Ch: 149 Burnin’ Love
Shai got home feeling exhausted but fulfilled. A whole day working side by side with Ivy to get the Ginger Dreadnought Company running properly was time well spent.
Especially since they were still unsure how much coin they had access to, beyond ‘an embarrassment of riches’ as Otho described it.
When pressed on the matter Otho would only say: “He showed me his shameful sack of loot… he will need a much bigger sack… and a wagon to carry it.”
The two smiling women sighed as they slipped in through the front door. Everything seemed in order, save that the floor was stained with mud and gouged by the heedless tread of at least one pair of armored boots.
Sha’s eyes widened in horror as she frantically began searching for her family members.
“Gary! Amy! Rio, Becky, Wilford!” She shouted, making the instruments sing and shout along with her.
“Shai! It’s ok!” Becky came running, followed by Tallum and Jaspreet. “Relax, everyone is fine, well… mostly, Gary went with Tawny on a medical emergency, no combat, just hurt people. Luna, Liam and Annie went with.”
Becky’s calming voice and soothing touch did wonders for the frazzled woman’s nerves.
“The guy that came for help was kinda panicking, so he ran right in.”
“Gary dinnae stop tae fix his floor first?” She asked in wonder.
“Nope, just mounted right up and went along.” Becky said proudly, as she handed Shai a handkerchief to blot away her tears of accomplishment and satisfaction.
“Our boy is growing up so fast…”
#
The ant creature was weird. A normal trapjaw ant, according to his field guide, was a low threat ambush hunter, preying on small mammals and reptiles. Even the largest were no threat to an armored warrior.
In rural areas, groups of locals would root them out with nothing more than farm implements.
The things typically looked like a running pea plant with large, showy blossoms that were actually jaw traps that would snap closed on any unwary creature that touched it, or wandered too near.
They were primarily a threat to livestock and pets, since even a teenager with a pocket knife could slay all but the largest examples with ease.
This thing was a whole new beastie. It had one huge blossom head with a multitude of snapdragon jaws, bristling all around. Surrounding that was a terrifying array of vegetable weapons: Spines, thorns, spikes, barbs, burrs, burrowing seedbarbs, stinging nettle whips, toxic sap, it had the lot. A single touch explained why.
Rendroot Bush, unique monster. Beast, insect, plant, cephalopod hybrid, highly magical. Threat level extreme. Toxic, venomous, undying, tainted by undeath, rooted in the void, carnivorous, semi-sentient.
This entity has come in contact with remnant energies from the void, unstable mutation underway. Undying plants will regrow or reroot unless completely destroyed.
Special Effect: Marked by Beast.
“Hey, Luna, Orlando, don’t touch it or anything, ok? It’s not dead yet. Could someone go get Liam, I’m going to need him on this one.” Gary reached out with his sword and snipped off a tendril of ropey green vine with a nasty looking seed pod on the end.
Eight nasty, hand sized thorns, shining with a dark, waxy venom, stood out in every direction from the deadly coconut, forming a truly wicked mace head. The last two feet of the thing’s whip tendril was studded with more vicious thorns, also bearing that waxy pellicle of venom.
He carefully rolled the vine and stuffed the thing into a steel canister he pulled from nowhere at all. “I’ll call you Audrey…” He said with a smile.
#
He and Liam spent hours together, going over the enormous corpse. Whenever Gary touched something he considered a resource or a ‘lootable’, Interface would give him a brief message about the swag that was available. After that, it was up to him.
His harvesting and butchery skills had improved over the months in the wilds. Now he sniffed, palpated and cut his way through the vast corpse, collecting the goodies his gifts helped to find. Together, he and Liam slowly and carefully destroyed every part of the creature, while stealing its best parts away.
Venom glands, chitin plates and thorns, toxic sap, spines, cordage, pollen, nectar, wax glands, even softly glowing red chili peppers and fruits were scattered over a hundred yards of meadow, road and scrub brush.
Finally, Gary cut free and rolled up yards and yards of vegetable leather from the flowers and leaves; much of it in wild and vibrant colors that boggled description.
#
Khan mounted Luna's horse, Camelia, who she captured in the slaver fight, while Shai tucked the kids into the Mystery Machine, behind Sandi.
