Ar'Kendrithyst

As the harsh sun beat down through scattered clouds, a warm breeze flowed in from the west; a product of the controlled weather causing the deviation from the natural northern flow. That deviation wasn’t exactly welcome, but besides that, the day looked to be a great one for experimenting with some plants, so that was exactly what Erick was going to do, until such time as either Killzone appeared, or something else happened.

With a sudden realization, Erick knew he could have made any day a good day for working outside.

With that thought in mind, Erick stepped out of his house and into the western shadows of the house, as the sun rose in the east. As the western breeze was getting a bit strong, and he had some guidelines handed to him by Silverite for how she wanted the weather, Erick looked up at the clouds, and changed the unacceptable western wind.

A barely-visible pulse of white light, weightless and yet full of power, crashed out from his body, racing upward and outward, dissipating as it traveled, but causing more and more changes as it traversed the sky. Wispy clouds turned solid. The western winds shifted to northerlies. It would not rain today and the clouds would mostly vanish in the afternoon, but order had been restored. Erick was sure that a lot of someones out there appreciated the return to northern winds; after all, the city’s architecture was built with that sort of weather in mind.

Erick breathed deep the rushing breeze, as Ophiel took off from his shoulder to fly above the trees of the garden. With a gentle laugh and a step into the green space, Erick got out his Handy Aura and began pruning, picking, and prospecting in the soft, dark-brown dirt. Carrots, corn, tomatoes, turnips, peppers, potatoes, peas, and more, all of that came out, alongside the few Veird-born vegetables he kept in his garden, like the purple tomatoes, and the ripe pods of the tarip trees kept near the lemon trees. The tarip pods would come in use later, but soon, stone baskets beside the garden were absolutely full of raw food.

Kiri watched, and helped, but mostly she tried to use [Greater Lightwalk] with proficiency, attempting to prune and pluck right alongside Erick. She wasn’t very good with her lightform yet, but she’d get there.

Teressa helped move full vegetable crates inside the house, for Justine to place into cold storage. Poi was there, too, but he mostly talked to whoever he usually talked to, never having less than five tendrils of intent coming off of his head at any one moment.

After half an hour, Erick had finished most of the upkeep of the garden, while Kiri had done less than fifteen percent of the work. It was easy to see why she had failed to do that much; her [Greater Lightwalk] control was worse than Erick had initially seen. She took three tries to pick a lemon without turning it to pulp or letting the fruit slip out of her lightform grasp. Erick said nothing, though. She was trying.

Near the end, Kiri said, “I need to make that Handy Aura. My [Lightwalk] is simply not dexterous enough for this fine, forceful work.”

Erick said, “I have Shape Spell, Class Ability. Really glad I went with that one.” He added, “But yeah; a Handy Aura is better for this than [Lightwalk].”

“… I need to get Shape Spell, too, I guess.” Kiri quietly lamented, “There are just so many good choices.”

“You’ve got a month till Particle Mage.”

Kiri smiled, as she sighed. “Thank the gods. Only a month left.”

“Do you have some points saved up for more Ability Slots?”

“I do.” Kiri said, “I’ve made a few adjustments to my necessary list, too. After watching you make that [Plasma Bolt] yesterday, I think I’m gonna get 20% off Particle Spell costs instead of 10% off all costs, and then try for a VCVD Particle Plasma spell.”

Erick looked to his apprentice. “You sure about that? I have found the 10% All Costs to be remarkably useful, though it doesn’t work with having your [Familiar] cast the spell.”

“I’m sure.” Kiri said, “I’m going to remake all of my wanted spells as Particle spells. Plasma. Infrared. The physicality of it all is just too much to pass up.” She looked up to the sky, saying, “The ability to control the weather. All of these things are too important to not be done.” She turned to Erick, and turning serious, asked, “I would like to ask for your cooperation in gaining some of the Basic Spells you have made, when they finally make it to the Script.”

