The Botanists' Invitation

Kason, with the little blue gem safely stored away in a pocket, made his way back to The Stars at Midnight. He reached it just before the appointed time arrived and entered the shop to find that it was now quite crowded. There were many people clustered around the various stands and the hubbub of voices sounded loudly in Kason's ears, even compared to the noise out on the street. Kason couldn't help wondering whether or not there was a special event going on that Castor hadn't mentioned or had forgotten about.

After a couple of minutes, Castor appeared behind the counter and announced that he would begin handing out people’s purchases. He started calling out names and the crowd began to thin as people gradually left with their purchases in hand. Kason’s name was called near the end when there were only three other people left in the store.

When he reached the counter, Castor handed him a small black box that felt like it was covered in a layer of soft fabric. Sewn onto the fabric were the letters 'S.M.N' and in small writing underneath was Castor's name in the same golden thread.

Castor smiled at Kason and said, "You should check the necklace just now, young man. Just to make sure it's how you want it."

Kason looked down at the box and saw that it was split in half through the middle and one side was hinged allowing the top half to be lifted up like a lid. He carefully lifted up the top of the box and saw, resting on a small lavender coloured cushion, a small silver locket with a pattern like folded bird wings on the front.

The silver locket looked brilliant! It glinted as Kason moved the box, looking at it from all angles, making it seem like a pair of angel's wings, however, he couldn't help wondering where the black stone had gone.

Castor saw his slightly confused look and leaned over the counter slightly, "The stone is inside this locket," He said slightly sheepishly, "I know you said you wanted it on the cord but I couldn't bore a hole through it no matter how hard I tried." He gave a slight grimace, "I don't know what it's made off but whatever it is, it's too hard for me to cut through, no matter what method I use. Really, quite extraordinary..."

His eyes seemed to lose focus and he stared off into space for a few moments. "Anyway, young man," His eyes focusing back on Kason, "The price is the same and I even upgraded the materials I used as an apology. The cord is now made of salamander skin instead of ordinary leather and the metal used on the locket is Argentum, a specially treated form of Silver."

He then reached down with a finger and poked the wings on the front of the locket, which opened silently, the folded wings spreading out like it was a bird getting ready for flight. Inside, sitting snuggly in a little niche, was the black stone.

Castor smiled and looked back at Kason, withdrawing his finger from the locket, "To open it just inject ether into the lock and it'll open."

Kason nodded feeling slightly glum. Of course, this was another thing that he couldn't use until he finished training up his level of saturation. "Could I get a normal catch put on? I can't use ether yet." He asked Castor.

Castor looked thoughtful, "I could put one on for you..." he began, "But this spatial lock is much more secure. You're in year one of the junior division I presume? So that would mean that you'd only have to wait, well, a few months, depending on how hard you practise. This spatial lock will also last for at least a couple of decades, whereas a normal catch may break after only a few years." He smiled down at Kason, "But if you really want it changing, then I will. If you ever want it changing back to a spatial lock, though, it will cost you quite a bit more than it will now."

Kason thought, he didn't really need to be able to access the black stone. He probably wouldn't even wear the necklace all that often, at least to begin with. "Can I think about it for a bit?" He asked tentatively.

Castor chuckled good-naturedly, "You can have until I finish dealing with the rest of the customers."

Kason moved away from the desk and leaned against one of the walls near a display cabinet. He thought about the what he wanted to do as a rather large man wobbled up to the counter to collect his order. He gradually came to the decision to leave the spatial lock and just wait until he learned to manipulate ether, after all, it wouldn't be too long relatively speaking. Or at least, that's what he told himself as he walked back over to the counter where Castor stood waiting.

Cator noticed him walking over and looked at him expectantly, "Well young man, have you decided?"

Kason nodded, "I'll keep it as it is."

"Excellent choice!" Castor said emphatically.

Kason handed over the amount they had agreed upon as payment and then left the shop. He stood for a moment outside and checked the time on his ring. Finding that there was still a while left until he needed to be back for lunch, Kason decided to look around some other shops for a while.

