The inn was thick with the scent of boiled oak and ozone, a fragrance so potent it seemed to push back the violet gloom creeping under the doorframe. Corvus didn't look up from his cauldron, his hands moving with the practiced efficiency of a chemist balancing a delicate titration.
"You're all staring," Corvus said, his voice cutting through the hushed whispers of the White Orchard locals. "If you're worried about the Tearing, you should be drinking that tea, not gawking at me."
A grizzled mercenary, his gambeson stained with old blood, scoffed. "It's just bark-water, lad. Won't stop a Drowner from ripping a throat out."
"It won't make you a god," Corvus countered, finally looking up with eyes that held the cold clarity of the Imperial Bloodline, though he kept his hood low to obscure them. "But Oaken Tea increases your body's Physical Resistance. It hardens the fibers of your skin and muscle. It's not immunity, but it's the difference between a broken rib and a punctured lung. In this world, that's the margin that matters."
He turned back to the cauldron, where the liquid was now a glowing, viscous emerald. He carefully decanted a portion into a small jar.
"This," he held up the jar, "is an Oaken Salve. I've combined the tea with an alchemical Catalyst to concentrate the effect. If you apply this, it will temporarily raise your Vitality by ten and reinforce your Physical Resistance for your next fight. It's a buffer against the Dark—nothing more, nothing less."
The inn fell into a stunned silence. To the common folk of Temeria, Alchemy was the dark art of Witchers or the expensive hobby of sorcerers. To hear a child speak of it as a matter of cold, hard logic was more jarring than the monsters outside.
"Now," Corvus said, his tone shifting to one of dismissive authority, "keep quiet. I'm busy, and this reaction requires focus."
The patrons retreated to their benches, huddled together. The air of the inn had changed; the fear of the Tearing had been momentarily replaced by a frantic, whispered hope.
"Did you hear him? Ten points of vitality..." a farmer muttered, clutching his mug of tea as if it were a holy relic of Lebioda. "I never knew the tea had such miracles in it."
"It's the boy," another whispered, glancing toward the corner where Corvus worked. "He speaks like a Sage but carries himself like a Prince."
As Corvus worked, his UI chimed with a notification that ignored the chatter of the room:
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[CRAFTING PROGRESS: 100%]
[ITEM ACQUIRED: OAKEN SALVE x20]
[CAUTION: UNDETERMINED MAGICAL SIGNATURE DETECTED]
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In the darkest corner of the room, a man in a nondescript travel cloak—a Nilfgaardian scout—watched Corvus with narrowed eyes. He didn't know who the boy was. He didn't know about the lineage of Emhyr or the transmigration. All he saw was a child performing high-level alchemy without a lab and wielding Refined Chaos without a hint of backlash.
To the scout, this wasn't a prince; it was a priority asset that needed to be reported to the Vanguard.
Corvus didn't flinch. He simply tucked the jars into his Spatial Pouch, his mind already calculating the most efficient way to exit the inn before the man in the corner decided to ask questions he wasn't ready to answer.
******
The air in the White Orchard inn was thick enough to chew, saturated with the herbal tang of the salves and the growing tension in the shadows. Corvus felt the Nilfgaardian scout's gaze like a physical weight on his neck. To the scout, he was a mystery; to Corvus, the man was a variable that needed to be eliminated from the equation.
He didn't head for the door. He didn't even stand up.
Instead, Corvus reached into his Spatial Pouch. His fingers closed around the cold, pulsating wood of a Staff of Teleportation. It was an artifact that defied the conventional laws of Portal magic used by the mages of the Continent—it didn't require a long incantation or a massive draw of raw Chaos. It was a pre-calculated jump.
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[ARTIFACT DETECTED: STAFF OF TELEPORTATION]
[CHARGES: 1/1]
[DESTINATION: WHITE ORCHARD VILLAGE PERIMETER]
------
The patrons watched, breathless, as the boy gripped the staff. A ring of crystalline white light expanded from the base of the wood, smelling of ozone and high-altitude air.
"Wait!" the innkeeper Elsa started to shout, but the word died in her throat.
With a soft crack of displaced air, Corvus vanished. The stool he had been sitting on was empty. The cauldron was gone. Only the lingering scent of Oaken Tea remained.
"Where... where did he go?" a farmer stammered, staring at the empty corner. "He didn't even use the door. Is he a Sorcerer?"
"Mages use portals," a mercenary whispered, looking at the spot where the light had been. "Big, swirling holes in the air. That lad just... stopped being here."
The confusion lasted only seconds. The heavy front door of the inn slammed open, bouncing off the stone wall. The nondescript traveler from the corner—the one who had been watching Corvus—sprinted into the center of the room, his cloak flared back to reveal the black leather and silver sun-disk of a Nilfgaardian Scout.
His sword was drawn, his eyes darting frantically to the empty stool. "Where is the boy?" he barked, his Temerian accent slipping into the sharp, rolling tones of Nilfgaard.
The customers recoiled, the realization hitting them like a physical blow. The boy hadn't been being eccentric; he had been being hunted. He hadn't used the gate because a predator was waiting by it.
"He's gone, Black-one," Elsa said, her voice trembling but defiant. "Vanished into thin air while you were busy skulking in the dark."
The scout cursed, slamming his fist into a pillar. He didn't know who the child was, but a boy who could teleport without a portal and craft Oaken Salves with Refined Chaos was a target the Vanguard would kill to capture.
A few hundred yards away, just past the village palisade, Corvus stepped out of the light and into the tall grass. He was still in White Orchard, but the immediate threat of the inn was behind him. His UI updated instantly.
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[LOCATION: WHITE ORCHARD - VILLAGE PERIMETER]
[STATUS: HIDDEN]
[SANITY: 9/10]
------
"One jump, one clean break," Corvus muttered, looking back at the flickering lights of the inn. "He'll send for more scouts. I need to move."
He checked his supplies. He had the salves, but the Tearing was intensifying. He needed better reagents if he wanted to survive the boss-tier entities manifesting in the nearby woods.