Mana Mirror: Chapter Thirty Four (Patreon)

Kene had finished up with the customer, and they were now standing in the laboratory at the bottom of the stairs, sorting out the plants that we’d harvested. He’d put my Pointer Moss in one corner, and had laid leaves out to dry as he crushed up some root in his mortar and pestle. There was a fragrant, clean scent, almost citrusy in the air as he did, and he grinned when he saw me.

“What?” I asked self-consciously.

“Nothing, you just look cute,” they said. I felt my neck flush and shrugged.

“I guess. Thanks for the change of clothes.”

“Sure, it’s no big deal,” they said, reaching up onto one of the shelves and measuring out a few ounces of a red powder on a scale, then mixed it into the pestle with a splash of water. A spicy, peppery scent filled the air alongside a fresh, minty one.

“What are you making?” I asked curiously.

“Just a medicine for a condition I have,” they said, though their voice stuttered a little bit on the word condition. I glanced at their too-sharp, black dyed fingers, and they nodded to confirm my thoughts.

“I won’t press, but if you want to talk about it, you can,” I said.

Kene seemed to consider that for a moment, then sighed.

“Maybe sometime.”

They added a pinch more of the red power, then mixed it, poured it out onto the counter, and rolled it into a long, thin tube, then used a silver knife to swiftly cut it into inch sized pieces.

“It’s just got to dry out now,” they said, then glanced out the window. “I don’t think the storm’s going to let up for the rest of the day. Do you have a weather shield on your boom?”

“No,” I admitted. “I figured that if the weather got nasty, a novice probably shouldn’t be flying anyways.”

“True enough,” they said. “Do you want to prepare the moss?”

“How?” I asked curiously. Kene shot a strange look over their shoulder.

“Did you collect a magical plant without knowing how to grow it?” they asked. “Then again, you rushed after an acidbubble-toad without looking up anything about them, so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised.”

I decided to take the comment with dignity, and so I stuck my tongue out at him. He grinned at me, his sharp teeth flashing.

“It’s not too hard to care for moss, to be honest. It’s a shockingly hardy plant, generally speaking. You can even reconstitute new moss from dried moss.”

As he spoke, he took his knife and began to slice large chunks of the moss and place them in a bowl.

“They just need a decent source of nutrition, in particular, protein and vitamins. The easiest thing to do is to blend it up with buttermilk.”

They opened a small fridge underneath the counter and withdrew a bottle of buttermilk, and poured it into the bowl that contained the moss. He removed a stick blender from a drawer and ran some mana into it, blending the moss up into a greenish blue slurry.

“Once you take it home, you just need to pour the slurry over the part of your Emperor Tree that’s facing northward, and feed it a good amount of life mana, and it’ll sprout almost instantly. Without mana, it’ll probably take… Oh, two weeks or so?”

He then removed a mason jar from the shelf above his head and poured the slurry into it, lidded the jar, ran mana into the sealing enchantment on the jar, and tossed it to me. I fumblingly caught it out of the air.

They grinned at my fumble and shook their head.

“Just make sure you water and mist the moss at least twice a week.”

“Thank you,” I said, lifting the jar.

“It’s no big deal,” they said, shrugging. “Mind helping me clean up?”

I headed to the sink and started washing the tools he’d used, as Kene put a kettle on the hot plate and tossed some herbs into it, then moved to help dry the tools and put them away.

Once we were done, they poured us each a cup of tea. I took a long sip of it. It was floral and faintly spiced, like cinnamon, vanilla, and rose. It sent a small tingle through my mana-garden, sinking into my life spells.

I frowned. It wasn’t sinking into all of my life mana spells, only some of them.

“It’s a plant magic enhancer, nothing particularly potent,” Kene said. “But you used Harvest Plant Life in the forest, and the herbs to brew the tea were cheap, I grow them myself.”

“It’s also touching the Enhance Plant Life spell,” I said.

He tilted his head, his eyes sharpening on me.

“Not Enhance Plant Growth?”

“No, Enhance Plant Life.”

“Interesting… Are you planning on being an alchemist?”

“Nope,” I said. Then I paused. “Though I’m not opposed to some alchemical skills. Why, is Enhance Plant Life something that’s used in alchemy?”

