They returned to find Kyle laying exhausted by the river, far below. He wore a grin, his shredded pants rolled up to his knees, bare feet dangling in the water.
Micah set the chest down and went to share the good news, but before he could, the guy jumped up with a curse and dove into the river. Something else thrashed in there with him; a fish must have tried to bite his toes and now, he was trying to catch it with his bare hands.
Except, the glove stayed on. He’d thought maybe, since they all knew, he would take it off, if only to return it to Ryan but … no.
Micah wasn’t sure how to feel about that. His tattoo was beautiful, to the point where he could get lost in its depths, and he told himself that beauty had to come from the Skills that had changed it—Lisa said the color was off, and she knew about these things—because fuck him if the fucktards in the North all had something as beautiful as it. They didn’t deserve it.
But he didn’t even know how to act around Ryan anymore, so he definitely wouldn’t know how to be supportive about this. If it were up to him, Kyle just wouldn’t wear a glove at all.
He had to tell people eventually, right?
But he thrashed around in a river with a smile not so far from his team. That was miracle enough, so he let him have that for a moment longer before he told him about the Fields. He would just want to run off into the next fight anyway, like Ryan, and besides, they did need to explore and map the area for their reports.
So he dragged Lisa away from the treasure chests, pointed Lea in their direction, and went to find Jason. Maybe he had discovered something?
A filter stone. That brought back memories. It was barely used, but it was no wonder the water was seemed so fresh with it there.
They split up to search the nooks and crannies while Lisa made a map, and when they regrouped twenty minutes later, some of the fish Kyle had flung out of the river still lay there ashore, fully-formed.
That settled the decision for him.
“You know,” Micah mused as he looked around, “this would be a great place to make camp.”
“Oh, no. We’ve already delayed enough,” Kyle said, brimming with energy, “the Fields are right there, and we still have a few hours of sunlight left. We use them.”
“Of course, of course, we can explore the area,” he rushed to reassure him, “get an idea of where we are, and where to head to tomorrow, but after …? It would make sense to return to where we have perfect shelter waiting for us.”
Kyle frowned. “You want to turn back?”
“You’ve always wanted to camp in the Fields,” Ryan said, tilting his voice like he was wondering out loud.
“I can do that any other time. Now, we have our exam to think of and this would look better on a report … I think?”
He looked around the group, and Lea nodded in agreement. “We don’t have proper camping supplies with us. Shelter sounds nice.”
“If you’re sure?”
Micah nodded. “The view is amazing.”
That must have convinced Kyle, too, because he started wrenching his socks back on.
“Fine,” he said, “but we better make good time. I want to find something good for tonight or have a guarantee we’ll get a headstart on tomorrow.”
They didn’t find exactly that, but they explored the area, laughed at Ryan’s mimicked bird screeches, laughed less when the real birds tried to poke their eyes out with arrowhead beaks, and found lots of plants he could use—flowers, herbs, mushrooms, and fruit—before they encountered a Bramble Badger family that was more vicious than any true Salamander he’d ever faced before.
One of them was even fully-formed, and along with some of the herbs he gathered in the area …
“Hey!” Micah said and almost held the corpse up before he remembered its thorns, “I can make a poison resistance potion with this.”
Lisa scowled at him and rubbed her shin. “You mean the poison resistance we could have used yesterday?”
“Yea— uh … Oh.” He started out excited but quickly caught on. It might be a waste to make one now.
Well, either that, or Lisa was just grumpy because a badger had run through her strike and leg to nearly flip her over. It hadn’t even been the big one.
Look who needed better armor after all. Maybe they could go shopping together, after the exam?
But most of the materials for a poison resistance potions were around here; had they come in from the wrong side or what?
“You could still brew it,” Kyle said, “what if we run into a wasps nest or snake? Better safe than sorry.”
“Yeah! I mean, except it would be poison resistance, not an antidote, so it might not help too much if you don’t drink it beforehand or quickly enough after but … Yeah! Kyle gets it.”
“If I hear wasps,” Ryan said, “I’ll warn you so Lisa can blow the nest up from a mile away while we watch.”
Lisa smiled.
Or they could do that. The others seemed to prefer the idea, too. Less of a chance they would be stung again, after all.
