Luna and I climbed into the wagon and sat in the corner that had become our usual spot. Iris perked up when she saw us enter. "I heard the whistle that means we were leaving soon, is everything alright out there?" Iris asked.

  "I just got back from killing goblins. I haven't talked to the others yet, but I assume everything is fine."

  I sat down and leaned against the wall and pulled Luna against me. She rubbed herself against me a little before getting herself comfortable. ("How did it go? You took longer than all of us expected.")

  ("There turned out to be hundreds of them. While I was in there I tried that transformation magic I gained from the lost halls again. I shifted into one of those fire zebras and used it to burn everything in the cave down to ashes. That part went well but it took a lot out of me and I was starving when I came out.")

  A look of worry crossed Luna's face and she sat back up to examine my body. ("Your mana looks normal though, what do you mean by starving?")

  I pulled her back against me and kissed the top of her head. ("I was so famished that when I was walking back I couldn't resist following a scent down and hunting it. I probably would have been back before anyone wondered about me if I hadn't taken that detour.")

  ("Ah, I see. What did you end up hunting then? Something new?") she asked.

  ("It was a giant deer with ivy and flowers growing around its neck. It grew thorns and brambles when I was trying to chase it down.")

  Luna tilted her head in thought. ("That sounds like a floral king deer. Despite being an herbivorous monster, it has few natural predators. Hunters don't often hunt it because it takes so many people to pin it down and stop it from escaping. Did you bring any of it back with you?")

  ("I brought its head because I saw that the horns had a lot of mana in them and I salvaged what I could of the pelt. I also took most of the meat I didn't finish, I have about half a deer left in my spatial ring but it's nearly full now. I think I need to start keeping a small supply of meat on me from now on though, in case I overuse my magic again and need more mana-rich meat.") I began to play with her tail which was lazily sweeping across me now.

  ("And its heart?") she asked.

  ("I got another one of those knots of mana, it lets me grow plants and flowers. I haven't tested it extensively but the knot of mana seems more efficient than the others, I don't bottom out of mana from using it the same way, and eating monster meat refills it quickly.")

  Luna nodded, which from this angle just felt like her nuzzling me. ("That could be useful. If we could show you some particular flowers, you might be able to grow some healing and detoxification herbs.")

  I chuckled. ("That was one of the first things I tested.") I pulled out the mint vine I had collected and handed it to Luna.

  Luna sat up and looked closely at the plant. ("You grew this? This is silver mint, this is a powerful healing herb.")

  ("Is it? I used mint in cooking occasionally back home so it was one of the first plants that came to mind when I wanted to test out the new ability.")

  She looked at me and giggled. ("You do seem to primarily think with your stomach, even when growing plants.") She shook her head and examined the plant again. ("The mana quality of this plant is decent but I've seen better. I wonder if you can control the mana content or if it's dependent on where you grow it.")

  ("We could try that later I guess. We probably don't want to do it in front of others though and I'm not sure if I can do it in my human form, I haven't tried it yet.")

  She nodded. ("Yes, we should test it. If using this ability is easier on you than the other ones it will let us figure out more about how your powers work and maybe how you can control them better. We'll also get to benefit from collecting some good herbs and spices that we can sell or make into potions. I'm not much of an alchemist but there are some basic salves I could teach you.")

  ("Having a source of spices will probably make the others happy too.")

  ("I'm sure it will,") she said with a smile.

  The door to the wagon slid open and everyone else that had been patrolling climbed inside. Maxwell and Piper sat across from us so we could talk and the others sat on the opposite side of the wagon.

  "You were gone for longer than we thought you would be, did you run into some trouble?" Maxwell asked.

  "There were a lot more goblins than expected, more than a hundred. I made sure to burn out the entire cave too when I left," I replied.

  ("Helena also hunted down a floral king deer while out there to eat. That's actually what slowed her down so much. She brought back its head and pelt, as well as some of its meat for later. Best to keep that part quiet,") Luna told the group through the rings.

  "Sorry I took so long," I added. "That drakken that rides in one of the front carriages was rather mad at me when I returned."

  Maxwell nodded. "Ever since the umber hounds nearly killed his coachman, he's been on edge. It does seem like there is increased monster activity here though. I'm concerned that some of your efforts will be wasted if multiple aggressive monsters are attacking people along the road."

  "What happened to the two I brought back from the goblin caves?" I asked.

  "Their carriage was salvageable, so they bought some planks from one of the other carriages and Valkin helped them patch it up enough to travel with us to Ironcastle," he replied.

  "Valkin did?" I asked turning to the wolfkin.

  "What's that look for?" Valkin asked defensively.

  "I don't know, I just didn't expect that from you." I shrugged.

  Milana laughed. "Maybe you have the wrong impression of him after the contest you had when you met. Valkin can be pretty helpful when he wants to be."

  Maxwell glanced at the other wolfkin. "And Norrik helped them bury their dead. They were both traveling with their husbands and a friend."

  Norrik grunted. "If I died on the side of the road, I would hope someone would have the decency to return me to the dirt."

  "That makes both of them widows then?" I asked.

  Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  Norrik confirmed that with a grunt and a nod.

  "You should talk to them again the next time we make camp, Helena. They were interested in thanking you again," Maxwell told me.

  "I'll talk with them later. Did any of you fight anything while patrolling?" I asked.

