Chapter 402: Herbalism and Witchcraft

As Sorcha went over her classes, stats, and skills, Jadis realized that the goblin woman had a good reason for feeling lacking when comparing herself to Jadis and the rest of her team. It wasn’t that she was terribly weak or under-leveled or without ability, but she was definitely on the lean side when it came to personal power. A large part of that lack of power appeared to stem from Sorcha’s primary class, which was a practical, agrarian-type class that had never been intended to be used as a combat class. Her secondary class was much stronger in Jadis’ opinion, but it was also almost entirely utilitarian in nature. She wasn’t a blow-stuff-up kind of witch, that was for sure.

Sorcha’s class combination reminded Jadis of Aila. Her primary class, Garden Herbalist, was nothing particularly special. It was a better option than Cart Driver, admittedly, since being a herbalist meant Sorcha was in a better position to make money. Growing valuable herbs, both medicinal and for seasoning, was more specialized than driving wagons and therefore was a moderately more attractive class. It still wasn’t intended for anything beyond a simple peasant life, though. And unlike Aila, Sorcha had gone all-in on the skills she had selected for herbalist class since she had not originally had any plans to become a mercenary or any other kind of combatant.

Going through the bulk of Sorcha’s Garden Herbalist class, it was clear that her career plans had only changed recently.

The first ten skills Sorcha had in her Garden Herbalist class were all useful, if mundane, passive skills that were helpful for a common gardener to have. Some were specific to her herbalism, but for the most part they were the kind of skills that would have been helpful for any gardener or farmer to have. The skill she took at her twenty-first level had been agrarian in nature as well.

Jadis’ guess for the reasoning behind Sorcha’s continued mundane skill choices was confirmed by Sorcha as she explained her secondary class. While Villatic Wand Witch was a caster class with combat potential, it wasn’t explicitly intended for war, either. It was instead a fairly open, adaptable witch class with a restricted scope of tools that could be customized for a wide range of purposes, as the foundational first skill suggested.

The first wand Sorcha had ever made, so she told them, was one intended to help her preserve bundled herbs faster. It turned out that the effect wasn’t all that strong since it was based off of her Eldritch stat, which was rather low at the time. The second wand she had crafted was one meant to help her with her gardening as well. The wand slowed a single target down so long as the spell was channeled, which made it useful for catching the occasional rabbit or other small critter that would steal from her garden. It wasn’t until she used the wand to stop a petty pickpocket from outrunning the local guard that Sorcha realized that she could use the wand against stronger targets.

It was shortly after that time that the Demon invasion had begun. The empire was calling for recruits to join the military, and there were dozens of mercenary companies opening their doors to new members as well. Since she was a caster who had at least one spell that could be used in combat, Sorcha decided to strike out from the small town she had grown up in and see if she could join a mercenary company in the big city of Glitnir.

She had been rejected by five companies before she had found the Roiling Reavers and been accepted into their ranks. While the other mercenary groups had dismissed her as having too little experience and too limited a skill set to be worthwhile, Stavros had seen potential in her. Even if her future wands and abilities turned out to be too weak for regular combat, she was still a capable herbalist which was useful for a mercenary company that didn’t have any dedicated healers.

With her new career path in mind, the only other skill Sorcha had chosen for her herbalist class had been a generic attribute improvement passive, just to help boost her Eldritch faster.

All of the skills that Sorcha chose after becoming a member of the Roiling Reavers were to help her become a better caster. Primarily she focused on boosting her Eldritch stat since the higher it went, the more wands she could craft. Of course, she also chose some skills that helped with her other casting stats like Focus and Will, and she did end up taking a couple of skills that helped with her Vitality, but that was also because it helped with her casting, which had become her biggest concern. After all, once she had joined the Reavers and been transported to Weigrun where they began their illegal activities, she didn’t have a lot of choice left. It was sink or swim by then, and Sorcha had had no intention of becoming a lump of dirt on the side of the road.

As Sorcha went over all of her skills and stats, she kept fiddling with her spoon between her fingers. It was a nervous tick, one that only grew the longer she went on. By the end of her explanation, Jadis could tell that Sorcha was practically cringing in shame from how inadequate she felt. It was clear that she felt that her classes were inferior to the others and was expecting to be teased or rejected.

The response she actually got was far different from what she expected.

“You have a skill that helps you take care of insects?” Jay asked as she leaned towards the goblin woman.

“Yes?” Sorcha answered nervously as she glanced away from Jay’s direct gaze. “It’s, uh, a wee bit lame, I know.”

