Anne watched the excited customers leaving towards the town until they disappeared on the horizon. She was filled with an unexpected gratifying sensation; never would she anticipated that such a fulfilling emotion would come from something outside of her job description. Actually, she was considering whether to include it under the bookmancer’s duty. After all, helping customers connect to each other to ease their challenges was within her means and in line with her counseling practice.
Pushing the subject out of her mind, the storeowner returned to the archives, her daily shores were far from over. Upon entering the book storage, she noticed a commotion coming from the small scroll storage room. Inside, Moruh was instructing and supervising Spring’s cleaning or at least trying to.
The homunculus had started to show personality, which was expected due to the summoned nature spirit at his core. However, Anne never imagined that it would develop a bad temper. When commanded by its master, the servant would display due respect and perform to its best. But when the familiar was the one issuing the orders, the magic being made a point of acting rebellious.
Usually, the antics would earn a good laugh from the bookmancer; such a lively scene was a nice change to their quiet routine. She just had to make sure it wouldn’t become too frequent. Still, it seemed that establishing some limits was in order. Playing near her precious and delicate scrolls was a big no.
Without waiting for the conclusion, Anne barged into the storage room and gave the two culprits a condemning stare.
“Moruh, do you think it’s appropriate to fight near the scrolls?” She asked displeased. It was clear that the question didn’t demand an answer, but an apology.
“Apologies, mistress. I was in the wrong. But this insubordinate…” The beast’s excuse was cut short by Anne’s threatening glare. He knew better than pursuing this matter.
Then, the bookmancer asked for a clear recount of the facts. Which Moruh was more than happy to provide. It happens that he was supervising Spring’s work in the storage rooms while doing some of his own archiving tasks when he noticed the being trying to open the enthons vault.
The tale made Anne instinctively step back as a response to meeting some unexpected danger. However, the woman quickly relaxed when she remembered that betrayal was impossible. Even in the extremely unlikely event of Spring’s insurgence against its summoning master, the array that bound it to the wood body and the power source would immediately break, thus banishing the spirit from this world. So, whatever it was trying to do with the chest wasn’t against his mistress order and well-being.
The bookmancer observed Spring inquisitively, waiting for an explanation. The homunculus couldn’t talk or even express itself with people-friendly signs. Nonetheless, it could, and it had been learning how to, use simple actions to make its purpose known. Of course, it had refused to do so for Moruh, since it clearly felt a competitive relationship between them.
After feeling his mistress ‘pardon’ and request for an explanation, Spring moved its vine-covered body to the chest and started taping the lock. It could have used wind magic to breach it open, but that would be a violation of its mistress property.
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Anne felt an urge to laugh seeing the helpful servant trying to copy human behavior, but making fun of others was a path without return, so she quickly chased the impulse away. In the end, she could only open the chest and see what Spring was aiming for.
Once the wooden box was pried open and the piles of neatly arranged books and scrolls were revealed, the homunculus carefully reached its arm towards a specific scroll that bared the seal of life.
The bookmancer’s eyes widened in realization before she placed her hand over Spring’s ‘shoulder’. She had to calm it down and signalize that she understood its desire while earning some quiet time to think.
The spirit was being attracted by one of her enthons, a supposed sealed blessing that was passed through her grandfather to her. It was part of their ancestral line heritage, acquired by one of her bookmancer ancestors in exchange for a book. Unfortunately, she couldn’t know the specifics of the scroll since it was sealed. And once the seal was removed, the ‘blessing’ would take effect and forever disappear.
In truth, the enthon was precious but far less valuable than her truly precious possessions; otherwise, it wouldn’t be here, and definitely wouldn’t be locked behind such simple protective measures. Hence, she could afford to use it.
Still, its effects remained unknown, Anne could only speculate on its power. The seal pointed to something related to the Goddess of Life, or at least to the Temple of Life. In theory, it should be something harmless. Nonetheless, she wouldn’t risk trying it blindly. So, instead of unsealing it at once, she took the enthon and her servants to the backyard, where her books wouldn’t be at risk and the magic circle would still be strong enough to offer them protection.
“Restrigere, Spatium!” She chanted the familiar spell after completing its casting steps.
The blueish energy barrier rose around them forming a small circle with the scroll as its center. With the help of the circle, the spell had improved by several levels, even its appearance looked more consistent than when she had cast it around the rift. For now, the barrier was there to prevent the ‘blessing’ from affecting outside, but if she identified any danger, she would control it to shrink past them and encase only the scroll.
“Moruh, you do the honors.” She commanded. Her attention would be solely focused on operating the barrier, so the unsealing would be left for the magic beast.
Moruh stepped forward and gathered the energy needed for the spell. When duty demanded, the familiar could easily access his mistress’ grimoire through their soul connection and use its spells. Though his mastery was way lower than the most venerable mistress, an unsealing spell was easier than going up the counter.
“Inverto Apio!”
The seal turned into light-green energy before dissipating. Then, the floating scroll unfolded, revealing the three shining marks inside. At once, they turned into a small whirl of light-green and turquoise essence. Spring moved forward reaching for it; Anne didn’t stop it. By now, she already knew what it was.
The rotating essences converged over the extending vine-covered arm before being completely absorbed into it. Spring glowed and changed. It grew until it reached Anne’s shoulders, then its coating vines stretched, covering the body’s gaps and forming a flexible fibrous skin. On its head, common person-like features appeared; light blue eyes like a spring, a small angular nose, a pair of round soft wooden ears, and a slightly greener ‘viney’ mouth. Its feet were still formed by a bunch of kindling, but fibrous fingers, in the shape of a hand, appeared at the end of its arms.
‘Treefolk’ was the word that surfaced in Anne’s mind when she saw the transformation. The beings who could only be born when an ancient tree developed sentience and a soul, were almost as rare as a practicing bookmancer. She had only read of them, but the resemblance with the drawings was undeniable. The homunculus seemed to be a younger version of it.
Wrong! Spring was no longer a homunculus. It had become a blessed living being.