The Third Step: Chapter Nineteen

After quickly healing up and washing my clothes, then setting them in the pile of battle damaged clothes that I needed to learn how to repair, I met up with Kene and Meadow, who were sitting out front of the house. The moment I stepped through the door, Kene squinted at me. 

“What did you do?” 

“Nothing!” I protested. “Just… Aimed a spell poorly and ruined some pants. I’ll wash them and find somewhere to get them mended soon.”

“You should look into getting some more clothes with the enchantments of your coat,” Kene said, standing and plucking at my naval jacket. 

Despite all of the fights that I’d been in, the thing barely looked worn in, as the enchantments channeled a portion of the durability of my defensive spells through the fabric, layered some reinforcement of its own, and allowed the coat to self-repair while in shadow. It wasn’t the kind of thing that was going to stop a sword strike, not unless I was actively channeling my defensive spells, but it was still incredibly useful. 

“I am a little envious of Mallory,” I said. “The Tennebrous Lacewing thread, or whatever it was. The growth item that integrated with clothing and bestowed it with powerful defenses, self repair, and a few other tricks. If I manage to get a spellbinder rose and bond with my staff…” 

“An often ignored side-effect of higher gate battles,” Meadow said with a wheezing chuckle. “Once you’re an Occultist, you should usually be able to stop them from getting damaged, but I went through many dresses as an Arcanist.” 

I chuckled and took a seat with them, grabbing one of the triangles of miniature sandwiches that they must have prepared and taking a bite. 

“Mm. Egg salad’s good. So, what did you all get from the markets? Were you able to boost Kene’s divination range?” 

“Somewhat,” Meadow said, pulling a leather satchel from nowhere and placing it on the table. Within, I could sense fourth gate life and knowledge energy. Though it was fourth gate, the depth and complexity was staggering, like someone had wrapped eight dozen analyze spells around a mana core, and then stitched them together until it was impossible to tell where one began, and the other ended. “These are eye-beans. They’re slow growing, each stalk only producing about three or four fruits a year, and are a touch expensive, but can be made into potions that significantly bolster mana senses, improve physical sensory feedback, and even increase the range of divination spells.” 

“Three or four fruits?” I asked. “But they’re called eye-beans.”

“Despite the name, they’re not actually beans,” Kene said. “They just grow on a weird bush that looks a lot like a beanstalk, and look kind of bean shaped.”

As they spoke they untied the leather cord around the mouth of the bag to show the contents. Inside were large, lima bean shaped fruits, covered with a pattern that reminded me uncannily of eyes. As I moved my head, the eyes on the fruit seemed to follow me, shifting across the surface of the beans to stare right into my soul. 

“We have fourteen beans,” Meadow said. “I advise you to plant four to six of them over a lattice, so they can grow into a proper bush. Flooding them with power should help, but they really need time and stability to grow.”

“I’m not normally one to argue against getting more plants, but isn’t it better to have some extra potions in order to get the rebirth tree for Kene?” I asked. “Or at the very least, make them as we move around, and hope that there are leftovers.”

“Well, they’re not the only booster we bought,” Kene said, a smile touching their eyes as they looked at me. “But the reason’s simple. Permanent alchemy.” 

“Oh, like potions of immortality?” I asked, and Kene nodded. 

“Permanent alchemical recipes are much more difficult, require many more components, are far more esoteric, and take much more time to brew than short term boosters or effects. Even the simplest permanent alchemical concoctions require a crafter who can work with fifth gate materials, but the effects are well worth it,” Meadow said. “I never delved too much into permanent physical bolsters, but it’s something you may wish to consider. Even if you don’t go for it, forming permanent cores and arrays of energy in your body to empower your spellcraft is something that will be quite useful to someone with a gestalt body and soul, a synergy boosting spell, and vast reserves of energy…” 

Her eyes twinkled with amusement as she spoke and I shook my head, impressed. Meadow allowed me to guide my own advancement, rather than follow strict paths, which meant either she’d managed to predict useful skills and powers for any possible path I took, or she did a tremendous amount of research after I got new spells. But there was something nagging at me. 

“Alright… As interesting as this is to know, what does it have to do with the beans?” 

“Seven beans are used in a potion that forms energetic arrays along the inside of your skull to permanently improve your senses, both physical and magical. You could potentially tie some of your sensory spells into them. They’re far from the only component in the potion, but they are a core one,” Kene explained. “Since we also got some other boosters, sparing five or so seeds to grow a bush or several could grow? That would help both of us gain the effect. Finer mana senses would help me manage more delicate alchemical work.” 

I tapped my fingers along the table, then picked up another triangular cut egg salad sandwich.

“Yeah, alright. Since you got some other stuff, and we’re not completely staking our advancement on this. Speaking of, what other boosters did you get? I’m surprised you were able to afford more, given you said these beans were expensive.”

“There’s a fairly large magical item rental market among the Naturalists,” Kene said. “Lets them rent out whatever items they need for a mission, rather than collecting mountains of magical gear. So I rented out a few things, and we’ll return them when we get back. Of course, if we fail to return them, destroy, or otherwise lose them, there are assorted fees.”

