped as much of the doe’s meat he was able to, washed it in a nearby pond, and slathered his urine and faeces on the hide, just like how he had the professionals do. Also, in the camp there was a rotted log of uncomfortable sitting, a bed of leaves, a pile of nuts and berries, and over a dozen thin strips of salted venison drying in the sun.

With not much to do while the hide was being smoked and the meat transforming into jerky, the grocer passed his time be etching more runes into his iron rod. Why was he doing this? Because he intended to use it as the spine for the magical staff he planned on creating of course.

The rod was made entirely of grey iron, making it strong but heavy. It was quite thin, about double the width of his index finger and the length of the average peasant wench. He had acquired the iron rod nearly two months ago. He happened upon it as he was in the middle of his market browse, thoughtlessly left on the ground outside of a blacksmith’s workshop. He had asked the blacksmith if he could have it for himself, the blacksmith informed him that he threw it away and the grocer was welcome to his rubbish.

Since then, he had been very carefully etching various magical runes into its cold rough skin. Doing this essentially teaches the metal what magic is, the types of magic, and what to do with its master’s dwimmer when channelled through it. Without doing so, it would be similar to trying to communicate with someone who is both deaf and unable to read lips. Sure, they would eventually get the gist of what you are trying to tell them, but only the gist – not to mention it also being very time consuming and frustrating.

With the sun reaching its peak in the sky and the small embers finally stopped breathing black vapour, the grocer concluded his work. He gently placed his etching tools on the leafy ground, then brushed off the metallic swarf that still clung to the iron spine. The iron rested horizontally across his palms. The grocer appraised his craftsmanship, slowly trailing his eyes across the long metal cylinder, starting from the left as if it was a book.

The metal did indeed tell a story. A story of skill and dedication. At the beginning the runes were jagged and warped with inconsistent depths and sizes. No pattern to be seen. A misshapen fire rune beside tiny earth rune, their temperature’s conflicting, their shared dryness unable to befriend. However, as the story spirals on across the round metal, the reader begins to see etches of equal worth began to converse with one another. Even further in the story the characters begin to sing, at first their pitch and timing are poorly executed, but as time goes on their voices align into a symphony of primal – yet enticing melodies.

If the grocer was back in the academy, he was certain his mentor would snap the spine in two and make him start again. “Shit,” he would too. He would love to redo his work but sadly lacked the materials to do so. The days of limitless silver, gold, and gems were long gone. Now a stick of dull grey iron was his most valuable and cherished possession. Even if it reeked of an amateur’s penmanship. The grocer was still ever so proud of what he had created, for it was his and his alone. Enchanted by his own blood and sweat.

He remembered the first time he created a magical wand, a wallowing failure that would even fail to direct a musical number. Instead of trying again, he simply bought another one using his father’s coin. “Oh, what a sloth I was. Though I was most certainly not the first to bond with another’s wand. The days of pride in one's own hard work were coming to their end long before I enrolled at the academy.”

The grocer shook the nostalgia from his mind. He could not allow himself to become trapped in the past when the present demanded his full attention. He quickly flooded himself with his current goals, drowning the past in a sudden concentrated stream.

Now that the backbone of his staff had been completed, he now needed to decide what came next on his quest. The creation of a magical catalyst needed at least five things: a spine, the foundation in which the rest of the materials nestle themselves upon. Veins, something for the dwimmer to travel through. Crystals to increase its magical potency. A champion crystal – typically referred to as the heart. Something that directs the dwimmer into the physical world. Finally, the skin, something that protects the innards of the catalyst and nourishes them.

So far, the grocer possessed a spine and a small bag of crystals. Most of which were the least potent gems a magician could use: milk quartz and the marginally better rose quartz. That left the veins, skin and heart. The skin was the easiest to find but the grocer decided to save it for last. Almost all catalyst skins were made of wood, which of course was in abundance. However, the carpentry would take a lot of time, not to mention the grocer would have to lug around a piece of wood the size of himself everywhere, whilst he still searched for the last two. He was also hoping he would come across something rarer than birch or oak on his journey for the other two as well.

The heart was most certainly going to be the hardest to acquire. A champion gem needed to be large and of a single piece. It was also preferably to use something more potent than the minor gems, in the grocer’s case, the best he was hoping for was a fat amethyst. It was mostly certainly not a rare jewel, not even worth a second glace in his old life, but with the changes of this new world, it was a sapphire and sapphires were now a myth.

So that left the veins. Coils of metal fused to the spine with wicked fire. Just like the crystals, the veins needed to be of a higher quality of metal than their foundation. The next most conductive metal above iron on the alchemy chart was copper. While difficult to find since most of it was confiscated in the name of the Circle, it was still a lot easier to get than gemstones.

Though it presented a moral dilemma for the grocer, he was most certainly too horrifically poor to purchase even a nugget of the ore, must less the ingots worth he required. For months now, he had been trying to play by the rules and acquire the ingredients lawfully, but his time as a grocer had achieved nothing but improved stamina, a sly tongue, and a growing phobia of socialising. The curse of the never-ending Circle was everywhere and he now feared any human he came across.

Perhaps it was time to become a thief. After all, he was doing this for the greater good. Right now, he could barely fight a particularly grumpy badger, much less a god. Besides, their brains now hosted a charismatic worm of villainous intent. Peasants and nobles alike would happily tear him limb from limb if he should so utter a single disapproving word or give an unsatisfactory amount of praise to their divine shape.

Maybe he should leave copper last after all. It would be quite cumbersome to carry. The most likely place to find some would be at a smithy, which is somewhere he would need to go eventually anyway. That was the part the grocer dreaded most. The staff needed to be forged in temperatures only a forge or another catalyst could produce. The latter was impossible so he was only left with the former. Unfortunately, he had no experience in the art of forging and he did not trust any blacksmith to do it for him, even if they could follow his verbal instructions or his drawings. Worst of all was that he only had one attempt at the deed. Should he fail, he would have to collect a whole new set of ingredients and start anew.

None of the materials were as easy to get as it first appeared in his mind, and which one to get first was becoming harder and harder to decide.

The grocer only knew one thing for certain, he needed to go back to civilisation regardless of what came first. There he will have to decide where two start and whether he should continue his merchant charade, or simply give in to the temptation of theft.

He decided to spend the rest of the day in the forest before heading out, giving him time to supply and for the deer hide to fully become leather. “At least I’ll be selling something more interesting than apples this time around.”