Mana Mirror: Chapter Thirty One (Patreon)

I entered the door to his apothecary, the doorbell jingling. 

“We’re closed, is it an emergency?” Kene said. His voice was muffled, coming from the back of the shop. 

“Yes, such a dire emergency,” I said, letting my tone drip with sarcasm. “A super powerful crazy old woman ordered me to meet you, and she’s going to crush my soul if I don’t.” 

Kene stepped into the doorway and waved his hand, turning on the shop’s runelights. I stared at them for half a second. They’d changed his hair; before, it had been a dark gray color, but now it was lighter, mixing in a sandy tan with occasional strands of pure white, and streaks of green.

It looked… good. Really good.

“Don’t even joke about that,” they said, sounding shockingly serious. “I had a terrifying moment where I thought that Grandmother had returned.” 

“Grandmother?” I asked, once I got over my surprise. “No, I was talking about Meadow. And she’s not going to crush my soul, that was an exaggeration. She just suggested that I search out a plant that uses spatial mana, to add to my garden.” 

“She’s an old witch who taught me a lot about alchemy, but trouble follows her like a colony of ants to a pastry left out on the counter. She’s also an asshole and I think she may have messed up her head a little bit. Some of it’s an act, I’m sure, but she’s… Not all there.” 

I shuddered. Losing myself had to be one of my biggest fears. I’d seen my grandmother’s descent into mental disease, slowly losing her awareness of where she was, and even who she was.

Some things even a mind mage healer can only stave off for so long. 

“That’s sad,” was all I said, though. 

I felt like smacking myself. That was all I could come up with? 

“Yeah,” they said, frowning slightly. “Anyways, I’m glad to see you took me up on my invitation! But why do you need plants with spatial mana? It’s not exactly common, but I can think of a few.” 

“I, uh, may not have opened all my mana gates last time we met?” I said. “Now I have.”

“Life, death, and space?” Kene asked. 

“And time.”

“And time,” they repeated, their eyebrows climbing up their face. “That’s… Quite unusual.” 

“It’s my legacy. It provides the mirror of each of the mana types I chose. I have two gates, but it effectively made it four.” 

“That makes more sense,” Kene said. “And you’ve already got a plant for death, if you picked the blood carnations from your mission. Speaking of, I hope your magic’s gotten a bit better since then. I don’t want to have to be patching you up a second time.” 

I flushed at that. They’d said it in a teasing tone, not a mean one, but it was still embarrassing.

“I’ve mastered the spell, no more quick sketching, and I picked up a direct combat spell. And yes, I got the blood carnations.”

There was no need to tell him that Pinpoint Boneshard was so complex I’d struggle to sketch it in a timely manner.

They let out a small chuckle at my defensiveness. 

“Glad to hear it… But now you just need space and time plants for your garden?” 

“Just space, actually. I’ve got an Emperor Tree sapling.

“I’ve only vaguely heard of that one. It’s from… Daocheng, right?” Kene asked. 

“Yep,” I said, before glancing awkwardly at the door. “Well, I should… Probably be going? I need to book a room at the Heart Lizard Inn.” 

“Probably,” Kene agreed. “It’s getting late. I’ll pick you up at nine tomorrow morning?”

“Sure.”

“It’s a date,” they said, with a smirk that managed to be both teasing and charming at once. 

“Yep!” I said, my voice cracking on the word. I cursed myself internally as I rushed out. 

Primes knew that was a common enough expression. That was probably all they meant. Besides, I barely knew them. They might be attractive, but that didn’t mean that I’d necessarily be attracted to them as I got to know them. 

But what if they’d meant it as an actual date? 

I let out a slow sigh. I was being ridiculous. 

The Heart Lizard outside of the inn cracked an eye open as I approached, and I waved to it. Inside, the inn’s owner, Dorothy, was laid back in her chair, half asleep. Her eyes flickered open as I entered, though, and she gave me a smile. 

