The alchemy hall remained unfinished. Progress lagged due to stonemasons and the challenge of hauling stone, but each day brought them closer.

  One wall still showed exposed beams, but the floor was solid stone. The hall felt sheltering and spacious. Sunlight filtered through the open ceiling, catching dust motes and the faint green of crushed leaves on the long table.

  Harold stood at the front, holding a single slate.

  “Today,” he said, holding it up, “we are going to be learning about the ingredients available to you within the basin and Blackjaw Peninsula at large. Remember, the life of a fellow alchemist once hung in the balance due to a simple misidentification of an herb. Mastering this knowledge isn't just academic; it's essential for your survival.”

  A few students straightened immediately.

  He turned the slate so they could see. Scratched into it: the rough outline of a low, broad-leafed plant with clustered veins. The drawing wasn't elegant, but it worked.

  “Basin reed,” Harold continued. “Looks harmless, and it grows everywhere near standing water. Most of you would walk past it without a second thought.”

  He passed the slate down the line, and the students began copying the drawing onto their own pieces. Some worked carefully, others faster, already familiar with the routine.

  "Almost every alchemy text I've seen lists it as filler," Harold said, confident in his hands-on knowledge. "They're wrong. The stalk carries a stabilizing property when dried properly. It's not strong enough to headline a potion, but it's invaluable when you're working with volatile mixtures and don't have better options."

  A few students nodded, jotting notes next to their sketches. Two opened leather-bound notebooks, including Elia, who looked at Harold with hero worship that made him uncomfortable.

  They’d had Caldwell’s people purchase them using shares from potions they’d brewed and sold. One of the Lords had started in a region rich in papyrus-like plants that produced thinner, smoother paper. He had funded his village by selling it. Later, he made a post on the forum to Lord Harold, thanking him for the guidance his post had provided.

  The alchemy group had grown. Five new faces stood at the back, listening more than writing. They lacked materials and mana control, so Harold set them to regulation exercises—breathing, mana flow, moving mana without disruption.

  “Most of what grows around the basin is mediocre,” Harold went on, retrieving the slate and wiping it clean with his sleeve. “With the exception of what grows closer to the center.”

  He scratched out another diagram as he spoke. “From my experience, the best ingredients come from the most dangerous places. That doesn’t mean we can’t cultivate what we need for daily use. We can, and we will.”

  He glanced up. “But the most powerful potions require people willing to go into dangerous areas to gather materials, and that only works if they know what they’re looking at. That’s why I’m teaching this. Eventually, you’ll be the ones teaching them.”

  The next drawing was narrower, with serrated edges.

  “A few plants break the usual rules,” Harold said. “Learn these, and you won’t find yourself short on workable material.”

  The slate went around again.

  Harold continued, looking briefly toward the newer students. "Mastery comes from the basics. It comes from getting the most out of the most common ingredients. Even now, I would bet I can make a stronger healing potion than Elia, not because I am better at brewing, but because I waste less."

  Elia raised an eyebrow and shot back with a playful smirk, "If by 'waste less,' you mean 'use less,' then sure, your potions might do the job," she said, her eyes gleaming with challenge.

  Harold chuckled softly, acknowledging her retort. "A fair point, Elia, but efficiency is key. It’s the difference between making one or three potions with the same amount of ingredients." His mouth twitched slightly.

  “When you’re done copying,” Harold continued, “I have another ten slates for today. Thirteen ingredients total, their properties, and their common uses.”

  He tapped the slate once. “By the end, you should know how to identify, gather, and use these thirteen ingredients.”

  Elia raised her hand and waited for Harold’s nod before speaking.

  “You said basin reed stabilizes volatile mixtures,” she said. “Is there a point where it interferes instead. Where it flattens the effect too much to be worth using.”

  Harold’s mouth curved slightly as he looked at her. “Good question. Yes. If you overuse it, it doesn’t just stabilize; it becomes a problem. It dampens the reaction, and you’ll end up with a potion that does less than it should. Worse, you won’t know why unless you’re watching your ratios closely.”

  He gestured with the slate. “The more experienced an alchemist is, the fewer stabilizers they need. Refined mana control lets you manage the reaction directly.”

  He paused. “That’s why it belongs in your notes as a supporting ingredient, not a solution. Use it to guide a reaction, but always train your control.”

  Farther down the table, a tall man with a jagged scar spoke up—a former lumberjack ambushed in the forest, who'd kept his scar as a warning.

  “What about drying methods?” he asked. “Sun-dried versus kiln-dried. Does it change the property or just the shelf life?”

