Dialysis Book: Chapter 18: A day in the garden

It cost 30 silvers and about ten years of my life to go those 20 minutes.  Gloria dropped us off right at the sidewalk in front of the guild hall and it was all I could do to not jump onto the ground and start kissing it.  As it was we got well away from the cursed street and its damnable four lane intersections.

“I am sorry, chum,” said Shade, on the verge of tears.  “I do not hate you.  You are my best friend.”

I sniffled slightly, after a near death experience you couldn’t remain mad at your best friend.  We hugged it out.

Spivy was whistling.

“How was that fun?” I grumbled getting back to my feet.

“She jumped that fruit cart, ‘dukes of hazzard’ style,” said Spivy.  She considered that for a moment then stuffed it away for future use.

“His poor cabbages,” I said, pulling a waterskin out of my inventory and squirting a stream of it into my dry mouth, then a moment later I did the same for Shade who was gently walking in a circle.

“Are you okay boy,” I asked.

“I do not like being verbal,” said Shade.  “Before I could hide under the bed to feel safe, now I have to answer with words and they seem insufficient for that amount of terror.”

“Is that a no,” I said, rubbing him behind the ears.

“It is ‘keep scratching’ until I tell you to stop,” said Shade, as he sat next to me.  He lifted his right forepaw, “My paw is shaking.”

“Sounds about right,” I replied, swallowing and squirting more water into my mouth.

“You guys are a bunch of pansies,’ said Spivy.  “That was great!”

I’d been on rollercoasters less dangerous than that.

We were in adventurer square, which was a wide open field with an actual stone building constructed in the middle of it.  Parts of the building were built off of the large, squat tree that elves used for construction, but not most of it.  It was the only large stone building I’d seen so far.

“Fire,” I asked.

“Yup,” replied Spivy who was lounging while we got over our PTSD.

The actual guild hall was the main structure, with four large wings that each represented some aspect of adventuring I wasn’t aware of.  The entire grounds of the guild campus were fabulously landscaped, with fountains and planters boasting exotic plants from around the globe, or at least stuff that wasn’t local.  The nearby planter was from the Dwarven Mountain of Stone Helm Forge.

It was quite pretty, with large pink blossoms and lots of little flowers scattered all over it.

We had stopped only about ten feet into the garden and even from here we were partially obscured from the street in a row of bushes.  I found a bench and crashed down, and Spivy hopped out of my cloak and jumped to the ground.

“No flying,” I said.

“Sometimes a girl has to use her own two legs,” said Spivy.

She wasn’t gone a minute before an elf walked past us on a pathway inside the guild grounds.  The elf was studious looking and wearing what looked very close to a suit.  She spotted me and snapped her fingers several times.  Shade whimpered and hid, very easy when your powers are hiding.

My powers involved being super visible to every busy body in creation.

“Why are you laying around, you should be cleaning that fountain,” she said.

“That’s not my job,” I said.

“Your job is to do whatever I tell you to do,” said the woman, glaring at me.

I stood up, she was tall for an elf but I was clearly taller.  I looked down at her and shook my head, “I don’t work for you.”

“Then who do you work for you lazy roundy,” she asked, adjusting her clipboard, “Because I assure you that when I find out I’ll let them know that one of their employees is being lazy by my fountain.”

I glanced down at my clothing, which was the patched leathers and concentrated.  A moment later my chainmail armor formed around my body as the leather was sucked back into my inventory.

“You’re an adventurer,” she said, taking a half step back and really looking at me for the first time.  Then she sneered, “You expect that to overcome your disrespect?  Talking back to the royal groundskeeper?  I swear all of you humans need to have your heads examined.”

She stomped off.

“Royal groundskeeper?” I asked.

“The King has people in place to keep the guild in check, they own the buildings but she controls the grounds around them.  She technically runs the path into the guild, but that’s a bit of a legal gray area,” said Spivy with a shrug.  “Still, she can make your life difficult.”

“That’s gonna bite me in the ass,” I grumbled, shaking off the rest of my driving stupor.

“Who cares, you are an adventurer, she’s not going to do much to you as long as you are working,” said Spivy.  “In the meantime, give me the thing.”

I untied the brass bell and handed it to Spivy.  It weighed a few pounds, but she was four inches tall.  I’d effectively given her a car and she supported it effortlessly.  She snuck into the landscaping towards a mortal sized tree and then emerged without the brass bell a moment later.

“No one will find it there,” she said.

“Could they scan for it or something,” I asked.

“I’m counting on it,” said Spivy pointing at a number of magical cores slotted into various points around the garden.  The one in the well was a blue color, and obviously was there for making water but there were a host of others.  Around the tree, there were no fewer than seven small cores, and a bird’s nest.

Inside the nest was our relic.

“So it won’t show up,” I said.

“Way too much interference,” said Spivy.  “The groundskeeper got lazy, those are supposed to be spread out more.  No one will know it's there and no one will take it.  If we don’t come back for it, that relic will sit there for years unless they decide to scan the area specifically for relics.”

“And relics are uncommon,” I said.

“Extremely,” replied Spivy.

Since I couldn’t put it into inventory, hiding it in plain sight was the next best thing.  I couldn’t even really see it, I just knew where it was and could see the slight impression it made in the nest.  With the relic wrapped up in leather twine, it looked virtually indistinguishable from the straw that made up the nest.

“Now what,” I said.

“You go be an adventurer, I’ll go find out how much the relic is worth,” said Spivy.

