Chapter 64: The First Of Many Promises
Subject: Caim Location: Maliscade - Protoflora: Envisioned Ecosystems (Gate District)
Caim extended his arms with his palms up, trying to appear supportive. Both of his companions looked up at him.
“Let’s all try our best. There are changes I want to see in the world, but we’re just three nobodies right now. That’s why I want more experience,” Caim explained. “I’ll be going back to Riventread one final time before moving on to Lifetangle. There are more blightbeasts in that forest, I hear. I’m ready for them.”
The only other festerfont that made sense was Shimmerden, but he hadn’t stepped foot near there since his first day in this world. He wasn’t eager to go back so soon.
Gwen looked down and clenched her fists, gently biting her lip to one side.
“Are you alright? Is something wrong?”
She didn’t answer, but she was trembling slightly. Soft tears began to wet the floor and Caim thought he understood why she was acting strangely.
“Novette and I will listen if you have anything to say. I don’t want you to hold anything in. I think you know I don’t care what it is. I want to help.”
If it’s finally time to kill those Greys… so be it. I don’t much like the thought of any extra pests lurking about either. I can’t be so naïve as to believe I can take half-measures and stay safe.
But Gwen had other thoughts in mind.
“That’s just it! I only need you to listen to me because it is only you that doesn’t seem to get it! You’ve acted like an idiot from the moment I met you, and I think I’m starting to realize that an idiot is all you are going to be.”
Novette stayed silent, and Caim didn’t know what to say either. When she got frustrated enough, forget practiced smiles and buffered language. Here, she would speak her mind unfiltered.
“What don’t I get? What brought this up?”
She glared at him, and he winced. It wasn’t pleasant to look down at that hurt, angry face of hers.
“Just like that. You don’t understand what brought this up when there is really only one thing that happened today. You almost died! Sure, they may ‘fix it up quick’, but you can’t just ‘come back to life quick’ if you really do die next time.”
Gwen took a breath before continuing to yell.
“And then you immediately go and say you want to get stronger, but that just means fighting more and more of those monsters, right? ‘Get stronger’. I’ve heard a lot of seekers say the same things on repeat, like it’s a prayer or something. It isn’t one, right? I would understand if the chances of getting rich were higher, but you’re more likely to end up dead.”
He tried to get a word in, but his friend wasn’t having it. This wasn’t like her, but she wasn’t wrong. Her version of reality was probably pretty close to the truth. Closer than his, at least.
“And then there is the dangerous talk. You don’t act like a normal person. Maybe it’s because you came from a village, and you grew up expecting to die in the wilderness, but all I’ve known are streets within the walls of cities. The journey over here was terrifying, and I bought into a mass migration convoy, with veteran mercenaries and everything.”
Taking another exhausted breath, she rested a hand on a nearby shelf to compensate for an exasperated exhaustion.
“You’re in the city now, so just start thinking like a person who values their life. Just think about the people who might care if you did die, even though they shouldn’t care because you’re just an idiot who goes looking for death.”
The merchant extended a hand and a demanding gaze to Novette. She wanted the botanist to agree with her.
This was a lot to unpack, and it was a sensitive subject because it was obvious to Caim why he wasn’t normal. He wasn’t born in Shroud. He didn’t even belong on this planet, be he couldn’t admit that.
“Death is normal, but I’m not looking for it. I am afraid, and I’ve been doing this as carefully as I can. You have no idea how careful I’m being. If my friend could see my process she’d think I was crazy because she has the mindset of the seeker you’re describing. That’s just because being a seeker isn’t normal to me.”
Small truths. The rest would come later.
“There are many other things that aren’t normal, but I am accustomed to losing people. I lost everyone I cared about in the past and I’m still afraid because I don’t want it to happen again. But this is me trying again. Sitting with you two here is the start of a plan I have to stay alive and to live safely with people I care about.”
Somewhere in the middle of answering her accusations, he’d stood up and begun pacing. Now, he stopped and looked them both in the eye before sitting back down.
“I only really recently started planning for the future so it’s all up in the air, but that’s just because the future is a damn complicated thing and there is only so much we can control. It’s damn frustrating to plan anything when your fate is being toyed with by so many powerful people.”
Caim wasn’t finished unloading his thoughts, but the two of his companions listened carefully. They actually looked like they were giving him a chance to explain himself, and that really helped to increase his confidence.
“I want us to make a more concrete kind of promise to each other. I’m the one asking this of you two, so I’ll go first.”
With Gwen and Novette watching on awkwardly, not knowing what to expect, he swallowed and narrowed his eyes.
“I promise to do everything in my power to protect the two of you, and to provide you with tools that will see your efforts bear fruit. I promise to value your individual needs and ambitions while we decide as a group how to move forward.”
He signaled that he was finished talking with a nod. He didn’t smile because he was somewhat embarrassed.