  “It changes both,” Harold replied, a flicker of memory crossing his eyes. “I learned that the hard way when trying to create a particularly potent mixture. Opted for kiln-drying without understanding the consequences, and ended up with a potion that was more like tea. Sun-drying maintains the ingredient flexibility and potency. Kiln-drying makes it brittle and reduces its impact. If you're unsure which you need, default to sun-dried and adjust from there.”

  He added, “As a rule, you want to use as little stabilizer as you can get away with.”

  He was mid-sentence, slate still in his hand, when the door creaked open, signaling an abrupt interruption in the flow of the lesson.

  One of Harold’s guards entered quietly, moved quickly to Harold’s side, and handed him a folded note.

  Harold took it without breaking stride.

  “In the future,” he continued, eyes flicking briefly over the message, “we’ll be able to craft containers that preserve ingredient freshness, assuming we can get the blacksmiths the right techniques.”

  He folded the note once and slid it into a pocket as he figured out how to respond.

  “We’ll pause questions there,” he said calmly. “Copy the next slate while I reset.”

  The guard remained by the door, waiting for a response. As Harold turned to the table, his expression steady, the hall settled back into the quiet scrape of slate on slate, the atmosphere shifting as the day pressed closer.

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  Harold reached into his pocket for a narrow sheet of paper, set the slate down, grabbed some charcoal, and wrote quickly in practiced, short strokes. Learning to write with charcoal was an art he’d rather not have learned.

  When he finished, he folded the paper once and handed it back to the guard.

  “Have this delivered,” he said quietly. “Use one of the trusted runners.”

  The guard passed it to an older youth—a girl with charcoal-stained fingers—who tucked it into her belt and disappeared without a word.

  Harold picked the slate back up.

  “Next,” he said, already sketching, “is marshfire bloom.”

  A low murmur rippled through the room.

  “This one looks harmless when it isn’t active,” Harold continued. It has flat leaves and a pale stem. It grows near stagnant pools. When prepared correctly, it enhances absorption. If prepared poorly, it burns through a mixture and leaves nothing behind. Once, a careless apprentice of mine lost eyebrows and a week’s brew because of a mistake with this plant.

  He passed the slate down the line again.

  “Do not gather it at midday,” he said. “The sap changes with heat. Dawn or dusk only, and—”

  But before Harold could finish, the door opened again.

  Harold stopped mid-word.

  Another guard stood there this time, breath slightly short. He didn’t step fully inside.

  Harold closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them.

  “Put it there,” he said, sharper than before, nodding to the table without turning around.

  The guard obeyed.

  Harold exhaled, jaw tight, forcing himself to focus on the lesson.

  “—and always test a small sample before committing it to a batch,” he finished. “Copy the slate.”

  He watched students bend over their work, charcoal scraping. For a moment, he just stood there, fingers white on the table’s edge.

  After a heartbeat, he reached for the note.

  Harold unfolded it and skimmed the contents once, then again more slowly. Whatever it said settled the matter. He exhaled, long and controlled, and folded the paper back up.

  The message settled any remaining doubts. All activity halted, the room's ambient noise suspended in sudden silence, as the realization dawned that the class would not continue. Harold set the note down, turned, and caught Elia’s eye. She straightened immediately.

  “Elia,” he said, keeping his voice level. “The remaining slates are there.” He nodded toward the stack on the table. “Have them copy all of them. Next session, we’ll go through questions and corrections together.”

  A flicker of disappointment crossed the room, but no one argued.

  Elia nodded quickly. “Of course. I can handle that.”

  Harold gathered his slate and stepped away from the table, already shifting his attention elsewhere. He was halfway to the door when Elia spoke again.

  “Lord Harold?”

  He paused and looked back.

  Words tumbled out, eager and barely contained. “This is incredible,” she said. “The way you categorize ingredients by behavior, not rarity, changes everything. I rewrite my notes every night.”

  Her cheeks flushed faintly, but she pressed on. “If there’s anything else you need taken care of, errands, preparations, organizing the samples, I can do it. I don’t mind staying late.”

  Harold studied her for a second, then softened his tone just enough. “Focus on the lesson,” he said. “That’s what matters.”

  She nodded, then blurted, “There is one thing, though. A question.”

  He sighed inwardly, then gestured for her to continue.

  “If I’m working with a basic healing solution and I’m trying to improve absorption without increasing volatility,” she said quickly, “would you layer the enhancer before stabilization, or do you stabilize first and accept the loss?”

  Harold considered it despite himself.