“Evenin’, Malachi, wasn’t it?” 

“It was,” I said. “I need a room for tonight.”

“’Course, ‘course!” she agreed. “Here on Watch business, then?” 

“Nothing so exciting, I’m just here to help Kene look through the forest for some magical plants.”

“Glad to hear it,” she said. “He’s a nice enough fellow, but he rarely speaks to anyone unless it’s about medical things.” 

“Mmm,” was all I could say in response. They’d been chatty enough to me, but I wasn’t sure why. “Well, I’m glad to help. How much do I owe you for the room?”

“Eighty silver,” she said, and I wrote out a quick check for her. It was only when I got to my room and put the broom aside that I realized something. 

I’d forgotten to pack anything. 

That wasn’t too bad when it came to things like soap, since the hotel had complementary, but… 

I’d forgotten to pack any thrice-cursed clothes.

“Primes,” I swore out loud. “Well, at least my suit has a self-cleaning function woven into it.” 

When Kene showed up the next morning, he glanced over my clothes. 

“Same suit?” he asked. 

“I didn’t pack anything else with the same defensive magic as what’s woven into this,” I said. “Besides, it’s got a self-repair and self-cleaning enchantment, so it’s cleaner than if I’d actually ran it through a wash.” 

“You wore your defensive magic flying here?” he asked.

“And I may have forgotten to pack anything else…” I admitted reluctantly. 

He shook his head and ran a hand through his hair, shifting the old-fashioned witch’s hat on his head to do so. 

“And the truth is revealed at last,” they said. “Well, for our trip into the forest, wearing defensive enchantments makes sense, at the very least, so I’ll refrain from teasing you too much.”

“Thanks,” I said. 

“Too much,” they clarified. “I’m still going to tease you.” 

“You know, I could hit you with a Fungal Lock spell.” 

“Of course,” he said. “But you won’t. You’re still first gate, you need to save the mana for the forest.” 

I funneled my mana around me and grinned at him. 

“Not gonna get too much use out of temporal mana out in the forest. As long as I keep it to what my temporal can maintain…” 

“Oh no, please forgive me, my fearsome bodymage battleguard.”

They paused a second. 

“Wait. No.”

“I mean, my mentor is gonna teach me spells to transition,” I said. “So you could call me a bodymage. Not sure about battleguard though. What, does that mean that I guard battles? Can’t let battles get out of control, that’d be ridiculous. It’s not like they’re battles and inherently chaotic.” 

“No, you battle guards,” Kene said, keeping a straight face. “Whenever you see a member of the Watches, or a rental watchman, you just can’t help yourself from battling them. It’s a real problem. This is an intervention.” 

I snorted, and Kene’s mask of seriousness dissolved as they started laughing. His hat fell off, which only made him laugh harder, and I started laughing too. 

“To the forest, then?” Kene asked once we finally wound down. “We should probably head on. It looks like it might rain later on.”

“Sure thing,” I said, and we began walking towards the farms that bordered on the forest. “By the way, you mentioned you had a few ideas for a plant that produced some spatial mana yesterday, but we didn’t really talk about it much. Mind expounding?” 

“Oh, sure,” Kene said. “The easiest one is Pointer Moss. It always points directly north, which leads to some really funky placement. It doesn’t glow or anything, but it’s got both knowledge and spatial magic. You don’t get much use out of the knowledge parts of it, but if you ever get into doing a bit of alchemy, it could be useful.” 

“Can it be fed mana to grow?” I asked. 

“Everything can to an extent,” Kene said. “Even normal trees eventually produce enough life energy to equal first gate. But Pointer Moss doesn’t grow past second gate. Honestly, not many plants naturally make use of space mana, or the ones that do tend to be third gate or higher, and those don’t usually last too long around people, they’re snatched up for spell amplification or such. It also looks like normal moss, so just keep an eye out?” 

“That… Is very fair,” I said. “Do you have any other recommendations, though?” 