  Talia sighed theatrically. "No! It was so boring. I still would have preferred patrolling to fighting stinky goblins, but the day really dragged on."

  "Are we behind schedule after all of our stops?" I asked.

  Maxwell shook his head. "No, I talked with Korr'tak about that earlier. Since we traveled through the night last night we've made up for a lot of the lost time. We are a little bit behind today after the unexpected delay from the goblins but Korr'tak may choose to go on longer than he usually would. This part of the road is normally free of monsters but things will be even less likely to attack us once we leave the forest and reach the arid grasslands."

  I tapped on the floor of the wagon. "Knock on wood."

  Maxwell looked at me in confusion.

  ("Superstition,") I told him using the rings.

  "Superstition?" he repeated for me aloud.

  "Yeah," I shrugged. "It's bad luck to talk about how nothing will go wrong. You knock on wood to cancel it."

  "Why would that make any difference?" Piper asked.

  I laughed. "It wouldn't, it's just a silly superstition. I'm mostly just pointing out that we shouldn't count on things to go in our favor. Especially with my luck."

  "If nothing else," Valkin said cutting into the conversation. "We will have an easier time seeing anything that could attack us in the grasslands. If there's danger we will be alerted to it much sooner."

  "Fair," I said with a shrug.

  The rest of the day traveling went without incident and we eventually stopped shortly after sundown to set up camp. There were only a few more days of traveling through the woods before we reached the grasslands but the repeated run-ins with monsters had left most of the merchants on edge, especially now that we had a victim of those monsters traveling with us. We were going to do four shifts of patrols through the night while everyone else rested, something we hadn't done until now.

  The two women we rescued turned out to be quickly popular among the merchants because they had a wide variety of dried and fresh spices with them that had been harvested from the mountains surrounding Fallow. They had loaded up their wagon and were now traveling to Ironcastle to unload all of their plants that were native to the region as exotic spices and herbal planters. Phoebe and Juliana didn't have any issue with selling some of the merchants their spices to better flavor the traveling stew that was being served in bulk for the trip.

  "Helena! Come over here!" Phoebe waved me over. I was surprised to see her so lively after finding out two of the men who had died were her husband and father. People deal with their grief in different ways so I chose not to ask about it.

  "Hello, Phoebe. How are you doing?" I asked.

  "Oh, you remember my name! Good. I was hoping you would. Do you want something to add to your stew? I think some of this goes well with it." She held out a small sachet of crushed dried herbs.

  I took the sachet and sniffed it a little. It smelled pretty good, I wasn't familiar enough with spices to really compare it to anything. My experience with spices mostly stopped at "Italian seasoning" and pepper.

  "Do I dump this into the stew or leave it in the sachet?" I asked.

  "You can do whichever you prefer. None of these ones will hurt you if you eat them," Phoebe replied.

  "Do you have any fresh plants I could look at?"

  She hesitated. "Alright, I would be a fool to turn away my savior..."

  She led me to her carriage and opened the door to me. The different scents of herbs and spices were rather strong but none of them felt too overpowering. On one of the shelves of the carriage was a row of potted plants that had all been repotted recently. There was a lot of soil and broken ceramic on the floor that hadn't been cleaned up yet after their carriage had been turned over. Some of the plants looked rather rough after being jostled around so much and some had broken leaves and stems. One of the plants caught my eye though because it smelled similar to basil.

  I pointed at it. "Do you have more of this in dried form?" I asked pointing to the herb I had found.

  She took a closer look and nodded. "Yes actually. Would you like some?"

  "How much?" I asked.

  "Oh... I hadn't expected you to offer to pay... You saved my life so I feel as though I owe you a debt..."

  I shook my head. "You've been through a lot and these plants are your lifeline, aren't they? I don't want to take more from you when you've already been through so much."

  "I don't know..." she said.

  I tapped my chin. "How about this then, maybe you could trade me something for this." I pulled out the rest of the silver mint I had grown earlier. I hadn't taken a lot of it but I had a small bundle in my hands.

  Her eyes lit up. "Is this silver mint? Where did you get this?"

  "I found some of it when I was walking back from the goblin cave. Can you do something with this? Is it valuable to you?" I asked.

  She nodded. "I can give you an assortment of dried herbs, including the one you pointed out if you want to trade this to me. All of the silver mint I had was destroyed when our cart was attacked but I may be able to cultivate more with this. Are you sure?"

  I smiled. "I am. Having an assortment of dried herbs would help me out a lot."

  She smiled and took the silver mint from me before placing it on an empty planting bed she had set out. "I'll properly plant this later tonight. It's amazing you found some with all of the snow. Silver mint doesn't like the frost. I can tell the magic content is pretty good too. Do you prefer dried herbs or do you want some of the other spices too?"

  "I prefer dried herbs," I replied.

  "Okay! Let me get you those herbs then, will you wait for me outside?"

  "Sure." I stepped outside the carriage to wait for her to collect the dried herbs for me. I was excited to see what I could reproduce using my new floral king magic.

  Hello! This was a bit of a resolution chapter after the last few more exciting ones. Not much to say about this one really, I hope you enjoyed reading!

  Here's a link to the community Discord:

  If you would like to support my writing on , you can read up to 10 chapters ahead there!

  Please leave a favorite and/or a rating so I can get my story in front of more eyeballs! If you really enjoy the story a review would help me a lot! I would greatly appreciate it!