But the day was too nice to be thinking of wasps. The forest was lush and windy, the ground tended more toward garden moss than duff, and there were barely any insects despite the changes; no hint of fog, wolves, or rain.
The only downside was that the fresh air made him realize just how much they stunk, but he could tolerate that with or without perfume if it was to savor the rest.
When he’d first stepped foot on the grass, he’d taken a moment to breathe and made sure to clean out the last dregs of unwanted essences he could sense inside him. Then he’d stretched to work out the kinks from the last two days, but it was more the wind essence he was excited about.
[Controlled Breathing] let him keep a rhythm to cycle as much as was healthy for him through his body and still keep pace with the others.
He’d checked with Lisa on that because dimly, he remembered something about the raincoat poisoning its wearer if they stayed underwater too long. Too much filtered air could be bad for the body, apparently.
She said he had the right idea. “Start low, work your work up. You need to give your spirit time to adapt and build a healthy foundation.”
He loved the sound of that, of a foundation. So he spent every free moment to check as if he could sense any progress from one moment to the next. He never did, but that didn’t stop him.
Until he considered the herbs and wondered, and some part of him wished they had seen signs of wolves or fog after all. Ingredients.
If it even worked …
He didn’t want to bug Lisa too much, because he could imagine her answers, but he figured it would be better to build a healthy foundation for his knowledge now, as he was doing for his spirit, while she as still open to the idea.
And it wasn’t like he was asking her to teach him any secrets. It was just, she was the only person he could bounce ideas off of, the only person who understood.
He didn’t like how surprisingly alone that thought made him feel.
Micah rushed to gather his things and stumbled up to her, saying, “You know, some of these herbs could be used in breath and stamina potions.”
She tore her attention away from her lizards zipping up trees to look at him. “Stamina potions?”
“Yeah. And regularly drinking strength potions can build a dependency that’s hard to get out of, or it can help you get [Lesser Strength] depending on how the scales fall, on how you use it.”
“What are you …” she started and trailed off as the idea clicked. “Oh. Micah. I know what you’re thinking.”
“I know what you’re thinking, but I always have to consider how unhealthy potions can be, unlike essences alone. This is different.”
“So you want to make … what? I’m genuinely curious, because you know more about alchemy than I do by now.”
He was about to jump into his pitch when he realized what she’d said. “Wait, what? No,” he said as if to say, Pshh.
That couldn’t be true. She was just flattering him … though he’d never known Lisa to be one to flatter others much.
“I know the basics and I know some deeper stuff from my parents, what is relevant to myself, and what interests me, like my studies for Sam’s design, but I’m not an [Alchemist]. I don’t know about … spiritual steroids.”
She sounded less derisive than he would have expected, but he still rebuked her with an annoyed, “Not steroids. Don’t say it like that.”
“Whyever not?”
“It makes me sound like I mean the real ones, or that I’m some back alley hack or whatever.”
She smiled in amusement. “You know a lot about steroids, then?”
He shrugged.
“We had a session on them just before the Sports Festival, because they worried we would do something stupid in preparation. Not that there aren’t potions that can help muscle growth, but they’re either not much better than a healthy diet, or they need a lot of effort and experience to ensure nothing goes wrong for the stronger stuff, ideally with assisting Skills to boot.
Either way, the cost might not be worth the reward, health-wise or literally, especially when you make them for yourself. You’ll spend more time and resources making them than you’re shaving off your exercise time.
I mean, except if you have the money to buy them, I guess, or if you hate exercise so much and prefer the workshop … you could multitask, but then if something goes wrong and you waste the ingredients …?
Right. Either way, it’s expensive. So it’s easier to focus on other avenues? A good nutrition plan, or trying to get strength Skills through a primer, the right diet, or a trainer with the right Skills.”
That was sort of where he’d wanted to head with his pitch, but he’d taken a long way around to get there.
Lisa gave him a curious look. “You sound like you put a lot of thought into this, or paid really good attention in class.”
He tried not to blush but didn’t even know if she was the type of person who would notice.
“Can’t it be both?” He sighed. “I might have done a bit of research on my own, outside of the lecture, because like, it could help me level? Or save me time with my busy schedule. But it wouldn’t. It requires consistent use for however long you want the effect to last.”
And he couldn’t afford to spend that much money just so he could shave an hour or so off his physical exercises each week.
