Chapter LXXXVI (86)- Nanook and Allik
“If I understand you correctly,” Professor Grove said. “A child that the headmaster assigned for you to watch over broke into your potion supplies, drank a mystery concoction, and transfigured herself into a critter small enough to sneak into your bag before our departure?”
He sat in the professor’s cabin. Though, why she needed a cabin he couldn’t actually say. But it was at least a private place for him to talk to her that was out of the elements. It had no furniture beyond a couple old wooden chairs set up in the center of the room. Two of which were occupied by himself and the Kemon beast woman.
“Yes,” Kizu said. That covered the basics of it. Kizu fidgeted under the professor’s scrutiny, causing the chair to groan pitifully under him as it threatened to collapse.
It was uncanny talking to someone whose body language was completely foreign and indecipherable. He only had the wisp’s voice inflections to go off of. And her flay and unamused tone didn’t bode well for him so far.
“And why was your brewing equipment out where a child could get into it?”
“Brewers are all the same,” the bear woman cut in. She barked a short laugh. “Asking them to organize their equipment would be like asking you or I to cut off a limb.” Then she hesitated, realizing who she was talking to. “Er, figuratively, that is.”
Kizu glanced at the bear woman. “I’m sorry?”
“Name’s Nanook.” She stuck out a hand to him. “One of the Aklaq Tribe’s four chiefs.”
Kizu took the offered hand and winced as the woman almost crushed the bones in his hand.
“Kaga Kizu,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Is the monkey on your head the transfigured child?” Nanook asked.
“No, that’s my familiar.”
The woman immediately let go of his hand and abruptly stood up, posture tense. She examined him with more seriousness, as if sizing him up as an opponent.
“Nanook,” Professor Grove said. “Stop distracting my student. Now, Kaga Kizu, where is this girl?”
Kizu massaged his sore palm with his other thumb. He didn’t need to answer, as Anata crawled out of the inside of his uniform and perched herself on his shoulder.
There was a moment of silence.
“Will you answer me?”
“She just showed herself,” Kizu said, confused. “She’s next to my left ear.”
Professor Grove bobbed in a bit closer to him, her blue light altering the shadows in the room.
“No.”
Kizu stared at her. He glanced over to Nanook for clarification but the Kemon woman now looked lost in thought.
“That soul doesn’t belong to a human,” Professor Grove finally said. “It’s far beyond that of a human. Or even a monster.”
Kizu realized that the professor, without eyes, must perceive things beyond physical traits.
“Maybe it’s just because she’s transfigured.”
“No.” The wisp held no doubt in her tone. “As if one of them wasn’t enough already. Gizrim will need to answer to this. Until then, you will continue to do your assigned duty and watch over this…girl.”
“You’re not going to send her home?” Kizu asked, shocked.
The bat on his shoulder perked up. Kizu felt Anata almost lose her balance. She flapped a wing, jabbing him in the eye as she regained her footing.
“No. While I obviously have other duties at the moment, I will be keeping watch over you. This is something that needs attending to as soon as possible.”
That sounded…ominous, but it actually came as a bit of a relief to Kizu. It meant someone else would be watching to make sure he didn’t screw things up too terribly with Anata. Though, he wondered just how much she knew about Anata’s origins. Something about Professor Grove’s examination of his niece tipped her off that Anata wasn’t fully human, but did she understand what the other half was? He couldn't let his guard down too much. If ‘attending to’ meant anything other than helping Anata, they'd have a problem.
The silence stretched. Nanook stood to the side, watching him pensively with her large brown eyes. Unlike Professor Grove, the Kemon’s focus was on him and Mort, rather than Anata. Kizu wondered if familiars were rare in their culture. In fact, it still surprised him how few other students had a bond. He had only ever met one other at the academy, who had bonded with a hawk. Out here though, Kizu would have thought that they could serve as an incredibly helpful boon. They certainly helped the witch covens in the Hon Basin.
He was about to break the silence and ask Nanook about it, but then Anata shifted her weight again on his shoulder. This time, she attempted to glide down from her perch, but instead ended up flapping and flailing as she fell. Before she hit the ground, the potion’s effects wore off.
