It's been a week since Froggy left with the other witches, and I still try to learn as many enchantments as possible with the book that I was given.
The only thing that I regret is the fact that I don't have my book with enchantments with me so I can store them more organized.
But I left it in the Ender chest for safekeeping so I won't be getting it anytime soon.
Elder Flora did tell me that there's an Ender chest in the compound but it's in Brutus home.
And he still doesn't like to speak with me for some reason.
In the end, I'm stuck with writing everything on paper and later I'll put them in my book.
I looked out the window to see the sun still up in the sky.
"I've been studying for a while, I think I'll take a break for now and stretch my legs."
With that, I collected everything and put it back into my inventory.
It's such a convenient tool to have a personal pocket dimension where you can toss your items without feeling their weight.
If I manage to get back home I'll be missing this so much.
I went outside my home and walked along the wooden path, I passed some witches that I recognized so I went to talk with them.
Since this was a small place, it didn't happen a lot around here, and whenever something happened everyone would find out by the end of the day.
The hottest topic this week it's still the fact that we're getting in contact with normal people.
Some witches do want to get back to their old life and maybe their families, others instead are too scared by their treatment by those who they thought were friends.
The fact that most of them knew about the crusade that greatly reduced their numbers didn't help with the new actions taken.
That's why I always had someone to talk with, since I was from the outside world, they could throw their questions or frustrations at me.
Unfortunately for them, and me especially, I was more of a stranger to this world than them.
Sure I've seen some amazing stuff over the past year that I've been here, but it's still too little for me to understand it all
Especially how the common folks live like.
So the only option I had was to stay in silence and listen to what they had to say.
Of course, I tried to communicate with some of them, since not everyone saw me as an enemy, most of them were quite friendly once they realized that I don't look ugly at them.
As I was having a casual chat with the witches another one came along.
"Hey guys, did you hear who came back?"
"No, did someone find another Witch?"
"Unfortunately no, but David and Froggy got back and quickly went to Elders Flora's house. I wonder if something bad happened since they seemed in a hurry."
"It's the first time I hearing about this."
I also didn't hear anything about this which makes me worried.
Froggy will come and say 'hi' at least if he comes back.
But the fact that he's back so early and he's going directly to Elders house makes me worried.
So I left the small group and went in search of Froggy, hopefully, it's all speculation, and nothing bad has happened.
When I arrived at Flora's big house I saw Froggy and David already leaving the building with tired expressions.
Soon, Froggy saw me as well and waved his hand while smiling.
"Trader! I was just about to go and find you. Looks like you were faster than me. How did you know I was back?"
"Rumors already started to spread, I was just lucky enough to be one of the first to hear about your arrival. So what happened?"
"Ehh it's a little more complicated, but nothing bad has happened."
He then proceeded to tell me what had gone down ever since they arrived at the castle.
In the beginning, it was hard for all of them, to be let in even with Froggy being present.
Only after Bobby came down to see what was all of this about were they let in.
And they were met with a little hostility, then confusion, and finally with opened arms.
Since Froggy left, all the brewing process was left for the Royal Family to continue.
Luckily Froggy already made a lot of potions before he left, and since they were now busy with making the new trap that I told them about they didn't use a lot of them.
But now with four more additional masters at brewing here, they can make some more potions and bring back some emeralds into the economy.
On the first day, they were left alone to rest and presented the facilities they were working with.
They even had an audience with the king and talked about a deal to integrate the Witches into society, which they greatly appreciated.
After a good night's rest, the second day started strong with work, which the witches were unusually excited about.
That time Froggy realized how lucky he was with the raw material for potion making. Sure he was isolated, but nobels usually gave him whatever he added to make a potion, that's why he didn't go mad from lack of brewing.
But the Witch Clan was a community, only the Elders and the higher ranks could brew potions more than once every two weeks.
But here they are now with almost unlimited materials and a green light to get crazy.
The servants could bearly make them get off work to eat something.
I think if they were not forced to eat, they'd either work themselves to death or starve.
The next few days the two Prince's tried to recruit them to their party, since recently Princess Elizabeth started to have a lot of power very quickly which didn't make everyone happy.
The first prince managed to poch Brutus, with promises of more riches, the second prince tried to do the same, but lacked the necessary power to make any good promises, so instead he got angry and worked against them.
With a few more political friends who didn't like Witches already, they managed to limit their movement since they were 'dangerous' and weren't willing to give out information about the location of the Clans.
Nobody was willing to give that location even with promises of riches. Even Bobby doesn't know the location since Froggy wasn't willing to tell him.
Fortunately, most of them weren't going to look at the teeth of a gifted horse, but they couldn't entirely ignore the opposing party.
So they decided on a compromise, two witches will be under house arrest, while the other two will get back to the Clan and make a party to kill the rough witch that keep killing people in the Kingdom.