Novette went next with a gentle grin.
“I promise to share... whatever, with you two. I guess, right now, that means my shop. I don’t know what this is, but it’s exciting, almost like we’re starting a research team. Speaking figuratively… let’s get out there and go on a fulfilling field expedition!”
How so very “Novette”, Caim joyfully mused.
Gwen started to relax a little now that both Caim and Novette had already gone. Not knowing what a “promise” meant, he could understand a little uneasiness. He used serious language because he wanted a serious commitment.
“I’ll admit… it is kind of exciting. It feels more like what I’ve imagined a small trade guild would be like, but I guess the reasons we’d feel differently about this partnership is based on what we get out of it. Caim, what would you call it?”
A word did come to mind, unexpectedly, but he wasn’t going to use it. Not yet, maybe not ever. It wasn’t healthy to pervert this simple arrangement with grand idealism.
“It’s just a group of people supporting each other and looking out for one another. A small community. It can be many things, but I want it to be private. I want that because I personally worry about the kind of people who might try to take advantage of us if we were to ever become successful.”
The ever-so-keen merchant caught on.
“What is this ‘success’ you’re so confident about?” Gwen asked. “Don’t get me wrong… I also want it to be private. It’s strange. If we started out as friends it wouldn’t be abnormal to get involved like this.”
“We will be friends,” Novette said. “I can see it happening easily. I already consider you both friends. It happened quickly because we all desired a change to make our lives flourish.”
Gwen and Caim both looked at her uneasily. They wanted to say the same, but they were talking about a relationship with a little more depth. Put short: they both had trust issues. It felt like they were all only acquainted out of necessity.
“I do too,” Caim forced himself to lie. “...but we can still help each other if any of us decides otherwise, or takes time to warm up to the thought.”
He said this for Gwen’s benefit, but he didn’t want to call her out. This way, she could just nod and agree to try.
“Gwen told me you had something to tell me. What is it?” he decided to ask, in order to change the subject.
Novette got so excited she literally fell off her stool.
“Oof! So there was that thing you did before and it affected them but obviously you can’t do the thing all the time and I also needed time to understand what it meant but—”
Rather than get up, she’d decided to begin explaining on the floor. She was talking faster than she ever had before. Both Gwen and Caim had to stop her, slow her down, and get her to properly explain from the start. They helped her off the floor and back onto her seat.
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Subject: Caim Location: Maliscade - Protoflora: Envisioned Ecosystems (Gate District)
“Start over. The thing Caim did… You mean his ‘Flourish Catalyst’ spell, right?”
Gwen made a point to learn “important details about important people”, put in her own words. Novette, on the other hand, had forgotten the name.
“That one. ‘Flourish’ is aptly named… it somehow permanently altered the plants Caim used it on. I moved them from the window in the shop proper to this room to test how they were altered, more scientifically, controlling the environment as best I can.”
You aren’t just safe harbor in the storm, Novette. You have passion and a keen mind. And your passion… The “flourishflora” interest me too.
“I waited for Caim to be here when you announced it. Now tell me, did you discover something profitable?”
Caim could almost see the coins glittering in her eyes.
“Of course you’d ask that first,” he laughed.
“It is my responsibility to make sure Novette can support her research without ending up like me, thank you very much.”
“I know, I know. I was just teasing.”
Novette giggled slightly. She posed triumphantly over a large container in the center of the flora growing lush all around them. Inside was a tangle of vines, with flowers budding all across its thick viridian surface.
Caim didn’t know if it was the same plant because he hadn’t been paying enough attention before. In a world full of strange sights, a colorful plant didn’t make much of an impression.
“It’s certainly large.”
“No, the size of this particular variety is no indicator of its productive potential. It is the way it is poised and flowering. Your spell triggered a locus growth. This specimen will now begin producing vira much more efficiently, amplifying the growth of the samples around it.”
“It will help the other plants grow faster?” Caim asked, not exactly understanding what was so special about this plant.
“Yes, faster and more heartily, but the discovery was how your spell was able to trigger this. Flourishflora are notoriously difficult to cultivate. Not just any lifemage researcher with their intimate knowledge of flourishflora could do this! We’ve learned enough so that we can grow them out of the wild, but it is one thing to keep them from dying and another thing to convince them to nourish their surroundings to this extent.”
Gwen was listening patiently, but Caim was already disappointed. He hadn’t demonstrated mastery of magic nor flourishflora when he cast Flourish Catalyst on a whim. Better to rip off the bandage in haste.
“I can’t reproduce these results. That’s where this is leading, yes?”
“That was one of the things I was hoping to ask, but I already remembered you had no knowledge of flourishflora. This is still a momentous achievement because it proves we are capable of influencing the development of a specimen with that spell. I want to test more. I need more space for more tests, but it really isn’t time-sensitive. As long as you can cast that same spell sometime in the future, it would be more than enough. I want more time with this sample.”