As per usual, she wore her circlet that Kizu had gifted her, but she also wore the wool sweater and thick winter pants that Basil had picked out for her during their shopping trip. Kizu silently cursed the changeling for helping her find winter gear. But, truth be told, it was probably a good thing. Anata likely would have followed after him regardless, at least now she wouldn’t freeze.
“She’s a bit thin,” Nanook said, turning her inspection onto Anata. “Have you been feeding her enough food?”
Anata hid behind Kizu and glared at Nanook in Kizu’s defense. Endearing. But not nearly enough to build her goodwill back from him.
“She was thinner when I first met her.”
“And how did you meet her?” Professor Grove probed. “Did Gizrim introduce you?”
“I’m supposed to direct all questions about Anata to the headmaster. You’ll have to ask him.”
Professor Grove hummed irritably and attempted to ask more questions about Anata’s age and diet and hobbies. Kizu felt a bit of satisfaction at each question he successfully deflected. Professor Grove, however, appeared to grow more agitated with every thwarted topic. Eventually, she dismissed him and Anata.
“Wait,” Kizu said, looking back at them from the door. “Where is Anata supposed to sleep?”
Professor Grove hummed thoughtfully. “A good question. It’s easy to forget these things after mortality, age, and gender fade. But I agree it isn’t proper to have a young girl in a cabin with half a hundred teenage boys. Nanook, do you have any more spare cabins?”
“Not in a decent condition,” the beast woman said. “But I agree Kaga Kizu shouldn’t bring her back to one of the boys’ cabins. They can both stay in my private cabin. I have a few extra beds.”
Just like that, Kizu loaded up all the stuff from his assigned cabin and moved everything to a smaller cabin on the edge of the camp. Nanook gifted him and Anata each a pair of snowshoes to better maneuver around since they were further out now. Apparently everyone else would be receiving a pair the next day.
Nanook’s cabin felt more like a living space than a bunkhouse. She obviously spent a great deal of time here, even if it wasn’t her primary residence. A hearth heated the space and illuminated the room. Beside it, Kizu was surprised to see a brewing cauldron, stained by soot and with the black scars of flames across the bottom. Other than that, the room was mundane. A nightstand beside each of the four beds and higher quality wool blankets than what the other cabins contained.
“Make yourselves at home. My husband will be arriving tomorrow with the rest of our tribe. Other than that, it’s just us here.”
Kizu settled in and set down his bag on a bed, with Anata claiming the one nearest him. Not having any physical books to read to her, Kizu instead took out his scrying orb. While it was designed with the intention of scrying for information, Kizu had realized before that it could pull up a lot of information from the academy’s library archives. After some trial and error, he managed to get a copy of a chapter book. As he skimmed the first few pages, he recognized it as one of the adventure books Finn liked to read. While a little beyond Anata’s current reading level, he still passed the orb over to her. Maybe a challenge would keep her out of trouble for a while.
“Orb,” he instructed. “Keep that information up. Don’t read any of it out loud. Just switch pages whenever someone taps your side.”
“Understood.”
Kizu sighed and flopped back on his bed.
—
Kizu felt terrible when he woke up in the morning (though, perhaps ‘morning’ wasn’t quite the right word, as the sun never rose over the horizon). His head hurt and his entire body felt exhausted. It felt similar to the hangover he had suffered after drinking at Emilia’s party.
He sat beside Anata around one of the many fire pits scattered throughout the camp, with a bowl of porridge in his lap. Anata treasured every bite of the warm food, while he felt sick just looking at it.
It took him a while to understand why he felt so terrible. The previous day he’d broken from his usual training regime. Which meant he hadn’t received any of Anata’s blood to restore his energy. His body suffered from withdrawal. A concept he was more than familiar with.
As a child, around eight years old, he had gone through an addiction soon after being taught how to brew by the crone. His vice had been a simple mind blank potion that completely cleared him of thoughts and emotions. It left him completely numb and in a meditative trance. Some of the required ingredients had been highly addictive. The crone had beaten the addiction out of him and forced him into creating an association between the brew and pain. She called it ‘positive punishment.’ It had been an incredibly painful process and the memory stole his breath for a few heartbeats. Whenever he so much as thought of the potion, memories sparked that made him ill enough to puke. The crone had relished in his pain as she peeled back the skin on his forearms, exposing his muscle and bone underneath. She’d dribble drops of the potion into his screaming mouth while she cackled.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Afterwards, he spent weeks locked in his cupboard suffering from severe withdrawal symptoms, akin to what he felt now. But far, far worse. He shuddered at the thought of it.
