It was a hot summer night on 28th of Zafar, year 544; well at least according to locals who use lunar calendar. Come on now, let’s stop thinking of ambitious plan to unify the countries in the land of Zenaa before settling on one unified calendar system. That shouldn’t be that hard doesn’t it? I mean, as a traveler it’s confusing having to constantly adopt a new calendar system on every nation that I visit. Let alone those big inter-nation merchants who’re controlling hundreds of branches in different countries. I can’t imagine the headache. (Sigh…)
Now what am I doing at this time of night near the shore. The sea level is especially high during the month of Zafar, huge part of the sandy beach is underwater. Which means… This is the perfect time to gather sea worms. They like to burrow themselves in the sand so it’s a bit difficult to find between the cracks of the rocky part of the beach during normal season. But now that the sea level is rising, I can easily scour the sand to find them.
What do I need sea worms for? Good question. Although, I’m framing this as if someone is stupid enough to buy my worthless memoir. Well it doesn’t matter, if no one deem it worthy then I can just donate them to the library of Allegria. I’ve heard they’re in dire need of any kind of literature to fill their shelves and to be able to declare themself as the Great Library. Apparently, there’s a requirement for that. I can’t believe they try to standardize their giant fire-hazard, politically motivated, built only to one up the neighboring country while disregarding the poor that eats the carcasses of their young aborted fetus, before unifying their calendar system. (Sigh…)
Wait, I totally didn’t answer my question in the last paragraph did I? You can blame those arrogant aristocrat for that. Man…, do they need to get their priorities sorted. Anyway, I had hoped to have an easy time searching for sea worms. Oh, not only did my wish is not fulfilled, did I just saw goddess Nariya’ spitting on my face just now? One sea worm is nowhere near enough, I need at least 7 more if I want to make the requested 10 doses of Arufin. Sea worm’s slime that covers their body has a certain antibiotic properties specifically effective at targeting the bacteria that makes my client suffer. The slime on it’s own is not particularly useful until it’s mixed with other herbs and chemicals, which are then slowly boiled with low heat until a layer of heavy materials condensed to the bottom while the residue are either evaporated or sinking to the bottom. Which is why I have to be extra careful when extracting the Arufin, since the separation between them is not very clear. Sometimes I’m forced to play safe by throwing away some precious Arufin when handling rich clients. But, my client this time doesn’t come from wealthy background so I can’t waste anything and I absolutely have to purify the slime to reduce the amount of residue. Simple residue like sand or salt particles from the sea water can be washed away with just water, but the problem is that the water that I use is not clean either. Some level of parasite or algae contamination are expected, even after boiling the water. Boiling just kills them instead of actually removing it so technically it’s still contaminated. Some residue are the result of low quality slime, which is out of my control since it will be much more expensive to buy them from a merchant. I do enjoy collecting my ingredients, but I’ve been procuring some ingredients from Layla company recently. They deal with high quality medicinal ingredients and various other luxury articles like silk, Qurafu which are said to be more expensive than gold by weight, pottery from Assyin, high quality tea also from Assyin, cotton also from Assyin, and books and grimoire also from Assyin. Wow …, either the economy of Assyin is so strong or the economy of the other countries are so weak to be able to produce those diverse products without much competition. Maybe their aristocrats are actually capable of running their country, or maybe it’s one of those country where the governments officials are elected instead of inherited. Not that I know if that would make any difference.
My torch is burning dimmer. Unfortunate however, I only managed to get 3 sea worms. It’s only enough for about 2 doses. The torch showed its last struggle before getting blown by the strong night wind, the wood in my hand right now is no more than a dim red embers. Let’s finish up and begin preparing for the medicine. I’ll make the rest 8 doses the next day.
When I woke up, the sun is already higher than one Jumarah. If I’m not moving faster, my client will be here before the medicine is even ready. Luckily I know myself really well and had prepared the other ingredients ahead of time. I had pre-grounded some yellow salt rock, chopped and dried red umbrella mushrooms, and prepared some Arufin starter from my previous batch; lucky it’s still good to use. Now, what I need to do is to purify the slime then mix them together in a pot to boil. After the water had boiled away and only some small amount are left, I began extracting the Arufin base into another container. This Arufin base needs a few minutes to cool down and a few hours to harden and develop their antibiotic properties.
A few minutes after the medicine is ready, my client had arrived. She brought all her four children with her to collect the Arufin. She introduced her kid from the oldest to the youngest: Ahdan, Isna, Sala, and Arbi’. (Haha …) I can’t help but laugh at how simplistic the naming is, she’s basically calling her child one, two, three, and four using the local language. I remembered one time I was traveling together with a wandering sorcerer and I gave him this riddle that goes something like this: “Your mother has 5 children: East, West, North, South. What’s the name of the fifth kid?” It was a mistake though, I thought sorcerers are smart but I ended up wasting my precious time trying to explain to him that it’s not impossible to answer and that all knowledge required to answer the riddle had been conveyed or that he already know about. Nevertheless, on that day I lost my companion and I had to finish my journey alone.
I had to explain to her that she should stop performing sexual activities if she didn’t want her condition to worsen. I know that she knew about it, but after seeing her young and frail kids, I felt obligated to remind her again. She told me not to bother her about it and that it’s her job and without it her kids wouldn’t have anything to eat. I didn’t say anything to that. It was such an unfortunate circumstances.