“Time to see what cool stuff I got in the mail!” Kera declared with enthusiasm, as she rifled through Jason’s bag, which was currently lying on his bed. She pulled out one of the cloth bundles.

Jason and Lumi were still seated at the table, having piled all the dishes from their meal to one side.

“Uh. Hmm.” Kera scratched her head, and pulled out the other bundles. She looked back and forth at each one. They looked to be identical.

She picked up each one, in turn, and examined it. “Oh, I see,” she said. “They conform to who’s holding them. Well, I’ll take this one.”

“Either of you two want to open yours?” she asked.

Jason shrugged. “Might as well.”

“Sure,” said Lumi.

Kera picked up all three bundles, and passed them out as she sat back down at the table.

Jason took his in hand, and the screen he’d seen before popped up, requesting he choose one of his classes to assign as the bundle’s type. He settled on [Alchemist] after a moment. It was his primary class, after all. He had yet to really explore any of his [Artificer] skills except for [Analyze Item], so he wasn’t sure he’d get anything he knew how to use. Plus, alchemy seemed more directly useful to him at the moment.

So he made his choice, and the cloth bundle unwrapped itself in front of him, revealing a hand-sized, rectangular packet of paper. It had a colorful assortment of plants painted on the front.

“Uhh, what?” he said to himself, turning the packet over in his hand. Belatedly, he activated his skill.

“Analyze Item,” Jason commanded.

[Packet of Rare Seeds] - Contains 30 [Rare Seeds], perfect for starting a garden filled with unusual species!

“How is this at all useful?” he wondered aloud. “I’ll have to wait months to find out if any of them are good for alchemy.”

“Magic Fertilizer.” Kera said offhandedly. She was opening her own bundle, which revealed a small pile of books. She picked one up, turning it over in her hands.

“Huh?”

“Magic Fertilizer,” she repeated. “You know, like... magic bonemeal you sprinkle on a seed, and ‘Poof!’ you’ve got an entire tree. Something that makes plants grow instantly to adulthood or whatever. I’m sure that’s a thing. Lumi’s cantrip grew us those grass pillows, so I’m sure you could come up with something.”

“Where would I put them, though?” Jason asked her. “It’s not like I’ve been harvesting plants and then ‘poof, they’re gone’. You harvest them in such a way as they’ll grow back, or you get more seeds, or whatever. And it’s not like I can carry around big chunk of land or grow beds or whatever while we’re out adventuring. Who would water them?”

“Well I don’t know,” Kera replied, rolling her eyes. “You’re the enchanter, right? Couldn’t you, I don’t know, rig up some kind of magic greenhouse you can carry around? Your bag acts like a refrigerator right? Why not heat and light instead of preservation?”

Jason scratched his head. “I... guess? Actually, now that you mention it, that’s not a terrible idea to look into.”

He leaned back into his chair, thinking for a moment. “In fact, I ought to ask Therissa about keeping perishable stuff in the Vault. I mean, in games people are always doing weird stuff like putting all their minipets in there, or storing mounts, or entire stacks of fried fish or cakes or whatever. It’s a little strange when you actually think about it.”

“Sweet! Rare drop!” Lumi interrupted suddenly, pumping her fist. She’d been standing when she opened her bundle, and was now holding some kind of metal and leather bracer. She slipped it onto her right arm, where it covered the forearm and back of her hand. Jason could see a milky white stone set into metal, with runic script encircling it.

Lumi snapped her fingers, and a small flame appeared above one finger. She then held up her arm, and with a puff of breath, blew the flame towards the stone. The gem sucked in the small wisp of fire, and then turned orange.

She poked at her Interface for a moment or two as Jason and Kera looked on with curiosity. After a moment of customizing, she activated the bracer.

“Shields Up!”

A shimmering barrier shaped like a miniature kite shield sprang into existence in from of Lumi’s arm, projected by the gem on the bracer. Jason could feel the heat emanating from it. Fortunately, despite appearing to be made of solid flame, the shield didn’t set fire to Kera, who reared backwards away from Lumi in alarm as the shield appeared above her books.

“Whoops, sorry,” Lumi said, deactivating the bracer. “Probably should have stepped away from the wooden table first. But it seems like this version doesn’t ignite stuff, it just scalds you if you hit it.”

“This version?” Jason asked, as Kera gave Lumi a glare.

“Yeah. It’s called a [Shield of the Elementalist], and I can imbue it with any kind of elemental spell, and the shield will take on some properties of that element. Looks like I might be able to adjust size and shape too. There’s some options here that I’ll have to take a look at.”

