The harvest went rapidly after Vex's impromptu confession. That had, apparently, been the only thing holding the lizardkin back from putting all his efforts into the harvest — and more importantly, into trying to identify the problem with growth spells that had apparently affected Elyra.

"I was afraid I wouldn't get the chance to talk to you about it if I didn't do it then," Vex admitted, when Derivan asked. "We're going to go to Elyra after this... And we need to figure out what's going on with the crops, we need to get into the Elyran dungeon, we need to find a way to backdoor into Teque, if we can. Maybe just learn enough of their magic to break the barrier. And I doubt we're going to be doing any of that without having to deal with the nobility, and with my family in particular."

"You are not looking forward to that," Derivan noted with sympathy, and Vex just shrugged.

"I have you guys," he said. "It's... more than I had before. And I feel good about what I can do with your help."

Vex offered him a small smile, then, before turning his attention back to the magic he was casting. Derivan watched curiously — they'd long since finished their section of the field, and a full dozen baskets were sitting beside them, each filled with a variety of magical plants that had been... well, not perfectly harvested, but very close to perfect. Vex had examined them and declared them 'good enough', and Derivan knew Vex well enough to know that if he thought it was good enough, it was likely to be perfect to anyone else.

Now the lizardkin sat beside a small plant that he'd acquired permission from Emily to experiment with. A half-dozen runes floated around the plant, circling it almost lazily.

"There's nothing wrong with the mana circulation or absorption as far as I can tell..." Vex muttered. "But the growth spell is still taking more mana to take effect. I don't understand."

"Which one is the growth spell?" Derivan asked.

"This one." Vex flicked his dagger at a runic circle that was glowing a ruddy green; Derivan watched the mana flowing from into the circle, and frowned slightly. There was a fraction of mana that seemed to just... vanish, as it moved into the circle. "The other spells are stabilizing and reversing any output from the growth spell. I'm trying to avoid too many mutations in the plant."

"Mutations?" Derivan felt a little lost in this conversation, admittedly.

"Planeshifter science," Vex explained, a little distracted. "The more times you try to grow the same plant, the more likely it is to gain deformities. It's fine if you just do it once in regular crop-harvesting, but quite a lot more dangerous if you're constantly growing and, uh... un-growing a plant, for lack of a better word. Hence the stability spell."

"I see," Derivan said. Strange! He was learning new things about the world every day, with Vex. That wasn't something he could help with, though, and so he focused his attention on the disappearing mana, instead.

He'd seen pretty much that exact thing before, after all, many times over. Mana disappeared when it was being consumed by the system, and the system freely Shifted it around to obfuscate that fact...

...except that didn't seem to be happening here.

"It does not appear to be Shift-related," Derivan remarked, surprised, and Vex blinked at him.

"I was about to ask you to check that next," he said with a sigh. "The mana can't just be disappearing. Mana doesn't just... disappear. It changes, or it turns into energy, but it doesn't vanish."

"Perhaps it is something the runic circle itself is doing," Derivan suggested. Patch didn't reveal anything strange happening with the system, either.

"I... don't think it's absorbing the mana." Vex hesitated slightly, bringing both runic circles closer to him, so he could examine them; the circles for [Plant Growth] and [Genetic Stability] hovered in front of him. "They generate the same amount of waste heat, so it's not that. The circle itself doesn't seem to be any stronger. But [Plant Growth] is taking almost five times more mana than it usually does."

Derivan considered the issue for a moment. "Perhaps we could try casting it like it was a glyph?"

"Drawing it out?" Vex frowned. "They're kind of similar in how they work, but runic circles work more like circuitry, and glyphs are an imprint that the mana acts on. And runic circles are usually too complicated to draw without System assistance."

"The broad strokes, then," Derivan said; he was already doing it as he spoke, painting purple lines into the air. The runic circle for [Plant Growth] was complex, with dozens of tiny, branching lines that were completely incomprehensible to him — but he could see the general shape and direction of those branching lines...

His Magic stat was at work, he realized belatedly. Vex was watching him with undisguised interest.

"Are circles and glyphs related?" he muttered to himself. "I didn't think they were since they operate in ways that are so different — but if runic circles are just the system trying to replicate what mana can already do... Maybe the system uses the glyphs as a base, and then turns it into a circuit to replicate the effect..."

"I believe it does not need to," Derivan said. "But I suspect that it does, because it needs a base to work off of... but I am only guessing."

The glyph completed. Mana sung, dancing into the shape he'd created; it worked —

— but that mana vanished, too. Only the smallest remnant of the effect followed, a slight jolt in the plant he'd been trying to enchant; [Plant Growth Reversal] quickly pushed it back into place.

Derivan and Vex both paused, and frowned. Vex narrowed his eyes. "It's not system-related."

"I do not know what else it could be," Derivan said, but he scoured his mind, and a small memory tugged at him; a strange behavior they'd experienced before, when it came to mana. Something familiar. "But... I believe we may have seen this before?"

"I think so, too," Vex said.

"Let us ask the others," Derivan suggested. "Perhaps they will remember."

Almost entirely on impulse, Derivan held his hand out to Vex. Vex glanced at it, and, as though suddenly remembering what they'd had a conversation about not too long ago, promptly colored.

He still took Derivan's hand, though.

