The Graymold is for Patrick’s wife.
Now that I think about it, in Exile you can scrap a character and build a new one, so I guess that’s what would happen if you maxed out the stats without getting enough alchemy to make the salve.

No, just sell the alchemy equipment, it does nothing. There is no alchemy skill. You just give the herbs to people in towns who can make potions. The earlier games didn’t have that. They substituted that for the alchemy skill, starting in the 4th game, and didn’t put it back into the recent versions of 1-3 (the version you’re playing).

I have no idea how many steps I take in a day.