“Yep,” the dark elf breathed out slowly. “It’s the entire design with plenty of side-notes. I thought it would be at least journeyman ranked, but according to this, a novice could create it too, since it can be enchanted piece by piece.”

“Could you do it?” Letty shimmied closer to see what was all the fuss about.”

“I should be able to,” Regis nodded. “I would need to create a large enough flat stone surface first, and it would take me hours if not days, but yes.”

“Having the ability to make our own gateway would give us a lot more freedom.” Osmond checked out the diagram, shaking his head after seeing its complexity.

“More than you’d think,” the dark elf stood up, walking over to the map on the wall. “Once we settle down, we will still have to travel to other places for resources and trading. If a place is far but has what we need…”

“Then we could craft a gateway to make a shortcut.”

“Aren’t you two thinking a bit too ahead?” Letty asked, trying to ground the two in their current reality.

“Letty, you know that going back to Hunor would be pointless and we sure as hell can’t stay here,” Osmond turned toward the wood elf. “This war-torn situation will likely get sorted out in a couple of weeks or so. After that, every outlander group will try their hardest to grab whatever land and power they can for themselves.”

“If the royal and noble factions of the kingdom still exist,” Regis joined into the argument. “They won’t just stand by idly and watch as the best plots of temporarily vacated lands get snatched from under their noses. While they’ll be busy dealing with the people trying to take over the already developed places, we could pick a prime spot that’s been already given up on.”

Here the dark elf pointed at several spots where a large ‘X’ was drawn over some settlement names. His companions fell silent for a moment before Osmond broke the quiet.

“This is too big of a decision for us to make right now. I suggest we get everyone here after dinner and talk it over. I’m sure old Derris will be able to tell us more about these settlements. We’ll make our decision then.”

“Yeah,” the spell weaver scratched the back of his head. “Sorry if I got a bit too enthusiastic.”

“It’s okay,” Osmond patted him on the shoulder before walking back to the table. “I get where you come from. I’m sick of all the corpses and shitty treatment that goes around too. Having our own place where no one would tell us to sod off sounds nice.”

“It does sound nice,” Letty cleared her throat slightly. “But we still have to live long enough to get there. For now; could you unlock the barrier of the alchemy room for me Regis?”

“Sure. I need some fresh air anyway.”

The two of them left the library, returning to the part of the hallway where the door to the alchemy room was. As the familiar glowing barrier greeted them, Regis stepped forward to touch the left side of the doorway. He closed his eyes and entered his meditative state, pulling apart the rune of connection using the familiar and well practised method. A few minutes later three of the four runes got pulled apart and the barrier faded away. The dark elf opened the door, letting the wood elf in.

“Ladies first.” He said as Letty walked in.

Immediately, the scent of dried herbs and powdered minerals assailed their noses. There were three long tables in the room. One beside the window and the other two lined up in the middle of the room. They almost looked like the renaissance versions of a high school chemistry table with beakers and vial holders scattered over the table. There were also different sets of cutting and measuring tools at the ready for the alchemists to use. Large cabinets look up the space beside the walls, different bottled up concoctions filling up one, while tools and dried herbs were stacked in the others.

“Woah,” the wood elf let out a small sigh of surprise. “I knew there would be at least some tools to work with, but I never imagined this.”

“It reminds me of high school.” Regis admitted as he took a closer look at the nearest alchemy table.

“It does look similar, but that’s understandable. Alchemy was said to be the predecessor of modern chemistry. Although, pretty much everyone dismissed it as a ridiculous and superstitious way of medicine creation.”

“Most people don’t know about the existence of magic, so of course they wouldn’t understand how the alchemists of the past were able to actually make something useful with the methods they recorded.”

Letty walked over to the cabinet that housed the dried plants and powdered minerals. She opened it up and took some of the reagents out to examine them thoroughly.

“Are they still usable?” The dark elf asked.

“They are,” she nodded. “But working with dried herbs is harder and their quality is much lower than the fresh ones’ would be. I could still use them to create a few lesser and minor healing potions. That is, if I can get skilled enough fast enough. We won’t be staying here much longer, will we?”

“No,” Regis shook his head. “We’ll hear out what the captain has planned tomorrow morning and help about if we can, but we’ll most likely leave the day after that.”

“Must we?” She questioned, staring him in the eyes. “Sir Derris seems to be a nice old man and from what Alicia said, most of the local spell casters left the town to join the war and they won’t be returning. We could stay here for a while.”

“Natalie is coming,” the spell weaver noted as he stepped closer to the cabinet with the spare tools. “She has a literal small army of dark elves following her every whim, not to mention any other poor idiot she enchanted with her voice. If they get here and find us, that will be troublesome.”

“But we have an army of our own,” Letty argued. “The guards and mercenaries we came here with from Hunor could help and so could the people of East Fork. We helped closing the gates and healing the Landwaker. If we help them retake the town as well, then they would surely trust us enough to help us out against the Argent family.”

“I hate to be a downer, but our Alliances are far to frail and all too temporary. Once their group appears, the people you mentioned will think over twice to fight them. And besides; we can’t ask them to risk their lives for a bunch of strangers they’ve only met a few days ago. We could warn them about the dangers the Argents pose, and hopefully they’ll stall them for a while for us, but that’s the best we can hope for.”

