At the age of 6, Gibet’s entire world revolves around his mother. Having been born sickly, most of his early years are spent bedridden, his mother accompanying and entertaining him to pass the days.
On one occasion, she takes an extended business trip, leaving him alone for about two weeks. His health miraculously starts to recover during this period, and he spends the final few days of her trip away eagerly looking forward to being able to walk up to her and welcome her home.
He is running towards her in the hallway to hug her when his legs suddenly come out from under him. The floor rushes upwards, and when he awakens he is back in bed, an ice pack on his head and his mother fussing over him with a bowl of his favorite mushroom soup.
He had tripped during his clumsy run, and he cursed himself endlessly for his own carelessness. Even worse, the injury seems to have kicked his recovering body back into the throes of sickness, and he spends yet another half year confined to his bed. The frustration of being bedridden had gotten so bad that for the first time he even started sulking when his mother was away for work, unwilling to eat and angry at the world for making his body the way it was.
The nurse responsible for his care had thrown a fit, and he does gain some amount of guilty pleasure at having a second person fuss over his health. She eventually manages to convince him to drink at least a few nutrient potions in return for playing card games and reading storybooks with him, and even promises to return tomorrow. Her name is Emma, and she becomes his first friend.
Eventually, Emma becomes his primary caretaker on days when his mother is out on trips, and his health also starts to gradually improve again. One day, he finally manages to walk again, and instantly begs his mother to take him out for a stroll in the family gardens.
He manages about six steps before he feels a sudden, painful force against his legs. Once again, the floor rushes up to meet him, and he wakes up in bed with two shattered Tibias.
For the rest of the day, there is an uneasy feeling that something is wrong.
His mother shares in his frustrations though, and works together with Emma to set up a strict diet consisting of magically dense and medicinal ingredients to maximize the effects of the healing potions on his legs. He recovers in record time, and is able to walk again in about a week.
This time, he is extra careful, and clings to her mother’s arm like it's a living crutch as he goes step by step into the garden.
As he’s inching along the floor, his arms are suddenly violently yanked to the side. He loses his balance, and tumbles through the air before slamming through a window. He wakes up in bed terrified, with two dislocated shoulders and small lacerations all over his body.
Mother had thrown him.
Mother had thrown him, and she was sitting right across from him sobbing into his bed sheets in relief.
Of course she hadn’t thrown him. She would never hurt him. He discards the thought with some difficulty and leans into a hug with her. The familiar embrace leaves him at ease.
Ease which is instantly destroyed when he asks her what had happened.
According to her, he had tripped into a rose bush. When he asks her about the broken window, she ignores the question and repeats the explanation until he stops asking, the grip of her hand on his tightening all the while.
The unsettling feeling comes back stronger.
He starts thinking of the other two times he had tripped, both in her presence, along with his recent health changes.
The first time he had managed to get healthy enough to leave his bed had been during her extended trip away from home. That was the first time in years that he hadn’t eaten with her. The second time, he had been eating a mix of meals with her and ones with Emma, and he had slowly recovered enough to start walking in about half a year. The third time, he had been eating a diet specifically designed by Emma, and had started walking again in a week.
Was his body actually getting better, or had mother been poisoning him?
The question plagues him throughout the night, and is still plaguing him by the time his mother and Emma come into his room with a tiny tray of healing potions and breakfast.
His mind races at hundreds of miles a second as his mother prepares his meal in front of him, and he blurts out a request to have Emma also join the meal in panic. Emma smiles at him before sitting down on the other side of his bed, though he can’t bring himself to smile back. They all eat from shared bowls.
His worries begin to subside. There’s no way the food could be poisoned if all three of them were eating from it, and he promises to make it up to Emma for using her as a shield in his state of panic later in the future.
The next three days are spent in unimaginable pain, throwing up blood as his stomach seems to melt itself from the inside.
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The first thing he sees when he wakes up is his mother nursing him by his bed. He asks about Emma. She smiles and tells him that she had never left. He looks around in confusion, before his eyes settle on Emma’s dead body, crumpled and rotting in the corner of the room. He screams for help, but nobody comes, and Caltomarra Tudor just smiles before getting up and telling him that she will come back with dinner in a few hours.
Caltomarra comes into his room with another tray of food that night, and this time drinks a vial of veinfire potion right in front of him before laughing at his confusion.
‘Don’t worry about me Gibby! I’m a poison specialist, stuff like this doesn’t do anything to me! If anything, I actually quite enjoy the flavors! Veinfire adds a spicy kick to things! Now, let’s get your meal set up. It’s your favorite mushroom soup again!’
For the first time in his life, he snarls at her, eyes wet with tears and fists clenched in impotent fury.
‘I’m not hungry…’
She does not force him to eat, and only smiles at him before leaving the room. The next day, he wakes up to find Emma’s remains missing and all the Tudor family servants walking about as normal. None of them remember her.
It is also the last time that Caltomarra ever eats with him. He is able to walk again in days, and is able to run and climb in another two weeks.
----------------------------------------
Gibet, in the interest of making sure that they weren’t overheard talking in somewhere like a restaurant, had instead decided to bring them to a small outing at the side of the university, calling down a hooded figure in green robes.
‘Young master, a secret location is hardly a secret if you end up showing it to others…’
‘Then don’t tell anyone.’
‘It is not your friends I am speaking of, but rather those who may have followed them along the way.’