Erick smiled at Kiri’s courteous tone, and her demeanor. “Of course, Kiri.” He added, “I’m not sure how that’s going to work, since I’ve already been informed that [Condense Particle] is going to be the Basic Tier Particle Spell, but we’ll figure something out when the time comes. Maybe you will be able to learn [Call Lightning]? We won’t know until we try.”

Kiri smiled softly as she repeated, “We won’t know until we try.”

Erick turned back to the tarip trees, asking, “Now… Do you know how to make a [Fermentation Ward]?”

“… Academically? Yes. Actually? No.”

Erick rubbed his hands together, deciding, “Then we’ll both give it a shot.” With a Handy snatch, he plucked three tarip pods he had set aside from the rest. “Let’s make some chocolate.”

- - - -

The sun beat down through clouds on the eastern side of the house, as Erick stood beside a loamy field of brown dirt. He held in his hand a football-shaped fruit, covered in red and white stripes, with a fleshy interior and a thin line of walnut-sized seeds down the center. The seeds took up barely any space at all. Most people used the fruit itself to make jellies or fruity toppings. The fruit tasted pretty good. Almost like a strawberry and a cherry had a baby. It was easy to eat, too. The rind was tough enough for shipping, but if you peeled from the top, it came off like a banana peel. The seeds themselves were great for planting; almost every single one would sprout a tree, in almost all situations, including situations found in nature. From planting to fruit, it took three years, or an hour of [Grow], for the tree to produce fruit of its own. Tarip was a great fruit.

But Erick hated tarip. It tasted like strawberries and cherries, yes, but it smelled like dying. Erick hated the smell of unprocessed tarip. Most people called it an acquired taste, and it sure was. Another problem was that that sickly sweet smell rapidly attracted flies and all manner of insects, and if these plants weren’t growing in Spur, where there were hardly any bugs, or under [Bug Ward]s anywhere else, then the tree would never get to harvest size. It would be dead to bugs ten times over. More people than him had tried to get rid of the smell and bug problem by cultivating the tarip into something other than what it was. And that was another part of the problem.

The tarip tree was actually one of the most meddled-with plants known to the people of Veird.

Erick figured that fact was one of the myriad of reasons he had failed to make chocolate through the tarip tree. Too many cooks, cooking in a kitchen that had been in use for a thousand years. That was the problem with tarip. If you tried to do anything new with the stinking fruit, you usually ended up fucking some important thing up, and it turned nasty. Instead of just smelling like death, it tasted like death, too.

So the first thing he was going to do today, was return the tarip to its original form, if it even had one.

In his casual pursuit of chocolate, ever since he was turned on to the idea by Jane, all he found regarding the tarip was that it was heavily changed from the original. No one knew what the original looked like. Maybe he would have more luck making chocolate by starting from the original? Maybe not.

But maybe so!

There was a reason that Erick hadn’t gotten very far in the creation of chocolate. He had tried, here and there, and could never get past the ever-present smell. But maybe he could, today!

Erick peeled the fruit, uncovering the fleshy, red interior, and multiplying the smell three-fold. He was standing to the side, though, so most of the smell flowed away on the breeze. From this angle, the scent of sweet death was quaint, and tiny.

Then he pulled it open with tendrils of light.

His entire face felt like he had stuck his head into the swill of a decaying garbage dump, and the remains of a wood-chippered fruit filled grove, all in one. He almost retched. Kiri, standing just downwind, breathed in deep through her nose. Erick almost gagged a second time as he saw her do that.

Kiri laughed. “It smells good!”

“It does not.”

Kiri shrugged.

Erick discarded the flesh as he pulled out the line of seeds from the interior. Like a bunch of lima beans separated, held together, and covered by white, spongy flesh, the seeds were hard little things. With his face scrunched up like a crumpled napkin, he popped the first seed from its loose container, and then dissected it. Without the white flesh covering, the seed was still white and lima-bean shaped, but now Erick saw the two halves to the seed, and a nib on one side at the joining of those halves. The shape was okay, but was nowhere near what a cocoa bean needed to be.