While they weren't too happy at the beginning, they could only accept the deal.
It's not like the 'prisoners' were treated badly, it was more likely that everything was said in the name, since they already chose to support one of the Royal Members to the battle of the throne, even on opposing parties they weren't treated badly.
But now, Froggy and David got back from the big city and had to figure out a way to hunt down and kill or bring to justice a rogue witch that nobody knows where he is.
Of course, the Elders won't like that they're forced to do such a thing, especially now that they have 'hostages' so they'll probably do something to accomplish that task with a warning at the end as well.
The real question is, how will they find the witch since it's not like he's easy to find?
My only worry is them sending off Froggy on this dangerous mission, since I don't trust the witches enough to save Froggy in case things go bad.
"Sounds like the Elders will be busy for a while, do you want to eat some slime jelly while you tell me how Bobby and Merry are doing?"
"That sounds like a great idea, let's go."
So we went back to the big house and asked the servant to give us some sweets while we talked about what happened for the past week.
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POV: Flora
I was back in the Elders building for the fourth time this month with my colleagues, which is not something that usually happens.
We tend to gather in small groups to talk about the Clan and its management once every two months. We're a small community and we don't strive to get out there or to build something new.
But ever since Froggy and Trader came, trouble kept arising.
Fortunately, if the problems are dealt with, we will gain a lot in exchange so we can't just keep them out of the Clan.
Plus, this is truly a unique opportunity to get out of the isolation, even if some of the Elders are not too keen on that.
"I told you those outsiders only brought trouble! We should've just kept to our traditions and killed the annoying Witch and kept the weird noble away."
Brutus was the first to share his opinion once he heard the news, which got mixed reactions from everyone.
"It's not their fault that this happened, they helped us with an opportunity to get out of this cursed swamp. And it's not like we thought our journey to freedom would be easy."
Anastasia was quick to bite back.
Those two never got along, one was among the oldest and wanted to keep tradition while the other one was the youngest and wanted to innovate.
This is something that I appreciate since before Anastasia became an Elder every meeting was monotone and boring, but at least with her, I can see something new.
"Then how do you suggest finding that damn Witch?"
"Like we did it last time. I know you limited our search parties to not look so deep anymore when it's about the rouge witch. If we ask them to fully concentrate on finding him, it's only a matter of time. Until then we can organize an attack group that can hold him down."
Murmurs started to go between the Elders about the accusations, but it wouldn't be the first time Brutus abused his power.
Luckily most of the time he did that, it was for the well-being of the Clan. So even if we didn't like it when he did that we tolerated it.
The search party is mainly used to find other newly made witches and lead them to us if they wish to.
There are no witches among them, they are mostly family from our old life, or mercenaries that we usually hire.
Since the beginning we had to trade in the underworld, we made a small reputation and people were willing to sell information about a newly spotted witch.
This is very convenient for us, even if we don't like to use too often that power.
"So we shouldn't talk about what already happened, instead we should concentrate on what our next action should be."
Brutus was not happy with this, be he was an old fox, he knew when to step down from a losing fight.
For the next few hours, we talked about who should be going, what approach we should use against the rough witch once he was found and what method of revenge should we sneak to those pesky nobles that wanted to oppose us.
While we tend to be more passive if we get the option, that doesn't mean will let others step on us and take advantage from it.
If we don't show them that we can fight back, they will only use us for their plans and throw us like rotten flesh after they're done.
After a few good hours, most details were in place, we only needed to start looking for the rough witch, but before they all left I said one more thing.
"I think we should put one more person on the attack team."
"What are you talking about Flora, we all agreed that five were enough."
"Yes, but I think Mister Froggy will be a great addition to the team."
While I don't have a problem with Froggy and Trader what I do have a problem with is how passive Froggy is. He's such an important person but also naive and lacks a backbone.
I don't appreciate it when he makes so light of my name and position like it's a given.
Recently I had to be the bringer of bad news which I don't like, I'm sure if he wanted to, he could've stopped this whole shared before it even started.
He needs to understand that his position can help him as well as hurt others if not used accordingly.
Trader is suspicious on his own, he doesn't look like any normal person, and for some reason unconsciously I accept him like it's nothing weird, it's smells like the System is involved somehow.
But I still respect his hunger for knowledge, I know he's trying to be sneaky about enchanting, but I've seen his eyes, and know what path he'll take.
If Trader wants to get something, he will work to get it, he also knows a lot more than he shows which means he's not as naive as Froggy.
I hope this mission will teach Froggy about responsibility.
The others seemed hesitant to let Froggy join the attack party, but with me and Brutus who suddenly seemed interested in that idea, we managed to convince them.
Can't wait for all of this to be over.