“Why does Lumi always get all the awesome luck?” Kera grumbled. “I just got books.”

“You do realize you’re a Mage right?” Jason asked sarcastically. “Books are kind of their thing.”

“Bah. These aren’t even spellbooks. These are like.. field guides or something.”

“Here, pass me one,” Jason said. “I bet they’re more useful than you think. At least you didn’t get a bunch of random seeds.”

Kera handed him a book of the top of the pile. It was small, no larger than a standard paperback really, if fairly thick.

Jason leafed through it briefly, and then activated [Analyze Item].

“Kera, these are basically lore books about the monsters that inhabit different regions. That seems like exactly the sort of thing you’d find useful. You could look up different kinds of special abilities you might want to seek out and collect for your Monster Magic skill, or ones to make bonds with.”

“Oh. But reading, though.”

“How do you not like reading if you play RPGs?” Jason asked. “They’re always filled with weird lore entries and stuff to read.”

“That’s different,” she said, crossing her arms. “I can just ignore those parts.”

Jason rolled his eyes and handed the book back to her.

“Well, you really should read these,” he said. “Never know which one might tell you where to find a new cute monster pet. Or you could unlock new skills.”

“I suppose.”

“Speaking of skills...” Jason said. He stood up and retrieved his bag from the bed.

Placing the bag onto the table, he began to retrieve the items he’d harvested from the salamanders the previous day. He hadn’t yet taken the time to analyze them for traits; Now was as good a time as any.

First, Jason took out the three salamander tails and the six small scraps of hide he’d obtained. As expected, they both possessed the ‘Fire’ trait. After Jason had seen the ‘Water’ trait from the frogoid webbing, he’d naturally assumed other elemental related creatures would have similar traits.

The eyes he’d received from the salamanders were different though. They had the trait “Perceive”, which Jason wasn’t sure would be immediately useful.

The last drops gave him a bit of a pause, however.

[Flame Sac] Traits Discovered: Fire, ???.

Traits, plural? Jason thought.

“Something wrong?” Lumi asked from the other side of the table, where she was fiddling with her status screen and bracer. Kera meanwhile had climbed onto her bed, sitting and playing a bit with Ceri, who kept trying to crawl up into and hide in her sleeves.

“Not really,” Jason replied. “Just that these have more than one trait, and I can’t see one of them. I should have realized that could happen; my skill description sort of implied it. Guess I know what I’m spending some skill points on.”

He opened his interface, and quickly dumped another two skill point into [Analyze Ingredient], one at a time. When it hit rank 5, he was greeted with a new message:

[Analyze Ingredient], Rank 5: Able to identify up to two traits by examining the item. Resistance to adverse effects from consuming raw ingredients increased by 25%.

Perfect. That extra bit is nice as well, not that I really need it.

“Bingo,” he said out loud to Lumi. “Ranking it up to 5 unlocked some new features.”

He looked back to the flame sacs. “Analyze Item”

This time he registered a second trait, which turned out to be a second source of the trait ‘Volatile’, which he’d already had from the Mellax fern that he’d obtained a few days ago.

He’d already put points into [Brew Potion] earlier, so he put two points into [Basic Artifice], to bring it up to the same point, though he didn’t get any obvious increase in ability there, just a reduction in cost. For good measure, he put two points into [Analyze Item] and [Analyze Spell] as well.

[Analyze Item], Rank 3 - Able to determine the basic abilities and effects of common items. Small chance to identify the effects of rare items. Synergy Effect: Due to possessing Analyze Ingredient, also identifies potential alchemical traits. Synergy Effect: Due to possessing Disenchant and Engrave, you have a small chance of learning common runes when analyzing enchanted items. [Analyze Spell], Rank 3 - Able to determine the effects of common and rare low-rank spells. Synergy effect: Due to possessing Engrave, you have a low chance of successfully learning associated runes.

Well now that’s useful. Interesting too, that I got synergy effects due to skills from the same class. Then again, I suppose merchants might be likely to be able to analyze items, but not have the ability to enchant things, so it sort of makes sense.

Jason leaned back in his chair, thinking for a few minutes while Lumi and Kera opened their own interfaces. All three of them had decided to just share their status screen portions with the party in general, and seeing him spend his points prompted the others to do so as well. Lumi spent her large number of skill points liberally, bringing most of her skills up to rank three, including her as yet unused Shield Use and Shield Bash skills. She also distributed her stat points evenly between Spirit and Might, and selected a new [Spell Shape], Geyser.

