"Why are we becoming adventurers again?" Sylka looked much more confident when holding a gun now. She had a decent stance, a tight grip on her flintlock's handle, and one eye closed as she aimed at the distant target dummy.

  "Because I want us to learn how to fight," Thariel answered honestly. There were other reasons of course, like her not wanting to look stupid when Virelith comes around but the main one is learning how to fight.

  She also needed to get used to killing things. Whether they be monsters, sapient or otherwise, or humans which turned to crime. Like bandits, thieves, and outws.

  She was mostly torn when it comes to killing humans.

  On one hand- she wanted to get a quest reted to them at least once during this brief side-gig she's doing but on the other? She didn't want to kill a human. She didn't care if they're criminals and considered dangerous, she didn't feel like murdering a person.

  She hoped that when the time comes, Sylka would be there to help ease her conscience when killing humans.

  A second party aiding her in going past her moral problems would do a lot in helping her become more open to murder.

  The sound of a gunshot made Thariel's thoughts stray and she focused on Sylka, seeing the Kobold wield the gun like second nature made Thariel's musings come back. This time they were centered around Sylka herself.

  She was a killer due to her culture. Kobolds are natural warmongers who didn't mind killing and actively did it during hunts or other ritualistic practices. Violence, be it towards animals or their kin, is engrained in their culture.

  A few of them, like Sylka, weren't all that violent but most of them are proficient killers who do not hesitate to use a knife during a hunt or a fight.

  A tiny part of Thariel wishes she had the same morals.

  A rge part of her disagreed however and thought that becoming a killer is a good way of spiralling into madness.

  That rge part is the one that needed to be tempered.

  Thariel picked up her bow and started a practice round of her own. She needed to get used to killing humans, because even the heroine herself killed those she thought were in too deep to redeem.

  There weren't any signs of blood sptters because the game was family friendly- expined in lore with her mercy killing them with a smite of holy light, - but it was canon she killed.

  "Thariel?"

  She put her bow down and faced Sylka. The Kobold returned her confused look with a worried one, "you look out of pce, are you okay?"

  Thariel nodded, "I am, I just have a lot of things in my mind right now," she replied, "I'll get over this, don't worry."

  "Okay," Sylka nodded and left it at that. She holstered her gun, "I'm done with practice for now I think, do you want to start making potions?"

  "Yeah, we can do that." Thariel smiled to reassure the Kobold even more.

  She knew that Sylka was just worried about her, and she can understand why. But she was fine really, it's no big deal. It's just a small problem that'll hopefully solve itself when they start their careers as adventurers.

  On that note, she should probably stop moping and focus on other things, like making potions, otherwise Sylka is gonna keep worrying.

  Thariel cached her worried thoughts in the back of her mind when they stepped into the shed and started brewing.

  In terms of production, the two of them have started to deliver multiple crates of high quality potions every three days to Streamwise and from what Liora told her, the town has become a popur stop for merchant ships to buy rge bulks of the stuff.

  That means they've been influencing the war, however little that means when it comes to two amateur alchemists making potions inside a shabby shed.

  The local lord probably has several dozen alchemists working for him non stop to keep the frontier from falling, and that it is their efforts which is slowing the invading army.

  She knew that Liora's compliment had been false, but Thariel didn't say anything because Sylka seemed genuinely happy about the news.

  She kept her thoughts to herself and chose not to ruin the celebratory atmosphere at the time.

  Her thoughts were also occupied by another thing in that moment; with the Tenlor territory stabilizing slightly, that meant that Virelith would now have the time to visit Streamwise in search for the two of them.

  It was simir to what happened to the original Virelith, with only one change: Sylka's presence.

  It was a butterfly that she could never take back. And now it's fluttering along the plot, possibly making a big enough ripple to remove entire events from the timeline.

  Thariel had thought about this particur thing ever since coming back from the forest and concluded that if she wanted to change the plot in a meaningful way, then she had to make butterflies as early and as big as possible.

  She had already made a few by awakening her bloodline and getting a soul mark but those were more of a personal problem and they didn't effect the greater world as a whole.

  What she's doing now though involved a major part of the plot, and she can only hope that her choices end up helping people rather than the opposite.

  She focused back to the potions.

  The batch they were making now is the same as their st few deliveries. She didn't feel the need to change the type of potion she produced since she assumed these are the most useful types she can make right now.

  With two cauldrons and a pair working to make them, the potions got efficiently brewed and it didn't take long before she and Sylka finished their daily batch.

  Together they made 3 crates worth of potions in a single afternoon. If they had spent the morning making potions, they would have made more than double that amount.

  "I never really asked; but when are we going to register as adventurers?" Sylka asked as the two of them cleaned the cauldrons, "it would be soon right?"

  "Yep," Thariel confirmed. She wasn't sure about the timeline of the viliness' arrival but Virelith will be here this or in the next month, maybe even a week from now. She's not confident in that assessment however.

  "It's going to be soon," Thariel put more thought into it after answering. Rather than procrastinate her pns for adventuring, she should have made pns for it the moment she had the idea.

  She thought about it but her head only came up empty, she knew this had been why she hadn't put more consideration into this thing.

  Thariel decided to put pressure on herself by telling Sylka a set schedule. One that even shocked her once the words left her mouth.

  "We're gonna register two days from now,"

  "Okay,"

  Thariel's panicked mind spewed a stream curses at herself using a tone which is a perfect contrast to Sylka's calm reply.

  ... She should have really put more thought into this.