Nan Odelia had woken up about an hour or two after Kestra and Graemire returned to their inn. The viney joker had been distracting Kestra with "concentration practice" while she tried to read, amusement their dominant emotion. When Graemire discovered Kestra was ticklish, he also discovered how much he liked making her giggle. The childlike play helped Kestra feel more aligned with the Divine Elementals, and Graemire in particular, but it also meant she had had to have some conversations with Graemire about when she wasn't fine with the playtime.
He had kept his vines to himself when she went back with Scarlet to the Jade Pearl, and she wasn't sure if that was because he felt it was a situation needing their full attention or if he had understood that kind of playfulness was something to share only with friends. Regardless, she was able to buy several low Journeyman grade communications devices and a few storage devices of mid Journeyman grade in peace. She also registered her buyout bids for a few items that were scheduled for the auction that evening.
At the Jade Pearl, hired bidders were a rarely granted concession below the Immortal Realms. They were employees of the auction house, bound by their duty to the Jade Pearl Auction House to carry out bids on behalf of Very Honored Persons who were unable to attend a particular auction. The Very Honored Person deposited a sum of funds ahead of the auction and assigned their purchase priorities for up to one fifth the items up for that particular auction. The details of the Very Honored Person's bidding directions were held confidential under the honor of the Jade Pearl Auction House.
Kestra had two good reasons to avoid attending the auction in person. First was keeping her presence under the notice of the local upper strata. Sure, there would be some questions about the VHP, but out-of-towners did sometimes request hired bidders. Second, and part of the reason to keep her head down, was her wardrobe. Rather, the lack of it, as she had recently been reminded. Just because she was strong enough here to get away with being a slob in polite society didn't mean that the reputation wouldn't follow her to places where she wasn't strong enough to be "quirky".
Kestra's priority were the manuals for body tempering, but she found a few curios of interest among the items on display. One of them was a machine for melting down mana stones and elemental cores.
Graemire dismissed it because, "Anyone of sufficient experience can do so on their own."
She still thought that it could be an interesting piece for Su'ami, and possibly herself, to create a liquid mana to add to their recipes: Su'ami's smelts and alloys, and Kestra's potions, powders, and pills. If it was at least consistent, then having one less thing to concentrate on while crafting could be a nice shortcut.
Graemire conceded the point, but despite his attempts to restrain his emotions, it still came out as a pout. Kestra found it both adorable and exasperating.
He, on the other hand, thought the traveling garden was utterly delightful. Kestra agreed, and marked down her maximum bid for it. Graemire went quiet on her after that, and she got the impression he had been considering if the fist sized ball of spatial distortion was worth leaving behind the pretense of being her cloak.
That was fine; she had an entire realm for her traveling garden. She wanted to see the look on his face when she presented it to him. She also wanted to see if he could do that mana-meld thing with this device that he had apparently done with his storage rings and communication device. If so, would that be the start of his personal realm? She was rather curious to find out.
She included an aside to her personal bidder that if she lost the auction, she would appreciate should the Jade Pearl kindly broker a consignment with the crafter that made the traveling garden.
That had been then, and this was now, and her Elemental cultivation partner seemed to be seeking comfort in sharing mana with her. She wasn't sure why, exactly, or if she was assigning far more human motives to a very different sapient being than he was capable of being.
Nan Odelia, on rising and finding Kestra squirming in her chair and suppressing giggles, had carefully looked away as she went over to write out her skills.
Kestra took the list from her, looked it over, and promptly decided to add to her shopping list. Though Nan Odelia was waiting for her response, Kestra decided to broach a different topic. "The style of the garments I purchased today, what do they signify to you?"
Nan Odelia's face tensed, and she dropped into a thinly veiled watchful tension. "Honored Lady, are you displeased?"
"Please answer the question," Kestra instructed.
"I ... um. Father said you desired the suit, that you were seeking a position with the Lost Ways Healing House, and the suit is in the style of a hired servant, someone of great dignity. Surely, you must be to indenture your own servant." Nan Odelia seemed to just now be reconsidering that idea, even as the words crossed her lips.
"So you believe me to be a servant of great dignity?" Kestra asked.
"I do not yet know Honored Lady's business well enough to know, but this is what I thought from what I have seen." With a hint of desperate bravery behind the mask of calm she wore, Nan Odelia asked, diffident in the extreme, "Would Honored Lady kindly instruct this one?"