“Ah.”
They stumbled ahead in awkward silence for a moment, and Lisa took a moment to check on her summons, he on his lungs, but then she easily brought the conversation back on topic.
“So why bring it up?” She probably already knew the answer, but she was giving him the option on how to get there.
“Oh, uhm,” Micah said, thought about it for a second, and answered, “because those helpers are best used when you’re getting started, to get over that initial hurdle to build up muscles, and then you can slowly stop using them. It sort of … evens out the curve, you know?”
“Or,” she said, “you could use more.”
He chuckled, assuming it was a joke. “That’s the trap people fall into. That would be unhealthy.”
“But this isn’t about your body. You’re asking about your spirit, right? What if there are differences?” She didn’t sound like she knew, she sounded the same as him, like she was bouncing ideas off him.
He almost sighed in relief as he went up with his voice, “Right …?”
He wasn’t so sure himself, because this was uncharted terrain for him, and uncharted terrain for alchemy in general, aside from experts or certain niches, like binding items to your spirit or interacting with nature spirits.
There were Classes who could communicate with them or draw on them for strength or to cast spells. But that was a whole other bailiwick he couldn’t tempt himself with.
He would research how to be more ‘polite’ toward spirits and that was it. No more. He had enough on his plate.
Lisa smiled. “So what were you thinking? Out with it.”
“I was thinking less ‘steroids’, not primers for other reasons, and not strength potions but like … the constituent parts of strength potions. A healthy meal …?”
He saw her perk up at that. He’d thought she would like the sound of it, just as he liked the sound of a healthy foundation.
“Because you said the people who try to get an earth affinity use ‘special’ mud and I read that certain diets of Tower foodstuffs can increase the chances of getting one stat over another.”
She was already nodding along.
It was something the Registry had done a study on. People who regularly ate Sewer Rat meat were slightly more likely to get a Skill that dealt with perception or agility from their next level up over another.
It wasn’t a much of an increase, but enough that they hadn’t written it off, with a bit of help from their own Skills. A few percent at best, depending on different factors. One was if you digested the monsters inside the Tower or outside of it.
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But people who only ate Sewer Rats for decades on end without even trying to do something about the trace patterns they ate ended up like the Rat Hermit, with mutations.
Moderation was key. It made sense the same would apply to spirits, in some form or another.
“Of course,” Lisa said. “Better resources can lead to better development. You saw Garen’s birthday presents for me? But ‘better’ still has to be something your spirit can work with, whether it be portion size or edibility. You can’t digest everything. You’re not a spiritual omnivore.”
“Right. That’s what I thought, too. But ‘better resources’ are expensive. I was thinking more along the lines of refining cheaper ingredients and making patterns to boost them, my digestion, or both, or something that can make the indigestible digestible to me?”
Instead of the entire cow, he wanted the protein powder and to either boost that or himself, since there may well be overlap, or alternatively, he wanted something that let him eat rocks.
“Those first two still kind of sound like your ‘steroids’ to me …?”
“Huh? Oh! No, too deep in the comparison. I mean for my spirit, not my body.” But he would have to look into both and their overlap, how they affected each other.
“Ah, that makes more sense. But your third idea is interesting.”
Was it? He hadn’t put that much thought into it. He didn’t know if there were any wind essences he would want to digest but couldn’t.
The answer seemed pretty simple, too: hybridize with flesh essence somehow, with the help of a pattern maybe, as you would with a [Barkskin] or [Stoneskin] potion.
But it was interesting to see what she found interesting. “I wonder if you could make yourself into a spiritual omnivore by design,” she mused. “Would you have to do that through an organ or could you somehow change the nature of your spirit?”
“And you called me out on ‘steroids’,” Micah said with wide eyes. “That sounds way out my league, madwoman.”
He just wanted to speed up how quickly he would get his wind affinity by a little, not … fundamentally mess with his spirit.
She smiled and said, “Either way, I trust you. Just think about what you’re doing, why, and what the consequences may be. Alchemy can be helpful, but it can just as easily do harm. And more importantly, it might not be necessary. Understood?”
“Loud and clear. Any time I spend working on this could be time better spent training, right?”
She smiled. “Right.”
