"Explain," said Li. A crease lined his brows. This first harvest, he had kept an incredibly close eye on the grain to see whether it had any harmful effects. Though he doubted this, because the duchess would immediately know he would give them a visit, and it seemed she actively tried to prevent provoking him at absolutely all costs.

In that regard, Li did acknowledge the duchess. She had spent decades in absolute power, presumably also used to holding the strongest military force in the entirety of her duchy. That kind of power usually went to people's heads, made them more reckless, more prideful. But she kept an unassailable cool, never once attempting to challenge or step on Li's toes.

Li highly doubted the duchess would have given him probable cause to confront her with these seeds. It was far too obvious and heavy-handed.

Iona picked apart one golden seed from the tiny pile and held it to her eye. Her brown pupils widened as she cocked her head.

"In the sense that I hold no knowledge of this grain," said Iona. "And I have lived many years spread across both north and south, taking in the unique song of the forests in each land. This grain holds no melody that I know of, no basic tune representative of any region."

"I see." Li nodded and then asked the more pressing question. "Can you tell if it's dangerous any?

His voice was relatively casual. He sincerely doubted the duchess would ever make it dangerous, but if she had, then he would have preferred that. A good excuse to confront her.

Iona let the single kernel drop back into the pile. She shook her head. "Not at all, no. I should be more accurate, though. The wheat is not entirely alien. Here, why don't you try?"

She pinched a kernel and walked it over to the counter, dropping it in front of Li. She then produced another kernel from her palm, but this one was different, a little darker and less golden, and put it side by side with the duchess's grain.

"Hm?" Li looked at her questioningly.

Iona pointed a pale and thin finger to the two kernels and smiled. "You wished to learn how to cultivate your nature as a forest spirit, no? I have always found that an on-hands method is the most effective to teaching."

"Now where'd that overly respectful tone go?" said Li as a joke. He could see now that in the way that Iona smiled and how her voice immediately became more confident, rising from its usually meek and energy-deprived husky whisper, that she had some passion in teaching.

Which made sense, considering she was willing to set her prejudices against mortals aside to teach them the olden ways of herbalism.

Iona immediately wiped her smile away and bowed her head. "Forgive me, O guardian."

Li waved his hand. "I was just joking. Now, tell me what I'm supposed to do."

Iona nodded, her smile returning, though fainter than before. "Please, hold out both your hands."

Li complied, and Iona dropped a kernel in each hand. "Close your hands around them. Then listen as you tried before with the flowers."

Li closed his hands around the kernels, feeling them dig against his flesh, but he had a question before he did this. "Before I start, I need to know. The guardian you previously worked with must have been something similar to a god, no?"

Iona cocked her head. "Old Dagda? Yes, he was divine, as are all guardians. The burden of an entire ecosystem cannot fall upon mortal minds and shoulders, after all."

"You know the four gods, don't you?"

"Most certainly. The primal ones, yes, though to them, spirits such as ourselves are not truly beholden to, though we do give them homage by utilizing the magic they founded."

"Would you say your guardian, this Dagda, was just as much a god as them?"

"I cannot say for certain. I am far too young to have met them. But divinity wise, I should say Dagda was just the same as the four gods, merely differing in the scale of their power and domain. Where guardians such as Dagda shepherded forests, the primal ones shepherded the entire world, planting the seeds of magic and civilization."

She shook her head. "It is a shame that the primal ones did not foresee that some of the seeds of civilization they planted would grow so rotten."

"I see. At the crux, though, they're all gods just the same. Then tell me, did Dagda ever…disappear? Ascend to a different realm? Has any forest spirit?"

"No such case. Guardians wither with the centuries, but their roots are always there to replace them." Iona looked at Li with concern laced with fear. "What is the matter? Do you wish to leave this plane of existence? If so, I am ready to beg that you stay. The world needs you, and-"

Li shook his head, quelling her mounting concern and panic. "No, I have every intention to stay here. Don't worry about it. I know what I need to know now."

He was curious about the world's exact mechanisms. He wanted to know what he had to do in order to get whisked back to Valhul, and this ruled out divinity. Or at the least, forest spirit related divinity. Perhaps it was his eldritch side that allowed the world to sense him?

In any case, he had ruled out one potential variable, leaving him free to exercise the powers of his spirithood.

"Let's get back to the lesson," said Li. He didn't give Iona time to ask him questions, not wanting to needlessly worry her. "I have a feeling I know where you're going with this. You want me to try and listen to each kernel and then figure out the differences."

Iona paused for a few seconds before nodding, accepting Li's decision. "Yes, that is precisely so."