"When you are asked, you may tell people that I am an alchemist with an interest in cultivating new ingredients. I am somewhat of a recluse, and would only consider taking on a commission if it were brokered through some trusted, neutral party. This is true, and in this city, that party is currently the Jade Pearl Auction House.
"What is not for common gossip, but not an actual secret you are oath sworn to keep silent on, is that I am of a Transcendental level, and keep company with Awakened Creatures of the Divine levels. I am not a member of the Alchemist's Guild, nor do I intend to join them. You should know that last bit so you don't assume the relationship or misrepresent me."
Kestra waited for Nan Odelia to take that in. After a moment, she set out the remaining meal and a half from the morning. "Eat more. Again, this is not for gossip, but not a bound secret: I have hired Venerable Elder Jonathan Pierce to be my Healer on Retainer, to assist me with research. As part of his new duties, he will also provide his aid to those under my protection. That includes you. You still have bone-floats in the places where you were most often bruised. Those will be healed, if not tonight, then over the course of however long it takes."
She looked at the girl and nodded her head at the cushions arranged around the table. "Fill your stamina; you'll need it. When you are finished, draft out a list of the things you'll need to set up your looms and spin your yarns and threads. While I'm waiting to hear back on my order of ores, we'll see how many of those can be purchased. Plainly speaking, I have no desire to visit tailor shops in the future, and you have a desire to grow your Tailoring skill. If you out-pace the needs I place upon you, we'll find somewhere you can sell your goods."
Nan Odelia sat in the seat she was pointed to and lifted up her chop sticks. Before she began, though, she asked, "May I, ah, may I have time to say farewells to some of my friends? Before we go?"
Kestra said, "Of course! Also, here." She put one of the communication devices and one of the storage devices, a pendant, on the table beside Nan Odelia's plate. "I've already registered my device to yours, and this way if we are separated, we can still reach each other. Bind the pendant to yourself. You'll use it to carry the items I send you out to collect for me. Use your storage ring for your own belongings, but register whom you like to the communications device."
Nan Odelia had looked like she was about to protest, but on hearing that they were tools for her duties, she bowed her head. "I will safeguard these, Honored Lady."
"Good. When you do, remember that you are a lot harder to replace than these bits and baubles. I will rarely, if ever, place anything in your possession that would be better for you to die than to let a thief take, and I will not do so without giving you the option to decline that charge."
"Thank you, Honored Lady." Nan Odelia kept her head bowed, but her voice had a suspicious quiver to it.
Her piece said, Kestra went back to her chair, got her book back out of her storage, and jaw-talked at Graemire through their communication devices. "I'm not saying full stop, but please not so much in front of others that we're still getting to know, even if they are servants. People will misunderstand."
"Fine," he sighed in imitation of Kestra. His vines resumed their petting, but focused more on soothing strokes rather than arousing ones.
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If the people staying at Tang's had been disdainful of Kestra due to her clothes in the morning, the ones who witnessed her, back in her far more comfortable ensemble, receiving Venerable Elder Pierce's bow, were confused and suddenly very nervous. To hear him then address the woman with the low clothing and odd cloak as an Honorable Transcendental? Nerves became gut-churning anxiety.
Kestra didn't like how that flavored the mana around them, and made a show of being relaxed and unconcerned, hoping that the anxious ones realized she didn't care enough about them to learn their names. She had been around nobles enough to know some people, when they got power, used it for good, but a lot more used it to be utter jerks.
She hooked elbows with Venerable Elder Pierce and helped him ascend the steps to her suite, ignoring for now the feel of an invasive Identify type of spell. It felt, if anything, like a more complicated version of her Organic Assay.
"You show this old man great kindness, young miss," he commented as she held the door for him.
"Retainer or not, you've earned my respect for the accomplishment of surviving so long, Venerable Elder," Kestra responded. "Adding in the respect you've gained for founding a Healing House, well, I'm not sloshing between my ears."
Nan Odelia had jumped to her feet at the opening of the door, and she bowed, hands to her knees as she folded nearly in half. "Honored Lady, Venerable Elder," she greeted them.
A complicated look that Kestra read as patiently vexed crossed the Venerable Elder's face. "Shall I be required to adhere to such formality?"
Kestra laughed. "Ah, no! Let me close the door and we can speak plainly."