The plan to check with the others was, unfortunately, somewhat stalled by Sev and what he'd managed to do the one time Misa had her back turned. This was, to be fair, close to the end of the harvest — a good six hours into picking magical reagents and following a host of rules. Vex and Derivan had only gotten done so quickly by virtue of Vex's Agility score and his experience with these things.

Still, though, for Sev of all of them to trigger a reaction from the plants! He was normally the most careful of them all. He looked fully disgruntled, too, and halfway torn between amusement and annoyance.

"You need to sit still," Emily said, a bit of amusement in her voice. Vex, Derivan, and Misa had all gathered back in her home, and sat scattered around the house while Sev grumbled, sitting on what Emily had jokingly called 'the throne of shame'.

It wasn't much of a throne, really. Just a magically enchanted stool designed to slowly strip away any remaining magical effects on a person, while allowing Emily to cast repair spells so that all the tears and burns in Sev's robes could be fixed. It was a rather impressive construction, from what Derivan could see, though he would need to ask Vex for the details...

"I can't believe you have this," Misa said, amused. Emily chuckled.

"This kind of work is complicated at the best of times," she explained, not looking up from her work. Sev sat as still as he could in the light of her magic, pouting only slightly. "I always expect at least one accident when I get help. I didn't expect Sev to set off a chain reaction, but it's good to know that kind of thing can happen."

"I have many questions about the kind of operation you're running here," Sev muttered, mostly to himself.

"I have many answers!" Emily said cheerfully. "But just so you know, most of them will start with 'that's proprietary', or 'it's just a private farm'."

"What did you do, anyway?" Vex asked, apparently finally unable to hold the question back.

"I picked a leaf too early," Sev said, not looking him in the eye. "Which would have been fine, because it just administers a light shock, but I was stepping on the root of a plant that reacts to electricity, and that plant apparently summons wind blades if you shock it."

"To be fair," Emily said. "That part was kind of my fault. I probably should've kept those farther apart."

"Why would you make a plant that summons wind blades when shocked."

"I don't know." Emily shrugged. "It seemed interesting at the time? I wanted, specifically, to see how magical plants deal with mana aspect conversion, because they do it very quickly compared to spells and mana manipulation."

"Why wind blades, then?" Sev asked, exasperated.

"Magical plant development is an art, not a science," Emily said severely. "I don't control the effects that come out, I just rapidly iterate and nudge them in different directions. It's just in its wind blade phase. It'll grow out of it."

Sev paused, and then stared at her. "I can't tell if you're joking or not."

"It's part of how I manage to keep my secrets so well." Emily grinned at him. "Seriously, though, thank you all for your help. This was going to take days if I did it all myself."

"Why did you need our help, anyway?" Misa asked. "I know it'd take longer, but you'd still have gotten it done before we managed to get here, I'm pretty sure. And you wouldn't have to wait for Elyra to send people to help you."

"Proprietary."

"So she probably has to harvest all the plants in a small timeframe, for whatever reason," Vex concluded.

"I will neither confirm nor deny that."

"It doesn't matter," Sev said, as the finishing touches on the repairs to his robes were done; he stood up, brushing himself off gingerly. "We're not going to try to figure out her secrets; she already told us she wants to keep them, and we're going to Elyra right after this so it's better that we don't know."

Emily beamed. "Thank you! I knew I made the right choice."

"The right... choice?" Sev blinked at her.

"The right choice of chair."

Sev stared, then shook his head. "I'm not going to ask."

"Good choice!"

Derivan chuckled at the byplay, enjoying the lighthearted conversation, even as his mind continued to ruminate on the problem of mana, and what was happening with Growth spells in particular.

They exchanged a few more friendly words before they left — Emily insisted on leaving them with a rather large package of reagents, which Vex had seemed rather excited about, and a small batch of seeds that Vex had seemed awed and honored by. Sev and Misa clearly didn't quite get it, but could tell from Vex's reaction that it was valuable, and so were appropriately grateful anyway; Derivan just offered a small bow.

And then they were back on the road. They'd let the caravan keep going through the night, this time, Sev said; they were only twelve or so hours away from Elyra, and that would mean they would arrive in the morning, which gave them plenty of time to get settled and start looking for access into the dungeon.

Next, to Elyra; to the dungeon it held, and the bonus room that was likely there; to Vex's family, and all that dealing with them would entail. And, hopefully, to solving the food shortage.

"Hey," Misa said after a moment, breaking the low hum of their caravan with her words. "Isn't it weird that those plants damaged Sev's clothes? Usually health stops that."

"The plants weren't really a system hazard," Vex said. "They're probably just not part of the system. Non-health damage and all."

"...So what you're telling me is that Derivan can strip off people's clothes?"

"What?!" Vex spluttered. "No, wait—"

"If he doesn't have health, he can just use a fireball, and it'll destroy most armor! We can just use shame to win fights!"

"Do I get a choice in this?" Derivan asked, amused.

"It's all just hypothetical—"

"I told Derivan I liked him," Vex interrupted, desperately trying to change the subject.

There was complete silence for a moment.

Then the caravan erupted in questions, and Derivan chuckled faintly to himself, allowing most of it to pass over him, except when Vex wanted his input on something.

At least they were going to be entering Elyra on a good note.