An hour or so later they were back in their standard positions of her sitting and him laying his head on her lap. He could tell he still had a goofy grin on his face. And he still blushed thinking about it. She was right though, he wasn’t pent up any more. He hoped she wasn't either. He had followed her directions and tried his best.

After they each took a quick shower using the bathroom attached the VIP room, they had decided to conduct a measurement since he was there.

They were just now getting to the results. “Okay. So your changes are continuing. Hmmm. I think they might have started accelerating. I’m a little worried. How are your night pains?”

“I didn’t wake up last night from them. Although it was my first time in a bed that soft. I might have slept through them.”

“No, that doesn’t make sense.” Almost to herself, she whispered, “I wonder if your vitality has anything to do with it…” She was silent for a few seconds, clearly pondering something.

“Actually, I thought that might be case,” he told her. “The pain is definitely less. I wondered about it.”

“You know,” Steph continued with a pensive expression, “now that I think about it, that makes total sense and explains a few things. Your vitality has managed to heal your body over the period of months and make it healthy enough to grow. As its health increases, its ability to withstand the changes increases with it. I wonder if your body may be self-regulating the amount of growth value for each point you invest in the wielder tree based on its own health. I bet whatever your compatibility is, it isn’t low.” Rory jerked at that, but she kept going. “Your diet’s changed, right? More food, improved quality, and a healthier balance?” He nodded, glad she hadn’t caught his reaction. “A lot?” she asked. He nodded again. “This makes so much sense now!”

She was getting excited, clearly pleased at having figured something out. “When you originally invested in vitality, your body began to heal itself. But it was limited due to your poor nutrition. As your caloric and nutritional intake increased, it was able to do more. So, along with your improved diet, your vitality allowed your body to withstand improvements, so it continued to make more. Which resulted in more resilience to change, which meant more physical changes and then more strengthening and then more improvement. I believe that as long as you keep investing points, your body changes are going to continue along this health-to-improvement-to-health-to-improvement cycle until it catches up to whatever a zero-based health status is for you based on your compatibility… and genetics to a point. So you putting those initial points in vitality was brilliant. Nice going!”

Rory sighed dramatically. “Yes, well. It’s hard being a genius.”

She lightly bonked him with the tablet. “This week I’d wager you put in strength and agility based on muscle mass increase and fibrous changes to your tendons and ligaments. My calculations seem to say you have put in at least ten, maybe twelve SVs total in your body, but I could be a few off. I can see it now too,” she said as she rubbed her hand along his chest and abs. “Not that I mind your improved body, but don’t forget to add to your construct. Skills are important, as are improvements to the power of your constructs. Those mysterious slicing weapons could use sharper blades, I’m sure.”

“Don’t remind me,” Rory groaned. “I’ll admit, I’ve been a bit indecisive when it comes to spending my vessels.” He sighed then. “I guess I’m afraid of making the wrong decision and wasting them. Everything I read said it gets a lot harder to gain vessels as you get later into tiers one and two.”

“That’s definitely true,” she said with a nod. “And it only gets worse the more you progress. But don’t let yourself become paralyzed with indecision. Those vessels exist to be used.”

He thought about that and nodded. He knew she was right, but he was still nervous about it. Then he sighed. “Either way I’m back to hunting tomorrow. Need to gather that myst.”

She nodded again and then looked down at him and smiled slyly. “Soooo,” she drew out. “I saw a vid of your meeting with one of our science research teams.” Rory froze but Steph continued as if not noticing. “I was super impressed. As was my grandmother, which isn’t easy to accomplish, let me tell you.”

“Oh,” was all Rory could come up with.

“The lab is calling Dr. Preston Dr. Moustache now.” She laughed for a few seconds.

Rory chuckled along with her. “That guy was a git.”

She nodded. “I don’t know him myself, but from what I saw he definitely was. I asked my grandmother about him. He has produced well for us over the decades according to her. I think he’s worked at one Cosmica lab or another for forty-something years.”

Rory shrugged, not really caring. He was git either way.

“Well,” Steph continued, “you don’t know her, so I’ll tell you that my grandmother doesn’t show emotions easily. The fact that she had pursed lips and her eyes were narrowed was basically a sign she was about to destroy an abandoned moon.”

Rory winced at that thought. But lunar annihilation aside, what Steph had said was strange to Rory. Madam Encart had been quite expressive with him in private. “Umm. I’m sorry if I was responsible. She didn’t take it out on you though, right?”

Steph shook her head hard enough to send her brown hair waving. “Definitely not. And she wasn’t angry at you either. Actually, I don’t think that Dr. Moustache was the sole target. If I had to guess, I would say she was bothered by the entire situation. I think she was just really aggravated that the team hadn’t figured out about the basilisk skin and the fact they needed your help. What did you call yourself? An eighteen-year-old that went to science class?” She broke out in laughter again, her hand slapping the couch arm.

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Rory chuckled. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. But I think sometimes people are so set in the way they think, used to thinking a certain way, that a fresh pair of eyes can help. Maybe that was all they needed.” He was confident that Steph hadn’t seen his private conversation with her grandmother.

She rubbed her thumb over his cheek. “That’s sweet of you to say. They did seem quite excited after they had a place to start.” They were interrupted by Rory’s commo going off letting him know he had a message. He looked at it and his eyebrows rose. “Huh.”

Steph raised her eyebrows and Rory explained. “A local business hired me to collect a certain kind of creature. In the process of doing that, I sort of got involved in a local power struggle. I found that I really liked the grandmother/granddaughter pair and decided to invest in their little shop. Their competition is rather ruthless so I… umm…” Rory’s eyes were roaming trying to think of the right words.

