Chapter 10 – Salvation[i]

Opening the potion book, Fey read aloud, “Fifteen dryad-blessed apples.” After wandering the entire herb garden, Fey concluded that there was only one apple tree. It held tiny green apples, each the size of a cherry.

“Hello?” she called out, looking for the dryad amongst the tree branches. After a few seconds, she heard a tiny voice.

“Make him go away.”

“Make him – oh. Blade, go away.”

“What?”

“You heard her.” (Actually, he hadn’t.) Giving him the book, she said, “You can go collect the next ingredient.” Fey briskly pushed Blade away from the apple tree. “Oh yeah. Amethyst, poison slime.” She dropped the slime into Blade’s hands as well.

“You have to stay continuously poisoned to develop Immunity. Amethyst, cast poison slime every five minutes.” The slime nodded (cutely).

Blade bemusedly went away to his assigned task, and Fey returned to the apple tree. “Hello?” she called up again.

A small face appeared in the leaves and branches, and a green-skinned humanoid climbed down to sit on one of the lower tree limbs. The dryad was approximately a foot tall, and wore a dress made of autumn leaves in various shades of red, orange, and yellow. “Hello, guardian.”

Guardian? Oh yeah. Fey remembered her reward from her slug-killing quest (see Chapter 6 if you don’t remember). Fey had serendipitously found a shortcut in befriending the dryad, who was very secretive and would normally hide when strangers appeared. Without her Guardian’s Blessing, Fey would have had to figure out what the dryad wanted in exchange for her apples without actually being able to talk to the dryad. However, with the blessing, all creatures in the Elvenwood naturally liked and trusted her.

“Greetings. My name is Fey.”

“I am Pom, the guardian of Malus.[ii]” I guess that’s the name of the tree.

“Pom, I am currently gathering the ingredients to brew a strength tonic, and am in need of fifteen dryad-blessed apples. In return, I would be pleased to aid you in any task you need completed.”

“It just so happens, that Malus here is looking a bit tired,” said Pom, patting her tree fondly. “If you bring me a flask of enchanted or holy water, I will happily grow some apples for you.”

Fey thought the tree looked quite healthy, as she was unable to see a single leaf that was not a deep green, or even one that had been eaten into by a bug. However, she was not about to complain at being set such a straightforward task.

“Consider it done. I will return when I have obtained the water.” Fey went looking for Kallara.

***

Blade felt sick. Even as mild a poison as slug poison had its symptoms, which in this case were nausea and general weakness (Fey hadn’t noticed as much because she was used to feeling like crap, having a weak body that she sometimes neglected to take care of properly. Also, feelings of nausea and weakness are considered fairly normal when one is covered in the remains of exploded slugs). “This Immunity better be worth it,” he muttered, shooting a baleful glance at Amethyst (who blinked cutely). “First my foot, and now this.” It appeared that Blade was not much impressed by the slime’s adorableness and saw through to her evil nature. The slime cast Poison Slime every five minutes to the second, ensuring that Blade was not given a break from the poison effect.

Amethyst had gained a small bonus in power and intelligence upon reaching level 10 and could now think for herself (a little bit) and follow (slightly) more complex orders. Because of this, she noticed when Blade, letting his discomfort dull his sense of his surroundings, walked right past the flowers he was supposed to collect. She squeaked.

Blade ignored the sound, continuing to walk forward, so Amethyst began jumping up and down on his shoulder, finally catching his attention. “What?”

Amethyst pointed her bubble in the direction they had come from. Unfortunately, the tiny red flowers – called ‘blossums’ – were already out of sight, and Blade (predictably) did not understand. Shrugging, he kept moving forward.

Amethyst felt that she was not getting her point across, so she tried something else. She smacked Blade in the eye with her bubble (without using Whip, or he’d be missing an eye).

“Ow! Ow!” Blade yelled (The second ‘ow’ wasn’t an ‘ow’), clutching his injured face. “What the [censored word] was that for?”

Amethyst pointed more forcefully at the way they had come. Glaring, Blade turned around and walked angrily in the right direction. After a few seconds, he asked, “What?” in an annoyed tone.

Amethyst now pointed at the ground, and Blade spotted the blossums. “Oh.” He cleared this throat sheepishly. “Thanks.”

Amethyst secreted another layer of poisonous slime.

Blade groaned as he was hit with another wave of nausea. Eyes narrowed, he gave another, “Thanks,” this one much less sincere. Amethyst blinked (‘innocently’).