“And here I thought you hate to be a downer,” Letty chuckled after hearing the dark elf’s counter argument. “But I guess you are right. I don’t want these people to die pointlessly.”

“Anyway,” Regis sighed. “That’s a problem for another day. For now, you should just focus on trying your hand in alchemy. Saints know it would be nice to have a couple of potions at the ready in case of a rainy day.”

“I’ll do my best,” she nodded as she began to sort out the materials she needed for her first potion. “Will you go back to the library? You piled up an awful lot of books there.”

“I don’t know how long we’ll be on the road without coming across a chance like this again, so I must make the most of it. Just those two books about enchanting were worth all the effort we put in to get here. Hopefully I’ll be able to recycle some of the stuff we looted and tinker a bit without equipment. Now that I’m able to create arcanite and have the necessary runes, I could do some serious upgrading for everyone.”

“Just try not to overwork yourself,” Letty said with a somewhat worried expression. “The others might not wanted to mention it, but you had quite the dark circles under your eyes during our travel. I don’t know much about the chanting, but even I could tell that it took its toll on you.”

“I’ll be fine,” Regis promised. “Now that I’ll have a proper dinner and bed, I’ll be able to sleep it off properly. Anyway, I should get going.”

The young spell weaver headed toward the door, only to turn back at the last moment.

“We’ll be in hearing distance, so call if you need anything. And try to be careful. Alchemy can be dangerous.”

“I will.” She nodded, her hands already moving swiftly to separate and cut the ingredients.

Regis walked back to the library, finding Osmond still there, reading his own share of tomes.

“Did everything go well?” He asked that she looked up from the book he held.

“Nothing we couldn’t handle. The locals sure have a sweet setup here. They have three fully equipped alchemy tables with plenty of spare equipment to boot. The ingredients they left behind are dry, but Letty said that she could still work with them.”

“That’s good to hear,” the pale youth nodded. “She’s been a bit under for quite a while now. Hopefully this will get her to cheer up. And speaking about Letty. Are you and her... you know.”

“We’re what?” The dark elf asked as he sat down.

“Oh come on,” Osmond rolled his eyes. “I’m not blind that neither are the others. It’s obvious that you like her and she seems to feel the same way. If only the two of you wouldn’t be so bloody awkward about it. It’s like I’m watching some cringey teenage drama unfold.”

“I’m sorry if it feels cringey to you,” Regis looked at the shadow touched spell caster with an annoyed gaze. “But I’m not exactly a womaniser.”

“I wouldn’t have guessed,” Osmond joked.” You’re as awkward as a first time dater.”

“Blame it on my lack of social life and let’s leave it at that.”

The pale youth looked at the dark elf as if wanting to say something, but soon turned back to his books instead. Regis did the same, continuing on with his research in enchanting. The tome of novice ranked uncommon runes still held a few pages for him to see, and he wasn’t disappointed after reading those. Out of the five remaining enchantments, the first one was the runic diagram that would allow him to create something the runic stove he saw in the kitchen before.

Of course, the side notes gave plenty of context to explain how it could be turned into a runic forge with slight alterations to the diagram. ‘I guess it's your lucky day Amanda.’ He thought while smiling as he remembered his companion mentioning how she wanted to have such a forge. Then again, the spell weaver was quite sure that Fabien wouldn’t have no to a runic stove either.

The second runic diagram was split into two separate areas and as it turned out, it was meant to created a set of enchanted anvil and hammer for blacksmithing purposes. The third runic diagram had several unfamiliar runes in it, but as a whole it was quite familiar since it was the same barrier enchantment he had to disable on several doors. ‘It’s nice to finally meet you in person.’ He mused as he began to study the different runes that included one for locking and opening things, along with an attached small side runic diagram that would allow him to create keys for the barrier.

At first glance, the barrier enchantment didn’t look too hard, but as he he studied each and every rune that made it up, it became quite the headache. He would have to spend some serious effort and time to actually create such a barrier, but seeing how much trouble it gave him before and its defensive capabilities, it was obviously a worthwhile investment. The fourth enchantment in the book was actually a somewhat combat-related one. Regis was quite surprised to find it near the end of the book as it seemed to be a lot easier than the previous ones. It was a structural integrity enchantment.

One could say that it was an altered and upgraded version of the durability rune meant for buildings. The dark elf was familiar with most of the fragments and runes that made up the diagram, but the material requirements proved to be quite steep. He would need a piece of earth elemental stone for every cubic metre he wanted to reinforce. That would be a ridiculous expense for anyone incapable of creating their own elemental stones and a lot of work for him as well. ‘I guess I’ll have to start storing up elemental stones on the way to wherever we decide to settle down. Even the lowest ranked reinforcement will cost us a lot, not to mention the second and third ranked ones.’

The fifth and last enchantment was a whole new thing of its own. Supposedly, once it got linked to an enchantment, it would mask the runes for anyone but the creator of the enchantment. ‘Runic copyright protection detected.’ He chuckled to himself as he understood the true purpose of the diagram. With his current enchantment studies over, Regis switched out the book to the one that held the detailed records of the Landwaker trees.