Inheritor Of Magic: The Magi King

Dali straightened his back and took on a serious look.

"If you really think that we can finally break the curses on the Frozen Wastes, then I am all for it. But why would you care so much that you would bother to do it?" He asked.

"Because when we got Rank Two witches, I learned a very valuable lesson about the Wastes. The mutations can be stabilized, and those suffering from them can be cured with the right application of Witch Magic.

The people have been suffering, but with the power we hold here in the Fae Forest, there is no need for it. We can spread our abilities through the Wastes and stop so many of the people from dying young.

That alone is valuable enough to want to break the curses so that the locals will trust my Witches when they come to visit.

We've got a lovely young witch here named Katerina. She was a scout from a local village, assigned to watch our door and pass messages since she had just enough witch blood to understand them while still being able to speak to the others.

Adorable, with the fluffiest black ears. But that's beside the point. Once we cured her of the curses and I cleansed her mana system, she became a powerful young witch and one day hopes to return to her home village to replace her mother as their resident healer."

The Demon nodded in understanding.

"So, what you're saying is that we could be better, and all it would take is getting rid of the lingering curses from the war. Do you really think that all will be forgiven and forgotten?" Dali replied.

Wolfe shook his head. "No, but I think that everyone has suffered enough for the sins of the past and only deserves to pay for this generation's stupidity."

Both Kitsune burst into laughter at that. 

"Well, I can't argue with that logic. There are definitely some stupid people to deal with in this generation without holding onto grudges from the past." Kira laughed.

Then she turned to Wolfe. "So, should we set them up the same way that we did for all the other villages in the area? Weapons, ammunition, light and garden charms, then some miscellaneous food supplies and clothing?  It will be a bit of a flight to get them regular drops, but I'm sure that we can work it out."

Priya nodded. "With the new plane, it's roughly three hours each way. So, we can make a drop and return in a day, but the cargo capacity is limited. We could drop off regular weapons requests and some supplies, but a full menu of food supplies might be too much unless we're just talking about some packaged rations for the scouts."

Dali looked at her curiously. "Why would we want rations? There are no nutrients in the mundane food."

Priya nodded. "That's why we make our own, with locally grown ingredients saturated with mana. Even the basic greens are nearly magical herbs at this point, and when we seal them in the pouches, they last a long time. Months at the very least."

Dali's eyes lit up in joy. "Real meals on the road that last for months, not just jerky and trail mix? That would be amazing. Yes, we will want some of those shipped to us, and we will find some way to pay for them once we're back home."

Wolfe chuckled at that. "I'm sure we can work something out, and we've become a large trading post within the forest, so there are a fair number of people to buy anything that you are making."

The two men shook hands, but the beastkin had a few important questions left.

"What are the light spells and garden charms that Kira mentioned all about? How are those supposed to be used?"

Kira smiled and petted his ears. "They're not for combat. They're for the villages. You deploy them underground, and you can light up an entire field, then magically enhance the growth of the plants.

With them, every village can grow enough of their own food that trading with the Forest is just a luxury to increase the variety of their diet and not a matter of survival."

The man's eyes lit up in joy. "And you say that it can be done for every village, correct?"

Wolfe nodded. "Nearly every village. You need one magic user to recharge them every few days or a week. But as long as you have that, then every village can use them. We also use magical crystals as payment for goods, so if you don't have one, you can use them to recharge the charms. 

You just have to touch them together to recharge the spell, so be careful about transporting them in the same container. It's the most common way that the villagers here keep their charms up."

Dali thought about everything that he had learned that day and came up with a plan to pay for all the things that his people needed.

"Your supplies of weapons need raw materials, correct? How about we trade you some of the ones that we have stockpiled in exchange for your continued supply of ammunition and goods? We've got all sorts of military equipment hidden in the tunnels and hills. It's a shame to waste it, and some of it is just plain hard to destroy, so we kill the drivers then hide it."

Ella smiled at the thought. "We could use a lot of vehicles in the west. We might have blown up most of the ones that came here. The Witches here in the village are working on a way to make everything run on magic, and some more magic-powered transport trucks would probably sell quite well to the villages with a Witch."

Dali and his second-in-command both smirked at that. "Well, in that case, we've got plenty of what you need. In fact, we've hidden hundreds of them over the recent years."

With one of Wolfe's mana-gathering arrays, they would even recharge themselves, but that seemed like a bit overkill to be giving out at random, given the chance that they could be stolen by mundane forces who would gain an infinite range transport.

Simple was always best.