Bending down, Blade reached towards one of the plants. As he did, Amethyst took the opportunity to jump to the ground and hop to safety (none of that ‘leave no man behind’ nonsense for our clever slime). She was therefore unharmed when the blossums reacted (aggressively) to Blade’s proximity; leaves detached themselves from stems, spinning rapidly. Wherever Blade’s skin was not covered in armour, they sliced like throwing stars[iii].

Blade yelled (something censored) and threw up his hands to protect his face. He wore the heavy plate of a strength-based warrior, but it had small gaps at every joint and hinge, something that had not bothered him until now. Mostly blinded by the need to cover his face, Blade eventually managed to kill all the blossums by stepping on them repeatedly. Finally, he was able to lower his arms, skin stinging fiercely from a hundred shallow cuts, blood staining parts of his armour.

“What is this?” he asked disgustedly. Before meeting Fey, Blade had had only ‘normal’ adventures, where monsters looked like monsters and fighting was straightforward (though he still hadn’t identified Fey as the root of all the abnormality). Grimly, he gathered the blossums’ petals, fresh pain flaring at every movement.

Amethyst returned and hopped back onto his shoulder.

“Some help you were,” he muttered.

Amethyst secreted more poison.

Blade groaned, sincerely wishing that his adventures would go back to normal.

***

“Kallara?” Fey called out, re-entering the healer’s shop from the back. “I need some enchanted water for the dryad’s tree.”

Kallara raised an eyebrow (elegantly). “How do you know that the dryad’s tree requires enchanted water?”

“The dryad told me.”

“Dryads do not speak to strangers,” said Kallara, surprised. Her confusion lifted when she noted the butterfly-shaped flower at the corner of Fey’s left eye. “Ah! You have become a guardian. All forest creatures will trust you now.”

“How does everyone know I have the Guardian’s Blessing, anyways? Some kind of magical sensing?”

Kallara raised an eyebrow (again). “You have the marking of a mana tree blossom at the corner of your left eye,” she said, tapping the equivalent spot on her own face. “Here.” Kallara pulled a small, circular mirror off a shelf and handed it to Fey.

Fey was somewhat dismayed at (finally) discovering the change in her appearance. Does it have to be so girly-looking? Don’t guys get it too? She was the kind of girl who disdained all trappings of girliness, including makeup, skirts, and irresponsibly high-heeled shoes (but not including stuffed animals; she loves those things). She felt that the marking was not in keeping with her personal style, which was more ‘ice queen’ than ‘flower girl’. However, Fey’s pragmatism won out: the Guardian’s Blessing conferred great benefits without any real drawbacks (after all, she could just be extra mean to reinforce her ‘ice queen’ persona), and she did not think for a second about having it removed (not that it could be removed).

She returned the mirror to Kallara. “So, do you know how to make enchanted water?” Fey was assuming that Kallara was more likely able to make enchanted water than holy water, which was more in the purview of priests’ skills.

“Of course,” Kallara replied (cheerfully). “It’s a very simple process, though it takes quite a bit of mana. The only ingredient is water, quite a bit of it.” Kallara nodded at the bucket Fey had used before (see Chapter 2 if you don’t remember) and Fey headed off to the stream.

At the stream, Fey realized two things: one, she did not have Amethyst with her, and two, Kallara would find things suspicious if she returned without a full bucket. Sighing, she filled up the bucket as much as she could by dipping it in the (shallow) stream, then began laboriously adding water with her hands. “I don’t suppose you could help me with this,” she said to Magic.

Obligingly, the mushroom hopped into the stream (presumably to try to help; he’s still level 9 and not very clever). Being the approximate size and density of a soccer ball, Magic floated and immediately began to be swept downstream.

Fey hastily snatched him out of the water (this sounds familiar for some reason… See Chapter 2 if you don’t remember). “Okay, scratch that. Don’t help me with this.”

(Obligingly, Magic stayed out of the water.)

It took a total of six (tedious) trips to the stream before Fey had collected enough water to enchant. “Do we really need to make this much?” Fey asked, eyeing the large pot (or small cauldron) that she had filled.

Kallara smiled. “We are only making one flask of enchanted water,” she said, indicating a cylindrical container about a hand’s length in height, much smaller in volume than even a single bucket of water. Answering Fey’s confused expression, Kallara continued, “The enchanting process invokes the existing properties of the object and concentrates it.” (This did not noticeably lessen Fey’s confusion.) Placing a hand over the pot (or cauldron), she closed her eyes and spoke emphatically.