His self-diagnoses actually made him feel a bit better. He didn’t love the idea of getting sick every time he stopped absorbing blood, but at least the knowledge of what was wrong gave him a measure of control over the situation. And, based on his past experience, he had a vague understanding of where he stood with the addiction. He wasn’t very far gone into it. But it was something to be mindful of. He could probably even counter the effects with the right combination of ingredients.
“They snore,” Ione complained, slumping down in the seat next to him and Anata.
“Hello to you too, Ione.”
“I’m a heavy sleeper, you know that. But even I didn’t stand a chance against some of my cabinmates. I don’t know if I can make it the entire week.”
Kizu noticed Anata who was looking down mournfully at her empty bowl of porridge. He passed her his untouched bowl. Ione glanced over at the motion.
“Oh, hi Anata. How’d you get here?”
“She drank a transfiguration potion and turned herself into a bat. Then she hid in my bag.”
“You should do a better job of storing your potions out of the reach of children,” Ione opined.
“Thank you. I’ll keep that brilliant suggestion in mind,” he said dryly.
“You’ve been pretty grumpy lately. Is this still about that girl you were seeing?”
Kizu blinked, taken aback. “No. Sorry. Maybe? I was avoiding thinking about it.” But even as he said that, he realized how often Emilia still came up in his thoughts. Like an ever present weight.
“Anyway,” she continued, lifting her feet closer to the firepit. “We’re supposed to meet with a Kemon tribe today. We have lessons from them.”
“When do they get here?”
“Now,” a deep voice said behind them.
Kizu looked over his shoulder and saw a massive man looming half a meter taller than himself. Like Nanook, he also bore the features of a grizzly. A large brown braid traced along the man’s spine and he wore an overgrown beard in contrast to Nanook’s more subtle fur. Kizu couldn’t help but notice that his humanoid hands were marred by large, thick, black claws.
“Er, hello?” Kizu said.
“You’re the brat who decided to get into my wife’s cabin.”
Kizu’s eyes widened. “No. I mean, yes, but not like that! I-”
Then the bear man burst out laughing. “I know, I know. Don’t worry, Nanook already explained the situation to me. My name is Allik.”
“Allik?” Kizu recognized the name, but it took him a moment to realize from where. “You’re a master brewer!”
“Guilty.”
“Professor Knoff asked me to give you a message.” Kizu had left it in his cabin with his things and a sleeping Mort.
“Ah yes, I was surprised when I was never presented with his shopping list last week. But don’t worry about that. We’ll take care of it later in the week.”
“Actually,” Kizu said, still feeling a bit nervous around the large man. “I was wondering if you might be willing to show me some techniques you use out here.”
“Attempting to poach my skills?” Allik grinned, showing his canines. “Certainly.”
“I thought the Kemon were more secretive?” Ione asked.
“Some tribes are. There is still a lot of resentment held towards outsiders. But the Aklaq Tribe lived up here in the north before most of the others arrived. We were never displaced. Though I suppose our good will might be obvious simply by the fact that we meet with your academy every couple years.”
“Why not send any of your students to Shinzou Academy?” Kizu asked. “If you’ve built a good relationship with the academy, surely you could make a deal.”
“The answer’s simple. We don’t have any children of academy age. Not out here at least. Some other tribes are blessed with excessive fertility, alas Aklaq is not.”
“I see.” Kizu privately wondered if the fertility of the tribe depended on the animal they had the features of. But he decided asking might be rude, and he really wanted to see what Allik could do with the materials up here.
“Which is a reason I’m not keen on hoarding knowledge. If something happened to our tribe, I’d like my knowledge to live on at least in some measure. So, if you want to learn, I’ll teach you.”
He extended the offer to Ione as well, who promptly declined. However, Anata was more than happy to tail them as they returned to the cabin.
The first thing that Allik instructed Kizu on was how to fill the cauldron with snow.