“Transivy,” he said. 

“Trans ivy? Good for it,” I said. 

They grinned, but shook their head.

“Not that kind of trans. Translocation. It’s a kind of ivy that, at lower gates, teleports itself slightly to stay in the sun. Only a few inches. But it can grow up to third gate, and it’ll teleport around an area to avoid predators and get more light. It’s also got a bit of knowledge and solar, but that sort of mixing’s common in natural plants. They really only tend to have such a strong polarization to one or two types of mana if they’re bred to be that way, like Blood Carnations, or if there’s elemental intervention, like with the Emperor’s Tree.”

“Elemental intervention?” I asked.

“Yep,” Kene said. “Even then, there are still tiny traces of solar, death, and other things mixed in.” 

“That wasn’t the part I wanted clarity on,” I grumbled. 

“I know,” Kene said, grinning. “But truthfully, I don’t know what the story behind that specific type of tree is. Sometimes it’s as simple as being the result of two elementals working together to make something new, sometimes it’s more complex, like the aftershocks of the death of a powerful elemental altering the world around it, magical resonance, or a bunch of other things. Anyways, shoosh, you’re going to make me ramble about plants all day. Let me ramble about plants in the way you asked. There’s only one more plant I know of that makes any significant use of spatial mana, at least in this area. In the desert, there’s some cacti that do, and in the…”

“Kene, focus,” I reminded them. 

“Right. Anyways, this one’s called Null-Ranunculus, it has bright blue and white flowers. It gathers spatial and abnegation magic, and emits a pollen that shuts down teleportation. It’s actually pretty interesting: it has a symbiotic relationship with predators that try to hunt blink-animals. A fox hunting a blink-rabbit, for example, may try to drive the rabbit into a field of these.” 

“I’ll keep an eye out for them, thanks! Anything you’re looking for?” I asked. 

“Everything with a decent amount of mana, honestly,” he said.

We stepped into the forest then, and I felt an instant change in the air around me. It was darker, with the thick branches above us providing intermittent shade, and a touch of older power and majesty, an untamed wilderness that Trollstone forest lacked. 

“I’m going to cast my Analyze Life spell now,” Kene said. “You should too.” 

I nodded and cast Harvest Plant Energy, targeting one of the thicker, older looking trees, then cast Analyze Life. Next to me, I felt Kene’s mana stirring as he did the same. 

We wandered through the woods for a few hours. Kene would stop every once in a while to grab a plant and take either a cutting of it, pick its flowers, leaves, or something else before finally tucking it away in a storage ring. They’d ramble a bit about the plant whenever they did, and it was fascinating to listen to them talk. It got increasingly dark as we headed in, and Kene wound up pulling out a glow crystal that hovered over their left shoulder to help provide a more clear path.

It was only once we’d gone at least two or three miles in that we heard the stomping of something heavy coming towards us. 

“What was that?” I whispered. It had to be bigger than the choruks and squirrels that we’d run into thusfar. Maybe a bear?

“Dunno,” Kene said, scanning the area. I did the same, and we turned to slowly start to back away when I noticed a huge mass of life energy charging towards us, alongside a sudden pounding of feet. 

A huge form burst through the thicket, and it let out a bellowing roar. 

“Troll!” I shouted.

“Primes!” Kene swore. “Do we fight or flee?” 

I rushed through my brain. Trolls had powerful regenerative abilities, but they turned to stone in the sunlight. They were intelligent, but not enough to speak, and while they were stronger than a gorilla, their true strength lay in their regeneration. If I fought, I’d need to focus on luring it into sunlight, or maybe opening some up in the branches above us. 

It would be dangerous, certainly. Trolls weren’t mages, but they were hard to put down, and were strong. I did at least have my mana restoration elixir… 

On the other hand, I needed some combat experience against something that wasn’t a toad, and trolls were known to collect treasures like mana rich stones, magical plants, and most things shiny. 

I grimaced.