Chapter 19

“Hello.” Kalex lifted his hand in greeting. “How long was I asleep and how’d I get here?” The door opened fully and the woman moved into the room much faster than Kalex had anticipated. She spoke as she started to put the bedding back in place.

“You city folk, always with the questions. It’s more polite to start with your name, dontcha know. I’m Arla Mix, and you were holed up in here for almost an entire day! Can you imagine that? You show up on the front lawn, looking like the dead. My Sorene found you and nearly keeled over trying to get help.”

Kalex looked perplexed for a moment before quickly pinging Lex to ask about his translating functions. “My translation is working as intended. When scanning Enternia I was able to pick up on local dialects and introduced those into my translations.”

Kalex mentally rolled his eyes at the seemingly jovial attitude of Lex. Usually, it was very exact in its statements but Kalex noticed that the serious and usually clipped prosody had been slowly receding. It wasn’t something he particularly minded but it was interesting nonetheless.

“Apologies for my rudeness, it’s nice to meet you, Ms. Mix, my name is Kalex Wounder and I thank you for your hospitality. If there is anything I can do to repay your kindness, please don’t hesitate to ask.” Kalex bowed at the waist.

“Oh for cute! I never thought the half-dead boy on the porch would be so polite. Now that you say that, there is something you can help out with. You’re a tad thin but I’m sure you’ll do fine with helping bundle up some of our harvest. With the Days of Many finally coming back around, we had to harvest and prep our fields for the more expensive crops.”

Kalex quickly looked to his quest and confirmed that this was the reason why the farmers were having so much trouble with storage. He had created the issue in a way and felt the need to help out in any way he could. “I’d be more than happy to assist with that, just show me the way and I’ll get started immediately!”

Arla kicked her hip outward and tsked at his reply. “Not a chance. You’re skin and bones, young man. I’m not sending you out there until you’ve eaten something, and luckily for you, I just finished up a big pot of stew full of rooties, exactly what a boy needs to put in a hard day's work!” Kalex followed as Arla spun on her heels with the kitchen as her destination.

After eating many bowls of a stew made mostly of root vegetables and succulent meat, Kalex was stuffed. He had said that the stew was the best in the world, which wasn’t a lie because this was the first prepared meal he’d had in Enternia, Arla proceeded to fill his bowl every time it got low until he had to politely decline. At his rank, he didn’t have to eat as often as others of lower ranks, so the meal he had just consumed would hold him over for a long while.

Arla cleaned up and walked him outside towards their warehouse that was adjacent to the main home. Kalex was momentarily flabbergasted at the sight of the rolling hills filled with neatly spaced rows of vibrant-colored vegetation. “Lex save this memory please, the fields outside of Mourtia have nothing on this place.” Kalex mentally sent. Getting an affirmative heat near the inside of his ear, Kalex turned to the task at hand.

He initially thought that providing the farmers with storage items would be the best and fastest route to complete this part of his quest, but was soon told to find a different solution to the issue by Lex. It had stated that for the issue to be resolved and not just temporarily fixed, he couldn’t just give them the means to store a large amount of items. Kalex still was of the mind to just make some storage items and provide them to the farmers, but being able to comfortably stay on the farm and take in the sights for a few days was attractive.

He still needed to ponder on the fight with the Lumen and consolidate the knowledge he’d gained. He had purposely avoided thinking about Lyla and what was happening to her, in hopes to stay away from overly dark and self-deprecating thoughts. Kalex knew that there was nothing more he could’ve done in that fight, but he couldn’t shake the feeling of being able to do more. As his thoughts started to stray, he was brought back to the pristine views of the Mix Farm by Arla asking him to continue following her.

Two giant barn doors swung open to reveal a space packed to the brim with various plant matter to which Kalex only found a few familiar. On Diat, there was never the need for such a massive building for storing common necessities as storage in items was the norm. Items with a massive capacity were usually reserved for the elite or large businesses but fairly mundane items that could hold the equivalent of the warehouse space he was looking at were very common and such items were usually given to children as they began their training.

“There is so much here, how on Diat do you manage all of this?” Kalex said as he thought about the sheer amount of material and not relying on storage items. “Well, I don’t know what Diat is, but here, in simple terms, we cultivate the crops, harvest them then store them until the various caravans come and pick up their orders.” Arla stated with pride. Kalex took on a thoughtful look. “That… seems interesting. Is the process profitable at least?”

