So it happened that the four of us left the village of Collosi. In the dark it took us a considerable while to go to the Well to Everywhere. There was little talking along the way.
“It was here, right?” Dani asked when we reached a familiar part of the forest. We had brought a torch along, but the forest still looked very different at night. I spotted the tree next to which the well was and we moved to it.
“Let’s jump into it?” Lia said, the authoritative voice that she had maintained back in the village of Collosi slowly wearing off her.
“No,” I said. “Not right now. I want to garden.” The last time we had done that had been a few days back. And I felt a need to be once again in my garden at peace, tending to the plants of my mind.
“Garden?” Slia said, not quite getting what I meant.
“It’s not very different from meditation,” Dani explained to her. We sat down on the ground in a circle. Since Slia didn’t know anything about gardening we held each other’s hands. Doing so was supposed to help a new student learn gardening faster.
I cleared my throat, taking over the responsibility of explaining Slia the basics.
“And now we close our eyes,” I said, very aware of Slia’s hand that I was holding even more then Dani’s as I had never held Slia’s hand before. “Imagine being away from this world. Separate yourself from every worldly worry. Now imagine a garden. It is your garden. A beautiful garden filled with plants of all kinds, big and small. But these plants are no ordinary plants. Each one of these plants represents a human emotion that exists within you. Emotions of love, fear, despair, anger, sympathy, strength, determination and so on.
“Give each plant a size that you think is worthy of your emotion. And be honest with yourself. If you are determined about something then make the plant of determination a big one. If you are not angry with anyone or anything, then make the plant of anger a small one and do the same with all other emotions. Now plant little peace plants in the garden. These peace plants are there so that when they die, they decompose and they become manure for the good plants.
“In this case the good plants are the plants of positive emotions like love and determination, while the bad plants are the plants of negative emotions. The peace plants also serve to drain the bad plants of nutrients and make them smaller. But be careful, the bad plants can also help us do good things and it is necessary that you do not completely wipe them away. Emotions of fear, despair and anger are not entirely useless. Why? Because without the fear of death, one can slice their own throat expecting to keep on living. But be careful to not let these plants grow beyond a particular height or they can destroy you. Now you can water the plants to help them grow.”
For a good amount of time, the four of us sat in the silence of the night, gardening. I saw that my plant of confusion had grown considerably tall and interestingly enough my plant of selfishness wasn’t as tall as I had thought it to be. I had been repeatedly telling myself that having affections for Slia was being selfish on my part, but apparently it hadn’t been so for reasons that I didn’t know myself. I could however understand why the plant of confusion had grown so tall. I had been considerably confused over the decisions that I had been making recently. My plant of anger was just an inch or two taller than the last time that I gardened. It was my plant of determination that had gained considerable size though and I was pleased to see it.
After a good amount of time I opened my eyes to see the three women sitting near me with their eyes closed. Just then, I had a fuzzy feeling and the next moment a new notification popped up in my vision.
Congratulations!
You taught the art of gardening to a new person!
You level up!
And it was followed by yet another, which got me excited.
Congratulations!
You receive a new spell: Listen
With the Listen spell you can hear specific sounds that you want to hear very clearly up to a kilometre directly in front of you. Use this spell wisely, as its rate of mana consumption is more than that of the average spell.
It was the first spell that I had received after the last time the Lazaki took away all the powers from me. I decided to try out the spell. I activated it and focussed directly in front of me. I could immediately hear a variety of sounds, what more I was being able to consider all of them at the same time. I could very well hear the soft breathing of Lia sitting directly in front of me in detail, and behind her I could hear the movements of small insects on trees. About two hundred metres away I heard the sound of a bird landing on a tree. About half a kilometre away there was a fox moving about the dark in search of prey. The furthest sound that I heard was that of the beating of a heart and a pretty large one at that. I wondered if there was another unicorn out there similar to the kind that Dani, Lia and I had killed together.
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I quickly deactivated the spell, seeing that my mana bar had fallen considerably. It looked like the more details I tried to get out from using the spell, the more mana it consumed.
After a while my three wives opened their eyes one by one, looking more at peace with the world than ever. An idea had come during the time I had waited for them to be back from their respective gardens. It was very much possible to exploit the Well to Everywhere’s ability to transport people to anywhere.