“Interfered?” Steph filled in for him.

“Yeah,” he agreed with a nod. “Interfered. Twice actually. Once with the competition itself, and once with a third party who the competition was buying off to make things difficult for my friends. Well, my interference was… umm… costly to the third party. I’ve already redirected all of the shop’s business away from them and they’re using a different third party I like better, even though it’s more expensive. Anyway, I have to imagine the losses caused other customers of theirs to take the same action. Now they want to meet with me in person. Of course, there’s no proof it was me, as I was next door making a deal on shipping supplies.”

She looked concerned. “Meet to make peace or remove you from the situation?”

“That’s the question. But I’d guess the latter based on their actions to date.”

She rubbed his hair. “I wish you had the armor.”

“Me too!” he said with a laugh. “Then I’d just go marching in there without a worry.”

“Please be careful,” she said softly.

He pushed his head against her. “I’ll try. Honestly, I’m not sure what to expect. I don’t want it to be violent. I usually don’t. Either way, I’m pretty sure things in the Western Commerce Center will be changing.”

***

Rory had agreed to meet at Carlisle’s office that evening after business hours. He had debated if having it in public would have been better, but these guys were experts at the business of threats and publicity and the like. They’d probably set something up if it were in public which would place all the blame on Rory. He felt he was self-aware enough to know he was better at the more physical side, and not so much the political stuff. All he had to fall back on was his experiences in the slums after all.

So he had debated what to do to prepare and ended up putting five more vessels into Teanga. That was what he had named the brown snake. It meant tongue in Gaelic. Anyway, he could summon the powerful creature anytime if things went bad. A level 7 terra basilisk was a bit of a monster.

It confused Rory why his snake matched in size with the real thing when his Living Spring Treant didn’t. The treant he had killed in the research center was taller than him at level 2, while Crann was tiny at five. His research on GalNet’s beastiary had educated him. It seemed to prove that Crann was the correct size for its level and that the one in the research facility had been way off.

That did not make sense to Rory until he read another article telling him that there was an entire industry of scientific research companies that tried to modify certain useful plants and animals to enhance their capabilities in any number of ways, including making them bigger or smaller. As Rory’s secret hunting place used to be a science facility, it seemed entirely plausible, if not likely to him they had messed about with it. So, if they had modified the size, that begged the question of what else could they have modified?

Hopefully, they didn’t do something to screw up the sap, cause I bloody drank buckets of the stuff.

Well, either way, at least his summon was a normal treant and didn’t take on its predecessor’s weirdness.

Rory refocused as he stood outside Carlisle’s that evening, looking again at Morton’s serpentine “M” mark. Shaking his head at what he felt was likely to come, he knocked on the locked door. As always, he wore his gloves and long sleeves so as not to give anything away. On top of that, he was constantly scanning the area, but couldn’t find anything suspicious. The man himself was behind the door when it slid aside.

“Mr. Carlisle,” Rory said.

Carlisle looked haggard and clearly angry, but his voice was professional. “Thank you for coming, mister…?”

“You may call me R.”

He nodded and turned around. “Follow me.”

Rory had figured the victim of his snake’s rampage would be in a bad mood, so the attitude didn’t surprise him. He nodded and stepped inside. Carlisle led him to the warehouse door and entered. They had clearly been working to clean up, but the place still had obvious signs of the conflict. Some melted equipment still sat against the walls and pockmarked acid burns were on the flexcrete floor and M-steel walls, though the ones on the walls were far less intense. Rory assumed it was because that material was more resilient and Teanga had been only level 2 at the time.

Carlisle sat at a round M-steel table and Rory sat opposite. The other man wasn’t saying anything so Rory spoke first while wearing a sympathetic smile. “Your facility seems to have had some issues. That’s terrible news for you. I do hope nobody was hurt and that it didn’t inconvenience your business too much.”

The man’s eye twitched and his jaw clenched. But he still didn’t speak so Rory shrugged. “You invited me here. So speak.”

“You cost me a lot with that little stunt,” Carlisle growled.

Rory looked at him taken aback. “How do you mean? I didn’t do anything. What stunt?”

“That damn snake!” he yelled while slamming his fist on the table with a bang.

Rory chuckled, expecting to be blamed. Were they watching, hoping he’d confess?

So far, no surprises.

“A snake? Sir, I wasn’t even here. I have no idea how a snake got into your facility. Perhaps you were illegally smuggling them using your shipping business and one got loose. You really shouldn’t blame others for your own… bad decisions.” Rory glared at him and emphasized the last two words with a firm slow tone.

After a few seconds of nearly being able to hear the man’s teeth grinding, Rory spoke again. “That doesn’t answer my question. Why did you invite me, Mr. Carlisle?”

“Your boss owes me money.”

Rory’s head tilted to the side. “Really? For what? I don't believe we purchased anything from you recently.”

“For the damage you did to my business.”

So far Rory was unimpressed with this guy. It was all so obvious an attempt at getting him to confess, it was almost insulting. Sure, he was only eighteen and not the smartest person, but he wasn’t a complete idiot.

So Rory put his elbows on the table and leaned his head on his hands. “We took our business elsewhere. How does that translate to us owing you? We are allowed to buy from whoever we want.”

Rory watched with a half-smile as the man’s face turned red.

“Give it up, Carlisle. He won’t give you anything,” a new voice in a Britannian accent said from the side. A man stepped out from the shadow of a tall machine.

Rory looked over. “Oh, hello. Mr. Morton, I presume?”