Arla stepped back with an odd look at the boy before reverting to her usual joyful self. “You betcha! Although we’ve barely scraped by during the lean times, I’m sure with the coming of the Days of Many, all of our financial problems will be in the past! That’s a curious question coming from someone like you, are you looking into getting a farm of your own?”

It was Kalex’s turn to don a perplexed look. “No ma’am, just curious is all. Anyway, where would you like me to start?” As soon as Arla began to speak, a small woman who was a spitting image of Arla but around 20 moons old rushed into the warehouse.

“Do we have Elder Oak Light’s order? His messenger just entered Grangardd!” Arla paled as she tensed. “His messenger is already here? That’s way earlier than expected. No time to waste Sorene, we have to use the bottles for this.” Sorene was shocked and appalled. “The bottles? Ma, those take over a month to make and a whole silver coin in ingredients; His order would only leave me with one or two bottles left!” Arla responded sternly with a tone that seemed alien compared to her regular attitude. “Sorene. Bottles. Now!”

Kalex could've sworn he felt a tiny bit of myst backing up Arla’s demand. It led Kalex to believe there was more to these farmers than first met the eye. Sorene looked over to Kalex in confusion. “Ma, we’ll be losing money packing up this order and you know better than anyone that we can’t afford that.” She turned to Kalex. “Nice to see you up and about.” Sorene gave a pointed look to her mother and let out a breath. Looking into Kalex's emerald-hued eyes, she noticed that they were not ones belonging to a child.

“Did Ma feed you then guilt you to help? It wouldn’t be the first time.” She said with a wry smile. Arla did not take the statement sitting down. “Kalex offered to help after he woke up. See Sorene, this is how civil people show gratitude, dontcha know. Anywho, get those bottles quickly and I’ll have Kalex start sorting through the order and getting it ready.” Sorene gave a curt nod to Kalex and left without another word.

Arla showed Kalex the order slip that he became dizzy just looking at. The parchment looked to be made by the farmers as you could see inconsistencies and unpounded fiber throughout. That wasn’t what started to give Kalex a headache though, it was the writing. He hadn’t been on Enternia long and although he had seen writing on signs in town, he had never really focused on them. The characters on the parchment were intense, to say the least, mostly made up of hard lines and intricate shapes. Upon seeing this, he pinged Lex for some help. With a warm sensation on the top of his skull, a status window popped into existence in front of the sheet of parchment showing what the parchment said in general Diatian.

He had no idea what any of these items were and decided to scan everything to get an idea. A moment after scanning everything, Sorene came back into the warehouse with a look of melancholy plastered upon her face. “I brought all but one of the bottles we had in storage, and even these will barely be enough.” She said sadly to the room. She held a holder with six brown bottles made seemingly of glass nestled in spots made for them. As Arla spoke to Sorene and tried to convince her that making a good impression on a buyer was worth more than the bottles, Kalex scanned the items.

Name: Mix Bottle

Rank: Copper

Durability: 2/2

(Storage Vessel) A poorly crafted bottle meant to store a small amount of mass. Loses durability when adding or removing the contents. Contents can only be added or removed in bulk.

Artificer: Sorene Mix

Owner: Sorene Mix

Kalex’s eyebrows disappeared in the hair covering his forehead as he read the description of the bottles. This was the first storage item he’d seen on Enternia and although it wasn’t made very well and had a very obvious flaw, he was intrigued.

“Kalex, could you please scoop these grains into these buckets please?” Sorene said as she showed Kalex where the buckets were located. “Just fill them up and dump ten of them into that large holding tank.” She pointed to a large metal tub that was off to one side of the warehouse. Nodding in agreement, Kalex went to work.

With his stats, the work was mind-numbingly easy. The full buckets were easily carried and soon found himself carrying two in each hand. He sped his way through the order and as soon as ten buckets were deposited into the large vat, Sorene scooped it all inside of one of the bottles. In just two minutes, all six bottles were filled.

Setting down the empty buckets back in their place, Kalex turned to regard the farmers. Both looked on with wide eyes. “We were expecting that to take at least an hour with all of us working. I have half a mind to label you a thief as only the guardsmen can get a booster stipend and with the exorbitant cost of them if you buy them from a Blender, makes me believe that you stole one to be able to work that fast.”

Kalex was flush with confusion. He thought he’d done a good job, even though the work was boring. On top of that, he had no idea what a booster was but he had an idea from the context of Arla’s comment. “I’m sorry for the confusion, but I only used my physical abilities and frankly, this is the first time I’m hearing about boosters.” To avoid any questions about his lack of knowledge regarding things that seemed commonplace, he added. “I was born a Roamer and just recently passed the test to enter the city. Forgive me for my naivete." Kalex slightly bowed as he delivered his statement.