He lost track of time while he browsed shops of wondrous magical items and only remembered that he needed to check the time when his stomach rumbled in protest at its lack of sustenance. He checked his ring with a sinking feeling in his heart and found that what he feared had happened was true. It was past one o’clock, meaning that lunch was over, but more importantly, he wouldn’t get a chance to eat until that evening.

Just as he was debating whether or not he could just wait it out, his stomach made its plight known to him by grumbling in a rather loud fashion again. Kason blushed and looked around briefly to check that no one had heard and then began to walk quickly back towards the monument, he had spent all of the money he had brought with him on this trip on the necklace so he was going to go back to college to get some more and then come back to Constantin and find a place to eat.

He was just hurrying along the street that led back to the monument from the main street, his stomach still growling every so often, when he heard his name called out again. He turned and saw that it was Ledia, the girl who had shown him to the lumber shop earlier, as well as the green haired man from the incident with the trees and a few others, all with green hair.

They were sitting at a small rectangular wooden table in front of a small cafe and were all looking over at him, Ledia waving for him to come over. He walked over nervously, hoping that his stomach wouldn't start rumbling all of a sudden.

When he got over, Ledia smiled at him, "Hello, did you get the necklace okay?"

"Yeah," Kason stammered, "It worked out fine."

"That's good," Ledia replied, "Anyway, this is Perceval if you remember. He wanted to have a word with you." She indicated the man sitting across the table from her.

Kason looked at him, feeling a bit anxious. He had come across as having a rather haughty and arrogant attitude last time they had met, so he wasn't feeling too keen on speak with him.

Perceval surveyed Kason for a moment before beginning to speak, "Look, I'm sorry for what happened a while back. I know that I didn't really come across very apologetically last time, but that I was just in a bad temper at that time. That Ashton just pisses me off." His face clouded over into a grim expression and Kason could fancy his fists were clenched under the table.

"That's alright." Kason said, feeling rather surprised by the contrast between how he seemed now compared to back then.

Perceval nodded and said, "Well that's all I really wanted to speak to you about, you can go and finish whatever you were doing, I won't keep you."

Kason nodded and turned to walk away, but as he did his stomach decided to grumble especially loudly. He blushed and began to walk away faster but a voice called him back.

"Are you hungry?"

Kason turned shyly and nodded to the person who had spoken. It was a woman who was sitting on the other side of Perceval. She was tall; had long green hair that fell to her waist and a face that bore a startling resemblance to Perceval's. "You see that Percy, the kid's starving. How about you buy him something? You owe him for all the trouble you've caused him after all."

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Perceval turned quickly to the woman with a rather distressed look on his face, "But sis..."

"Huh! Don't look at me like that! You'll give our society a bad name." She responded harshly. Then, turning to Kason and speaking in a normal tone, she said, "Come and sit with us, we'll get you lunch."

"No, it's fine, really," Kason mumbled, trying to squirm his way out of the situation.

The woman would not take no for an answer, however, and so in the end, he squeezed on the end of one of the benches that were on either side of the table next to Ledia. While Perceval went off on his sister's instructions to buy lunch, his sister began talking imperiously to Kason and the table at large.

It turned out that all of the other people, were Botanists and that Perceval's sister, who was called Philera, was actually the current leader of their group. She went on talking throughout the entire time that Kason was eating and continued on even after he had finished.

Kason wasn't really paying attention to what she was saying most of the time, instead, he focussed on his meal and then, once he had finished, on how he could successfully disengage himself from the group without interrupting Philera's speech and appearing rude. He was, however, brought suddenly out of his contemplation when Philera directed a question at him.

"We've got something planned for the two weeks today, do you want to come along?"

"What?" Kason spluttered, "Err..."

"That's great, you can bring along some friends if you want. No more than four or five though. It'll be fun you should look forward to it. We've not done something like it for a few years now, so I think we should be able to get away with it this year..."

