Chapter 8: The Hidden Workshop

A thorough search of the ruins sounded far more ambitious than what Serayne actually intended to do, given that she had neither floor plans for the old building nor the proper tools to clear away collapsed timbers efficiently.

What she did have was a small mattock, some mana, and the quiet conviction that if Avelra had left her journal here, something more than moss and rotted shelves might have survived beneath the rubble.

Setting the crate of herbs down in the intact section of the cabin, she made sure nothing would drop on it from above, then turned to examine the cave-in she had deemed too troublesome to tackle during her first visit.

The planks themselves looked thoroughly rotted with damp, but the vines coiling around them wove such a dense web that even a gentle tug shifted half the structure instead of the single piece she wanted to clear.

The tangle first, then… Looks like I'll pull the roof down on my head before I dig anything out from under it.

Selecting a tangled section well away from where she was bracing herself, she triggered Gathering. When a cluster of vines tore free with a dry snap, she could finally reach the timber beneath with her mattock.

The flat blade of the head worked well for scraping away packed dirt, while the prongs proved handy for prying loose smaller debris, transforming the chore from a hopeless tug-of-war into manageable labor.

That didn't mean it went quickly, however.

Serayne had to pick her handholds with care, avoid disturbing load-bearing wreckage, and pause regularly whenever the ache in her arms turned to trembling.

Magic made clearing a path easier, but each cast drained twenty points of mana. With Featherstep needed for maneuverability and the trip back, she couldn't afford to spam Gathering until something interesting turned up in the rubble.

During longer respites, she settled onto a firmer section of floorboards, toggled off her Talent, and pulled out the journal, revisiting passages that had seemed crystal clear that morning but were now sparking fresh questions.

The volume was slim enough to browse cover-to-cover in one sitting, yet the more she pondered the marginal notes, the clearer the gap became between merely reading a sentence and actually comprehending what Avelra was trying to teach.

It's easy to write that one must preserve an ingredient's properties… but first you have to know which properties matter.

She studied the sketches, matched the notes against her harvested herbs, and re-read the procedural steps until her regenerating mana pool permitted another round of excavation.

She had no intention of letting the journal sit as mere shelf decoration now that she had resolved to try alchemy, and the enforced downtime at least gave her a chance to prepare herself properly.

After several such rounds, one of the uncovered planks gave way under the mattock's leverage, collapsing alongside loose earth and severed roots. Serayne froze, catching sight of open darkness beneath.

Leaning closer, she cleared the remaining debris with careful strokes, only then recognizing the squared edge of a stair tread - and below it, another step descending beneath the cabin.

“Well… finally something that isn't another rotted plank.”

Stale, heavy air wafted up from the breach. Serayne tilted her head back, waiting for the dust to settle before she began widening the entrance.

The mere sight of stairs was enough to push exhaustion aside. After checking her mana reserves and verifying the shaft wasn't completely obstructed, she activated Featherstep and eased herself down, anchoring her descent along the exposed stone wall.

The first thing she noticed below was a pale blue luminescence filtering through sprawling roots and fractured furnishings, casting the entire chamber in the surreal glow of an eerily beautiful dream.

Only after a moment did she realize the glow came from bioluminescent mushrooms clinging to damp surfaces. Their scattered clusters illuminated far more than she had anticipated from a windowless basement.

The space was surprisingly vast - roughly two hundred square meters by her estimate - though its original layout had been ruined by massive tree roots that had breached the masonry, shoving everything aside in their slow, inexorable growth.

Tangled among them were shattered furniture, vessels, and implements so heavily overgrown they were nearly indistinguishable from stone, while moss, pale tendrils, and strange translucent fungi choked every available fissure.

Bracing against a jut of stone, Serayne looked around slowly, trying to envision the workshop before its ruin, though her eyes kept drifting toward shapes that might signal salvageable gear.

If the journal survived up above, there has to be something worth taking down here…

Rather than dropping straight to the floor, she guided herself carefully along the wall, using the roots as leverage until she spotted a small pouch caught in a woody crook.

Roughly half the size of her palm, it seemed fashioned from sturdy canvas. From afar, it wouldn't have looked any different from a scrap of rag, save for the fact that it had held its form among things that had long since rotted into mush.

Serayne unhooked it gently, turning it between her fingers and inspecting the stitching, but found nothing that immediately gave away its purpose.

I don't know what you are, but the fact that you didn't crumble in my hands puts you leagues ahead of everything else down here.

Slipping the pouch into her pocket, she pressed forward, halting beside a bulbous vessel tucked into a corner, partially shielded by a collapsed shelf.

The cauldron stood about thirty centimeters high with a similar diameter. Beside it lay a mortar and pestle whose profiles immediately matched the sketches in Avelra’s notes.

A crust of patina and rust-colored stains coated each piece, but across the crucible's belly, she noticed a distinct tide-line separating the lower and upper sections, resembling a watermark from liquid held long ago.

She ran a finger along the rim, checked for visible fractures, and felt a surge of pure delight, smiling at her warped reflection in the dark, tarnished surface.

A mortar, a pestle, and a vessel for brewing…

A far less glamorous image of boiling instant noodles flashed through her mind, but another glance at the encrusted residue told her that before she cooked any food in it, she had better figure out what it had originally been used for - and whether it could actually be cleaned.

For now, she gathered all three items into one spot and returned to scouring the surrounding debris, increasingly convinced that excavating the cellar had been well worth the effort.

