Chapter 20

After their impromptu, late lunch, they all split up.

Gemma was staying home with the three youngest. Grace and Mike made one team. Hailey was to go with Jax, Ray with David and Marx with Blair. Jax had made the four helpers small magical satchels, and they had transferred some of the bags of choccys into them.

They divided the village up, so they each got about twenty to twenty-five homes to visit and then set off to deliver the medicinal choccys. As Jax had suspected, the word that she was in town with mages had made it around the village long before they did.

Interestingly, no one refused to take the choccys. Prols may be hard-headed and set in their ways, but they weren’t stupid. They did wonder why the people at their door asked to touch everyone in the house before handing out the choccys.

Jax had gotten the kids to touch them and asked if they could feel if they were shifters or magical. She wasn’t surprised that Grace could tell they were Shifters, but she couldn’t feel the magic. However, Mike and Hailey could determine both.

Ray and Marx were surprised to find they could also tell, who was what, and even more shocked to find they both had latent magical abilities. Jax told them that having both was probably why they had both been infected so easily.

They were even more shocked when Jax presented them both with one of her magical bands. They had one of her special gems on them and a small emerald.

Being an Earth or Nature mage was more common for Prols than any of the other disciplines.

There were a lot of happy grins when the pairs met back up in Marx’s kitchen a couple of hours later.

“So, what did you find?” Gemma asked as she doled out the cups of tea and handed out the plates of freshly baked biscuits.

Mike pronounced, before stuffing the first biscuit into his mouth, “We got lots of Prol-Shifters in this town.”

He noted the nods from the others and then happily filled his face.

Ray then added, “Yes, we found that quite a few of the people we visited were capable of shifting whether they knew it or not. They all took the choccys too. There were also more sick people than I thought.”

Marx replied, “I was also surprised by how many had the Red-spot disease. Fortunately, most of them hadn’t even realised they had been infected as they weren’t showing any visible signs of it.”

Jax nodded in agreement, “Same here. Did you find many that you thought were capable of being mages?”

Blair held up his hand and showed all five fingers, “One was maybe strong enough to be a three-gem mage. Her name was Sara Spade. She had ten kids that we may need to check when they get older.”

He was surprised when Jax and her brothers chuckled. Jax explained, “She is the oldest sister of us Pickon kids.”

Marx added, “I think Sally could also go that high. It makes sense since both of them basically run our weaving guild with their oldest daughters. They always have high orders for their materials.”

“What about Ellen and Elsa?” Jax asked.

Ray looked and David and then answered, “At least two-gems. They were both tickled that you were safe, Jax, since they practically raised you. They are Shifters, too, and both knew they could but hadn’t told their husbands.”

“They both laughed when David said that their husbands could now shift. The twins they married are Hana’s younger brothers. I bet there are some interesting discussions in those households tonight.”

“I think that a lot of people in Pimol will be shocked by just who can do what. I know Mel was when I told him,” Jax grinned.

“I also gave him a band for a single-gemmed Nature novice. His wife, Glenda, was tickled as she had been trying to get him to give up mining and spend more time with their market garden. I think he will change jobs.”

Her brothers nodded as they knew Mel had always liked gardening. He had changed jobs when their dad had died, to one on the surface, as he hated going underground. He had narrowly escaped death that day because he had been pushing a cart to the surface when the accident happened.

“So, what happens now, Jax?” Ray asked.

“We have to do the poorer areas of Alpha Point, and we will need to leave some medicine at their clinic for those who are better off. I’m not planning to do the whole town unless we find a lot of sick people.”

“They do have mages who specialise in medicine, so they should have been on top of this latest outbreak of Red-spots a lot sooner. The problem as I see it is that the mages don’t like administering to the poor, who can’t pay for their services.”

“Yeah, we’ve heard the same. We have to pay through the nose to get any of the mages to come here,” Ray complained.

“With any luck, one of the mages we have identified can get medical training and be your doctor,” Jax replied.

“Ellen and Elsa did that midwife course you did after you left. Maybe the community can help them do more training. They are very good midwives from what I’ve heard. I think the hard time Hana had spurred them to do it,” Marx replied.