“Water.”

The contents of the pot (cauldron) flared with pale blue light and visibly shank in volume.

“Eau.”

“Agua.”

Each time Kallara spoke, the partially enchanted water shrank a little more in volume. The process was quite similar to laying Blessing of Health on the healing salve (because the author is not very creative when it comes to spellcasting), but appeared to be much harder. After fifteen casts, Kallara stopped and sat down on her patient’s bench. The water had been reduced to half its former volume, but was nowhere near being able to fit into the flask.

“Are you okay?” Fey asked. Kallara appeared very tired, and was even paler than the normal moon elf pallor.

Kallara smiled, touched at Fey’s concern. “I am fine. Sudden mana depletion results in tiredness and dizziness. I shall recover momentarily.”

“Can I help?” Extrapolating by the amount the water had shrunk (tsk tsk, making assumptions based on a single data point, badbad), Fey could tell that Kallara would need to drain her mana reserves several more times before the water would fit into the flask. Seeing how unpleasant the process was, Fey wanted to share the burden if she could, as she was the one who needed the enchanted water in the first place.

“Each casting takes quite a bit of mana, but you are welcome to try,” said Kallara, leaning tiredly against the wall. “Focus on the essence of water, and invoke it.

Essence of water. Got it. At this point, most people would start philosophizing about the essence of water, how it is essential for life and the cause of death (etc., etc.). What Fey did was imagine an oxygen atom with two hydrogen atoms bonded at an angle of 104.5 degrees from each other (hey, whatever works).

“Water.”

Fey felt a sharp jolt of pain in her head and suddenly became dizzy.

Looking into the pot (cauldron), Fey could barely tell that the liquid had condensed at all. Lame.

“You are really very talented,” said Kallara, impressed. “It takes much skill” (or whatever Fey had) “to cast a spell without sufficient mana reserves.”

Not so lame? Wobbly, Fey sat down next to Kallara. I feel like I just spent a whole day without eating. (Arwyn would occasionally forget to eat if she was immersed in a video game or a really good book, resulting in extreme physical weakness and sometimes a headache.)

“How much mana does each casting normally require?” Fey asked.

“Two hundred points.”

Fey checked her status:

Well. It looks like I’m not going to be much help. With less than half the required mana for the spell, Fey’s Enchant had very little effect.

Kallara closed her eyes and meditated to recover her mana faster. Unable to learn the mage-only skill, Fey simply rested quietly. Whenever either of them had fully restored their mana reserves, they would get up and cast Enchant. Each time Kallara stood up, she would cast Enchant fifteen times and halve the water’s volume. Fey got up more often because she only had 60 points to recover, but made very little impact on the enchanting process. After her fifth partially successful spell, Fey’s efforts –resulting in stabbing headaches and waves of dizziness – were rewarded:

With Fey’s (negligible) help, Kallara condensed the water to the size of the flask in sixty castings. Using a series of chains, pulleys, and tubes, she tipped the pot (cauldron) sideways and poured the enchanted water directly into the flask where it sat on the counter. “Go ahead and take it,” invited Kallara with a (mischievous) smile.

Fey closed one hand around the flask and pulled. It did not budge. She pulled harder, with the same (lack of) success. Eventually, she managed to heave it off the counter with both hands. Bracing her legs to keep them from collapsing under the weight, she gritted out, “Why is it so heavy?”

“It weighs as much as the water used to make it,” said Kallara, eyes twinkling in amusement (ohoho, she’s a prankster, she is).

Six buckets of water. Why me? Anybody who has had the occasion to carry around large amounts of water knows that it is quite dense and heavy. The condensed water was at the (far) edge of Fey’s ability to lift, let alone carry anywhere.

If Fey were male and/or obsessed with proving her manliness, she would have walked out with the flask (no matter the damage done to her lower back). Being female and not having high levels of testosterone to impair her thought processes (sorry guys, but it’s true), she asked Kallara if it was okay to get the flask dirty. Permission granted, Fey then placed the diminutive container sideways on the ground and rolled it outside. (Magic tried to help. It was both cute and ineffective.)

Back at the dryad’s tree, Fey called out, “Pom! I have the enchanted water.”

Pom stepped into view. “Excellent. Pour it anywhere on the ground around here.” Seeing Fey crouched on the ground over the flask, the dryad asked curiously, “Why are you crouched on the ground?”