After smoothing out the situation as best as he could and waving away apologies from the farmers, Kalex was led out of the warehouse and out to a smaller building that housed a small cart. “Since we’re ahead of time, we can start preparing the wagon for travel to the exchange shop, it’s in pretty bad nick so I’m glad we have more time to prepare.” Sorene said as she made a motion towards the shed.

“If we have some time after getting the cart ready, could I bother you to see one of your bottles? I’m really curious about them.” Kalex gave Sorene his best harmless impression.

“Sure, but we only have one left, so if you break it, you owe me two sillies.” Kalex tried to hide his confusion at the name of their money denominations but gave her a smile and an affirmative in response.

The cart was in rough shape. Kalex didn’t think it’d be able to roll out of the shed without falling apart. Wood splintered and cracked as Sorene pushed with all her might. Kalex decided to help and gently took her place and started to push. As the cart started moving, he increased his strength in hopes of getting the chore done quicker. Kalex had never been overly strong in his life on Diat, but on Enternia, the extra muscle he added to his push successfully spread a crack down the middle of the cart causing it to collapse in a heap.

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Kalex looked at his hands then at Sorene and could only respond with his feelings. “Whoops.”

Sorene became flush with barely tempered anger. “Are you kidding me? Now we’ll have to run this to the exchange and be late. I have the worst luck. Ugh.” Kalex held out his hands in a calming gesture. “I’m so sorry. Don’t worry! I’ll fix this!” Sorene glared. “How are you going to fix this? It’s just a pile of splinters after you got done with it!” Kalex started walking away towards a small patch of trees outside of the property. “Trust me!”

Kalex walked over to the trees as fast as he could, opening his presence sight at the same time. The trees on the outskirts were thin and lacking in myst compared to what was held further in the thicket. Searching for the perfect tree, Kalex started to come up with a plan. He hadn’t paid much attention to the kind of carts that were normally used in Enternia and he had no desire to send out his presence just to find out. Instead, he thought it a fun challenge to come up with something himself.

After finding the perfect tree, cutting it down was almost effortless. Severing a sliver of the myst at the base of the tree and taking it in was all that was needed to take the tree down. Infusing some of his myst into the large trunk allowed him to guide the tree down safely and keep the surrounding foliage intact. Once everything was in place he began to surround the trunk with his presence and start the process of molding the tree into the shape he had picked. Using the Mix’s broken cart as a template of sorts, he made the wood curve into what would soon be the wheel wells.

As stealthily as she could, Sorene followed Kalex into the woods to see what he was up to. There was no way he could walk out of the trees with a new wagon unless he had planned this beforehand and stashed one away. Her suspicion increased the closer she got to him, as she didn’t see anything that could be hiding a cart. When she got close enough to have eyes on Kalex, she froze.

Sorene had an innate talent to move her myst outside her body in limited ways. She had seen the Overlord make people do things with just his voice and that gave a young Sorene an idea. From a young age, everyone who was part of the realm was taught about their spark and how it helped them become stronger by harnessing the power the spark gave off. Sorene had a knack for sensing the energy and slowly began the process of using it as a tool outside her body and adding it to innate objects to give them different properties.

Her proudest achievement had been the creation of her bottles. They were a one-use item and were time-consuming and expensive to make, but they soon became the hallmark of the Mix Farm. Everyone who purchased their goods always requested the products be stored in bottles for easy transport but were unwilling to pay the premium for the storage. While customers were low and money was tight, they ended up using the bottles as a marketing ploy and now everyone expected a bottle with their orders which led to many unhappy patrons.

Their customer base died down over the years as they would only use bottles when absolutely necessary and only if they had some on hand as the process to create them costed a lot. To have ones spark completely drained again and again was costly. During those time, Sorene couldn’t help around the farm and required medical aid to regenerate the power in her spark, so what Kalex was doing made her take a second look and rub her eyes in disbelief.

She could see Kalex's power like a giant wave intricately weaving through the large tree, and she couldn’t help but make connections with her process of making bottles. She sat on the ground and observed the process that was taking place. Five minutes later, Kalex turned to her and waved. Sorene broke out of her active contemplation with a soft yelp.

Arla watched as two figures walked out of the small wooded area just outside of the property line. She had seen the exchange at the broken cart and assumed Kalex had run away after breaking it. What followed the two shot that hypothesis into the ground. Following close behind Sorene and Kalex was what Arla assumed was some type of wagon, even though she had never seen anything like it before.