Except, he had to dedicate time to a personal project anyway, but refining resources to empower his spirit with couldn’t be it. The simpler option wasn’t so much a project as just finding the right recipe to tweak—which was good because it was attainable.
Maybe he could do research on the basic theories, proving what he had been doing so far, but that seemed lazy. On the other hand, if he delved deeper into the spiritual side of things, he could easily fall into primer territory. That, he definitely couldn’t afford.
It was no wonder why rumors of potions that helped you level or gave Skills always hovered around the rich and criminals. They had the resources to invest in that sort of thing.
His project had to be affordable, or be able to earn him money somehow, he knew he would want it to be something that lasted, and he wanted it to be him.
But what was ‘him’?
Perfume? Flowers? He had some scribbles on mixing auras and alchemy to create fogs, lures, and repellants, and that would be useful but he doubted he could make anything original.
Healing potions? There was little alchemy couldn’t heal. Only the recipes were ever innovated on and that was a slow, controlled, and expensive process.
Fire safety? Because he was that much of a coward?
Stat potions? All the issues of before.
His ammunition? Definitely unoriginal, and gone in one shot.
He didn’t want his project to last in concept, in cultural or academic value, but as a physical thing.
He racked his brain and always came back to the childish idea of potions that lasted forever.
Where would he even begin if he wanted to innovate on the shelf life of alchemicals or preservatives, and was it something attainable to him?
Almost sounds more like enchanting. Like he didn’t have a large enough headache already without delving into that mystery.
He told himself he still had time, that he might not even start his project here, because he might switch to a proper school for alchemy after two years, so he had no idea what the future held, and he told himself that had more important things to focus on.
That helped … surprisingly little.
In the end, it wasn’t his headache that made him stop but his stomach. Its grumble shook him out of his thoughts and he looked around to see what the others were doing. They had slowed down not far from their latest ‘landmark’, an odd decorative symbol hanging from a tree they hadn’t deciphered the meaning of yet, and they all glanced toward the dimming sky.
Even Kyle.
“About ready to head back yet?” he asked him.
The guy looked around for a moment longer. A sigh broke through his frown. He was tired, too. “Yeah.”
He smiled and took another moment to focus on his breathing out of habit, and when he opened his eyes again, he rushed to keep up with the others as they headed back, the ‘sun’ setting behind him.
More than plans for the far-off future, or things on his to-do list, he wanted to focus on this. The others in front of him.
Dinner was campfire fish wrapped in herbs and some salt and pepper Jason had brought along in case they found potatoes—though he couldn’t articulate why he thought that might happen—thoroughly recooked soup, and any other small supplied they had.
Battered apples, mostly.
They washed up beforehand and cleaned their gear to savor the meal, and the stark difference between before and after was even more pronounced than the forest had been.
Micah hoped Ryan got used to smells just like the rest of them, or he felt extra bad for putting him that all day.
Not that he thought Ryan would entertain those sorts of thoughts—he was the model climber who would just deal—but reality didn’t change his thoughts.
So Micah put in the effort and was glad to see the guy relax near the fire.
They ate in the Taskmaster’s chamber overlooking the river, with a summoned guard stationed in the staircase, and the meal passed in near silence except for the crackling of the flames and the river in the background.
It was probably because of their exhaustion, but he liked to think the food had a role to play in it.
“It’s almost like Brent’s still on the team,” he mumbled between bites and got a few grunts or nods in reply from those who knew the guy. Not Bluth and Lisa.
“You’d probably like him,” he told her. “He’s a [Cook] who uses monsters and mana in his recipes so his dishes buff you for a while, with like fire resistance or wool coat.”
She stared. “And we picked Kyle over him?”
The joke got a few tired chuckles out of them, and Kyle said, “Ha-ha.”
“He’s probably cooking up a feast now, come to think of it. Hopefully, he’ll level like he wanted to.”
“He better. Abandoned us for it, didn’t he? Worse than me.” Kyle smiled at his own comment and said, “I better damn level soon.”
Micah wanted to, too. It was a reminder to not completely slack off. He had to check on their spoils after dinner, prepare and package the new additions, then get on that poison resistance potion he’d promised, see if he could make anything else useful tomorrow, maybe start practicing with his pitons before they broke, or meditate, or fiddle around with the new loot …
Argh! He scowled and stuffed more fish in his mouth.