Door closed and her Control Air spell manipulated into a way to block sound, she pulled out a proper chair from her storage to match her reading chair, and a dais with a cushion on it so the one seated would be on the same level as those in the chairs. "Please see if the higher seat is easier on your Venerable bones, Elder Pierce. Graemire, I think introductions are now in order."
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
He slipped from her shoulders with a mild grumble in his mana and took on his humanoid form, easily settling himself onto the cushioned dais.
Keeping a weather eye on the elderly healer, Kestra introduced her cultivation partner. "This is Honored Divine Elemental Emperor of Wood Graemire. As you should both realize, Graemire has been present for all of our interactions so far. For the both of you, this is to be held in great confidence, but is not one of the secrets that the Heavens are like to treat you as an oath breaker if you reveal it."
A wobbly flux of color ran through Venerable Elder Pierce's features, followed by the feeling of an almost automatic use of internally focused mana.
Kestra passed the healer a stamina recovery potion. Pierce grimaced more than smiled, sipped it at first, then chugged it back. He returned the empty vial to her.
"It is a great honor to meet you, Emperor Graemire," the Venerable Elder stated once his color turned healthier. He added a seated bow, as much as his aged body would permit.
Graemire nodded his head back. "My apologies for the discomfort my revelation has brought you, Venerable Elder. I noticed you performed a thorough inspection of my cultivation partner, Miss Kestra. Did you perchance investigate the state of her mana foramina?"
Pierce's gaze hooded. "It is a healer's duty not to disclose such information without proper permissions. My retainer is to Miss Kestra; only she may permit me to speak further."
Graemire smiled. "A good and noble answer."
Kestra passed over the second communication device and another storage pendant. This one Inspri had bound and altered. "This communications device has already been registered to my own. With it, you'll have a much easier time getting my attention at the location I'll be teleporting you to. There's a relay device that it can use to allow you to call back to people in this city from where you'll be. The relay is a bit of a mana weasel, so I will need to enable it when you want to talk.
"The pendant is tied to an entrepot of goods, and an inventory system. It will work only in the location to which I will be teleporting you. You may request items by tapping the pendant and speaking out loud what you want. If the entrepot has it, and you're authorized to withdraw it, you get what you want. Objects that are too large to hold need a designated place to be deposited. You may request a list of items you can request."
Kestra looked at both of her retainers. "The details around that pendant are covered under your secrecy oaths. Nan Odelia, that I will be teleporting Venerable Elder Pierce to an undisclosed location is one of those closely held, but not deadly, secrets. I am not sure how many among the Lost Ways Healing House are aware of more than that he is in my employ now, but you may confirm the success of the teleport to Elder Ming Hadal should you be asked."
She turned back to the elder and gestured for Nan Odelia to come closer. "And now, your first patient under my protection, Venerable Elder."
Elder Pierce took hold of Nan Odelia's hand and the mana around him moved. He clucked his tongue and said, "Sit. This won't need food, but will need stamina. Would Miss Kestra--?" He didn't even get to finish before Kestra held out three vials of stamina potions, made while she was discovering the properties of the plants in her alchemical garden.
After a glance over them, he murmured, "Generous!" and selected two.
"Drink this one now, and we'll see if we need the second," the healer instructed the girl.
Kestra and Graemire watched on as a comforting white light sank in Nan Odelia, lingering in places just under her skin. She passed over some diluted brumi juice when the elder began to look tired around the edges.
He sipped it, made a baffled face, looked at the cup, then continued sipping at the juice it contained while he finished healing Nan Odelia.
When he sat back, Kestra targeted the now slumbering girl with Organic Assay while she lifted her up and took her back to her bed.
The healer looked tired, too, when she returned, but also interested. He remarked, "You have a Healing spell and some kind of scanning spell. That's more than most healing novices manage. Why do you need me?"
"Experience, for the most part," Kestra answered. She set down a stele in the room, and then opened a gate. "Let me show you to your new home. It's much easier to speak freely there."
Graemire waved them off. "I shall remain to watch over your little one."
That got him a kiss from Kestra as she passed beside him. She offered her arm to the elder, and he rose. Kestra returned the chairs to her storage, and escorted Venerable Elder Pierce to her personal realm.
"So, how do my foramina look?" she asked, just before stepping through the gateway.