‘Did you see anyone follow?’
‘I did not, but-’
‘Then it is ok.’
The figure stews in silence while Gibet turns around.
‘This is Bedivere. She’s my personal guard assigned by my grandmother.’
‘Fucking hell… and you thought a guard given to you by the same family you’re trying to upheave was smart why?’
‘She’s not a mole.’
‘And you’d know how?’
‘If she is, then I would have never had a chance of victory in the first place. Better to at least try with the assumption that she is on our side.’
As they settle down around the clearing, Bedivere sets down a basket and begins pulling out a frankly ludicrous amount of food. Sieva looks through the dishes in appreciation before grabbing the nearing thing he can see, a fried filet of fish.
He takes a bite and grimaces. From a culinary standpoint, it was a damn good piece of meat. Its edges were browned just enough to add a slight crunch to the texture, but its internals were still soft and moist. It was also marinated with a sweet and salty sauce infused with local berries.
Now if only it wasn’t saturated with so much magic.
The fish turns ethereal as it dissolves in his mouth, transforming into mana that gets slowly absorbed by his body. The food in Kepia was good, but its magical essence made it difficult to eat for outsiders. He felt like he was eating a cloud that tasted and smelled like fish, but had none of the satisfaction. His body was simply too rooted in the physical world, and it couldn’t interact very well with the mana that saturated all life here. It nourished him just fine, but his stomach still feels achingly empty, as it has felt for the past few years he has lived here.
Even worse, mana would often affect the taste of the food. Lunatos was situated right in the middle of a god's damned canyon filled to the brim with earth mana, and it made every other bit feel like he was eating a mouth full of dirt.
In contrast, Gibet and Lily are on the complete opposite of the spectrum. Alchemists are already very in tune with surrounding magical energies, and he still isn’t quite able to get over the fact that Gibet is literally able to digest a bowl of soup by staring at it and willing the mana into himself.
Lily, as a pineling, didn’t even need to eat and simply absorbed ambient mana passively. Though she did try food out of curiosity, they no longer allowed it once they realized that her physical body had no throat or digestive system, so the food just piled up and rotted in her mouth.
Sieva sighs, putting aside the half eaten filet before setting down around 15 or so heavy books onto the ground. He opens one up and passes two others to his companions. Bedivere jumps up onto a tree to act as a lookout, but remains close enough to hear them speak.
‘Right… So here's all the law books I can find regarding royal houses. Did you have anything specific in mind you wanted to target?’
‘No… not really. I figured you would know where to start…’
‘Are.. are you fucking serious? You come up to me telling me you plan to depose the head of an elder family who also happens to be some sort of evil supervillain and you don’t even have a starting point to tackle them from?’
‘Sorry…’
The muted apology takes him by surprise, and he quickly backhands himself in his mind. Gibet was smart, but he wasn’t a mastermind genius with an answer to everything. He thinks back to what he was told about Caltomarra, and feels his spine tingle with disgust.
‘No… it’s fine… Look, let’s try to work out a starting point first? Laws on clans and families here can get notoriously complex and I don’t want us getting bogged down on something that can’t help us. You said she’s planning to come here during the Remembrance Festival right? Do you have any idea on why?’
‘Does she need a reason other than to torment me?’
‘Yes. Put aside your feelings about her for a second and consider it logically. She’s the head of an elder family, and a politically active one at that. There’s no way she’s going to set aside all her work for an entire week and come here just for you. There’s definitely something specific she’s coming here for.’
The two of them sit in contemplative silence for some time before Lily digs her head out of the pot of soil she was holding.
‘Gibet, what types of things do supervillains with lots of political clout do?’
‘Um… you mean like in stories? I guess… Maneuver for more political power? Steal things? Buy illegal treasures from shady black markets?’
‘Do you think she’s here for political power?’
Gibet has all the social knowledge expected of a hermit, so Sieva steps in to answer.
‘I don’t think so. The university has always stayed outside of political maneuvering. Nobody here is interested in anything outside of their own studies, and anyone who does have ambitions would just pack their bags and head for the capital.’
‘Ok, what about stealing?’
‘That implies that there’s something to steal. I can’t think of anything off the top of my head since I’m not native. What about you Gibet? You grew up here right? Know any valuable things she might want?’
‘...We have valuable alchemical ingredients? That’s really the only reason people come here outside of applying to the University…’
‘Well fucking duh, plus all of its owned by your family so it doesn’t really help us here. Ok, that leaves the black market idea. Is everyone ok with just going off of that assumption until we find a better answer?’
Gibet and Lily both nod.
‘Ok… New problem. What the fuck is she trying to buy? The Tudors can probably get their hands on anything they want, illegal or not, and I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t warrant the head honcho herself coming down here to get it, especially if it was illegal. Anybody acquainted with the underground scene in this city? In fact, do we even have one? It’s a university town for fuck’s sake-
‘I know of a few.’
Bedivere drops out of the trees. Gibet peers at her uncertainly.
‘What kind?’
‘Weapons and magical artifacts. It can be difficult to source some of the things I need from more traditional channels.’
‘I’ve only ever seen you use those retractable knives you put in your shoes?’
‘The whole point of a surprise weapon is for it to be a surprise, young master. There are a number of brokers who deal with illegal goods in the city. I would recommend we start with the one I most frequent.’