At a mental command, the Ophiel in the sky lifted his power, conjuring clouds from the surroundings like fog rolling in. As his aura spread and stabilized, it raised to the sky, where clouds formed, and silver flashes broke through, illuminating the growing darkness above. Platinum rain fell, soaking the ground, flowing into the experimental garden, but nowhere else. Erick held his seeds apart from the growing rain, for now. When the ground was good and soaked, Ophiel cut the rain. The sky returned to comfortably cloudy.

He planted the seed in the still-glowing soil, casting [Grow] as he did, directing his spell to uncover what had been, when the tarip was first created, discarding all that had come in the centuries since its creation. To become its own ancestor. To become the original.

A sapling sprouted.

Over ten minutes the sapling became a tree, then over more time and more applications of [Grow], the three meter tall tree sprouted flowers that appeared and then fell to the ground. Fruit appeared where flowers had been. They were small green buds, at first, the fruit gradually became something rounder, then redder. There were no white lines, and no football shape. It was here, that Erick removed his directed growth, and imbued the tree with [Tree of Light], letting it become its perfect self on its own.

That appeared to be the right decision.

The air filled with the scent of tart cherry, the tree rapidly shifted itself into something more primal, with a trunk lined in spikes and fruits that began dangling from almost-vines. The fruits swelled, as the tree stabilized. Brown bark glowed orange in the cracks of itself, while deep green leaves were edged in green light.

Erick smiled. “This one smells good.”

Kiri eyed the tree. “Too many spikes… I think the ones near the bottom are dripping. Uh.” She took a step back. She asked, “[Cleanse]?”

With another look, Erick saw what she saw. He rapidly cast the appropriate spell.

A storm of thick air erupted from the plant. The tree deflated. Fruits burst. Thorns turned to nothing. Branches broke, like balsa wood with too much weight on them. Leaves turned brittle. The scent of cherry completely vanished. Kiri ‘eek’d, and then threw a [Cleanse] over her and Erick.

For a moment, Erick’s skin reddened. He coughed. Kiri coughed, too, muttering about poisons as Sunny, wrapped up around a rod of [Treat Wounds], tapped her with the rod, and then Erick. Erick had to laugh at that, so he did.

“I was not expecting poison,” Kiri said, keeping her couatl [Familiar] hovering closer to her than Sunny had been hovering before.

“Me neither.” Erick said, “Fast thinking with Sunny. You were a hair faster than I was.”

Kiri just smiled.

Erick turned his attention back to the ‘tarip’ tree. The not-tarip was thoroughly dead.

Erick frowned. “… Oh well.”

Kiri said, “One more try!”

“Eh.” Erick said, “I’m just going to try from tarip to cocoa, again. I’ll try smaller shifts in change, this time.”

His second try for cocoa, of the day, but to adjust the current tree away from strawberry flavors, wholly to cherry.

This time the tree came out much better. [Cleanse] did not deflate the tree, and the scent of decaying sweetness was less. So that was good.

Using this second tree, Erick continued his iterations, making small adjustments to approach his goal of a heavily-seeded fruit, without the smell of the original. When the tree was down to something unoffensive, he began throwing in as much feeling and memories of chocolate as he could. The taste of chocolate cake, the bitterness of baker’s chocolate, the creaminess of milk chocolate, the pick-me-up it gave on a bad day, the capstone on a good day. How it tempered into something shiny.

Erick was never one to seek out chocolate, but he never passed it up, either. That was probably the most major reason that he never went as far as he had with cocoa. He could have probably done this all before, but now, with Jane’s desire for chocolate chip cookies clear in his mind and with her actually back home, for now, Erick wanted to make her happy.

Ah. Don’t get off track. Back to [Grow]ing.

Erick gave a heavy nod toward the fat content of the bean, and the proteins, and the carbohydrates of it all, along with polyphenols that ensured good health, combating heart disease, inflammation, and other useful effects, but damn if Erick couldn’t remember much more than that. Remembering the word ‘polyphenol’ at all was an arduous task, but Erick had studied what his death would look like, back when he was on Earth, and though cancer was the highest risk factor, heart attack was second.