"Nearly ready to pop open on their own, they're so thin. How do you keep your mana cycling as much as it ...." He trailed off as he took in the stone tower right beside them. Then his gaze began a slow sweep over everything.
Kestra closed the gate and made her own survey.
When she first made this realm, she had been undergoing a Blessing of Tribulation from the god of Tribulations in her prior realm. Elamshaq was not a god whose attention the sane courted, but at least when they blessed someone, the reward for the task of their tribulation was well worth it.
They also were reported to like tangling the wheels of the other gods much as they did for the mortals, and considering that Kestra had received her notice of being selected to transmigrate immediately upon finishing her tribulation of realm building, well, she had her suspicions that she got the blessing and someone else was somehow receiving the tribulation.
First, she had made Inspri's domain, a personal realm that started out as a sphere around a hundred meters in diameter. Some squishing and tugging had changed the shape but not the volume, and Kestra decided it would be her storage space. She made Inspri to keep everything nice and neat, and gave the Inventory Sprite room in her soul to grow.
Then she made this, her retreat realm. It had started out as another sphere, this one half a kilometer in diameter. Then, Nicada, Divine Elemental of Metal, had gone on a rampage because she couldn't respect other people's right to live their own lives their way, and created a massive blight.
The first two personal realms Kestra had made were practice. When she made her third and passed her tribulation, she had been given a World Seed, which sucked up all the byproducts from making her realms and all the experiments that came before the makings.
Kestra had only just figured out the steles she used as anchors to move herself in and out of her personal retreat realm when her act of sharing keys to use those steles with only some of the Divine Creatures had sparked Divine Elemental of Metal Nicada's rampage. The results of that rampage included a fifteen kilometer blight and Nicada's condemnation for violating her oaths to not harm the Myriad Realms.
With a few modifications, two of the steles became a bridge for Kestra's World Seed to slurp down the blighted mana, and all of her realms grew. Her retreat had expanded to five kilometers in diameter in the three days the Agents of the Myriad Realms took to plant a dungeon core in the middle of the blight. Kestra wasn't sure where the extra earth, water, and air had come from, but the remaining Elementals and the sprites bound to her mana well had dealt with their depression over the events by throwing themselves into balancing the influx. Over the months since then, her retreat realm continued to grow, but at a more modest meter in diameter a day.
The light in her sky was obviously artificial, a glow that ebbed and waned through day and night cycles, and the sky itself was only just gaining a bluish tint. Her Mist Sprite sometimes floated up clouds, and there were birds and insects that gave the sky some liveliness.
There were also yet more insects, rodents, and, recently, omnivores moving among the fecund plant life, and various kinds of fish in her waters. Where they came from, Kestra also didn't know. They were creatures of the Myriad Realms, mana-constructs, she thought, but not magical beyond that. They obeyed the sprites, but otherwise acted like any non-monstrous beasts of their kind acted.
In preparation for searching out some farmers, Kestra had Natspri clear some space for fields and pastures. She made a consumable scroll to teach Natspri how to read and then gave him his own copies of books on farming and alchemy. He had, begrudgingly, started growing fields of grains, though no one had asked him to do so. When Kestra asked, he said, "Do, learn, maybe stupid not stupid. But feels stupid!"
Thus, there were dainty farm fields of maize, barley, a red nut spelt, with larger paddy fields for rice and alustace cane. Natspri knew how much those who ate food enjoyed the sugary syrup. He planted bean fields, using young fruit trees he and Graemire trained to grow like fences as living trellises for peas, peanuts, soybeans, lintels, and dragon tongue beans. He put in more dainty fields of vegetables, including fruits like strawberries, cattle melons, and tomatoes, which were something very new to Kestra.
If not for Yorgin and Ralouf being carnivores in their original forms, they were set for food. Even if they didn't need meat, however, Kestra and Su'ami still would have been sad without meat in their diet, and the fish just weren't satisfying; too small and few with any oils or fats worth speaking of.
Also, though Kestra wasn't going to milk any goats or cows, she did miss cream, fresh churned butter, and cheese. And eggs.
She hadn't seen any chickens in the Myriad Realms yet, but there were birds kept for meat and eggs, a ground fowl called dadaky. They were beetle eaters for the most part, and as long as there were beetles or bugs they could see to eat, they left plants alone.