She looks patient, but that’s just because Novette has an easy-going personality. That woman can’t contain her excitement, and I’d hate to make her bottle it back up and languish in this shop she never wanted to run.
Caim stood up and walked over to the other plants in the outlying plots. He asked Novette if he could assign a Flourish Beacon to each of them. The idea was to start a second trial with more subjects, a trial that could passively work in the background while they had their discussion.
Elated, Novette retrieved a small device which seemed to be a sort of timer. From the way Gwen looked at it and how she refused to hold it for the botanist, Caim understood that it was relatively expensive.
Novette twisted a knob on the side of the device. At the same time, Caim assigned the preconfigured Flourish Beacons.
Flourish Catalyst: Beacon C [ Assigned ]
This was the default configuration, augmenting both stamina and recovery. As an armchair scientist, it concerned him that he didn’t yet know which feature of the sourcetech routine actually activated the plant’s transformation
Flourish Catalyst: Beacon D [ Assigned ]
It got Caim thinking. Now that he knew how to tweak Flourish to his specifications, he could actually try different things depending on how he calibrated the spell. He wanted to reproduce earlier results before he started to control for those. It would, of course, be stronger than the last time he’d used it. Hopefully that wouldn’t add even more confounding variables.
Flourish Catalyst: Beacon E [ Assigned ]
Gwen watched silently while the others did their business, until they returned to the center of the room, both smiling.
Flourish Catalyst: Beacon F [ Assigned ]
“Do you remember when we talked about expansion, Gwen? I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’s already time!” Novette cheered.
Unexpectedly, Gwen stood up and gestured for Novette to slow down.
“True, we’ve made some progress since I started helping you, that doesn’t mean you can get lost in a dream. Upkeep costs on your existing space is already eating up most of your profits. Did you forget?”
The rejuvenated botanist wasn’t deterred. Her eyes gleamed as she prepared to reveal a delicious secret.
“Not anymore they aren’t! The numbers are complicated, so I’ll need you to confirm and do a little work, but I think this wipes out the maintenance fees.”
“H-How much can we reduce them by?” Gwen asked in disbelief.
The merchant didn’t seem ready to get her hopes up yet, which was probably a safe assumption to make
“Eliminated, after I do that little bit of work. That doesn’t even include the samples we just set up. How long does that spell last, Caim?”
“Indefinitely, but it will end when I leave the area. I’m still not practiced enough with it to increase that radius to the whole district. Eventually, I should be able to cover the whole city with dozens of targets. This stays between us, but the human targets have already proven to recover quite quickly when affected by this spell.”
He targeted Novette with yet another Flourish Beacon, calibrated for recovery, and recalibrated his and Gwen’s to match it.
Flourish Catalyst: Beacon G [ Assigned ]
Flourish Catalyst: Beacon A [ Recalibrated ]
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Flourish Catalyst: Beacon B [ Recalibrated ]
“Watch.”
Just to make his point he walked over to the table where a horticulture knife was resting. He picked it up while taking off his armor and rolling up his sleeve. Putting the blade to his arm, Gwen cried out just as he made the horizontal slash.
It was good he was tactfully standing over a water drain because no small amount of blood gushed out. As expected, the wound sealed up relatively quickly, and he was eventually able to wash his arm and the blade at the nearby faucet. He sat down again.
Gwen shook her head disapprovingly at Caim and looked back at the botanist.
“How is that even possible,” Gwen laughed at the absurdity.
She was still talking about eliminating the maintenance fees, but she seemed to also be directing the disbelief at Caim’s overpowered sourcetech routine. And she didn’t even know that casting it came at no cost to him.
“I know! Isn’t it fantastic?!” Novette answered, jumping back to the topic at hand. “That’s what you get when flourishflora decided to sustain their neighbors. That spell really is something. Usually this would mean different environmental pressures were detected or certain needs weren’t met, it really depends on the species. I can eliminate costs after I convert more of the fuel mechanisms to draw from this new supply. Eventually, we could even find a way to process and sell refined vira, or find other uses for it.”
He thought she was done, but she turned and looked him straight in the eye.
“Caim, that was dangerous, you scared me. Oh, but that explains why the flourishflora reacted so strongly to the spell.”
He nodded, grinning. She took the knife from him.
“Caim. Don’t do that again.”
He looked down sheepishly.
“Don’t do ever that again, Caim,” Gwen scolded.
But I’m fine!~ he wanted to scream in protest.
Oh well, her explanation for before really did sound like something great. Caim didn’t understand it, but it was good as long as Novette did and she could explain what she needed the others to do to help her make it work.
“I don’t really understand anything you said before,” Gwen admitted to Novette, “but if what you are saying is true… great!”
This was good. If he had value to Novette, it would be even easier to win her over to his side. There was a greater chance she’d just agree to it outright.