And so, on more than a whim, he imbued a bit of healthiness to this chocolate. A bit more complexity, a bit more depth of flavor, a bit more better.

Three hours, many trees, and many rains later, Erick plucked a red-orange football from a maybe-cocoa tree. Everything about the seedpod seemed okay. He had stripped away the problems of the original tarip tree one small nudge at a time, with much smaller structural strippings than he had done with his other plants.

This one seemed good, though. It was several iterations deep in the ‘clarification process’, as Erick liked to think of it, where everything looked good, but Erick kept going anyway, just to make sure everything actually was good. So...

This one might be a success?

The seedpod smelled fine; like a casually fruity fruit. It peeled just like the original, too; like a banana. A [Cleanse] revealed no thick air, either on the pod, or in the tree itself. Erick smiled. There was practically no flesh to this seedpod, with the seeds and their stretchy, white coverings taking up most of the interior. It almost looked like an egg sac. Each seed was still the size of a walnut, and there were a good hundred to each pod.

With a light touch, Erick pulled apart the seeds.

If he remembered correctly, eating the seeds was fine, for chocolate. While the fruit should be fruity, the seeds themselves, or rather, the beans, in this case— The beans should taste like bitter chocolate. Really bitter chocolate. Erick eyed the beans. The [Cleanse] had come up empty, so…

Erick plucked a bean and shoved it in his mouth.

Kiri’s eyes went wide, watching him chew.

He did not bite into the bean right away. First, he chewed the white coating around the bean. It took him a moment to come up with the flavors he was experiencing. Cherry, yes. Maybe some lemon? Something tart. It was a complex flavor, for sure. When he was through with the coating, and most of that complexity was gone and swallowed, he bit into the bean.

An almost forgotten flavor burst into his mouth. Coffee. Bitter, barely sweet.

Memories flooded to the forefront of Erick’s mind, as familiar and unfamiliar tastes exploded in his mouth. Of sitting on a porch and watching the sun rise, as his daughter got on the bus and he drank his dark brew before work. Of watching Jane try her first cup at 16 and then spitting it out into the sink, and then laughing about that every so often, for years and years to come. He laughed about it right now, remembering that day.

Oh! And there were more flavors, as the chewing commenced. There was a richness that was slightly fruity, too… Wait.

Okay. This was not coffee.

Or maybe?…

No. It was similar, and maybe he could use his chocolate tree to make a coffee tree, too, but—

This was chocolate. A supremely dark chocolate. But yes, chocolate.

He smiled, as he spat the seed bits into the dirt.

Kiri glanced at the brown bits in the dirt, saying, “It looked like it could have been a winner to me?”

“It was!” He said, “Still bitter as hell, though.” He added, “I made chocolate, but I could also make coffee with a few more iterations. Real coffee. This could go either way. The fermenting and drying process for both is similar, if I recall correctly.” He plucked more pods from the tree using his lightform tendrils, then began peeling them and discarding the unwanted bits a dozen fruits at a time. With some casual concentration, he dumped the unwanted bits into the compost bin, while keeping the seeds and their white coverings in a floating ball.

Kiri eyed the ball. “Don’t you want to get rid of the white parts, too?”

“Nope.” Erick floated the hovering mass of seeds and white fruit flesh over to a stone box he had already prepared. Holes, much smaller than the size of the beans, had been carved into the bottom, and the box itself stood on small stilts. Erick dumped the beans into the box, then asked Kiri, “Let’s try a [Fermentation Ward].”

Kiri frowned a little, but she banished that look off her face and stepped forward. She cast into the box. A green glint took hold of the air around the stone structure. White beanflesh turned tan, then brown, in a matter of a dozen seconds. Erick used his Handy Aura to stir the beans. When Kiri asked why he was doing that, he responded that it was to ensure a proper fermentation. When Kiri said that he shouldn’t need to do that for a proper fermentation, Erick paused.