"This is a private realm?" Venerable Elder Pierce asked when he was done looking around, bringing Kestra back to the present.
"Yep. There are elemental sprites that keep it in balance. There are also some Divine Creatures and three more Divine Elementals currently using it as their little retreat from the lower realms. Graemire will pop in and out, too."
While she talked, Kestra led the elder into the tower that Ralouf built. "So, originally, we were just going to hire a [Healer] for a consultation about mana foramina: mine and another person the Divines have taken to calling a 'little potential'. I can hear Su'ami in the smithy; she is that other 'potential'. The thing is, she and I, we're transmigrators, so there is a lot we do not know about this world."
Kestra paused by the stairs, considered Pierce's limited mobility, and led the way instead to the back of the first floor. "In my old world, I was a [Combat Alchemist]. I started out as a [Woods Wraith Hunter], but my alchemist class quickly over took it. There, [Alchemists] supply [Healers]. Potions and remedies are either general or targeted, and knowing what to target and when to use the general, those I'm used to considering [Healer] skills, not [Alchemist] skills. Spell casting on Moh is far from common; most people who use mana do it through their skills.
"I'm not sure about how things worked where Su'ami is from, but she's also not human. She's a Fox-Path xyline, a vulpine. The Divines say she's closest to an Ascended race with an Awakened bloodline."
They had arrived at what Ralouf probably originally intended, as far as Kestra could tell, to be a small banquet hall or large tea room. It was a good size for a bedroom from what Kestra had seen of Sortalheim's Lord's Donjon, and had open air slat windows that looked out onto a meditation garden Graemire had set up with Natspri and Stonspri.
"Would you like this for your bedroom? Your lab will be in one of the outbuildings."
"This is nearly a lord's room in size; you quite honor me," Pierce said.
"The rest of the rooms are up or down stairs, and for now, at least, there's room to spare. If you like this room, it's yours. The roof has been taken over by Vostler and Yorgin, and Ralouf and Su'ami have picked out rooms on the second floor. Graemire and I have rooms on the third. Neither Eilith or Ambrose choose to live in the tower; last I heard they're off cultivating in their elements. Water and Earth, respectively. Vostler is a Fire Elemental, and the most innocent of the group. Quite intelligent, but with a simplistic understanding of societies. There are three sub-levels, this ground level, second up to fifth, and the roof, by the by. Do you want to climb the stairs?"
"No, this will be a very pleasing room, I think," Pierce declined. He wasn't quite swaying on his feet, but he did seem more tired.
So, Kestra showed how the center bar on the slats could allow them to move between a vertical and horizontal alignment, and asked, "Do you have furnishings you would prefer to arrange? If not, most of what I have I won in a duel with a lower realm City Lord, so the crafting grade is about average for the High Mortal Realms, but comfy enough. As I said, though, I'm a transmigrator, and my sensibilities keep getting broken by the Myriad Realms."
Pierce began putting out his bedroom furnishings. "If I might procure a few more carpets, that would be all I desire," he said. He paused and looked over to Kestra, a certain sympathy in his gaze.
"I, too, am not a native of the Realms. I was a Ship's Chirurgeon. What the Myriad Realms knows as mana was called aether to us on Eiral, and the use was banned as foul witchcraft, the monsters here demons there. I saw a two headed dog, black and slick with scales just before the first Living Scroll saying I had been chosen to 'Ascend' to the Low Mortal Realms. I nearly ended up burnt at the stake to purify my cursed soul when I went to Panthea's Temple to ask what had happened to me. You are not the first I've bumped into over the centuries, and if you're not slain, you will live for at least a few centuries here. Just, there are a lot of violent ways to die in the Realms."
Pierce shook his head. "My apologies, but I'm rambling something fierce. I fear sleep calls to me. Shall I call you on this," he held up the communications device, "when I am presentable in the morning?"
"Yes, and you can ask for a private bath in chamber through your pendant. I suggest requesting the seated entry tub. I made that one when I was doing stamina training. It needs about as much space as three of your beds, but it's easy to get in and out of. Biggest part are the water jars, though. The red jar has water a bit hotter than tea-serving temperature and the gray is as cool as cellar water."
Kestra paused, but decided she had kept Pierce from his bed for long enough. "Call me when you wake. The day and night cycle seems to have stabilized around an even twenty-six hours, but it's also gone a bit faster and a bit slower."