“It’s too heavy for me to lift,” Fey answered absentmindedly, fiddling with the flask’s opening to allow the water to flow out.

“Ah.” Pom nodded in understanding. Being a small humanoid creature, she presumably encountered many things that were too heavy to lift.

A few seconds after the enchanted water soaked into the ground, the tree reacted. Its leaves broadened and became even more vibrantly green, and its apples ripened to a deep red.

“Wonderful, wonderful.” Pom gazed at her tree in satisfaction. Walking along the branches, she began picking apples – still cherry-sized – and throwing them to Fey. “Fifteen was it?”

Ahh! Incoming! “Yes,” Fey managed to respond while trying to catch the falling fruit. In the end, she had five apples in her hands and ten (ignominiously) fallen to the ground. Yay, I caught five. (Fey was feeling smug at even that rate of success while the rest of us shake our heads in disappointment.) Picking up all the apples, she stowed them away in her pouch.

“Thank you.” Fey bowed formally to the dryad.

“Don’t thank me; thank Malus,” Pom said, patting the tree affectionately.

“Thanks to you both.” Fey headed off to find Blade.

I wonder if Blade is done getting whatever was next on the list. Using the party menu of the game system, Fey located the warrior on the map and walked to his location.

“What the…” It looked like Fey had walked into a recent war zone; the ground was pocked with craters that were the result of small explosions. “What happened?” she asked Blade, who was grimly digging in the dirt at the centre of a crater. Completely unmindful of the ambience, Magic and Amethyst had a cute, happy reunion, hopping around and squeaking.

“Self-destruct[iv],” Blade answered shortly (If you understand the Pokemon reference, you don’t need to scroll down to the footnote). Fey winced in sympathy.

He looks terrible. In addition to dings and scratches on his armour from the explosions, Blade had the scabs of healing cuts all over his exposed skin. Dirt and blood made him look rather grim (and grimy), and he looked pale and sick from poison. In (unflattering) contrast Fey had had a lucky injury- and dirt-free day. Her brand-new armour was still clean and shiny, and she had long since recovered from the effects of the (self-inflicted) thornweed poison.

Despite her best efforts, Fey’s sense of empathy (and guilt) kicked in. It was likely that if she had been the one to collect all the strength tonic ingredients by herself, she would have ended up in Blade’s current state, as messy as she had been after the previous day’s adventures (see Chapters 2-7 if you don’t remember). As such, she felt that she had accidentally transferred all of her misfortune and undignified adventures onto him.

Sighing, Fey gave into her conscience and pulled out her (super-expensive-‘hope-I-never-have-to-use-it-again’) jar of healing salve from her pouch. “Here.” She offered the jar (ungraciously) to Blade.

“What is it?”

“Healing salve.”

Hesitantly, Blade took the jar. Fey winced (and cried on the inside) when he scooped out a large glob of salve, but made no comment. Experimentally, he dabbed a little onto a cut; all of his wounds began healing and he felt much better. He then enthusiastically slathered on the rest of the salve (the waste! It hurts!). His cuts closed completely and his skin regained its normal (medium not-that-tan-but-not-that-pale) colour. As a bonus, the continuous poisoning finally paid off:

“Hey, this stuff is great!” Blade happily returned the (remains of the) salve to Fey, who accepted it, lips tight with pain (the waste! It hurts!). Don’t think about it. It’s fine. Really.

“What’s next on the list?” Fey asked (to distract herself).

“This is it; I got everything.” Blade pulled out what looked like a very small, slightly charred potato out of the ground and put it into his bag. “When I saw that you weren’t at the apple tree, I went to get the rest of the ingredients.” With the need to wait for their mana to regenerate, it had taken Fey and Kallara (mostly Kallara) about an hour and a half to make the enchanted water, giving Blade plenty of time to collect all the rest of the herbs.

“Great!” There had been five more ingredients on the list, and the time Fey saved by having Blade do the work of collecting them made her feel better about the use (waste) of the healing salve. “Let’s get brewing.” Collecting her pets, Fey led the way back to Kallara’s.

“Back so soon?” Fey had left with the enchanted water maybe half an hour before (it had taken a while to roll the flask to the dryad’s tree).

“Blade collected the rest of the ingredients while we were making the enchanted water,” Fey explained.

“What enchanted water?” Blade muttered, not expecting an answer (and he didn’t get one). Resigned to ignorance, he began pulling various plant matter (corpses) out of his backpack. Fey added her sweetgrass and dryad-blessed apples to the pile.