“Why not?” Erick said, “Fermentation is a bacterial reaction, isn’t it? And I want the bacteria everywhere.”

Kiri frowned. “Not… really... It’s not a bacteria. [Fermentation Ward] is a combination of [Grow] and [Ward], but targeted to the yeast that ferments, and that stuff gets around. But don’t take my word for that. Alchemy was not my area of study. At all.” She looked down to the browning box of slime and beans. “I am not sure if I did it right.” She added, “Oh. Yeah. I did that wrong.”

The beans turned black, in bits, then seemingly all at once. Erick stepped back as a rotten smell of decay flowed into the air. Kiri reacted with a [Cleanse], and to disperse her green [Ward].

Black sludge turned to thick air. Kiri said, “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Erick looked to the house. “Justine was an alchemist. I am just now remembering this.”

Kiri said, “I’ll go get her.”

While Kiri ran off, Erick [Stoneshape]d the now-clean bean bin, plucking it from the ground. He set it next to the porch, where Justine could still stand in the dense air of the house, while still being able to cast her [Fermentation Ward] into the bin.

Erick went back to the successful tree, and cast [Tree of Light]. The tree flexed, regrowing pods, stretching tall to soak up the sun, thickening its trunk as roots curled outward, digging deeper.

With a second batch of pods plucked, cut open, and their beans dumped in the bin for Justine, Erick sat down, next to Poi, and waited. He offered to get Poi a drink. Poi accepted, but for something non alcoholic. In two minutes, the two of them each had a tall glass of lemonade in their hands.

Kiri came outside, with Justine appearing right behind her.

“Hello,” Justine said, “I understand you want a [Fermentation Ward]?”

Erick smiled at Justine. “Hello! Yes, please.” He pointed at the bin, just outside of the [Prismatic Ward], full of white, fleshy beans. “Is that close enough?”

“Yes.” With a twist of her hand, a red [Ward] sprung up around the stone bin. “It’s a common enough spell. Would you like me to teach you? We would need a microscope, though. The yeast this [Ward] is meant to [Grow] is a very specific shape, and it is best to see this for yourself before you attempt this spell.”

“Would a picture work?” Erick asked.

Justine shook her head. “It is better to use a microscope. Being able to see and directly interact with the yeast before creating the spell always produces better results.”

Erick said to Poi, “Then I need a microscope. Can Liquid procure one for me?”

“They’re something like five thousand gold.” Poi said, “I know you don’t care about that, but I’m telling you, anyway.”

Erick smirked. “You’re right. I still want it.”

Poi looked to the air, sending out a tendril of thought.

Erick stood up and went to the bin. With Justine’s spell working on the beans, their white coating was beginning to tan. He asked Justine, “What does this spell do, exactly?”

Justine stepped closer, looking down to the box, saying, “It’s a [Spell Ward], with [Grow] as the imbued spell. This particular one is imbued with 500 spell mana, which activates [Grow] every second, for 5 mana. I don’t actually have [Ward] or [Grow] high enough to make a spell with them, so I can’t show you [Fermentation Ward], but a properly made version would cost around 250 mana with Clarity, and last for a good five minutes.” She gestured to the box. “This one will not do that, since this isn’t a true [Fermentation Ward]. But it should work, anyway. It looks like it’s working. You’re going to want to stir that.”

Erick reached out and stirred the seeds around with his Handy Aura. In a short minute, the box of tanned seeds became a box of brown, muddy seeds. Trace amounts of steam flowed up from the filled bin, to vanish in the northern wind. Slowly, but surely, a fruity, bread-like smell rushed out of the box. It was actually a pretty good smell.

Justine sniffed the air, following Erick’s own sniffing. She smiled. “That’s the correct smell. If you smell anything other than that, you’re either fermenting something weird, or your spell went wrong.” She asked, “How far do you wish to take this fermentation?”