Kera meanwhile spent her points on pure magic abilities, raising [Mimicry], [Monster Magic], and [Basic Spellcasting] to Rank 3, and put her stats into Endurance and Intellect.

Belatedly, Jason remembered to spend his own stat points, though he decided to keep his remaining two skill points on standby. He was holding out in case he needed to pick up some additional skill, despite what Therissa had advised. He placed all four of his points into Intellect, hoping it might influence his crafting abilities. Besides, he at least had an interesting project in mind now, thanks to Kera, plus he still wanted to experiment with his item crafting skills.

“Hey,” he asked. “would either of you object if I ran back down to the marketplace? I had a sudden idea I’d like to test out, something that you mentioned before, Lumi. I want to see if it works in conjunction with my imbuing and dilution abilities. Something in the back of my head is telling me that it should work.”

“Oh? What do you have in mind?” Lumi asked.

Kera meanwhile just gave a wave of affirmation without looking up towards him, distracted by Ceri’s antics as she played a game of fetch with the drake.

“It’s a surprise,” Jason said with a grin, “But I think you’ll love it.”

Lumi rolled her eyes at him.

“Go, go.” She said with a shooing motion. “I’ll find something occupy myself with.”

Jason nodded, and made his exit. The walk wasn’t too far, and as he arrived at the marketplace he decided he might as well stop by the Lodge and ask Therissa about storing perishables or living things in the Vault.

“Please don’t.” was the response.

“It’s not that you can’t,” Therissa explained, “it’s more that it’s very frowned on. It’s just an absolute mess when you die and we have to go and empty it out. Guild policy requires us to do that ever since...”

She paused.

“Well, the exact explanation is beyond my understanding, but the Vault is a real place you know? It’s just shifted slightly outside normal space somehow. And while it does have preservation effects, it’s not a true stasis spell.

“Anyway, this one time, someone set up a Vault and stored huge amounts of grain in it. I guess it was some scheme to get rich when there was a food shortage, but the guy died before he could sell it, and it just sat there rotting ever so slowly for nearly fifty years. Eventually, the branch that had issued it started to reek of rot, because there’s some kind of connection to the device used to register the card, and the smell started seeping out. They had to call in a whole bunch of specialists just to figure out what had happened, and when they opened it...”

“Gross,” Jason replied.

“Yeah, just a bit.”

“Ok, but what about such spaces in general?” He asked. “Could you store something alive in there? Like I dunno, a plant pot with flowers?”

“It would depend on the space, I think,” Therissa replied. “Theoretically yes, if it had all the right enchantments I guess. Air would be an issue, or light, but like I said, it’s still a real space as far as I understand. It’s just... pinched off or something so there’s only one way in. In the case of the Vaults, you can’t even get in physically without a huge amount of effort; magic has to do it. But it’s still a real place.”

“What about putting stuff like that inside one another? Like what if I tried to put a bag of holding into my haversack, or the haversack into the Vault? Is that bad?”

“No? Why would you think so? It would be pretty weird if you couldn’t.”

“No reason,” Jason said quickly. “Just seems like the sort of thing that might tear a hole in the fabric of reality. I don’t want to play around with stuff like that without knowing the risks, is all.”

Therissa eyed him suspiciously. “Please don’t go doing things like that.”

“No worries, just making sure. Thanks for the info, it’s a big help.”

With his discussion with Therissa finished, he bid her goodbye, and went back out into the market.

It took him awhile to find what he was actually looking for, and his guidance in the matter came from an unexpected source: a group of children dashing around playing with a pair of cup-and-ball toys. After bribing them with a copper piece each to tell him where they’d gotten it, he found himself outside a toymaker’s stall.

Jason introduced himself, and asked the man if he could purchase a dozen and a half of the toys, explaining that what he really wanted was some balls of hardened clay. Something you could throw, and breakable, but not too fragile. The man thought he was crazy, but he still agreed to sell Jason just the clay balls for a pair of silver pieces; the man simply severed the knot on the string with a shrug, saying he could always make new spheres for them.

And for Jason as well, if he decided he wanted more; the toyamker wasn't above making money, even if he didn't understand why Jason would want something like that. That suited Jason just fine though, assuming his experiment turned out well, and he told the man he'd come back if he needed more.

After making his purchase, on a whim Jason asked the man if he could direct him to an apothecary or local herbalist, on the offchance he could get some additional ingredients. Surprisingly, the man indicated one of the buildings surrounding the market square; apparently such careers were fairly common in larger towns, and lucrative as well. Jason hadn’t expected this to be case, given the general lack of people having heard of his class, but he supposed that maybe that just made non-magical remedies even more important.