It was a little larger than the one that had broken and stood slightly taller. As it moved closer, she got a look at it fully. The wheels had no wooden spokes and seemed to be built from the same piece of wood the cart was made of. She couldn’t see any hints of joinery or wooden pins or pegs holding the cart together. It was truly a beautiful wagon. The entire cart was crafted from a single piece of lumber including the wheels and other moving pieces. It boggled her mind to look at the creation. The front seating area was spacious and curved gracefully into the wells where the wheel resided slightly underneath. The storage area took up most of the wagon’s bulk and transitioned perfectly into the rear wheels.

Arla was able to move small carts with her spark and, from what she had gathered, the innate skill to do that was rare and coveted although the new wagon seemed to be moving of its own volition. When Arla operated a cart, it took intense focus and by the end of the trip, she’d be exhausted and unable to do anything but recover for about a day. Although it was faster than walking, it was exponentially more tiring. Arla couldn’t see even a small bead of sweat flowing down Kalex’s brow as he effortlessly steered the enigmatic cart.

The duo stopped in front of Arla with smile-adorned faces. “Kalex made us another cart. Are you ready to head out?” Arla gaped. “He what?”

Kalex had explained the general process he’d done to make the cart to Sorene on their way out of the wooded area. As soon as he’d finished the cart, she started asking a neverending amount of questions until Kalex finally caved and gave a brief explanation. During the rest of the walk back to the warehouse and most of the way to the exchange, Sorene was quite in contemplation. Kalex was able to nudge her out of her thoughts and asked if he could inspect one of her bottles. Luckily, she had one with her that she absentmindedly handed over.

Surrounding the bottle with his presence brought a wave of nostalgia to Kalex. The bottle reminded him of one of his first creations that he'd made when he began tinkering with storage items and he knew exactly how to improve the design. Kalex lightly shook Sorene’s shoulder and broke her from her reverie.

“This bottle is amazing! I’ve made something similar to it before, would you like me to show you how to make it better?” Kalex said with a genuine grin.

“Make it better? I didn’t know it could be better! I’ve tried everything I could think of to improve upon it, but every attempt has ended with either a broken bottle or a completely ordinary one.” Kalex nodded along as she spoke.

“It can be so much more!” He said excitedly. “If my guess is correct, you move your energy inside the bottle to expand the space, then seal it to keep the larger capacity. Does that sound about right?” Sorene inclined her head as she listened intently, which Kalex took as a sign to continue.

“Doing that is easier, but backwards. You first want to create an outline with your energy, usually in the shape of the vessel you’re using, then seal it immediately. From there you can expand the space by sending more and more of your energy into it, and since you created the original outline, the space inflates with almost no loss. Plugging the space after expanding it sounds exhausting, so give my process a try next time you make a bottle!”

Sorene stared at Kalex blankly, obviously deep in thought. From her pack, she pulled out a bottle. “I’m going to try it now. I need to focus so if Ma needs anything, please assist her.”

Kalex beamed. “Of course!”

Arla left Sorene in the wagon and had Kalex help with unloading Elder Oak Light’s order as well as a few barrels of grain she hoped to sell to others at the exchange. Arla had her own stall that she used to sell her goods, which was very official looking compared to many that were lining the path of the exchange. The exchange was located on a wide hard-packed dirt road with around 40 stalls lining it and was just inside the city gates so the various merchants and buyers didn’t have to travel too far into Grangardd to procure their orders.

The stalls were selling various goods and Kalex couldn’t help himself to a few pastries from the stall directly next to Arla's. As the day wore on, there were minimal sales and the elder that Arla had been expecting was late. Sorene was still applying what Kalex had taught her and was keeping to herself. To be honest, Kalex was bored. He’d already looked into everything he could with his presence sight and wasn't able to find anything of note, so he instead began to ask random questions to Arla in hopes of finding a good conversation.

To his surprise, he was able to find out a lot about how much farm made and what kinds of things they struggled to find. Arla seemed to be just as bored as he was and continued to talk about the farm for a while until she got a customer. Seeing her do her best to land a sale, Kalex decided to wander the exchange and see the prices on the different products. A lot of the products were things Arla mentioned, and he could see why they were hard to procure. It was the price.

From what Kalex could infer from their conversation, Arla only made around 20 gold coins, or goldies as she had called them, a year which mostly went to expenses on the farm. They had about a gold and twenty silver coins to last them through the year and with the prices of the goods they needed, Kalex could see why they had a hard time budgeting enough to afford it. Kalex pulled out a gold coin from his internal storage and broke it into smaller change at a nearby stall. The smallest denomination was copper coins which were also the most common. One hundred copper was equivalent to a silver coin and forty silver coins were equal to a gold one. With a pocketful of change in hand, Kalex went shopping.