Bluth couldn’t tell them what their new items did until tomorrow, and rather than try to find out, she finished first, washed up, and got her guitar out.
She didn’t play any proper songs, instead fiddling around with it to find any effects it might have had.
It still sounded nice, he guessed, and it was better than the silence, but she’d barely eaten anything.
No wonder, since she stuffed her face with vitality gummies all day.
Micah froze after the thought and realized, Oh, shh—oot. I sound like my parents.
Quick! He needed to do something un-parent-like.
“Who wants to dare me to jump into the river?” he blurted out.
“Huh?”
“Micah, no,” Ryan said, “it’s way too shallow.”
“I would have done it,” Kyle said.
“Then, uh … to climb down the cliffside with my new pitons!”
“Now? It’s dark. You’ll hurt yourself. And tomorrow, it would be a waste of time.”
“Then to climb up the cliffside to see what’s on top?”
“Uh …”
“We’re going to the Fields,” Kyle insisted. “We only have until the afternoon and we still have to find an exit.”
Something simpler then.
“Who … wants to dare me to pee off the cliffside?”
“Ew,” Bluth said.
“That’s not a dare,” Kyle scoffed. “Anyone can do that.”
“And disgusting. I want to sit up there later so none of you pee off it.”
But Jason choked on his food as he started to chuckle, coughed, and slapped his chest until he could breathe again. He needed two attempts before he could get it out, “And we thought the birds poking our eyes out would be bad.”
“Huh?” Micah needed a moment. Then he caught on. “Oh. Ohh! No, I take it back. Nobody dare me to do anything. That’s horrifying.”
Jason laughed. “Well, then don’t pee off a cliff.”
Micah smiled and stood to do his chores after all, but before he could, Lisa spoke up in a weirdly stilted tone.
“Ryan?” she asked and turned to him. “Micah? Can I speak to you two in private for a moment?”
Ryan opened his eyes, and Kyle perked up.
The relaxed look on his face disappeared and he asked, “About what?”
“Relax. We’re not going to conspire to tie you up in your sleep,” she said and Kyle frowned like she’d said exactly the opposite.
“So talk about it here, in the corner or something. You can be quiet, and we won’t eavesdrop.”
“It’s personal.”
Personal?
“And you can’t tell us? I’m hurt.”
“Kyle.”
“What? I just—”
“I mean this in the nicest way possible: We don’t care about your tattoo. At least, that hasn’t changed, right?” She turned to them and for a moment, she sounded a little unsure herself.
Why?
“I want to study it,” Micah said and what he really meant was ‘ogle it’ because he doubted Kyle would give him the time of day to study it, or that he could make that his project.
But he still had questions. It was just a window into the pattern within, but where had that pattern come from, or the window, and why was it hereditary?
It looked so … artificial.
“See?” Lisa pointed and Micah realized he had gotten lost in thought for a moment again.
“And I want to bug you about it!” he accused her. She’d said she could tell him more later, and recommend books or something.
She winced, earning herself a small smile from Kyle, but the poor guy still looked worried.
“C’mon,” Ryan said. He’d gotten up and unceremoniously led the way down without so much as attempting to soothe his worries.
Micah followed and despite being the one to ask, Lisa needed a moment before she caught up with them.
“We’re going to have to split up for guard duty anyway,” he heard Jason say before they were out of earshot.
Around the loose ‘curve’ of the tunnel, they waited. Lisa walked right past them. She didn’t lead them any further but began to cast something near the exit.
Micah switched lenses and asked, “[Sound Ward]? Is this that serious, that you don’t want the others to hear?”
“Or did you lie,” Ryan asked, “and this really is about Kyle?”
“In a way,” Lisa said without looking at them and turned around to cast another ward behind them, closing them in. “I did lie to you, but not about that. It has to do with why I asked if you were fine with him and … I’m not entirely sure I got the answer I was hoping for.”
Micah had seen hints here and there, and they had been hints. Lisa wasn’t really someone to get worried, and that was part of why he never felt like he had to worry about her.
When she turned around, she took a deep breath and wrung her hands before she could even look them in the eye. She looked terrified.
After a nice cold bath and filling meal near a warm fire, his brain was headed toward sleep rather than excitement, rote chores rather than theory. The sight was like an icy splash of water to wake him up.