“Excellent!” said Kallara, smiling. “I gather that you two have formed a team?”

Blade said, “Yes,” at the same time that Fey said, “Temporarily.” They gave each other a look. Why do I suddenly feel that I’m in a lover’s quarrel? This is ridiculous. She looked away in a manner that suggested that holding eye contact was for plebeians. While Fey did not particularly dislike Blade (anymore), she had seen nothing about him to suggest that they would become best friends. Fey tended not to waste energy maintaining acquaintances and casual friends, so she expected that they would part ways as soon as this particular adventure was over. On the other hand, Blade thought (more like a normal person) that they had become friends through shared adventures; he thought that Fey was an extremely interesting individual, and wanted to continue as a team (not realizing that if he wanted ‘normal’ adventures, teaming up with Fey was the last thing he should do).

Kallara smiled (knowingly) and began processing the strength tonic ingredients. The first thing she did was take down a mortar and pestle, then start grinding sweetgrass.

“Uh, do you need that sweetgrass turned into a paste?” Fey asked (if you don’t know why she asked, go back and read Chapter 9).

“Yes. The finer, the better.”

“Amethyst can take care of that.” Putting the slime on the counter next to the mortar, she told the slime, “Whip the sweetgrass, but don’t break the bowl.” Amethyst repeatedly hit the plants at high speed, reminding Fey of some kind of automatic food processor.

“My, that is convenient,” said Kallara after watching for a few seconds. She then bustled off to handle the next ingredient.

Just as Blade was about to suggest that they return in a few hours for the finished brew, Fey asked, “Can I help?”

Kallara looked up from the blossum petals she was counting, surprised. “I… Yes, of course.” Most people treated Kallara as almost a vending machine, coming in to be healed or to buy ready-made health and mana potions. Unless she gave out a help quest, she almost never got requests for more complex potions, and even then, players would leave the ingredients with her and return to pick up the finished product. Fey was the only one so far to express any interest in Kallara’s craft, but even so, Kallara had not expected the player to want to help with such a complicated potion. Potion-making was in general a fairly boring craft; it involved a lot of chopping, peeling, grinding, boiling, and waiting, and a mistake in any of the steps would result in a less effective potion.

Kallara truly appreciated Fey’s courtesy and welcomed the help. Smiling (gratefully), she said, “Why don’t you remove the thorns from the thornweed stems?” Even though Fey had not volunteered his services, Kallara then told Blade, “You can go collect water from the stream. Resigned to his fate (as unpaid labour), Blade took the bucket and left.

Fey drew her dagger and set to the task. “So, do you only need the thornweed stems for the potion?”

“Yes,” Kallara replied absently, making piles of blossum petals. “The stems have important strengthening properties, but the thorns are quite toxic.”

Indeed they are. After Fey had de-thorned all the stems, she swept the poisonous remains into her pouch.

With three people (and a slime; Magic was pretty useless at this particular task) to share the labour, the strength tonic was prepared in just over an hour. “It will need to steep overnight,” Kallara told the two.

“I will come collect my portion when I am next in town,” Fey said. With time running three times as fast in the game, players logging on only at night actually only spent one in three game days in Fantasia.

“Your portion?” Kallara asked.

It really hurt to speak the words, but Fey forced out, “Give… Blade… half.”

Mistaking Fey’s hesitant speech for shyness, Kallara smiled at Blade. “It looks like someone has taken a liking to you.”

Blade had some idea of Fey’s personality now, and knew for certain that Fey was not in any way shy. He also thought that there was a very high probability that Fey had not taken a liking to him. He did not, however, know her well enough to understand the pauses between the words (it was her sense of fairness battling with her greediness, for you lame readers who also don’t know her well enough). Giving up on understanding (again), Blade said, “I will collect my portion when I am able, lady.”

“Excellent. Thank you for all your help today, you two. I will see you soon.”

“It is I who should be thanking you,” said Fey.

“Yes, thank you,” Blade added.

With the (excessive) polite words of gratitude said, the healer remained in her shop while Fey and Blade left for other adventures.

Footnotes:

[i] Chapter title credit goes to epithetic

[ii] “pome” is the scientific name for fruits like apples and pears and Malus is the genus containing the apple tree species.

[iii] This is clearly the Grass-type move Razor Leaf from Pokemon.

[iv] This is a Normal-type Pokemon move where the user of Self-destruct explodes, fainting and dealing heavy damage to the opponent at the same time.