“Clean, fresh snow. Make sure you don’t get any sticks or dirt in it. Right now it isn't ideal conditions, as the wind often blows silt off the glaciers, but as long as the snow is white, not gray or brown, it should be fine. Keep in mind, snow takes up more space than water, so always gather in excess.”
When Kizu returned, dragging the cauldron behind him, he entered the room to see Allik throwing Anata in the air and catching her. He watched as Mort leaped down from the cabin’s rafters to grab ahold of Anata mid throw. Allik let out a bellowing laugh and Kizu saw even Anata smiling ear to ear (one of which was firmly gripped by Mort).
“Ah good, you’ve returned!”
“Allik, sir,” Kizu said slowly. “Are you sure it’s okay for me to be here studying with you? I want to learn, don’t misunderstand, but the other students were all at the other side of camp.”
“They’re studying star charts and the mythos of my people. As useful as it is, you could probably learn it in a book. I’m offering a more hands-on lesson. I cleared it with my wife a few minutes ago when she stopped by to change clothes, so don’t worry.”
Allik set Anata on the floor and she beamed up at him. Any trepidation from earlier now melted away.
“Another thing,” Kizu continued. “Do you need me to collect ingredients? I didn’t exactly search the room, but nothing stood out to me here.”
“Again, no problem at all, Kaga Kizu.”
Allik raised one of his beastly hands. Kizu had missed it earlier, too focused on the terrifying claws, but Allik also wore several rings. A quick glance from Kizu’s spellsense revealed them to be enchanted. Though they were far too complex for him to understand.
Then Allik reached over with his other hand and touched the ring on his pinky. Or, Kizu thought he was simply touching it. Instead, his hand went into the ring. A moment later he pulled out a handful of red berries. He tossed one to Kizu, who caught it.
“What’s this?” Allik asked.
His knee jerk reaction was a raspberry, but the coloring was a deeper shade of scarlet and the shape more spherical. After a moment’s hesitation, he answered, “Salmonberry.”
“Close, but incorrect.” Allik tossed him another berry. “This one is a salmonberry. The first one is known as a nagoonberry. Taste both of them. It’s important for any decent brewer to be able to pick out distinct tastes within a brew.”
Kizu did so. He expected them to taste wretched, like the ingredients the crone used to make him try for this same process. Instead, to his shock, they were sweet. As he looked back up at Allik, the beast man tossed two of the berries over to Anata as well. Then he handed Kizu another berry, that was a yellower shade of the salmonberry.
“Next are the cloudberries. They’re used for similar purposes and often used interchangeably as substitutes, but it’s still important to be able to identify one from the other. All three of these berries grow in different regions around Northern Tross.”
Anata scratched at her teeth, trying to dislodge a seed stuck between her fanged canine tooth and her normal teeth. She yelped as her hand slipped across the sharpened tooth. It left a gash along her finger.
Kizu rushed to her side before Allik could. The last thing he wanted was someone else exposed to her blood. Using his uniform sleeve, he applied pressure on the wound. Still, some of the blood seeped through the cloth and he felt a jolt of exhilaration from the contact.
Allik launched into an explanation on the different uses between blueberries, crowberries, twisted stalk berries, lingonberries, and serviceberries. For each he offered Kizu and Anata another berry to taste. Time after time, Kizu was consistently surprised by the richness of the tastes. The effect of Anata’s blood appeared to have a slight lingering effect on him, enhancing his senses. He speculated it was a result of abstaining for a couple of days ahead of time.
Each plant could be used for something entirely unique. Kizu listened intently as Allik explained how to boil the bark of the serviceberry’s plant to create a counter to snowblindness. His mind attempted to connect each plant mentioned to the million possibilities it offered.
“Do you have instructions for more offensive brews?” Kizu asked. He had plenty of utility and poisonous brews mastered but lacked direct attacks.
Allik considered the question. He reached into a different ring and pulled out a dried out blue flower that wilted under the weight of its petals. “If you properly prepare chiming bells, they can be used to increase lung capacity when paired with the giant toads in the south. I’ve heard magical creatures in the scorpionidae family are actually a far more potent combination and can even create incredibly powerful exhales strong enough to blast people away. Essentially the air elemental equivalent of breathing fire. But we are a long way away from anything like that.”