“Definitely,” they said. “It’s how most of the most common potions are made. It may not be able to make something like a Verdant Pasture pill, but if you’ve ever taken a sleeping draught, anti-bacterial medicine, or a headache pill, you’ve been using materials enhanced by Enhance Plant life.”

“Really?”

“Here,” they said, beckoning me over to them. I walked over, and they bent down, pulling out a brown paper bag and taking out a root. They put it next to me, then added another root, and a plant with long, green, waxy leaves.

“Turmeric, ginger, and eucalyptus. They’re all mild pain relievers on their own. Slice about an inch off of the ginger and turmeric, and then take three leaves of the eucalyptus.”

They watched me as I did as they said, and nodded, then put the plant and roots away.

“Good. Now, cast your Analyze Life spell, and sketch your Enhance Plant Life and Harvest Plant Life spells.”

I did as they said, focusing on the plants. I could see the mana substrate of life energy, the strange flows through each of them.

“Lots of plants have different properties. You can see them in the different flows still active in the roots.”

“I can see them,” I said, nodding.

“Good! Now, which ones are the ones to help with relieving pain?”

I frowned and looked over the roots and leaves. They had loads of different flows, but they all had a few in particular.

“I can see three that they have in similar, but they’re all also rather different.”

“You’ve probably identified the anti-microbial, pain relief, and inflammation. Now, I want you to power your Harvest Plant Life and focus it on draining everything but those three flows. Be careful – the materials are still alive, but it’s only sort of alive. They’re not connected to a living plant, so your spell may be able to damage them.”

I focused on a leaf and sent mana into the harvesting spell, focusing on the three flows and trying to not touch them.

The leaf shriveled up, dissolving into dust.

I jerked my hand back, and Kene shook their head.

“That’s fine. Here, try again with a new leaf.”

They plucked another leaf from the plant and put it down.

I focused and tried again, this time sending the barest trickle of energy into the leaf. It didn’t shrivel this time, but I was still draining everything, so it slowly curled and crackled.

“A trick that I use is ignoring the flows I want to keep, and focusing on the things I want to drain,” Kene advised. “If I focus too much on the flows I want to keep, I accidentally wind up draining them.”

They handed me another leaf, and I tried to do what he said, focusing on everything but what I cared about.

The leaf drained and turned slightly brown, but this time the flows I’d ignored were still there. Mostly.

“It worked!” I said.

“Good!” they replied. “Now let’s work through the rest.”

I nodded excitedly and cast the spell on each of the other leaves. Each time, more of the flows that I wanted were left intact. As I worked on the leaves, the peacepyre floated out of its bottle and hung over my left shoulder, gently bobbing, and shedding a bit of extra light onto the leaves.

I glanced up at it, as did Kene, but it seemed content to just bob up and down over my shoulder, so we let it be.

“Now, I want you to use the Enhance Plant Life spell, focusing on the flows that you’ve left in them,” Kene said once I finished.

I channeled mana into the spell, and into a leaf. The flows began to swell with power. I felt them strain against something, and then they broke, and the spell fizzled as the leaf popped into smoke.

“Alright, did you feel the resistance before the leaf broke?” Kene asked. “That’s where you need to pull back, you’re hitting the maximum flow rate for the material. That’s part of why even the energy we drain from really old oak trees is only first or second gate in terms of mana – they may have huge reservoirs of life energy, but they can only flow out so much at a time.”

I tried again on another leaf, and cut off the spell as soon as I felt resistance. The leaf fluttered and tossed around a bit, but it stilled, and Kene nodded.

“Great!”

I cast it on the rest of the leaves, each time getting a little bit closer to the edge without pushing over it. I was left with a pile of what looked like half decayed root slices and leaves.

“Alright, now what we need to do is the simple part.”

He began to add the plants into a large mortar and pestle, and I helped him. He poured in a bit of water, added a tiny pinch of salt, and a tiny pinch of sugar, and then passed me the mortar.

“Grind it up?” I asked.

“Please,” they said.

I smashed the pieces up with the pestle, and in my Analyze Life vision, I could see something strange happening. The life flows from each of the plant parts began to connect, growing together and forming a spell array, part of which looked vaguely familiar.