Philera continued speaking, no longer paying attention to Kason, her gaze now focussed on one of the other people sat around the table. Kason sat there feeling dazed. He remembered Ashton's whispered advice from after the incident a while ago and, although he didn't think the Botanists would be as bad as Ashton seemed to think they were, he couldn't stop an ominous feeling rising from his stomach.

Not wanting to remain much longer, especially with the ominous feeling from before, he soon made an excuse to get away. He got up, thanked Perceval for getting him lunch and said goodbye to the others before leaving back in the direction of the monument.

After transferring back to the college's plane of reality, he made his way back along the paths that led to the junior dorm building. As he walked, he thought about the invitation that had been forced upon him by Philera and shivered subconsciously.

The words 'should be able to get away with it' kept dancing around his mind and he was loath to think of what that phrase meant. 'Of course,' he thought as he walked through the main building to get to the courtyard, 'They could just have been struggling with money or something like that, it isn't necessarily something that will get people into trouble...'

As he entered the junior dorms though, he remembered the look that had been on Philera's face when she said that and such naive thoughts evaporated into thin air.

"That was the face of someone planning trouble..." He muttered to himself as he entered his room.

The next day, Kason awoke feeling refreshed and quite cheerful; having forgotten about the invitation he had received the day before. He climbed out of bed, got dressed and then exited his bedroom with the two blue gems safely stuffed into one of his pockets. He walked down the corridor and through the door to the nexus where he stopped for a few minutes and looked around, standing in the centre of the blue-carpeted room. He looked at the labels above the doors, trying to find one that might lead to wherever Supervisor Rayleth stayed or some other staff member who he could ask to take out the items he had bought the day before from the blue gems.

He looked around for a couple of minutes, a slight frown slowly creeping over his face as he gazed at the long line of doors. Suddenly, he felt a thump on his back and he turned quickly to see Harper standing behind him.

"Mornin'," He yawned, "What you frowning at?"

"Good morning. I just realised that it looks like there are more doors here than there were when we arrived."

Harper looked quickly around at the doors on the walls, "Really? Well, Brent said that this place adds more floors when it needs them, so they'll need more doors to get to them, won't they? We arrived quite early, after all, so it's no surprise that more people arrived after us, anyway, let's go get breakfast. I'm starving."

As they ate breakfast, Kason asked Harper if he knew where he could find supervisor Rayleth. Harper had no idea, much to Kason’s disappointment. He spent the rest of the time after breakfast with his search but still did not find anything. Eventually, he gave up and made his way to the classroom.

When he entered the classroom a few minutes later, he saw that Harper was already sat in his place, talking to the person who as sitting behind him.

Kason walked over and sat down in his place next to Harper who turned from his conversation to greet him, "Did you have any luck finding the Supervisor?"

Kason shook his head and, as Harper went back to his conversation, slumped forward over his desk as a sudden feeling of tiredness swept over him. He closed his eyes, meaning to rest for the few minutes which were left before class began, but they sprung suddenly open as he suddenly remembered the invitation from the Botanists.

Kason turned his head on his desk so that he could look at Harper. He wondered morosely what Harper would say if he asked him to go with him. He decided to ask him after he finished talking, but his conversation ended up going on until the sharp tapping of shoes on the floor told Kason that Ms Luxford had arrived.

When she entered, Ms Luxford immediately began the lesson. She announced that she would be testing their saturation again. She immediately began calling out names and went through the same procedure as she had the previous week when she had tested their initial saturation levels. Harper was called out first from their group of friends, then Kayla, Lexia, Alford and lastly, Kason. When Kason heard his name, he walked to the front of the class and stood before Ms Luxford. She reached out her hands and the same feeling of absentmindedness swept slowly over him, his eyes drooped slightly and the faint whispers again sounded in his mind.