“Are you sure, we may not get there til after dark…” Khan asked.
“I’ll nae sleep an he’s out there. Becky hae things in hand here, wi Tallum an Ivy.” She swung into the driver’s bench with a musical chime.
“I do feel summat be happening.” She turned to the kids in the back of the cart with a smile. “Ye shall Help us get there, fer I’m spent already.”
Her bow ran across the strings and the kids fell in with a giggle. Wilford’s tenor ukulele thrummed and bumped in time to Rio’s bongos. Amy was still no great hand with the ukulele, so she sang, lifting her voice into the evening sky.
¡Para bailar ¡La Bamba!
¡Para bailar ¡La Bamba!
¡Se necesita, una poca de gracia…
#
The two men stood and surveyed their work with pleasure. They had spent the evening and a good part of the day, quietly dancing among the parts and wreckage, to the music of Gary’s woodland friends.
An hour before sunset he had gone all smiles and cheery upbeat songs.
“What’s going on Gary?” Liam demanded.
“Mmm, Shai and the kids are coming this way. I wouldn’t have asked them to come… but I’m glad they did… I’m feeling a little… sharp… pointy, tonight.” He mumbled, sounding distracted and genuinely happy.
“You see when you are getting out of control now, I like that, it’s real growth.” Liam said with a comradely swat on his shoulder.
#
Gary sang along with his chorus of hoot owls and whippoorwills, in a spectral tone that echoed oddly.
“Ahh, the creatures of the night, what beautiful music they make…”
“Well, that did it!” Liam announced with satisfaction. “Except for the cutting you took before I arrived, brother.”
Liam held up the steel can, filched away from his unsuspecting friend in a very dastardly way.
“Shai would string me up by the heels if I let you bring a monster plant home…”
“It’s unique Liam…” Gary said softly. “It’s not a regular monster, it’s really alive and is developing an Animus. I couldn’t kill Skrigg for the same reason…”
“Where will you plant it Gary? How big will it grow?” Liam asked gently as they walked, still holding the canister.
“Dunno, I don’t even know if it can become a true animal, a true child of Beast… But it deserves that chance.” He hung his head sadly. “It took root in the patch of soil I left here when we passed by… so it’s kinda my fault too.”
“Ok, but I’m holding on to it, and we are telling Tawny…” Gary’s face lit up with hope when Liam paused. “And Shai.” His friend said with a cruel smile.
“Awww…” He whined sadly, once more a whimsical, moontouched fool, as they entered his home.
#
“I had a long talk with a few experts last night, they all confirm my initial assessment.”
Becky said, from her plush violet couch on the curb of the bath. Jaspreet felt silly, talking to this orphan child about her ‘condition’ in this way… The others, even the Belen’s, Otho and Naiomi, were all taking this child seriously. They were all also in the bath with her.
Only this child remained dressed and dry, lounging around on the curb.
“Your Contracts with Joy, Healer and Order, combined with your innate, dormant gifts triggered a spontaneous evolution in your body, to bring it more fully in line with your Animus, Will, Mind and Soul.”
Jaspret stared blankly at the child for a long few moments. Becky sighed deeply and tried again.
Stolen novel; please report.
“In a way, you borrowed the magic of the void, the eternal ether, for a moment and redecorated your insides.”
“Oh! How ever did I do that?” She asked with a smile of understanding.
“The soul, mine yours, they are the ultimate building blocks of who we are, were, will be and can be. The body of a sentient being is simply a chunk of their soul, poking into the material world.” She said with a charming smile.
“If your soul were to be plucked away, by some unimaginable force, your body would fall down dead and your soul would create for itself, a new body, wherever it wound up landing… theoretically.”
“Fascinating my child…” The young noblewoman began, until Becky interrupted Jaspreet’s interruption with an upraised finger.
“You dangled yourself in the yawning maw of the universe, mere instants from dissolution.” Becky said with a smile that wouldn’t melt butter. “You were protected only by your fragile human Animus… which aligned very poorly with the body it was trying so hard to protect. Is it any wonder that some things which did not belong were transmuted into the things your soul knew they should be?”
Lady Jaspreet frowned at the ridiculous girl. “Now look here child, this foolishness is becoming tiresome… ‘maw of the universe’ indeed, where would someone ever find that? At the bottom of this lovely bath?” She asked with a tired laugh.