“Why don’t you just trade for those sorts of materials?” Kizu asked.
“Trade with whom? The other tribes don’t travel further south than the mountains. There isn’t a permanent settlement on this side of the range and traders aren’t keen to start wandering the tundra selling niche magical creature parts.”
“You could use the World Dungeon to travel to the city. Like how we got here.”
“Blasphemy,” the man snarled, his face darkening. The tone immediately shifted as the man growled, his eyes narrowed.
“Sorry,” Kizu said quickly. “Is that bad? What do you mean?”
Allik closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Of course you don’t know. You’re not familiar with the customs here.” When he opened his eyes, he appeared himself again. “What you call the World Dungeon, we believe to be the entrance into the Underworld. The place souls go to rest. Though, I suppose I should warn you, in case you encounter another Kemon, it is a bit of a contentious belief amongst the different tribes. Others believe the aurora to be the bridge to the afterlife.”
Kizu nodded understanding and not wanting to open his mouth to risk souring the man’s mood again.
“And besides,” Allik continued. “Face the wrath of the Tross, Hon, Edgeland travel pact? No. Only a fool would risk that. Even if we chose to commit the grievous sin and also discovered how to work the transportation rooms, it would only spell more trouble for the tribes. It would require extensive treaties and new agreements with the world’s acting powers.”
“So you’re trapped here?” Kizu said in disbelief. “Completely isolated?”
“In a way, yes. But there are always choices. In the modern day, we could always travel through the mountain passes to one of the cities in the south. And some Kemon do choose that sort of life. But we wouldn’t be able to live the lifestyle we want in the mainland of Tross. We’re lucky that the Tross government doesn’t require a tax from us. I think they believe it to cost more than they’d make back.”
That was incredibly interesting. It actually reminded him a bit of the witch covens of the Hon Basin.
“Back on the subject of more combative potions. I suppose you must already know plenty of poisons. How about this?” He pulled out a brown stubby plant. “This is called glasswort. Sometimes referred to as pickleweed. While it tastes excellent when properly pickled, as the name implies, when paired with yeti fur it can create a chain reaction of ice growth. Smash it on a target and it will freeze in place.”
Kizu took the plant and examined it. It had been dried out, like most of the other plants Allik had shown him, but Allik knew his craft and managed to maximize the plant’s potency while preserving it. A lesser brewer would have ruined the plant’s potential.
To his surprise, Allik offered him yeti fur as well, interested in seeing what he came up with on his attempt.
Despite Allik’s instructions, the first attempt was a bust. The cauldron froze over before Kizu could seal the potion within the vials. However, his second try proved a lot more fruitful. He managed to get three potions before it froze over again.
“You need to prepare it in smaller increments,” Allik explained. He took one of the vials from Kizu and help it up, examining it. “But it looks usable. Not completely optimal, but definitely a valid potion. Well done. I can’t remember the last time I saw someone get the formula correct on only the second attempt.”
Anata tugged on his sleeve. She placed a finger on her lips. The action, done by anyone else, Kizu would assume the person was asking for silence. But he knew Anata well enough to understand.
“Allik, is there a place we can go to get food?”
“Of course! I’ll show you the way. There should be lunch prepared soon.”
Allik opened the door and it blasted inward by a wuthering gust of wind. Snow flurried over the drift in front of the doorway and into the cabin. Kizu felt the chill of the outdoors start to sink into his bones.
“This isn’t right,” Allik muttered. “The forecast is supposed to be clear. I need to contact the chiefs and shaman. Maybe they set this up as some sort of strange test.”
Kizu looked over at Anata. She looked up at him with her mismatched eyes, pleading.
“Is there something to eat on the way?” Kizu asked. “Anata is pretty hungry. I’ll just swing by and bring back some food for her, if that’s okay.”
“Yes. I’ll point it out as we go. Bundle up. It’s cold today.”
Kizu opted to leave Mort with Anata, the monkey not cut out for the cold, miserable weather. He promised both of them to be back in a few minutes with something tasty.
Taking a deep breath, Kizu shouldered his way forward, out into the freezing tundra.