Then the moment passed and Ms Luxford caught his arm as he stumbled, still not used to the sudden transition. "Your saturation is now about 33.4C which is about what is expected given that you were only at 32C last week." Ms Luxford said in a kindly voice as she steadied him. As Kason looked at her smiling face, he felt again the tug of guilt in his stomach and smiled awkwardly back at her before making his way back to his seat.

When he arrived there he was greeted by the figure of Harper slumped over his desk exuding an air of gloom.

"Umm, what happened?" Kason asked as he sat down.

Harper let out a heavy sigh and peeled himself off his desk, "My saturation only went up by 2.1C." He said and let out a sigh full of despair before lying back down on his desk. Kason felt a sudden stab of anxiety as he realised that his had only gone up by 1.4C. He wondered whether Ms Luxford had just been trying to console him by saying that he was doing as expected.

Kayla, who had obviously overheard what Harper had said, turned suddenly in her seat and spoke exasperatedly to Harper, "What do you mean by only 2.1C? Mine only went up by 1.4C and you're complaining about yours not being enough."

"Yeah," Harper said, his voice slightly muffled by his head being buried in his arms, "But at this rate, it'll be ages before I get to one hundred Cs. It's gonna take forever to start learning magic!"

They talked were allowed to talk amongst themselves for a while longer while Ms Luxford finished examining the rest of the students in the class. Kason ended up narrating his trip into Constantin from the day before and ended up telling them about the invitation he had received from the Botanists.

Harper looked at him with a worried expression on his face. "That sounds quite sketchy..." He said, once Kason had finished.

"I know," Kason replied, "But I can't refuse anymore, can I? I already said I would go, well no I didn't say I would go, but you know what I mean!"

"Can't you just not go?" interjected Alford from the other side of Lexia.

"NO!" Harper yelled.

The entire classroom went silent at the sudden loud noise and everyone looked over at Harper with curious eyes. Ms Luxford looked over at him as well and said, "Is anything wrong?"

Harper flushed with embarrassment and hurriedly assured Ms Luxford that things were fine. He turned back to find Kayla giggling at him and Lexia suppressing a grin. Even Kason was trying to suppress laughter from spilling out of his mouth, but at the same time, he tried to think why Harper had had such a strong reaction.

"He can't just not go," Harper said insistently, trying to steer the topic back on track, "They'd probably do something terrible to him!"

"And it would be a bit rude," Kason mumbled, unheard by anyone.

Alford, who hadn't reacted to Harper’s sudden outburst, frowned and asked, "What makes you say that?"

"Ah well..." Harper suddenly looked slightly sheepish, "Don't tell anyone else I said this, my brother would kill me if he heard that I'd been telling people."

The group nodded in agreement, "Well, apparently, the Botanists do something every year around the time when the new students arrive. When my brother first came here, he was invited to join them and during this 'event', but he chose to ignore the invitation. According to him, once they realised that he hadn't turned up, they sent out some people and ambushed him while he was walking around the college!"

"Did they hurt him?" Kayla asked nervously.

"They didn't hurt him exactly," Harper replied with a wry smile, "They knocked him out with something, then stripped him to his underwear and hung him from a tree which they grew in the middle of the courtyard with a sign around his neck saying 'Breaker of Promises'!"

Harper sighed, "Apparently, the supervisor at the time used to be one of the Botanists whilst she was at the college so she left him there for an entire day before getting him down."

The group fell into silence once Harper finished his story. Kason sat with cold sweat breaking out on his brow, thinking about how horrible that experience must have been. After thinking about it a little more, he decided that he would just go by himself. He opened his mouth to say as much when he suddenly felt a hand clamp down on his shoulder.

"Don't worry so much Kason, I'll come along with you!"

He looked up and saw that Harper was standing next to his desk, looking at him with a determined gleam in his eye. "Is it not the duty of friends to stick together through thick and thin?" He continued grandly, staring out of the window with a faraway look in his eyes. Kason looked up at Harper, a feeling relief washing over him, he was glad that Harper had volunteered.

"I'll go too then," said a voice from beside them.

They both looked around and were stunned to find that it was Lexia who had spoken.