Why? He didn’t know what was happening, and he grasped for answers but the more he tried, the fewer he could find until he clung to what she’d said already.
Kyle. Something related to Kyle. His tattoo? Did … she have one, too? Did that make sense?
No. Then why wouldn’t she be happy with their answer unless, did she secretly hate Kyle or something?
“Is everything alright?” Ryan asked.
She nodded. “Before we start, I want to make one thing clear: I’m not ‘bad’, nor is my family.”
Micah felt a hint of recognition at the words, like she was referencing something, but he struggled to make a connection. Why would anyone think she was bad?
“Of course,” Ryan said.
“I’ve just— I’ve been meaning to tell you for a while. Now seemed like as good a time as any, with Kyle and everything. And uhm, I don’t want to lie to you. I don’t want to push you away.”
“You haven’t.”
“I have. I have been lying to you.”
Ryan paused and frowned. “And now you want to tell us the truth?”
She nodded.
“Wait, Lisa. Just to be sure, you want to do this? Because you know, you don’t have to if not.”
She shook her head. “I kind of do.”
Micah frowned. “What would you even have lied to us about?” She kept secrets, yes, but this sounded like something worse and … he wasn’t sure how to feel. It wasn’t like he could complain about someone lying to him.
The thought reminded him of his parents, and the day he had told them the truth, and he immediately regretted saying anything at all.
All he’d wanted them to do back then was listen to him, so he said, “Sorry, take your time.”
More importantly, he worried about her. He kind of wished Ryan would give her a hug for him, or something else to steady her.
Instead, he only gave her a reassuring nod instead of his smile and said, “Whatever it is, we won’t tell anyone. You can trust us.”
She took a shaky breath. It didn’t seem like enough.
“I told you I’m from a small town up north, right? That’s true. And everything I told you about my parents, that’s true, too.”
“Sure, they’re [Mages]? Magical researchers?”
“Yes. My entire family— Well, not my family in the way you might think. It might be better to call us a clan or a tribe? We aren’t all directly related, though we share roots and our blood— Well, not our blood-blood, but the noble families here include different branches and vassal families, too, anyway. And we are one family, so maybe that’s right. We’re much like them, I’ve begun to realize, like the Heswarens. If not in name.”
Abruptly, she chuckled and shook her head. She was rambling and when she looked away, she didn’t quite look back at them again, fidgeting like she wanted to pace.
“We don’t even have a last name. I guess ‘Chandler’ is as good as any, though there are options. I said ‘nation’ earlier, but it sounds like a joke when I try saying it out loud compared to proper nations because we’re only around two thousand people, maybe double depending on how you count. It gets hard, with the different species—”
“Wait, different species?” Ryan interrupted her, and Micah didn’t know if he should be thankful or not, but he was definitely having trouble keeping up.
He clung to the same thing. Species?
She nodded again.
“Lisa, you’re rambling,” he said and raised his arms as if to steady her. “Maybe slow down?”
She took a small step back instead. “Different species. I come from a family much like the Heswarens, except we aren’t wandering judges. We’re scholars, all of us. And some of my family members are Myconids.”
Micah couldn’t help himself. He blurted out, “Mycon— The mushroom people?” They had been one of few humanoid monster races in the Tower before the changes.
He didn’t think—no, he had seen one before. He thought of the little mushroom kid who had waved at him from the roof of a staircase on their first climbing trip. He had never fought one before because …
Because Lisa had refused.
Ryan had asked if she didn’t fight humanoids but here she was, fighting Kobolds just fine.
“Myconids,” Ryan repeated. “Monsters?”
“No. People. The ones here, yes. They’re monsters. More than constructs, they look, smell, feel, sometimes even act like the people I know. It’s honestly horrifying at times, so I avoid them. But the ones where I came from? They’re people. Family. At least, some of them are.”
Micah frowned. “Lisa. Where do you come from?”
“A small town up north, remember? Inside what you might call the Witch’s Forest, but I know as our Mother’s Forest. Beyond your border. The North.”
He stared and didn’t get it. She didn’t seem like she was joking. If she was, she was trying way too hard and it wasn’t funny.
Because his chest hurt. There was a buzzing in his head, Micah grit his teeth, and especially didn’t get why his mind kept on screaming at him, So she’s a traitor, then?