Chapter 117

This is an Apple, Mr. Ballow!

Brewer’s Reputation: 404

What the Alchemists had been able to put together in what felt like the blink of an eye was astounding. They had fit a dozen tents on the trail and between the trees. Each tent was filled with tables, cabinets, glassware, mortar and pestles, scales, burners... Fires raged in other tents with flames that climbed the sides of cauldrons. Boiling liquid bubbled, and it sounded like heavy rain pummeled the forest. Steam and smoke vaporized beneath the canopy.

All that for plaster. But that plaster had me shaking my head in disbelief.

“What is it?” I asked, unable to tear my eyes from the bright orange plaster.

“Lumantium,” said an Alchemist. “It emits a glow, day or night.”

For every thirty striped maple we lumbered, lumantium was slapped onto tree trunks in rectangles the size of a man’s hand. The thick plaster dried instantly. It was a much better trail marker than hammering signs into the earth, especially where it was rooty.

For such young striped maples that were sparse along the particular route, it was exceptionally rooty. It was good timing. All I had to do was mark which trees we needed to clear, and adventurers would rush in to make it happen. Our trail management was in full swing.

Our midday breaks came faster, and when the sun was at zenith, I left the trail and clambered up the southern ridge. Looking north over the Mist Hidden wall, I could see mountains in the distance greatly obscured by blue hazes.

I was alone, not even for a moment, before an old man in elaborate scholastic robes beetled up the ridge. In tow, a young man crawled after him with the bottom of his robes slithering over leaves. He wore a bulging pack upon his back like a carapace.

“My good man!” said the older man. “Spare a moment so that we may wander this path of enlightenment together!” He panted and seemed chuffed with himself as he gazed out across the world. “I too seek such vistas. Such expanses of the mind.”

I leaned back against a tree and said, “Yeah, it’s usually peaceful up on the ridges…”

“Barnaby Whittlebeethus the XI, at your service.”

The younger fellow took Barnaby’s offered hand and pulled himself up beside us. “Pleasure to finally meet with you, Mr. Ballow. I’m Thomas.”

With what I thought might have been a shushing tone, Barnaby said, “Water, Thomas.”

Thomas rummaged through his pack. He popped out the cork of a dark waterskin. Crystal clear water splashed out and speckled the ground.

“Our acquaintance is imperative!” said Barnaby. “Long has the journey been, and the order of Ortus Scholars hopes to make a leaping advance in our understanding of the universe with your aid. I implore you, my good man, to introduce us to the nightream. Thrush is the name you’ve given him?”

“It’s his own name. And I can try, but I can’t guarantee anything.”

“Ah, yes, life holds no promises. That much is true, Mr. Ballow. Let me make a promise to you instead. I shall relieve you of the ignorance you’ve suffered in your short breath of time. Take a look at this. Thomas, page 1114.”

Thomas rummaged once more. With a grunt he hefted a tome, and its removal deflated the pack. With muscle he opened the tome. Barnaby snatched the huge thing from Thomas.

“Recognize this, Mr. Ballow?” said Barnaby and turned his whole body so that pages 1114 and 1115 faced me.

The man took up a stance to hold the book. His limbs trembled and there was strain in his face. I held my hands out, palms up.

“May I?”

“By all means, Mr. Ballow!”

He lowered the tome onto my hands. I was not prepared for it to be that heavy! I felt my eyes go wide and I had to step forward into a stance to brace myself. The tome teetered forward. Thomas caught the other end and helped hold it up.

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I wanted to say thank you to the beaming young man, but the lavish illuminations drew more than my immediate attention. It provoked questions within me. Within the vining gold borders of the illumination, there was an illustration of the dreambon. Except it wasn’t any dreambon I had ever seen. It was dark green, and it was freckled with squares of brass. There was an illustration of a split dreambon which showed the seeds in a lathered cream. The seeds were needle-like; not at all like the round seeds in Thrush’s dreambons. Could it even be a dreambon?

Barnaby’s wide eyes and pocked nose almost landed upon the edge of the left page like a grasshopper would arrive—suddenly; almost out of thin air. “The Dreambon has finally appeared in the Brewer’s Guide to Magic Ingredients. We gathered that you were responsible for that. You must recognize this fruit.”

My brows furrowed. “It’s…different.”

Barnaby lifted his perched nose from the tome. “You’re mistaken, Mr. Ballow. The fruit has been faithfully recorded in the utmost detail.”

