Being the fisher's guild, Defi expected the place to be bustling at dawn.

Contrary to his thoughts, the building was fairly serene in the morning. The large south-facing doors were open, the morning sun filtering into the entrance hall through the half-open shutters of the narrow eastern windows.

"Oh!" A familiar voice sounded. "It's you? You're really here!"

Defi smiled his greeting at the clerk from the last time. "Did you think I'd run away?"

"Well, you did look confident." The clerk perked up. "Could it be you actually know a great apothecary?"

"Nothing like that. Is the mestre inside then?"

"He is." The clerk waved him in, with a pale face. "I think his mood is fouler than before. Someone came in with him, too."

"Who is it?"

"I didn't recognize him. The others didn't either."

Defi glanced at the older boy, who was walking beside him despite his worlds. "You're still coming?"

It should be clear. If Defi didn't manage to rise to his boasts yesterday, the wrath of guild officer Erel may fall on the closest in the vicinity no matter how uninvolved.

The clerk swallowed audibly. "Gotta see it through, right?"

Defi looked at him.

The other laughed weakly, knowing that Defi didn't believe him. "We drew lots."

Obviously the clerk drew the losing lot. Guests to the offices must be accompanied at all times by a guild escort.

"What's your name?"

"Lombrud. And you're Defi, who Leraine gave the Garge homestead to."

"You know her?" Defi didn't dispute the use of the word 'gave'. Land quality aside, saying he'd gotten the place cheaply was almost an exaggeration.

"Uh, no. One of my cousins married one of her side, that kind of thing."

Defi wondered how Kern and his pursuing wife were doing. "Has your cousin heard from her since?"

"No? Not since the letters from Carmedel months ago." The clerk stopped at the same office from yesterday. "We're here. I..I'll wait here, if you or sir need anything."

He tapped lightly on the door-panel and then took two large steps away.

The door opened and an older clerk stuck his head out, his face slightly anxious.

"You are mestre Defi?" The clerk glanced at Lombrud who was now trying his very best not to get noticed.

"I am. Good morn."

His gaze turned back to Defi, and he smiled weakly. Before he could return greetings, a voice called from behind him.

"Is that him? Bring him in."

Lombrud sent him an encouraging nod.

Defi paused. Friend, are you telling me to fight while not getting off your horse?

He decided to take it positively, and entered the office.

The clerk immediately left him to go to the side and continue working. He looked like he thought Defi had come here to fail.

Defi had tested the savras balm on himself. The self-inflicted scratch was now healed, only looking slightly different from the skin around it. The uninjured skin he had tried the mixture on was supple and healthy, the slight chapping from the cold gone.

There was no reason to be nervous.

The product worked.

Erel stood before a north-facing window, conversing with a man seated on one of the guest chairs. He looked more put-together than the last time, but the dark circles under his eyes took away from the image of self-possession.

He got to the point as soon as he saw Defi. "You said you could cure these sores on my face."

Defi, following his example, took out the pot of savras balm from his satchel. "I did say so. This is made mainly from savras extract. It will keep for a month but no more."

"A month? For savras?" The man who had not yet been introduced sniffed disbelievingly. "What a thing to say."

"This is Brellor Ankerlan, a friend. Brellor, this is Defi."

"Even if sir is not an apothecary, he is well aware that there are many methods to increase the shelf-life of savras." Defi gestured to the engravings on the ceramic pot. "The preservation Emblem on the pot is poor, and can only hold the contents for a month."

"A glyph-maker as well? Erel, you did not say how truly talented the young people in your town are."

The man was not of the Lowpool? Defi felt some wariness.

Everytime he met someone from out of the Lowpool with a sur, trouble followed.

"My glyphmaking can only barely reach the second level, mestre, as the shopkeeper Jast could attest." He demurred, not showing his suddenly increased caution. "But I especially studied preservation Emblems, and am slightly more confident to place them on display."

Erel looked at the inscribed design on the pot, but didn't comment.