Li closed his fist around the ordinary grain and focused. His eyes shut, and he tried to focus as much of his superhuman senses into his hearing. Of course, he wasn't physically hearing, but he realized that wanting to hear was a good trigger to activate his spiritual hearing.

Once again, Li frowned as his hearing dulled, like he was trying to make out sounds underwater. He could hear the beating coming from the grain, but it was garbled, distorted, and muted with static.

Opening his eyes, he said, "Nothing. Too muted. Just like before."

"Try again. I will assist you, this time." Iona reached out her hands and wrapped them around Li's fist. Her hands felt cold, but that coldness sharpened his senses. "Though I am not your root yet, spirits such as us are still capable of some level of communing, though I worry that your greatness may be far too much for me to meaningfully affect."

Li closed his eyes and listened again, and this time, he could feel the chill resonating within him, through his spiritual hearing, numbing out the muting static. The sounds were still faint, but he could now make out a distinctive song echoing from within the kernel, from deep within that tiny little seed so full of potential to sprout life hundreds of times bigger than itself.

"I can hear it," said Li, somewhat surprised. He opened his eyes and saw Iona trembling, her breath shaky. The dark bags under her eyes became accentuated, and it almost felt like she had gotten thinner than she already was.

"Do not mind me," she said. "For spirits to commune, the channels we open flow both ways. I thought you similar to Dagda, so I did not brace myself properly for the incomprehensible volume of power residing within you. It is entirely my mistake."

"Take it easy." He saw her reaching for his other hand, and he pulled back. "If you want me to learn, then I can't be worrying whether you're going to drop dead on me."

Iona took in a breath and rolled her wispy shoulders around. "It is fine. I have adjusted. I could not bear it if my weakness held back your growth."

Li read Iona's face, making out a nod of determination, her eyes set at a level and firm stare with him.

"Alright, I trust you. Let's try it out for the mystery grain here," said Li as he began to close his hand around the golden wheat.

A shuffle of various footsteps approached the stall.

"I'm-I'm not interrupting anything am I?"

Li looked to see Sylvie nearing the stall, Jeanne and Azhar behind her.

"Not at all," said Li. He nodded to Iona, motioning with that nod to the worktable where there were various elixirs readied. "Need something for your new hunt? Though I only have some basic healing stuff for now."

Last night, when Li and Old Thane, drunken and shaky and leaning on Li's shoulder, had seen Triple Threat off, they had talked about their next big adventure. As a gold-ranked team, they out-leveled most of the treats in Riviera now, so they headed down south, near Duvin, the land of mystical vines and fields, where a nasty Gigantopede had made a nest in one of the most profitable vineyards in Soleil.

The hunt was time sensitive, but Triple Threat still a couple of days to prepare in Riviera before they had to make their way down, and during that time, Li figured they would try to get themselves ready as much as possible, taking the right elixirs and equipment as any competent player would.

"I…suppose," said Sylvie as she looked past Li, to Iona. "You two seem to know each other well. What was that whole hand holding exercise, if I might ask?"

"Trade secret," said Li. He unclenched his fists and let the grain kernels drop on the counter. When he saw Sylvie's quick eyes track them, he said, "But I'll fill you in: it's an exercise for getting to know the plants you work with."

Li saw as Sylvie visibly exhaled in relief.

"I'm assuming you haven't come here to buy some cheap [Restorations]," he said. "Gigantopedes are no joke. You'll need some higher-ranked elixirs to guarantee you take it down safely."

"That is correct," said Sylvie as she regained her usual analytical and steely composure. She started to list off elixirs. "[Truesight], [Flameward], [Antivenom], and [Stillness] are what we need."

"Good choices." Li jerked a thumb up where a wooden sign was nailed below the plaque that read Arboretum. "But none of those are in our inventory. We don't have any of the ingredients to make them either."

"Will you take special requests?" said Sylvie hopefully.

"For a commissioning fee, sure," said Li. He wanted to drive a hard bargain because, though it wasn't the end of the world if he didn't make money, that didn't mean he would give up chances either. "And the ingredients?"

"We can hunt them down in a few days at most." Sylvie looked behind her, making sure her teammates were a distance aways, out of earshot.

"We have a deal, then. To be honest, I've been getting tired of making basic stuff."

Sylvie nodded before leaning in, tip-toeing so that she could get closer to Li's height. She started to whisper, "And the scrolls and manuals? What did you make of them?"

Li figured the conversation would come to this. As agreed upon, she had dropped the items she studied off of to Li so that he could decipher them. Considering he had Allspeak as one of his racial traits, that wasn't all too difficult.

But what he found was quite interesting, to say the least.

"I read them. But telling you about what I found will take quite a while. Make sure to drop by the cottage tonight."