Nathan

The seed vault was dark. So dark that even his Fae vision could not see within, and he needed just the bare minimum of light to see. Magic ran through the walls, humming with a frequency that he could feel within his bones. There was no need to even sense it, there was enough magic here to blind his mana senses.

Nathan was sure that if he did try to sense anything here, he would only sense mana. Like looking at the ocean, you could tell there was water, but not where the sea bed was deeper.

Now that left him with a problem. Mana sensing was out, and so was looking for the seeds. How the heck was he supposed to find anything here?

Nathan looked around with his hands, trying to feel for something. The first thing he touched was a glass plane. Just a few centimeters from his fingers, it was how to touch. Not boiling hot, but a mild warmth. More jostling had him realizing that glass was on the other side too. The only place there wasn't any glass was ahead of him.

A corridor then.

Walking forward, he found the same to continue. The air was cool against his skin as he walked, the air fogging up as he walked. Wait, fog? Nathan observed the fog emerging in front of his face, noticing how the fog was visible. Had the light level increased? Nathan continued onwards, observing his surroundings. The light level was indeed increasing. Why, though?

Nathan looked around, searching for a source of light. Not the glass planes. Not somewhere in the air. So where?

Hmm. Nathan looked up. The ceiling was dark. The ground was clear too. Sighing, he walked forward. The light increased to the level that it began reflecting against the glass planes. A series of curvy lines that extended onwards. Nathan looked around, searching for whether they were on the floor. As extended they were. And on the ceiling. The two miniscule lines of curvy lines continued, growing larger, little by little.

As he moved forwards, the corridor began to grow wider as the lines did, increasing in brightness until he could actually see what was in front of him. Not much, but enough. What seemed like hours of walking later, he stepped into an atrium.

How did he know it was a room? The corridor had long ago become large enough that the glass panes weren't even close to touching him. Well, it was the floor that told the story. A pattern glowed on it in a variety of colors, planes of light reaching upward towards the ceiling, but not quite reaching it.

Nathan stepped closer to the plane of light, running his hand across over the surface. The plane separated into strings, vibrating like the chords of a musical instrument. But instead of sound, it changed the mana around him. The room came alive at the light's behest, the mana twisting around him as his surroundings changed.

A golden field of wheat appeared in his vision, spreading as far as the eye could see. Nathan could imagine every part of the plant, every leaf, every seed. A mental image of what the seed looked like? Was the light...an access port? Now that he thought about it, he hadn't noticed any way to get inside the glass planes. Breaking the glass was probably not the way in. Nathan swept his hand across the plane of light again, stopping at another 'string' The field appeared again, and he couldn't even tell the difference.

Well, there might be more seeds, but it was hard to tell. So he tried again, just touching a thread this time. The field appeared before him. The plants were noticeably smaller, but the kernels were noticeably larger than the other two. The image faded, and he looked at the plane of light. There had to be hundreds of strings. Hundreds of kinds of wheat. And there were so many plants.

Nathan went to another plane of light, this one blue. The image of seaweed appeared before him. Of course, the Diery family had to be growing sea plants too. How great. Now to find the Silverbirch trees, and figure out how to take seeds out. There had to be an index somewhere.

... Perhaps outside the seed bank. There didn't seem to be any writing at all here. The vault could hold what he needed. Hmm, perhaps he could ask Pulsie for help. The only issue was contacting him from here. Well, there was nothing stopping him from stepping out and then coming back in with more information...that he really should have collected before stepping in here.

Asking how the seed bank you were going to retrieve seeds from work was common sense. A thing he was apparently lacking in.

Nathan sighed as he stepped out, hoping that the Aer wouldn't put up a fuss at it. The thought of that guy's face gave him an idea how the conversation would go. For some reason, he doubted patience and reasonableness would be part of it.

Althea

The ship rocked against itself as it bobbed in the port. A fleet accompanied it, a dozen ships that would be escorting the Meridien as it traveled to the southern continent.

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Althea watched a series of people hurl their breakfasts into the sea, wondering if the fishes would eat it. Thankfully, she was immune to the sea sickness. Puking into the ocean was decidedly ungraceful. A flock of seagulls hovered in the air, blood dripping from their beaks as they clung to the ships.

"Are those birds carnivorous?" she asked the Steward.

The Steward looked at the birds, staring at their bloody beaks, red eyes that stared at the ships with apparent hunger, and talons that glinted in the sun.

"I have no idea." he replied in the end.

Althea wasn't sure she believed him. Perhaps she should find out. The Captain would know. So she sauntered across the deck, heading towards the inner cabins. The inside of a ship was a maze. A purposeful maze to irritate enemies as they tried to board it.