As soon as he stepped inside, he knew his wallet was going to regret this decision. Not that he couldn’t almost literally just make more money.

The place was absolutely festooned with hanging pots, grow beds, and clotheslines thriving with living plants. Numerous shelves, filled with all manner of powdered substances, lined the walls, and the strong scent of herbs was almost like a slap in the face.

Jason stood there in the door staring for a moment at all the greenery. A blue butterfly flew past his face, and he realized there were a several of them flitting about the shop, which was well-lit via a series of glass skylights. In fact, there were quite a number of brightly colored insects zooming about, such as dragonflies and iridescent beetles. Something that looked like a miniature beehive stood on a table as well, surrounded by brightly colored flowers.

He heard a melodious voice call out to him. “Close the door please, they’ll get out.”

Brought back to reality, he noticed the similar warning sign placed by the door, mumbled an apology, and pulled the door closed behind him. He looked for the source of the voice, and it took him a moment to locate the front counter amidst all the living clutter.

Jason stared at the proprietress as he caught sight of her. Idly it occurred to him he’d been doing a lot of that lately.

He’d never seen anyone with small pointed ears, green skin, and flowers growing in her hair. His initial thought was she might be a dryad or some kind, but then he remembered they were usually associated with trees, and hated cities, so why would of a dryad submit to working a job inside a wooden building?

Is that racist, to just jump to the conclusion that someone with green skin is a dryad? He wondered. I don’t want to be fantasy racist. Or speciesist. Whatever.

The woman smirked at him staring, and gave him a knowing wink.

“Like what you see?" she asked playfully, placing a hand on her hip. "I’m guessing you’ve never seen a Mana-Touched before,”

She was short, even shorter than Kera, and quite attractive, though not supernaturally so. She didn’t have that ultra-curvy goddess-look dryads were often depicted as having, but instead was of a normal, healthy build and possessed a rounded, lovely face that bordered on cute thanks to her height. Her hair was a plain brown, but appeared to have small interwoven branches with blooming flowers as well. A few green vines trailed across her very green skin, and she had short, lightly pointed ears that peeked out of her hair.

Give her a pair of butterfly wings, and she’d look just like some kind of moderately pretty, overly-large fairy, Jason thought.

“Um, yes,” Jason said.

The woman grinned wider, and Jason realized his blunder. He stumbled over his own tongue.

“I mean, no, that is, yes, you’re...”

“Do go on.”

Jason could feel his face heating up, and clamped his mouth shut.

He took a breath and cleared his throat a little. The woman just looked at him, amused.

He tried again.

“Mana-touched?” he asked.

“That’s right. I’m one of those rare individuals who have had the dubious honor of being born in a region of extreme mana concentration. In my case, Life-aspected mana. It’s why I look like I do.”

She picked up a small plant pot, packed with earth. She nudged a bit of dirt aside with one finger, and then pulled a handful of seeds from the pocket of her dress.

“So, what can I do you for? You seem a bit young for the usual pain remedies, and you don’t seem ill, or injured. Looking for a little something to enhance your love life, maybe?”

Jason felt his face heat a bit more at her no doubt deliberate phrasing. She was giving him a rather appraising look as she planted the seeds in the pot with one hand.

“I, uh, no. No, I don’t need anything like that.”

“Too bad. What can I help you with, then?”

She looked away from him to the plant pot as she asked. She held it up to her face, and blew gently across the surface, a gently green mist puffing away from her lips. Jason could see small sprouts now peeking up out of the soil as she placed the pot back down on the counter.

“I uh, was looking to buy an assortment of different things for a project I’m working on. Thing is, I’m not sure what I’ll need. But I have a few ranks in Herbalism, and I’ve got this skill that lets me, uh identify what stuff might be useful for me. I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind maybe giving me a tour around the shop, tell me about various common uses, and let me examine some of your wares with my Analyze skill. After I have an idea of what I could use, I’ll probably buy a little bit of quite a few things.”

“I’d be willing to pay for your time, of course,” he finished.

After a few minutes of haggling over price and an admonishment not to touch things without asking, the woman, whose parents had unimaginatively named her Flora, agreed to guide Jason around her shop. She began by pointing out various common flowers and herbs and explaining their general use in her work.