Technically, pure savras balm would keep as long as the other slime extracts. It was only that, just this morning, Defi suddenly remembered the surprise that Sarel and Karlant expressed on seeing the clear colorless liquid that was the vinegar and savras extract.

He'd quickly started testing on the trace-table whatever he had in the kitchen for additives that would color the savras balm, differentiate it from the products that Bluzand would be selling in the spring.

What made the savras balm more likely to deteriorate was the butter that Defi used to thicken the mixture and spread the tinge of carrot juice through the balm.

The mixture in the pot Defi presented to the guild officer was a dull cloudy yellow color.

There was a slight translucence, but not so that people would suspect that it could hold a crystal clarity similar to spring water. It also thickened to be the consistency of a slightly-thin porridge, if that porridge were smooth and without lumps.

"Let's see if your talents in village herbology hold up." Brellor Ankerlan sighed and moved to open his bag.

Defi's lips twitched. Village herbology? Savras was a mystic plant that grew only near a blessed land. Even if it was the non-graded weakest mystic ingredient, how many countless people would like to grow it and couldn't?

The man took out a trace-table from his bag.

It was larger and more elaborate than the one Defi acquired. Was this the trace-table afforded to guild apothecaries?

Deftly, the pot of balm was unsealed and a scoop of the contents smeared onto the analysis plate. The trace-table immediately started radiating the familiar faint light.

"Are you so certain this concoction of yours would work? You've seen ailments like mine?"

"I have." Defi had come across several similar incidents in the learning halls.

One, a girl had an adverse reaction to an imported fruit. Two, an instructor had eaten too much rich food for too many years without training. Three, two boys from the same clan struggled too inefficiently in their studies, not knowing moderation due to familial pressure.

Erel's problem seemed to be similar to the second example, judging from body type alone, but then the third example should also fit the facts. Perhaps it started with the unhealthy physique and then the situation was compounded by a stressful situation.

"I see. You are from the south, yes? They say problems like mine are more common there."

Defi couldn't comment. He wasn't from the south after all. "I have seen in several Journals that alleviating such facial sores would be simple with a mystic dish. Why look for an apothecary?"

"I have tried. You think I have not? But there are matters cannot wait."

Defi was not someone who would introduce a stranger to a hermit, so he kept silent on that front.

"Your face is marred but not hideous." Defi told the guild officer instead. "For such matters to depend on your face rather than your character, which I have heard to be upright and unpretentious, perhaps these matters are wanting second thoughts as to their consideration?"

Erel sighed, a long and lonely sound. "Lofty thoughts, but in this matter, I wish to also present myself as best I could."

"A woman, then?"

The other blinked. "Is it very obvious?"

Defi gave him a faint smile. Did the man not know the talk circulating with great anxiousness outside the doors of his office, with the clerks tiptoeing about his moodiness?

He felt a bit sorry for the man. Everyone was apparently waiting for him to fail his wooing again and go back to being his normal stern self.

"I am to marry her."

Such a final sentence. Defi saw the light of resolve in his eyes.

Well. A man must have at least that much conviction.

Then he continued, in a mutter that Defi was certain was not meant for him.

"For mother's sake, I have to."

Defi was surprised the half-hearted deduction he made when he saw the guild officer's carefully repaired coat yesterday was in fact so close to the truth.

Seeing the difference in the quality of the stitches, he thought that an ailing relative whose sickness had taken a turn for the worse, whose last wish was to see her son/brother married, was now driving said son/brother to desperate straits to find a marriage partner.

"Would you marry, just like that?" Defi asked suddenly.

"I beg pardon." Erel frowned at him.

"I have only known the songs of love and have never sung them myself. But would you be satisfied, with such a reason for marriage? Would she, who is courted with such a reason?"

Erel stared at him.

Defi reddened, knowing he had crossed propriety and said too much.

But then Erel laughed, genuine and hearty. He teased, suddenly. "Shall I speak of my romance, that the young may know it?"