It wasn't a very pleasant morning on the gloomy skies of Magnolia, or at least for the gas mage as he wasn't very fond of the rain. It was nothing very heavy but it was enough to piss Ace off. It was such a sudden change of weather as just a couple days ago the sun's rays were showering over the bright town. He was doing requests care free and happily exposing his dark soft skin under the sharp sun. However, the weather wasn't going to stop him from planning for his trip back home. He needed the jewels for a reason and that was enough to plant the determination he needed. He put on his grey boots and a light windbreaker still exposing his massive afro and tiny brown hands to the drizzling rain. "Let's go" he whispered to himself. He always thought the first bit in the rain was the worst and it gradually got better the more time he spent under it. So with a straight face as usual the gas mage made his way to the city's request board. It was weird enough that most the good requests were gone so early on such a shitty day. Were the people planning for a long gloomy week or what. The one that jumped out the most at the young boy was by a requestor called Khalash who was promising more than just jewels. Now that seemed like a really good offer.

Ace scanned the request one last time before snatching it off the wooden board. "Huh? It says here he wants me to show up at his shop with the herbs, and he has them described here" Ace said to himself. "That saves me a lot of walking and listening... It's gone" he stated as he pulled the soaked thick paper off the board. He put the paper in his windbreaker's pocket and proceeded towards the east forest where he was meant to find the herbs. In a way this request was kind of bad for Ace in a sense that he had to stay out all the time looking for plants in a wet forest with who knows what kinds of animals and insects.

First one on the list was a curly fern and listed next to it was 'fairly common'. He looked around him with a puzzled face. "Come on man they all look like curly ferns" he whined to himself. It wasn't really clear to Ace what the man was looking for but from the description of the plant it made it very clear that he'll know when he spots one of them; and so he did. Shortly after gently stomping on the muddy surface of the east forest, Ace found what he was looking for. He took the request out to make sure how many Khalash wanted and it said a couple. Ace wasn't ready to take risks with this one. It wasn't that good of a day to take risks in walking all the way back for a couple 'curly ferns' so he picked as many as he could find and stuffed them in the other pocket of his light jacket.

Next on the list was a blue lichen that was to be found on old logs. Ace recalls reading on them before in a book somewhere so he definitely knows how much their bright color stands out. However, they weren't that easy to find. The young apprentice remembered passing by a log a couple minutes ago when looking for the fern. The gas mage's sense of direction was impeccable and he almost never felt lost. Sadly though, he wasn't that sure of his current position. What can you say, the rain throws the kid off. This really annoyed Ace as he really hated feeling lost and deserted. He was going around in circles trying to tie back his last marker with where he currently was but all that seemed to do was confuse the mage even more. He almost forgot what he was looking for as he zoned out trying to figure out where he was. "The tree with the crossing branches... yeah... coulda sworn i walked past that just now... but then that means that the massive boulder must be back th....." he said while looking back and tripping over a fallen branch. His hands slammed into the mud and one of his knees had marks of dirt left on it. "Great..." he said while letting out a big sigh. While trying to wipe off the dirt off his jeans he glanced up only to see a blue glow being given off from the ground near the edge of a tree. His eyes still pinned to the bright blue color, he completely forgot about his jeans and went to check it out. He realized that all the moss formed on the ground was actually on top of an old rotting log where the lichen was also growing. "I'll take that...". That makes it two off the list for gathering the herbs.

At this stage there was only one herb left to collect. He pulled out the request paper that was now stained with mud on the edges. He skimmed through the fancy writing and pinned his eyes on the last herb requested. It was meant to be a red leaved vine. Next to it was a note saying it's deep inside the forest somewhere. Ace slowly raised his eyebrows and looked up. "Is this not it?" he thought to himself. Either way he was definitely not too far away. It did however take him quite a bit of time as he found himself going in circles a couple of times, but after which he got his location sorted. After about half an hour of looking around and almost giving up Ace found the vine. He was utterly and completely exhausted, his nose was running, and his clothes weren't as clean as he'd wanted them to be, but he finally found it. He quickly chopped off a portion of the vine and walked over to the old man's shop.

There the old man Khalash gave Ace a long lecture about why he shouldn't pick this many plants out and why they are endangered. However, the young mage was interested in what the old man had to say and listened throughout the whole thing trying to grasp as much information as he can. The man asked Ace if he was willing on trying some of the potion he'd be making. The gas mage refused and asked for his reward and the extra bit. That was when he realized the extra bit was the potion. When he knew how much Khalash was planning on selling it for he agreed to try a sip of it since it was free and, come on, the man looked like he knew what he was doing. Ace sipped some of the funky tasting potion, collected his reward and left.