While she gave him the tour, Jason also asked her about the spell she’d used to make the seeds sprout. He explained about his packet of [Rare Seeds], and Kera’s suggestions about magic fertilizer and that he enchant something to raise the plants in.

Flora seemed somewhat intrigued by the idea. She didn’t have any idea if Magic Fertilizer could be a thing, but she was able to show him some plants that when composted, made some of the best mundane fertilizer you could buy. Seeing as one of them had an appropriate alchemy trait, Jason immediately added them to his rapidly growing list of purchases.

Since Flora appeared to be a magic user as well, Jason asked her a little about using magic to enhance the growth of living things. After another bit of discussion and bargaining, Jason got the woman to agree to try and teach Lumi and Kera some Life-magic related spells in exchange for a hefty fee and some enchanted pots, should he manage to create some. While he still need to learn some appropriate runes, between Flora’s description of what such an enchantment would likely need and Jason’s own Herbalism skill, even low-tier as it was, he was confident that he should be able to come up with something.

With that in mind, he bought several smaller pots and a bag of enriched soil along with several samples of a good dozen different plants and powders. Among these was some additional Mellax, and some kind of powder made from insect shells that provided more of the Restore trait, which was always useful to have. Seeing as he had more than six dozen strawberries left to make healing potions with, and only a handful of mushrooms, Jason bought a great deal of the powder. Several pounds’ worth translated to nearly fifty units of ‘Restore’.

He’d probably get a lecture from Therissa about how much money he was throwing around, but he was confident he could make it up to her.

Alchemy Traits Discovered: Calm, Produce, Might, Hasten, Inflict, Strengthen, Apply, Phantom, Sticky, Mana, Growth. Additional Sources Registered: Volatile, Restore. Level Gained: Alchemist Level 7. Skill Point Gained. Discovery Rank Increased: You may choose a new discovery. Level Gained: Artificer 4. Skill Point Gained. Stat Point Gained

Jason partly ignored his notifications while he loaded up his purchases into his bag, which still seemed to have a frightening amount of space available. He’d select his new discovery later.

After thanking Flora for her time and leaving the shop, Jason headed back over to Fanciful Finery, where he planned to buy a few thin iron rods suitable for wands. He’d forgotten to ask about them when the and Lumi picked up various non-clothing supplies. He also wanted to ask Jerrik about something a little more unusual.

“You wouldn’t happen to have any books on runes, or runic language, or enchanting, would you, Jerrik?”

The older man rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I might do, yes. I certainly have a few proper skill books hidden away in my Vault storage back at the Lodge. That’s where Nissette and I keep our more valuable stock, you understand.”

“That... actually makes a lot of sense, really. No chance of someone breaking in and stealing something that way, yeah?”

“Exactly. I’m not sure what all I’ve got offhand, but I reckon I could take a look. Sounds to me like you’re interested in earning a skill, yes? Good move. Always cheaper that way.”

“Why is that, anyway? The cheaper thing, I mean?” Jason asked.

“Well it’s just plain common sense, there,” Jerrik replies. “The Voice rewards us for doing, see? The whole shebang revolves around it. Only seems natural that it would cost less for something you’ve earned, than to ask the Voice to just plonk the knowledge right down into your head, no questions asked.”

“I see. That does make sense.”

“Anyhow,” Jason continued. “I’m hoping for something that will help me with enchanting. Namely, I need to learn some basic runes, as Artificer hasn’t provided any.”

“What, you earned an rare enchanting class without learning runes? How’d you manage that?”

“It’s kind of a long story. Short answer is through my other class, which has some stuff that works like enchantments.”

“Ah, I see.” Jerrik nodded sagely. “That’s not unlike the wife’s [Designer] and [Artisan] classes. A lot of overlap, there. Makes for plenty of synergies. Good choice you made there, then.”

Jerrik rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

“Basic runes, eh?” he asked. “What about something even better along with it? I think I might have something to help you out there. Got some advanced skill books left behind by a mage friend of mine who moved on from adventuring years ago. Might have what you’re looking for. If not, I can put a request in to the Association. Either way, it won’t come cheap.

Tell you what, though. I’ve run out of something for my armor crafting. You and your friends bring me back a good quantity of [Radiant Iron Ore] while you’re out in the Wastes looking for that chitin, and I’ll cut you a good deal. I should be able to get what you’re looking for by the time you get back.”

You have received a new personal quest: Fullfill Jerrik’s materials request. Reward: One or more advanced-tier skill books related to enchanting. Bonus Reward: +2 Intellect, +20 Mana.

Jason blinked. A fetch quest? Really?