Her next discovery lay tucked among what might have once been a bookshelf, though little remained beyond rotted pulp and the dark outlines of collapsed planks.

Catching sight of a short hilt, Serayne lifted away the remains of a board and drew out a dagger with a semi-translucent blade. Its chipped, flaked surface looked as though it had been knapped by hand from stone.

It reminded her of the obsidian tools she had seen in documentaries, yet the material was paler and caught the mushrooms' blue light with an eerie, reactive sheen. She angled the weapon in her hand, inspecting it from several perspectives.

The grip rested comfortably in her palm, and the weapon was remarkably light, making it instantly far more appealing than most of the bulky armaments on the starter equipment roster.

“You're coming with me too,” she murmured, using the tip to nudge aside a splintered board to inspect the recess beneath.

On her next pry, she applied a fraction more leverage. The timber snapped off the blade, hurtling across the cellar and shattering against the far wall with a crack so loud she froze in place.

She stared at the impact mark, then down at her hand, and finally back at the dagger, searching for any rational explanation that could reconcile what had just happened with her two points of Strength.

Did I do that?

She raised the weapon with far greater care, resisting the urge to take another test swing. She had no desire to test its properties at the expense of the only wall still holding the ceiling up.

Perhaps the blade carried an enchantment that magnified kinetic force, or perhaps something else entirely was at work. Whatever the cause, she wasn't about to toss it back into the rot.

If this is some kind of ‘Strength plus nine hundred ninety-nine,’ I formally apologize to everyone whose high-rank Talents made me jealous.

A wry grin slipped out. She brushed wood dust from the flat of the blade and set the dagger on a stable ledge, ready to pack securely for transport.

Only then did she pick her mattock back up, but looking back at the hollow where the board had shattered revealed the spine of another book.

She lunged for it so quickly she had to scramble for leverage to keep from spinning awkwardly midair. Wiping the grime from the cover, she read the title.

Fundamentals of Herbcraft.

While the surrounding tomes were reduced to blackened, sodden pulp, this one had preserved its pages and crisp type. When Serayne parted the cover, she caught a faint, dry scent reminiscent of fresh ink.

She couldn't explain why these particular texts had survived, but after finding Avelra’s journal, she was ready to accept that certain relics down here had been blessed with preservation ordinary wooden shelves could only dream of.

She swept through the room twice more, shifting lighter debris and peering behind roots, but further efforts yielded only filth and fragile remnants that crumbled at the slightest touch.

Returning to her gathered haul, she concluded that the pouch, the dagger, the manual, and the alchemy tools were a far greater prize than anything she had dared hope for when first sticking her head into the ruin.

She wanted to harvest a few glowing mushrooms for identification before leaving; she hadn't come across them in the journal, and their natural glow seemed reason enough to learn more.

Severing several small caps with the mattock, she set them aside, only then turning her mind to how she would haul everything back - a thought that promptly cooled her excitement.

The crate upstairs was already crowded with herbs, the cauldron couldn't fit inside it, and the mortar and pestle were deceptively heavy for their modest size.

Serayne eyed the pile with a sour frown, sighed, and set about dividing the cargo into smaller bundles. Trying to carry it all in one go would likely end with her tumbling backward down the first stair.

She hauled up the book and pouch first, secured the dagger separately, and moved the heavier implements in stages, pulling herself up with vines and resting on stable steps.

The cauldron proved especially exasperating. Though not massive, it snagged relentlessly on jagged splintered wood in the narrow crawlway, forcing her to twist and reposition it every time she thought she had cleared the bottleneck.

“Come on… you fit through here two seconds ago,” she hissed, readjusting her grip until the vessel finally cleared the threshold and settled onto the cabin floor.

Only when she looked up did she realize that afternoon light no longer filtered through the breach in the roof. The surrounding canopy was dissolving into a dark, impenetrable mass.

She froze, trying to recall when she had last checked the time, as the hours spent digging, resting, reading, and rummaging through the cellar replayed in her mind with uncomfortable clarity.

Of course… I went out for a handful of herbs and ended up looting an entire workshop.

For a second, she wanted nothing more than to slump down and curse at the ceiling, but she checked her mana instead, drifted toward the vine-draped exit, and cautiously peeked out.

She saw no glowing green eyes and no movement among the roots, but the darkness offered so little visibility that she refused to treat the stillness as an all-clear.

“I can do this… Just keep it steady,” she murmured, more to steady her own nerves than anything else.

She packed the lighter items into the crate, distributed the heavier pieces so she could haul them without losing all points of leverage, and began ferrying her salvage out of the ruin.

It was easier to dangle the cauldron below her center of gravity than lash it high against her back, so she slung it from a short harness of vines, keeping it from swinging when she kicked off, and headed toward the familiar boughs.

The journey back demanded patience and several pauses, but Serayne stuck strictly to her marked path, resisting any urge to cut corners through darker stretches of the woods.

When the final piece of salvage was hauled past the shut door of her Hearthhold, she collapsed onto the straw pallet, her arms aching so fiercely she didn't even want to lift a finger.

She had made it back without encountering a single predator. Looking over the gathered gear, she could count the day as an unqualified success - even if it had run far longer than intended.

What she didn't know was that this time, her gliding through the canopy had not gone unnoticed. On the Regional Channel, a post was already circulating about a bizarre silhouette spotted high above the ground - gathering more and more curious replies with every passing second.