Althea could just imagine boarding the ship, ready to kill the Captain and everyone inside. Marching through the dark corridors, with their overly long shadows and strange turns. If one wasn't careful, they would miss the right turn to take.

The corridors were bottlenecks and kill-zones, made to facilitate ambushes. An invading force would have to fight through a dozen ambushes, only to realize that they were on the wrong portion of the ship.

Just like her right now. Althea looked at the far too familiar sight of her wardrobe, wondering how she had found herself in the ships' cargo area. The maids had somehow decided that she would need over two hundred dresses, and three hundred sets of jewelry. A literal fortune. There were event sets of furniture, and a collection of dishes that was unlikely to survive the journey.

The fact that maids had no idea what a sea journey involved was as apparent as the three tier cake in front of her. A three tier vanilla cake. Not even chocolate. Why no one had questioned a literal fortune being carted around eluded her.

"I greet her grace, the Countess Guarding Diery."

Lady Surich bowed as she approached, her red dress glittering against the sea.

"I wished to once again thank you for your hospitality, your grace, it is much appreciated."

Althea gave her a slight smile. "Please, there is no need for such courtesy. This was the least I could do after the aid you rendered to me at the Hidden Land."

"That was just my duty, your grace. The Air trees are an important resource for any Empire."

Althea's smile remained. "Even so, it was much appreciated."

An awkward silence lapsed between them as they stood on the deck. As ranking members of nobility on the fleet, they ought to spend their time together. Spending time with others wouldn't be 'proper'. After all, they weren't nobility.

A sigh escaped her lips as she turned to the ship's interior. "I should cultivate a little, prepare for the tournament."

The lady inclined her head. "Of course, your grace."

Althea walked into the ship, stepping into her suite. A suite that stretched across three floors, had separate rooms for drinking, lounging, sleeping, cultivating, eating- it had a lot of rooms. So many that she wasn't sure what to do with them. There was a host of servants, even here, to take care of them for her, but having a dozen empty rooms that she just didn't use was weird.

Then again, there was an entire ship that was just carrying her wardrobe that had grown in her absence. A dozen rooms were small before a wardrobe the size of a ship.

Althea shook her head and sat down on the mat, among an array of plants. An uneasy feeling had settled into her stomach, perhaps due to this overly splendid display of luxury. For once, her life seemed to be going too well.

So well that something bad had to be around the corner.

Or she was just feeling lonely.

sc

Nathan

The vault was useless. Well, ok, it was pretty useful. But in this case, it was useless. If there were any books that explained how the seed vault worked, they didn't bother to appear to Pulsie. Then again, the books only ever dropped for the Countess, as a very irritated plant was quick to point out.

Nathan sympathized with him. The Countess wasn't the most bookish person, meaning that she rarely dipped into the great trove of knowledge that was at her fingertips. Even when her familiar would benefit from it.

The only thing he could do was more work, he wasn’t even allowed in the vault. The index wasn’t in any of the known parts of the palace, and the unknown ones would take too much time to search. The Steward had left while Pulsie did his search, off to aid the Countess. The Princess had been kind enough to help him get to this floor. The elevators were well beyond his capability.

So here he was, back in the circular room, looking at the planes of light. The Aer had thankfully left soon after he entered the vault, promising to come back later. That was one worry off his head. Nathan extended his mana senses, extending them to the planes. The ones closer to the corridor were darker, growing lighter as they proceeded towards something.

The colors mean something. Probably. Why would the druids bother to change color if they didn't mean something? As soon as he thought about it, a dozen reasons popped into his head. There could be magical reasons. The Druids might have just liked the look of it.

Shaking the doubts from his head, he walked towards the lighter colors, stopping before a yellow plane the shade of wheat. The plane looked to be somewhere in the middle of whatever this was. Nathan could no longer see the red plane he had accessed at the beginning. The image of a field of flowers appeared before him. Decoderia flowers.

The Zun Empire's most precious imports. The flowers were used in most healing medicines. The Zun Empire was also the only ones that grew them in the world. The seed bank had those things? At the middle? The flowers weren’t the most magical by themselves, but their ability to add healing properties and enhance the mana potency of any salve was very valuable. Mixing the flowers with other herbs was the closest they got to real alchemy.

Nathan wondered if there were herbs used in actual alchemy in the planes near him. Of course, he wouldn't recognize them even if they were there. But still, it was something. There were a lot of not-very-secret rooms in the palace. Could one of them have actual alchemic concoctions? The thought filled him with eagerness, and dread.

The world could not know what was in here. Even the Empress herself might turn up if they-wait a second. The Law family had a cave too. A cave that supposedly had records of every part of history.

How was it that they did not have records of the 'lost' art of alchemy?