“The ore should be easy enough to find,” Jerrik explained. “The beetles do something that cause it to accumulate in their nests. Find those, and you shouldn’t have any issues finding enough ore."

“Uh, yeah, sure, absolutely.”

“Alright then, it’s a deal," Jerrik said. "I’ll see you in a few days then.”

Jason thanked him, paid for the rods, and returned to the Inn. Along the way, he gathered a few small cobblestones that had come loose from the street, simply electing to put them in his pockets rather than stop and load them into his bag or pouches.

When he reached the inn, he received a nasty surprise.

Jason opened the door to his room, only to see that coiled up on his bed was a giant, gleaming serpent the size of an anaconda. It was made of some kind of crystal, with the veins and organs of the creature visible as pulsing, brightly colored patterns just beneath its crystallized scales. The snake reared up and hissed at him as he opened the door, revealing long, sharp fangs.

He screamed and flung himself backwards away from the creature, panicked.

Then he heard Lumi laughing up a storm from around the corner, and noticed Ceri sleeping in a heap amidst the giant snake’s coils, completely unconcerned.

“Very funny.” He said, glaring at the snake.

“It was,” the snake managed to hiss out in a distorted imitation of Kera’s voice. All of her sibilants were drawn out in a hiss as she attempted to speak, no doubt by some magical means.

“You should have seen your face,” she said.

“I’m so gonna have nightmares tonight. Is this what you and Lumi have been up to?”

“Yep. Turns out this belt’s pretty useful. I can feel sounds from all around me. It’s...”

If a huge snake could look thoughtful, Kera did. Then she swayed back and forth in an attempt to shake her head.

“I don’t think I can describe it. We really don’t have a good frame of reference. But I was able to hear you coming all the way from the market, once I figured out how to pick out and identify individual people. It took some work; everything is so loud. It... itches, I guess? Earned me an expensive, unique skill, though, thanks to [Mimicry] and my class. I’m very tempted to go ahead drink my potion so I can learn it.”

“That’s pretty cool,” Jason said, recovering. Lumi was still shaking with laughter. He gave her a half-hearted glare too, just for good measure, as he set his pack down on the table.

“What kind of snake are you, anyway? You can’t tell me that’s a normal species. I can see your guts and everything.”

“It is just your standard giant snake, but with bits added. The belt lets me use a ‘dungeon template’ remember? They’re like monster themes, basically. Take a typical monster, an add some standardized traits and abilities to it, and bam, you’ve got a variant. This one’s ‘Crystalline’. I thought it would be appropriate if we’re going somewhere called the Crystal Wastes. Good thing I did too, since now we know that stuff out there will probably hear us coming from miles off.”

Jason began pulling out his purchases, littering them all over the table. Leska had apparently come by and cleared away all the dishes.

Lumi scooped up Kera’s books and potion and placed them on the other bed so Jason had some room.

“So, what’s all this, then?” she asked.

“Alchemy supplies,” he explained cheerfully. "Met a nice woman named Flora, who’s an apothecary. She’s agreed to try and teach you two some spells that might be useful to me, if you’re willing to and able to learn them. Also Jerrik’s offered to cut me a deal on some enchanting stuff, if we bring him a little bit extra when we go get his prism chitin or whatever it was.”

Ceri gave a squawk of protest, waking up as Kera laboriously uncoiled from her position and slithered down onto the floor and over to the table. Her overall length and girth was by far greater than that of a real anaconda; she was so large she had filled most of the bed. It seemed like it was a bit of a struggle for her to move.

Being made of something similar to crystal, she must’ve weighed an absolute ton. Jason was surprised the bed hadn’t collapsed under the weight.

Kera managed to carefully rear upwards, placing her head down on the table so she could see.

“I’ve got a whole new array of traits to try combining,” Jason said, as he began pulling every alchemy ingredient he had out of the pack, placing them into various groupings. “It’s high time I made myself something to use as a weapon, too.”

“Now that I’ve got the means of storing things,” he said, gesturing to his belts, “I’ve got all sorts of stuff I want to try out. Maybe you can help me with some ideas, too.”

Jason shared his list of discovered traits with the girls, and then pulled on the rope that would send Leska a notification that she was needed. “Might want to hide in the other room for a second if you want to stay a snake, Kera. I need to ask for a bucket, for water.”

“Aww, I want to see what she’d do.”

Lumi laughed. “Maybe best not to terrorize the owner’s daughter, Kera.”

“Bah,” she complained.

One bucket filled with water later, Jason was ready to begin.