I told the three of them that we would be together jumping into the well.
“Think that would be possible?” Dani said, casting some light on the well to check its diameter. Four of us would fit inside the well, but only barely.
“We’d have to be careful not to swing our arms and legs,” I said. “Also, since you used the well the last time and told it that you were not pleased with its services in order to return from the place with the worms, you must tell it now that it was because you made the wrong decision and not because the well’s services were faulty. The well is almost like a person, so you must use it to your advantage. The well listens if you give appropriate reasons.”
“But where would we be going?” Slia asked in a relatively small voice.
I smiled. I felt like a genius with what I had thought up.
“The closest place to Rozy and the temple with the artefact which is always safe from the Lazaki or any other threat,” I said with a triumphant note. “The well will transport you to exactly the place that you want to go, but you should give the details. Or it will happen like the last time it did with me.”
“What happened to you?” Lia asked. “You went to Collosi, right?”
“Yes, but I ended up in her room, instead of the guest room,” I said in voice that was not triumphant at all, gesturing at Slia. Lia raised a brow.
“Hmmm,” she said.
“It saved me from being seen by the other monkeys as her door was closed,” I added.
“Hmmm,” Lia said again. “Hmmm.”
Dani suddenly giggled and slapped Lia on the back.
The four of us stood around the well in a circle.
“On the count of three,” I said, “One… two… three!”
The four of us leapt into the well. We had gone some distance down, when a dialog box appeared in our midst, instead of like the last time when the messages had appeared in my vision. It was probably because there were more of us this time.
I am sensing the presence of one person in this group who was previously not impressed with my services. While I can transport the other three persons to wherever they want to go, I shall not transport that person.
“It’s talking about you!” I hissed to Dani. She nodded earnestly.
“Um,” she said, “actually the fault was mine, not yours. I made a wrong decision and ended up in a dangerous place where I nearly died. So I had to tell you that I did not like the experience so you would give me the option to return. I would have been dead without your services. I would like to thank you.”
I thought Dani was pretty clever in thanking the well. Unsurprisingly the well had changed its mind in the new notification.
I am glad that I was able to save your life through my services. I will allow you to utilise my services again.
Where would you like to go? Would you all like to go to the same destination? Or would you like to go to different destinations?
“The same destination,” I said.
Do tell me where it is.
“The closest place to Rozy and the temple with the artefact which is always safe from the Lazaki or any other threat to us and from which we would have the ability to access the temple and Rozy,” I said. The well took a moment to give us another dialog box, as though it was trying hard to process all the information I had given it.
Okay. I hope you like my services.
The four of us began to fall again. Slia and Lia began to shriek as they were using the well for the first time. I had brought the torch along with us and was trying really hard to keep my arm above my head in order to keep the torch at a safe distance from all of us. And then an opening formed at the bottom of the well and through it we landed on the ground. Where exactly we didn’t know.
I quickly got to my feet, and cast the light of the torch all around us to better understand the place where we had come to. It was a tunnel of sorts. A cave? The cave extended only on one side and on the other side was the very end of the cave. I began to move along the cave, the three women following me. I reached the mouth of the cave. There was a massive boulder just in front of the mouth of the cave, which hid the cave well from unwanted eyes. On the upper part of the boulder plants had grown, which gave us further protection. There was only a small opening on one side and through this I could see the forest. Of course because of the darkness I barely saw anything. The stars were shining in the sky and I could make out the top of the forest. I left the torch inside the temple as I was well aware that once I went out of the cave I might very well be sighted by the unwanted Lazaki or their slaves or perhaps the sorcerer Mintuk himself. When I went out of the cave, keeping close to the boulder, I saw that the cave was at the very bottom of a giant mountain.
I was left without a doubt that this was none other than the Lazaki mountain. I couldn’t see the mountain summit, but I knew that somewhere near the top of the mountain there was a fort and inside it my Rozy was suffering. There were also countless pink glowing Sense Screens all about the mountain.
***
General Information
Name: Rabbi
Class: King
Race: Human
Sex: Male
Level: Two
Strength: 100
Health: 150
Spells: Listen
Weapons: Sword