Rhea hurried Nick through Floria, running around carts and dodging busy merchants packing their stalls. Since the caravan was supposed to stay at least until the Purification of the Ashes, nearly everyone still had a good amount of items left to sell, not to mention the monster ingredients they had collected from the locals. Nick would have thought it impossible for them to leave so soon, but he figured merchant classes must possess skills that made packing up more efficient. Rhea was clearly very tense, but given the overall situation, Nick didn’t feel the need to ask her why. She understood he was about to risk his life again, and that if the expedition failed, she would either be swept away in a tide of monsters or have to flee once more. Yeah, the perspective of being forced to abandon everything she knows again is probably what’s making her so tense. If Elia was here, she’d know how to lighten the tension… When they arrived at Ogden’s shop, Nick was immediately struck by a wall of thick, herbal-smelling air. The interior felt warmer than usual, a byproduct of the bubbling cauldrons scattered throughout the main workshop. Ogden stood at the center of the chaos, his sleeves rolled up and his clawed fingers carefully adjusting the flames beneath his mixtures. Huh, those are some pretty neat containment fields. The air from each cauldron is filtered through a bubble before drifting away. I can tell it’s trapping the more volatile compounds inside, but how is it… Nick barely had time to appreciate the sheer complexity of the process before Ogden snapped his fingers. (...)