“Yes.” Becky said with a gentle laugh of her own.
“Directly beneath you…” Naiomi added with a chuckle. “Don’t fret, it’s harmless to you, your Animus will keep you neatly contained while the magics of everywhen and neverwhere wash you clean of all toxins, taints and unwelcome additions.” The ancient priestess sighed happily.
“Only the dead need fear this pool… the truly dead anyway.”
#
Adam and Abed walked out across an arched stone and beam bridge to the other side of the river, where his yacht was moored.
“Adam… is your maker of musical instruments who I am looking for? The femboy who was eaten by a tree?” The duke asked quietly.
“I’m afraid so.” Adam replied grimly. “Tawny has found something odd; a stray come wandering in from the wilds and suddenly, she can’t put a foot wrong!” He fumed and grumbled inconsolably as they walked in through the arden gate and up to the front door.
“I know it’s petty of me, but that boy annoys and irritates me on so many levels…”
“Oh I felt it, he rubbed against my senses like grit in my eye. He feels dangerous and weird. So why are we going to his damnable haunted, moving house of madness?” Abed grumbled right back.
“Because that is where the high priestess of Knowledge lives… thus, his haunted, moving house is also the only temple to the god Knowledge. Infuriating isn’t it?” Adam complained.
“At least the accommodations, amenities and service are delightful. I knew I saw that giant innkeeper woman… it was the band of musical haunts that clinched it… is he a…” The duke paused and looked around, making certain they could not be overheard by any but his trusted guard, Lowell.
“...a necromancer? Surely not, and yet…”
“I am assured by both Otho of Joy and Naiomi of Healer that he is not a necromancer… He is some kind of lay cleric of Secret, whom he calls ‘The Dead God’ in terribly melodramatic and self indulgent moments.” Adam sighed as he helped the duke with a pair of slippers.
“It’s like he was purpose built to annoy.”
#
By the time the harvesting team got back, Shai had moved the kids in, ‘unpacked’ her household goods and gotten everyone settled.
The injured were tucked into a sickroom that his lordship never questioned the existence of.
Said lordship was in a decent room, with a stove, basin and chamber pot; all Gary’s doing for a wonder. His usual pettiness was absent this time. That was both worrying and pleasing…
The healthy warriors bunked in a wide, comfortable room around the back, while his lordship dwelt in the front bedroom.
Shai had hammed up the farm family returning from a visit to the big city angle, when they rolled up to the gate and started unloading with little fanfare. The kids ran right in and grabbed Annie, mauling the poor horse terribly.
Gary’s clever, capable lady tugged her forelock and pretended that the great honor of hosting his lordship in this time of adversity was recompense enough…
Long story short, Holloman saw no more than he expected to see.
The rest, for their part, had a quiet and recuperative evening in the house in the woods. Gary and Shai curled together in their bed in the family loft, enjoying the view through her glass roof. The little ones were passed out around and on top of them as usual, making a comfy mess of everything.
“I worried, Gary…” She whispered softly, using his name to drive it home. “I worried that ye would do summat dangerous, or mad…”
“Don’t worry baby, I will… and soon.” He said with a sigh. “Something is building, I’m getting close to ranking up. It feels like… like I have to poop… but I’m also the turd, and the toilet… this is a terrible analogy… He-he, anal-ogy…”
“Boy, were the bairns nae asleep right now…” Shai began in a fierce whisper.
She gently smothered him with a pillow for a while, lovingly restraining his struggles with her superior strength.
“Fie, I forgot, ye are the pillow king… I must needs use the shovel… Pity I dinnae bring it, love of mine. Ye live another day.”
“Oh, I have it right here!” Her poor, mad boy sang out softly, as her shovel appeared in the corner. “Most likely you should kill me in the morning, dread pirate Shai.” He whispered in her ear, as he fell asleep wrapped around her.
#
“Yes, Gary, you will leave behind patches of magically potent soil… what roots in them will be, for good or ill, changed. This is neither your fault, nor responsibility, simply a function of how you exist within and interact with, this world.” Marduk said firmly.