“It’s perfect!” Jay exclaimed as she grinned at the witch’s surprise. “Why didn’t you tell me you had a skill like that before? You can help take care of the Guardian Soul Grub!”

“Ah, what?” Sorcha paused her fiddling with the spoon in her hand. “I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Well, it’s a magic bug thing, isn’t it?” Sorcha explained uncertainly. “That’s way outside of my abilities.”

“It’s an insect, Sorcha,” Jay said before reaching out and poking the woman in the forehead between her thick eyebrows. “Nothing about your skill says it doesn’t work in magic beasts, right? A bug is a bug, even if it has magic. We need to get you a garden plot where you can grow some plants and care for the glowing grub as soon as possible.”

“Oh, ah, okay?” Sorcha nodded her head, though she still looked confused.

“Material Identification is such a good skill,” Sabina said enviously, catching the goblin’s attention. “I know it’s not very strong right now, but it still helps sort out the bad bits from the good bits when you’re going through materials, especially stuff that comes from magic beasts. Plus, the more you upgrade that skill, the stronger it gets! I’ve heard that it’s a prerequisite for getting the sorts of skills that let you identify people like Identification Stones and things like that, though the people who can make those sorts of enchantments are super secretive on what is needed since they don’t want to lose their market value and all of that nonsense, but I think you’ve got one of those skills that’ll lead to that sort of thing! I wish I had that! Can I try and copy it with an enchantment?”

“Sure, yeah, I’ll help you with that,” Sorcha perked up a little as Sabina continued to gush over her.

“Minor Health Oblation, huh?” Kerr clicked her tongue as she leaned in towards Sorcha from the opposite side Sabina had claimed. “That’s some extreme shit right there. Sacrificing health to power your magic? You sure you aren’t a cultist or something?”

“I am not!” Sorcha growled at the therion, who only grinned cheekily at the response.

“Just making sure! That’s the kind of dedicated spell you don’t see too much, is all. Not many have the balls to burn health so they can power their spells. You’ve got some mighty big orbs on you, huh?”

“Don’t be so crude,” Eir chided Kerr. “And please, if you do feel the need to use that spell in the future, let me know immediately. I will keep your health at its maximum. While I don’t normally condone skills or spells that cause self harm, I believe your spell is an acceptable exception. Considering my own ability to heal, I would say that my magic expenditure would be negligible compared to the amount of magic you would get back from using the Oblation.”

“I suppose so, yeah,” Sorcha nodded at the priestess. “I’ll make sure to keep you in the loop.”

“What are the specifics of your other two wands?” Aila asked next, drawing Sorcha’s attention to her. “I have the first two written down. Do you have a detailed description?”

“Not exactly,” Sorcha told the redhead, her confidence now fully back in place. “Everything I know about what the spells my wands do comes from experimentation. I don’t have a system notification like with our status sheets when I make them. I don’t even know for sure what the effect will be when I craft them the first time. Just a general idea of what it should be based on the materials and the effect I’m going for.”

“We should do some testing, then,” Aila nodded as she scribbled down more notes. “Just to make sure your wands are fully catalogued and understood. After all, once you create a Lewd Lover’s Bond with Jadis, I assume you will be putting the attribute boost into Eldritch, which will vastly increase the number of wands you will be able to make. We’ll need to set up some kind of testing procedure to make sure we can quickly identify all of their effects.”

“That sounds good,” Sorcha nodded along to Aila, her expression far happier until she froze with a sudden realization. “Uh, Lewd Lover’s Bond?”

“Yes,” Aila said, looking up from her notebook. “You do intend to gain that boost, don’t you?”

“I, uh, yeah,” Sorcha gulped, a nervous edge to her voice. “I do. I just…”

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Bridget said as she got up from her seat and headed for the table where a few bottles of wine had been left. She patted Sorcha on the head as she walked by where the goblin sat. “I was intimidated by her cocks too the first time. You’ll get over it.”

“Right…” Sorcha mumbled as she looked down at herself. “I don’t know about that…”

As Jadis considered the tiny goblin woman, Jadis had to admit she shared some of Sorcha’s trepidation. Considering their differences in size, getting their biology to work together was going to be a trick.

“We’ll figure something out,” Syd shrugged as she met Sorcha’s gaze. “We’re in a sex temple, after all. If anyone is going to have an idea of what to do, it’ll probably be the priests around here.”

“This is not a sex temple,” Eir admonished Syd. “Sex is just one of the aspects of Lyssandria.”

“Eh. Close enough.”

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