His first purchase was a rough-spun bag that slung around his shoulder which he immediately altered to make the storage expand manifold. At the sight of the bag, Kalex felt emotions crash into him as he could only imagine what Lyla was going through right now. He asked Lex if anything had changed to which he declined. He smiled knowing that she was surviving, but only steeled himself to finish his quest and find a way to save her.

For the next hour, Kalex proceeded to clean out all the stalls of anything even remotely useful. This included clothing and animal pelts, long-term and short-term provisions, and even small furniture and decorations. In total, he spent about four gold coins which only made an almost negligible dent in his coffers.

In Beer culture, you were in someone's debt if they did something that saved you from harm. This idea was ingrained in everyone on Diat from an early age and was a cornerstone of their social structure. Here on Enternia, that idea didn’t seem to be a popular one. Lyla often seemed surprised at the lengths he would go through to show his appreciation for saving his life and Arla was a bit put off at Kalex’s willingness to help after she took him out of harm's way and tended to him. To add to his appreciation of the farmers, He tucked away four hundred gold coins into an animal hide envelope that he’d fashioned into a storage container.

—

Lyla awoke on a rocky outcropping facing a beach with clear water slapping against its shores. In the water, forms could be seen just underneath the waves colored in a shade of blue she’d never seen before. The pain in her shoulder blurred her sight as tears welled uncontrollably.

“Where am I? Lex! Are you there?” she said as loud as she dared. She felt a warm sensation suffuse through her body but heard no reply. Gingerly standing to get a better look at her surroundings was tough as her body felt weaker than it had in a long time. One issue was that she was starving. She didn’t know how long she had laid there, but it had to have been for at least a few days.

Looking back to the slightly roiling waters, shock took her as she saw the cause. A few feet from the water, a figure lay with a sanguine stream flowing down into the water, the sea life was lapping it up happily. Lyla moved down the outcropping to get a better look and try to identify who or what the figure was. Getting closer, she could see that it was humanoid, but beyond recognition from her point of view. Without thinking, she tried to pull up its status. After a minute or two of trying, a window came into view. The text was fuzzy and hard to read but when it cleared enough to read, Lyla began to fill with mixed feelings.

Name: Sorus Weldef (Deceased)

Race: Lumen (Nimbit)

Rank: Axiom

Maturity: -3163/3000

Path: Fundamental Monarch (Novice)

Vitality: 0/30,800

Myst: 19,436/12,000,000

Strength: 0

Wisdom: 0

Agility: 0

Charisma: 0

Luck: 0

Lyla felt good knowing that Sorus was dead and felt infinitely safer. On the other side of the coin, she had never felt so alone and scared as she did now. She knew she was stuck here and that she was nowhere near Enternia. She had been semi-conscious when the Lumen dragged her from her home planet. She remembered seeing Enternia from above. The ball of life where she was born was the last thing she saw before blacking out.

After thinking about her situation, she mustered enough courage to inspect the dead Lumen. As she got closer, she pushed out her presence sight and surrounded the body. Her senses were assaulted by the feedback from the corpse and it took a nauseating moment to rifle through the disgusting impressions she was receiving.

Finally, one thing stood out in her sight. A ring on the Lumen’s hand was slightly brighter than the lumen itself. Lyla cautiously moved over and placed herself above the hand that the ring adorned. Finally grasping the ring, she pulled and it took a lot less force than she had thought to get the ring, the only problem was that the finger the ring was on came with the ring when she pulled.

Gagging, Lyla shook the ring until the finger landed on the sand and splattered. She didn’t want to put the ring on but curiosity got the best of her. She moved back to the outcropping and slid the ring over her thumb, as it was the only finger that the ring fit. At first, nothing happened, then a window came into view. This window was of much better quality than the last one had been and less verbose as well. Three words was all the window showed.

MERGE?

[YES] [NO]

Lyla knew she should think about what was going on or at least ask Lex, but with no one around and no response from Lex, Lyla mentally hit yes. Like a strong magnetic force, the ring on her finger and the bracelet on her opposite wrist slammed together with a brief moment of heat and sparks. The process ended as quickly as it had started and looking down, Lyla only saw that the bracelet remained. Peeking into it made her eyes go wide. ”This will make surviving here much easier.” she whispered through a lopsided smile.