“Thrush’s dreambons are red with silver stripes. The colors are almost metallic, and they reflect light.”

The man stroked his chin, turned around, and muttered. “…Red?...Silver?...Stripes?” Aloud he said, “In every other aspect, this is the dreambon as you know it?”

“Absolutely. It has a distinct shape.”

“Have you any?”

“Thrush is particular about that. You’d have to ask him.”

“Oh, I cannot wait to meet the first creature of lore! The order of Otus must study him! Now is our chance!”

I returned the tome to Thomas, and then took a seat at the base of the tree at my back.

“Hassocks, Thomas.”

Thomas wrenched hassocks from his pack and set them beside me. Barnaby lowered himself onto one with a squeezed wheeze. “Mr. Ballow. We have the chance to finally understand what the system is, of greeting it! We can discover how it came to be, and where it is going.”

My eyebrows bolted up. “Understanding the system…through Thrush?”

“The meaning of it all! Myths of nightreams have been recorded since the first histories of man—since before there was ever a mention of the system. Some records attest that your Thrush is a manifestation of the system, but others claim he is the system itself!”

There was dead silence between us. I gawked. “Come again?”

“One theory—well, my celebrated Origin theory which has been dutifully embraced by all—is that the system births itself every millenia into a nightream. At the end of that nightream’s life, they awaken and achieve complete consciousness. That consciousness combines with the old system. Then the nightream is reborn and the process repeats, further improving the system consciousness. All my studies have led me to this ultimate truth!”

Things were not adding up. Even Abigail had shared myths about Thrush that had turned out to be false. All I said was, “Thrush told me he couldn’t die.”

“Impossible. You must introduce us. Thrush’s long lived knowledge is the key to all understanding.” Barnaby became bug-eyed just then. His gaze darted like he was trying to catch his own thoughts. He seemed maniacally frantic for a moment. He turned his bug-eyes to me. “Tell me Mr. Ballow, has he spoken of the gods? How they are pieces of him?”

“All I know is that gods are afraid of him, and he’s caught one before.”

Somewhere in his muttering he said, “...I see, I see.”

Thomas burst with excitement. “What is it you see, Master?”

Barnaby ignored Thomas. “Let me explain something, Mr. Ballow. Our thoughts do not originate in the mind.” He pulled an apple out from the pocket of his robe. He held it up and put on an aposematic smile—something that felt uncanny. What the hell?

“…Do you want me to take it?”

“This is an apple, Mr. Ballow!”

It was so ridiculous that I laughed. “That is an apple, yes.”

Finally, his smile turned human. “What were you thinking just now?”

There were several thoughts I could have divulged, but I told him the most prominent one. “…That you pulled out a tasty looking apple…and it's lunchtime.”

“You did not produce that thought on your own. I presented the apple, which affected your thoughts. You see, thought does not originate in the mind. It is a result of everything around you, even beyond our senses. Thought is an interaction between us and everything outside of us.”

“You’re losing me.”

“Bear with me. System notifications appear in our minds, similar to our thoughts, yes?”

“I can follow that.”

“Thoughts are not a thing. If the system appears like thoughts, then whose thoughts are they? Not our own. Not the gods—there is ample evidence of that. Whose?”

“…The system’s?”

Barnaby snapped his fingers. “My good man, this begs the question not of what is the system, but who is the system… Who is interacting with us?”

I had to shut my eyes to follow his trail of thought. After a moment I said, “Hold on. You can’t possibly think it’s Thrush…”

Barnaby tilted his head and made a face that read, “why not?”

“But Thrush has a system. He’s assigned a god to a Merchant quest path. How would that make sense?”

“You’re mistaken. A nightream can’t have a system.”

There it was again; things were not adding up. “I was with Thrush when he used his first Fable Stone and received his quest path.”

Barnaby almost went pale and his hands cupped his stomach like he had received an arrow through his belly. “No, no, no…This doesn’t make any sense…”

Barnaby made fists, and Thomas copied him.

He continued. “Now see here, Mr. Ballow. It is imperative that we speak with Thrush! Such contradictions cannot stand!”

A holler from below had us glancing down. One of the Alchemists was on all fours and speeding up the ridge. He came up fast—spider fast.

I felt a prick on my knuckle and slapped the mosquito. Everything was swarming me!