Huh. That made a good deal of sense. I wondered why Mossford hadn’t implemented something so sensible. It certainly would have helped me out, especially in the beginning.

“What did you get?” 

In response, Kene removed a chunky pair of glasses from their storage ring, placing them on the table, followed by a ring that was made of spiraling multicolored glass, and finally a fingerless black glove. None of the items were especially powerful feeling, all of them spellbinder level items, but the glasses and ring both glowed with knowledge mana, while the glove pulsed slowly with a mix of knowledge and life magic.

“They all act essentially like meta spells, bolstering the range of my plant divination spells,” Kene explained. “With all three of them, I can make a range of about five, maybe six miles. Not exactly the twenty-one miles of seven league step, but still a considerable improvement. But I’m not sure how far the boost for the potion will make it.”

“You should solidly be able to make it out to between nine and eleven miles,” Meadow said. “Speaking of which, Kene, please draw out your Locate Plant spell, and the fourth gate meta spell you’re using to boost its range.”

She passed over a pen and paper, and Kene did as she said without asking why. I looked the spells over, nodding my appreciation. The divination had the distinctive angles that most second gate spells had, which was why I’d not picked it up myself, and the other looked to be a fairly standard bolster to range. 

“Excellent,” Meadow said, counting out nine of the fourteen beans and placing them on the table, then pushing the bag with the remaining five over to me. “Go and plant those, and use some discarded branches to make a lattice, at least until we can get one ourselves. Kene and I will collect the other components we need, and we’ll meet you in the alchemy room.”

I nodded and took the bag, then teleported over to the spring section of Dusk’s realm. As I did, I paused and frowned. That had been a large teleport, but I wasn’t feeling winded at all. I checked on my mana, and found that it hadn’t been depleted either – I hadn’t cast Foxstep.

And come to think of it, each of the quarters of Dusk’s realm was large enough now that I wasn’t able to sense to the edges of one region, let alone into another season, especially without boosting my sensory spells. I knew my bond with her allowed me to get a sense for wherever in her realm I wanted – Thea had shown me that. 

Was that ability growing? Spellbonds were meant to do that, and Dusk was in the middle of fourth gate, even if I was still only at peak third. As far as expanding abilities, being able to freely teleport around Dusk’s realm would be useful. A thought struck me and I tried to Foxstep over to Mossford, into my dad’s backyard, like how I’d teleported over here. There was a flicker in my spirit as it strained, but then it died, nothing happening. 

So, no free teleporting back and forth between the parts of Dusk that were integrated into the weave of Ddeaer, at least for now. Still, there had been something. It would be something I needed to try later. 

I set that aside and started digging a hole for the beans, planting them and teleporting some compost from the pile over to fill the hole, then filling it back in. Then I teleported over to the winter section, where I poked through, looking for fallen branches. Once I had a decent collection, I teleported back to where I’d planted the beans and set up a lattice, then teleported into the alchemy room. 

Meadow and Kene had set out piles of slowleaf, managrass, and binding-root, which I had expected, but also some things that I hadn’t. A section of vigor-camas had been laid out next to leaves of spiritbalm, honey taken from my hive of solbees, and long segments of shieldstalk grass. The most interesting thing, however, was a vial of ink that radiated knowledge mana, a fourth gate mana source. 

The fire beneath the large cauldron had been lit, and Kene was currently in the process of scumming the lunar mana out of the water, which always weirded me out somewhat. The alchemical plants that Dusk had created from the Time-Catch showed their worth there, keeping the room at a pleasant temperature, and free of smells. 

“Welcome back!” Kene called. “We were just getting the basics set up. Here, pour in the information-ink, and I’ll work on using the cauldron to tease it into the shape of my spells.” 

I picked up the vial and poured the mana source into the cauldron, and Kene started doing as I’d said. At they did that, Meadow called me over to start working on the components she’d laid out, stripping away all of the unneeded sections of each plant before carrying it over and dumping it into the cauldron. 

Some components, like the mana-grass, didn’t need much preparation before they could be put into the potion. Others, like the spiritbalm needed a lot of work, since we were using its soothing property to help loosen the flow of mana through the spells, and not strain Kene by keeping their spell over such a big area. Others still required me to use an entirely new alchemical technique: alchemy breaking. 

Vigor-camas, for example. The plant’s forest dragon energy could help provide power for the potion, even if not an effect, but the purple camas flowers had all of the power tightly bound up in physical enhancement. So in order to unbind it, I had to pick spots where the flows of energy intersected and drain the array until the energy stopped flowing, then inject that power into an area where it would just sit around. 

Alchemy breaking wasn’t useful for creating new effects, as there was a massive difference between breaking apart a knot of power while keeping the energy present in the leaf and carving entirely new pathways. Maybe one day, if a true plant manipulation spell was designed, it would be able to manage such a feat, but for now, forming masses of power was the limit of what we could manage. 

Even so, powering up the potion was useful, especially with so many complex arrays already bubbling in the cauldron from Kene’s work with the knowledge mana source and the eye-beans. About an hour or so of working together, Kene killed the fire, and nodded to the side of the cauldron. 

“Now we just need to let it rest overnight, so that the arrays can congeal. Tomorrow morning, we can bottle it up, and then head to the cordon.”