“It could just as easily have been a field of healing herbs or a tangle of magical, poison thorns…”
“Or a temple burrow, sanctified to a local demigoddess…” Thirp sang happily. “An enterprising priestess has done some interesting work in one of your soil patches…”
“Great…” Gary complained gently, while lounging in the pool and sipping a small cup of tea sweetened with honey from his hive.
“Should you really be drinking that stuff? Ducky says it’s super weird and filled with… soul stuff…” Becky whispered.
“I need soul stuff, Becks. I’ve been eroding away for a while and I’m still crumbly at the edges.” He sighed in utter contentment and sank lower in the pool.
“See you in the morning Becks, I’m fading out here.” He whispered, moments before he drifted away in a cloud of steam, with a gentle snore.
“He hae left already?!” Shai complained, when she came around the landing a moment later with the three little ones.
“He’s feeling unsettled and volatile. The transition to iron rank will be difficult I think. Perhaps some time in seclusion…” Marduk suggested, drawing a look of stark disbelief from everyone.
“Yes, isolation would stress him and perhaps even do some harm, but he has endured it before.” The deity huffed, in near mythic annoyance.
“Nae. Denied.” Shai answered with finality. “An ye put him out alone, ye shall see him go feral! We hae nearly housebroken him an ye would set him tae roaming the wilds alone?”
Before Marduk could respond a warm, comforting radiance filled the air, smelling of spices and forge smoke. “This is a working of great complexity, It must be allowed to continue in Its own way.”
Brigid whispered, from the garden wall dozens of yards away. Her voice and warmth spread over the entire house, terribly near and wonderfully dangerous. Like forge fire itself, she could engulf and destroy with ease, or illuminate and warm.
“He be Mine, Brigid!” Shai snapped at the glowing goddess, leaning on her garden wall. “Nae some ‘working’ of thine!”
“Ohh so furious and fiery… the boy loves your reflection in me… and my reflection in you, sweet Shai…” She sighed in the roar of the flame as the bellows fed her blazing heart. “Morrigan would Contract with you to continue to touch him… I bound myself to him, so that I might touch you, sweet Shai.”
Slowly she faded, like a forge going cold. “I will await your summons… for a while, I am a patient entity, since you will be mine.” With a final sigh, she was gone, returned to her forge on the outer edge.
“See? Thirsty…” Shai grumbled, but she kept gazing off to the place where the forge glow was just barely visible, among the trees and wastelands.
#
“I knew it, that is the same waitress… she worked at the other inn too!” Abed grumbled while sipping his tea. She must have felt his gaze, with that innate sense that only the best servants possessed. She turned and met his eyes with a charming and relaxed smile.
“Girl!” He called, calling her over with a single, languid finger waggle.
“Yes, how can I serve, priest Belen, good master…?” She dipped a graceful, if inadequate courtesy to the golden priest, then a significantly lesser response to the disguised duke, followed by a pause that felt significant.
“Ahh, yes, this is master Abed, a friend of mine, visiting from Shiraz. He wishes to learn more about the cult of Knowledge…”
Adam gleefully ignored the slights to the duke’s dignity and terrible breeches of noble etiquette, while sharing a wink with the girl.
“Oh! A supplicant? The temple welcomes you to these sacred precincts!” She sang with a joyous smile, while leading the two men to a table by the bar.
“We are a little busy this evening… I should be able to arrange a meeting with at least one of the cult leaders soon. Please, relax… what can I bring you gentlemen…?”
The duke found himself sharing a very fine, if rustic meal with Adam Belen, in a crowded common room, among commoners.
Through the open doorway to the vast garden, he could see a number of tables, bearing his uniformed, off duty sailors and warriors. They mixed casually with the crew of Holloman’s vessel and the locals wandering the strange place.
“So it’s an inn?” Abed asked quietly when their roast dire turkey sandwiches and duskmoon edamame arrived, with mugs of acceptable quality beer.
“No, this is the private residence of the Adventure band you are looking for… they just do… this…” He waved his arms expansively.
“They are not licenced or registered as an inn and all fare, drink and lodgings are traded in kind. They barter with the locals for goods and materials.” He smiled wanly.
“It is giving the Craft cult fits, but the trade association and Order have ruled their activities within the bounds of both law and tradition.”
“Barter… like farmers at a village market?” Abed whispered. “I find myself at a loss… I have no goods to barter…” He mumbled, feeling like he had reached into his pocket and found an empty purse for the first time in his life.