“It resembles the ungated spell to help deal with pain,” I said.

“Most spells came from the natural world first,” they said. “The first flamethrower spells came from flame drakes. The first regeneration spells came from trolls. It can be hard to remember sometimes, with how advanced some spellcraft has become, and how a new spell practically takes fifty mages to design, but it’s true. Sometimes there’s nothing like going back to basics.”

As they spoke, the paste slowly began to transform physically as well, becoming thinner and thinner, until it was little more than a slightly soupy liquid. Kene handed me a strainer lined with cheesecloth and another mason jar, though this one was tiny – only about a quarter of a cup of liquid could fit into it.

I strained the liquid into the jar, and then Kene screwed the cap on and channeled a bit of mana into it to enhance the seal.

“There you go. It should be good for about a month or so, and it’s not perfect, but it’s a basic pain reliever and anti-microbial. If you take three spoonfuls of it with tea and honey, then it’ll help you get better faster. After a month, it’ll begin to really lose potency, and after about two or three months, it’ll basically be water.”

“Are you sure you want to give this to me?” I asked, holding the jar carefully.

“Totally,” they said. “If I sell something in my shop, I add more components for stability to let it last at least a year, and… No offense, but I’m just a lot better at it. There’s nothing wrong with that, but you still lost quite a bit of efficiency.”

I wrinkled my nose at them, and they laughed and pushed their hat back.

“Don’t get me wrong, it’s very good for a first attempt,” they said. “And it will work. I just can’t sell it. Besides, it’s your first potion! That’s something to celebrate.”

“I just hope Meadow isn’t going to be mad about me learning things early,” I said. “Actually, I can’t imagine Meadow would be. But Orykson might be a bit annoyed.”

An odd look flashed across Kene’s face.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Nothing, I just… I think my grandmother’s mentioned someone named Orykson before, and grumbled about him. But I’m honestly not sure. She’s told me about a lot of people and grumbled about even more in passing. Maybe I’m wrong, though. But why do you have two mentors?”

“Orykson arranged for Meadow and a guy named Ikki to teach me on plant and time magic respectively,” I said. “Meadow’s nice, and Ikki’s… Strange. He seems nice enough, but he’s very intense. Orykson’s a bit of a prick at times, but he seems to genuinely want to help me, but he’s also very busy. He’s definitely got some sort of political influence, and seems to be busy with that a lot.”

Kene frowned as they scratched at one of the tattoos on their arm.

“I see. Just… Keep in mind that not everyone who offers power really wants what’s best for you.”

“I will,” I promised. “But for right now, as long as he’s offering free power without needing me to do anything morally objectionable, I’m happy to go along with his plans.”

Kene chuckled at that and nodded.

“Fair enough. I think the storms supposed to lighten in the morning. For tonight, let’s just make some dinner, and you can have the couch upstairs?”

“Sounds good to me,” I said with a smile.

The next morning, I said my goodbyes to Kene, thanked them once again, and flew home. After all, I had a few more days to complete Wyldwatch or Spiritwatch missions.

There were three that caught my eye this time.

The first was the mission to capture a handful of loose Death Crows trapped in a manor in the middle of nowhere. The reward had been increased to just over three thousand, five hundred silver, which was… Unheard of, at least for the kind of job that a freelance, first gate mage would receive. There was definitely something strange going on there, but I had no idea what.

The second came from the library – they’d received a donation of books after someone had passed away, and there were two shades and a ghost that were haunting the books. Someone had to help lay them to rest.

The third one had the crest of a family that I didn’t recognize stamped on it. Their eldest daughter had just advanced to spellbinder, and would be journeying out to find a moonlace pixie to bond. She was an illusionist without combat skill, and so even though she was stronger than I was, she needed a guard to watch over her as she performed the ceremony in the Trollstone Forest. The reward was eighty silver and a portable communication mirror.

We had a large communication mirror in the bakery – in the past ten years, the price had begun to really drop, and a fair few people had them in their homes now – but a portable mirror was still pricey. Too pricey for this mission, in fact, which made me think that the family probably had gotten better ones and was trying to offload their junk, but that wasn’t a problem for me.