  “Enhancer first,” he said. “In amounts your control can handle. Stabilize after. You’ll lose less overall that way. But only if your mana control is steady. If it isn’t, reverse it and accept the inefficiency.”

  Her eyes lit up. “That makes sense.”

  “It should,” he hurriedly said. “Alchemy will reward patience more than ambition. Training your control is a long process and will require testing both your control and will, consistently.”

  She nodded again, visibly restraining another question as she reached for Harold but stopped herself.

  Harold turned for the door. “I’ll see you next session.”

  As he stepped out, the hall filled again with quiet work and barely contained excitement, while the rest of the day waited for him with no intention of being patient at all.

  Harold had barely cleared the doorway when footsteps matched his pace.

  Ren fell in beside him without asking, one hand on the hilt of his sword as his eyes flicked once toward the hall they’d just left. "You know," he said casually, "I think Elia might have a thing for you."

  Harold smirked briefly at Ren's casual comment before masking it with a more serious demeanor. “She has a thing for alchemy.”

  Ren hummed. “Sure. And the way she watches your face when you write is purely academic.”

  They walked a few steps in silence before Ren added, “I’m just saying, if she starts volunteering for night watches near your office, I’m calling it.”

  Harold rubbed his temples. “If she does, I’m assigning her more homework.”

  Ren laughed softly as he walked next to Lord Harold. “Cruel.”

  Harold didn’t break stride. “No, it’s not,” he said. “It’s educational. She’ll thank me later, and a relationship there would never work out.”

  Ren looked at him sideways, “Never said it had to be a relationship, sire.”

  Harold grunted in annoyance, “Not my style.”

  They turned down the east corridor, toward one of the smaller receiving rooms that had been pressed into service for meetings.

  Inside, the diplomat rose to his feet.

  He wasn’t dressed like a court envoy. His clothes were still roughspun and practical, the kind worn by anyone who worked for a living in the Landing. The difference was in the details. The fabric was cleaner, the cut more deliberate, and the cloak over his shoulders was one of the first finished garments produced locally. It wasn’t ornate, but it was well-made, and that was the point. He had another, even nicer set packed away for when he visited Lord Arjun.

  On the table beside him sat a small chest, neatly packed with carefully sealed potion vials. Harold took that in with a nod.

  “You’ll be leaving right after this,” Harold said, taking the seat across from him. “Lord Arjun doesn’t know you’re coming, so you’ll need to approach carefully.”

  The diplomat inclined his head. “I understand, my Lord.”

  “Don't corner him into an immediate response,” Harold continued. “You’re there to invite him to the Landing.”

  He leaned forward slightly. “You’ll make it clear he’s welcome here. He can bring whoever he wants. Advisors, guards, family. No restrictions. Transparency is the leverage.”

  The man hesitated. “And Henri?”

  Harold’s mouth tightened. “You don’t mention him unless Arjun does. Don’t let him know that this is about opposing him; it’s about giving Arjun a better option and letting him see that for himself. Ideally, we would be able to convince Lord Arjun to swear fealty.”

  He gestured to the chest. “Those are a gift, so don’t negotiate with them at the table.”

  The diplomat nodded again, committing it to memory. He seemed like a competent man, and Harold didn’t exactly have a ton of options.

  “You’ve been briefed on forum codes,” Harold added. “If anything changes, you post exactly what you were briefed and nothing more.”

  He shifted his attention to the two adventuring teams standing quietly near the walls. They looked ready, and Harold had done his best to equip them to the best of his ability. He would have preferred the Thornwalkers for this, but he had a different task for them in mind.

  “You keep him alive,” Harold said simply. “If things go bad, you extract him first. If there is any hint that Arjun intends to threaten you, then you leave. At least, you will respawn; he won't.”

  One of them spoke up. “And if Arjun refuses the invitation.”

  Harold didn’t hesitate. “Then he refuses, he will fall in line with us eventually. Strength here is restraint. There will be a contingent of Knights staged to reinforce you quickly, and Lord Dalen will help you cross the river quickly to Lord Arjun's side of the Basin.”

  The diplomat took a breath. “I understand, My lord. I will do my best.”

  Harold stood up and assessed the people in front of him, relaxing when he saw they were quite confident. Mark had chosen well for the escort teams. He stepped forward to shake the man's hand. “Good luck, your mission will decide the next steps.”

  The diplomat shook his hand in return and left the room, and Harold turned to the adventurers, clasping forearms instead of hands this time. They nodded, understanding exactly what kind of trip this would be.

  Harold rubbed the bridge of his nose and groaned while he moved to the next event to handle.

  ?