“Disorienting, isn’t it?” Adam sighed softly. “My sister will no doubt take care of our bill… after making it clear that she is doing me an enormous favor.”
He waved down the pretty waitress with the wildfire skirts and laughing brown eyes. She danced and twirled over, stepping with care among the crowd.
“Is my sister here? I’d expected her to have appeared by now…” Adam asked the smiling girl.
“Sadly she was called away on a medical emergency. We expect her to return before midday tomorrow. Perhaps I can assist you?” She answered, while placing two mugs and a bowl of fluffy, white lumps on the table. “Cocoa and marshmallows, honored cleric.” She said, by way of explanation. “The beverage is best enjoyed when it is still almost too hot… I strongly recommend the marshmallows.”
“I would meet with this priestess of Knowledge I have been hearing so much about.” Abed butted in, from pure noble habit. “And I would speak with our hosts… in private.” He said firmly.
“Sadly, your hosts have also gone until the morrow… The high priestess will see you when she has a free moment, the demands on her time are extraordinary…”
Without further comment, she ducked a very slight curtsey and swanned away, to serve a table of rowdy looking adventurers.
“Malus! Welcome back!” She sang, taking the hideously ugly, stocky commoner for a brief twirl around the dance floor.
“Gary and Shai are away, what can I get you…?”
Abed watched the waitress vanish in the crowd with a grimace of displeasure. “She knows who I am… and who you are… yet we receive no better treatment than these… commoners…! His grace hissed, scandalized by such treatment. Also because he had ignored her marshmallow prescription and burnt his tongue.
“Gods, this is delicious…” He hissed again, having once more scalded himself.
#
As the sun fell and eighth bell sang its song of day’s ending, the crowd thinned. The commoners stopped by the tall front desk by the door, one by one they dropped small tokens in a basket there.
The tireless waitress and the giant red haired bartender called farewells to the locals, while a small, beautiful blonde girl tallied up the ledger.
“Two bushels of early asparagus? Sold! Gonna wrap those in thin sliced wallowbear bacon and grill them…” She growled hungrily, as they shook on the deal.
There was a short queue of farmers and tradesmen at the blue eyed girl’s desk, striking bargains in turn. The duke watched with interest as they settled accounts with a handshake and a few notes in a ledger.
Literate commoners were rare, typically only traders and Craft cult faithful learnt the art, yet several seemed to possess the skill in this crowd. They bartered quickly and smoothly, the girl noting down each promised delivery of goods.
They traded in lumber, furs, foodstuffs, grains and hay, leather and all manner of cloth. Minerals, small gems and metal ingots all flowed across her pages.
When the leader of the local woodcutter’s guild approached, the lovely trader got serious. “He needs more of that red oak and some knotty pine… Oh and two rough milled highland cedars if you have them…”
It was at least entertaining to watch, since the volume of goods promised could run a small frontier town for a month.
Abed smiled blandly while the kids carried on, watching the slim, dark girl, dressed in all the colors of a forest set ablaze. She smiled and charmed her way through the mob of her elders, as calm and composed as any noblewoman in her own parlor.
Adam joined the line as well, to the duke’s consternation. When he reached the desk, he went back and forth with the blonde girl, in a well rehearsed exchange of nonsense.
Of course Tawny’s brother and his guest were not going to barter or pay. Yet the form demanded that a bargain be struck, by some obscure commoner tradition.
They settled eventually on a vague promise of some future exchange, after a bit of verbal dancing. Commoners were very odd.
Eventually, Adam finished his bargaining and returned, sliding into his seat with a put upon sigh. Only a few Adventurers and a scattering of faces that were familiar from his last visit to this inn remained in the common room… His visit, when it was somewhere else entirely… The whole situation was very disorienting.
A slim, beautiful red haired lad appeared at their table. Impeccable in his courtesy and seeming very competent, he awaited the duke’s nod, before speaking.
“The high priestess will see you now, please follow me to the temple, gentlemen.” He led them out into the garden and across to the tall carriage house and stable by the main gate.
Around the back, behind the stable, he slid open an unobtrusive door of bronze strapped teak. He ushered them into a warm, comfortable room, lined with books.
#