“I have no idea,” Erick said, as he stirred the beans. “This is all an experiment.”

Justine nodded. “This is just a guess, but I would suggest you go until the majority of the flesh is gone, or turned muddy.”

“Sounds good to me.” Erick asked, “Do you know a lot about fermentation?”

Justine gave a sad smile, as she looked down at the box of beans. “Had to keep the sanity somehow, when I was in the Dead City.” She looked to Erick, then looked away. “A lot of us made alcohol however we could. It was better than the drugs we would sometimes smoke. Shades could smell smoke a lot more than they could smell alcohol out in the open, and getting caught never turned out well.”

Erick said, “If this peace turns out to be true, we’re going to want to free everyone from the Shades, including those still stuck in Ar’Kendrithyst. I’m sorry you went through that, Justine.”

“I’m sorry you’re going to Shadow’s Feast,” Justine said, trying to change the topic away from her. “It won’t be easy, but you should be fine, according to everything I know.”

Justine had overheard all the talk at yesterday’s dinner, but she hadn’t said anything about it until now. That was probably a good thing. Jane would have ripped into her, even more than she already had. Though the gods had something closer to a real interaction with Melemizargo, and thus they were privy to ‘real’ information, all the mortals like Erick and Justine had to go on were the words of the gods, working behind the scenes, and the words of people in power, like Silverite, and Killzone.

Like a minor heart attack, Erick realized: Justine didn’t truly have anyone on her side, did she?

He said, “Thank you, Justine. I know you’ve been through a lot, but still you’re looking out for me. I can only hope to do the same.”

Justine stood still for a moment, as she just breathed. She sniffled, then tried to pass it off as sniffing the air, as she brought a hand up to her face to hide her eyes. From one moment to the next, she seemed to ignore or discard whatever emotions she was having, as she flapped a hand at the box. “They’re done!” She stood just a bit taller than she had before, as she cancelled the spell. “Now what?”

The beans were wet, and covered in what could almost be a red mud-like substance. Erick pulled a handful out, letting beans and not-mud fall between the fingers of his telekinetic hand, saying, “Now, they dry.” He put the beans back, then picked up the whole box with a [Stoneshape] breaking the stilts and lifting it higher. A puddle of red muck sat below the box, having oozed out from the fermentation. Erick walked the box over to to a stone table he had already set up in the sun. It was nothing more than a long slab of stone, raised from the ground, and with a lip all around. He dumped the box out, then spread the beans wide enough to form a single layer. He set the box back down next to the house, back on its stilts, then cast a [Cleanse] over the fermenting station, ridding the box and the ground of its red muck. With a turn back to the table, and another cast, a white [Drying Ward] filled the table. He did not [Cleanse] the beans. Erick said, “And that’ll take an hour.”

Justine asked, “I saw you working on tarip, but I don’t know what you’re actually making?”

“It’s an experiment in chocolate,” Erick said, turning back to her. “I might have gotten it right. But maybe I didn’t. We’ll know soon enough.”

Poi spoke up, “A runner will bring your new microscope here in an hour. Liquid has already deducted the bill from your account, as per your permissions.”

“Excellent!” Erick said, “No need to send Kiri out for this one.” He looked to his apprentice, who was currently standing next to the bean table, watching the red-muck beans become red-dust beans. They’d spend an hour under that [Drying Ward] before they would be ready. He said to Kiri, “Teressa had to run all your errands while you were gone.”

Kiri shrugged, looking up to him. “Got any errands for me, now?”

“Not really.” Erick said, “But it is time for lunch.”

Kiri nodded. “I’ll get that started.”

Erick smiled.

Killzone had yet to show up, or send word. Poi said that this was normal, and Teressa backed him up. Kiri gave a shrug at Erick’s open wondering of Killzone’s whereabout, the young woman not having nearly as much experience with the General as the other two. Killzone would show up when he showed up, as was his prerogative.

- - - -

As the sun passed over the house, the microscope arrived, and ten minutes later, Erick made a new spell.