“I thought we were on vacation,” said Shade.

“Yeah, and we get to kill monsters first thing,” I said.

“That sounds awesome, this is the best vacation ever,” said Shade tapping his feet on the ground.

I held up my hand and caused each of my fingertips to glow in a different color.  I waved them around a bit before saying, “I wasn’t able to do that before.”

“Light is not a complicated skill, so I didn’t expect it would take you very long to start mastering it,” replied Spivy.  “You have developed it to rank 2.”

“Rank 2?” I asked.

Spivy sat cross legged in the grass, “Each skill has a number of ranks, depending on the skill.  Not all skills are created equal, and not all aspects grant equal abilities,” said Spivy.  “Your light skill only goes to rank 3, and it mainly involves being able to do more complicated things with the light rather than amplifying its brightness, though that also happens.”

I dimly illuminated my palm and made a red dot cycle around it.  Useless, but also a trick I couldn’t have mastered yesterday.  I could only manage two colors at once though, and making a shape more complicated than a ball was so difficult that it cut me down to just one.

I waved my hand, it didn’t hurt but it felt strange, “So what about my other skills?”

“Flash goes all the way up to rank 5, and your rank 2 ability was the capacity to charge the skill on small items,” said Spivy making a throwing away gesture with an imaginary rock.  “You seem to be developing it to a more object based power which is fine.”

“Could I make it strong enough to burn someone,” I asked.

“It's just light,” said Spivy.  “No matter how bright it is, your flash spell will never make anyone warm.  It will also never permanently blind anyone.”

“Where I come from bright light can cause vision damage,” I said.

“That must be terrible.  Here, flash is a blindness effect, it manifests itself as a bright light but the reality is that it is basically a light charm that causes temporary blindness,” said Spivy.

“So I’m casting a spell,” I asked, surprised.

“Why do you think it takes so long to prep,” said Spivy.  “Or that you can cast it on rocks?”

Remembering back, she was pretty clear about how essence worked and it needed to be inside my direct bubble of influence.  That was about arms reach, though when I thought about it, “What about my spear?”

“Laser Thrust?  You have a spear core, it allows you to affect spears,” said Spivy like that made all the sense in the world.  She put her hands on her hips as she stood up.

“Laser Thrust, evolved Light Thrust, this Rank 1 ability allows you to construct hard light around the head of a staff or spear, turning the weapon into a spear.  The essence cost is reduced if there is a metallic spear head.  The Laser Spear Head will cut with force equal to a high tier mortal metal.  The head is frictionless, and will easily separate most materials causing more damage to creatures made of darkness.  It can be used for cutting at lesser effectiveness.”

She bowed and sat back down.

“So the full system fairy experience,” I said.

“You can see why I avoid it,” replied Spivy smartly.  “That said, I still enjoy the certainty of it.”

“You enjoy lecturing,” I said, incredulously.

“I enjoy the connection to the system telling me that what I say is absolutely true,” said Spivy.  “When I’m speaking from the system, everything I say is Axiomatic.”

“That would be nice,” I said, considering what it would be like to be able to speak from an unquestionable source.  That was like religion, but without the middleman.  A direct path to God, or the system in this case.  It was a heady thing.

Spivy smiled and then continued, “When you evolved Laser Thrust you reset the progress back to rank 1, but it happened so soon that you hadn’t really managed to develop the skill much.  Overall it was a good choice to evolve it then.”

I summoned my spear and flipped it over, exposing the bare wooden end and focused on the power now that I knew I could use it on any pole.  A laser head appeared on the end of the spear and I exhaled in a controlled fashion as I felt my essence tremble.  “They were not kidding about heightened essence use.”

“Yeah, I’d avoid that if possible, thought it would be decent practice if you can find something hard to attack while doing it,” said Spivy examining my now double tipped spear.  “Just standing there holding the spearhead isn’t going to really improve your skills significantly.”

I let the laser head fade.  That was also like working out, just cutting the power would be like dropping a barbell.  If you weren’t careful, it could bounce around and hurt you.

I generated a light shield, “So just holding this up is useless?”

“It is the functional equivalent of training by holding your arm straight forward for long periods of time.  It trains something, but nothing useful,” said Spivy as she considered her options.  “Take boxers from your world, they don’t weight train.”

“Yeah, because it just adds bulk, makes them heavier and puts them up against bigger guys,” I said.

“Training by holding a power just lets you hold the power longer, it is still as weak as it was before further as you train for endurance the power will adapt to last longer, but that almost always means the power becomes weaker because you aren’t stressing it,” said Spivy.

“So I could hold my shield for a long time, but when I defended it with the shield it would be too weak to stop attacks,” I said.

“Yes,” said Spivy, nodding at me.  “You are clever.  We will start training you as needed, but the best training is doing.  Stab the monster and your laser head power will improve the way you need it to.”

I had to evaluate that for a bit, but it at least made sense.  I needed to exercise the muscles I was using and do so in the right way.  I was used to training for hikes, but that was different from training for a marathon.  If I went into a hike with the wrong training, I would be in trouble.  Same situation here, and I could handle that.

After all, I was on vacation and I liked training for the most part.

“How is my shield doing,” I asked looking down at her, “And just the highlights.”

Spivy stuck her tongue out at me, “Your light shield is up to rank two as well.  Looks like it developed the ability to take a stronger hit, which is to be expected.  You only have one more rank on it and then I expect it to evolve into something else depending on your fighting style.”

“So Light Thrust just evolved into Laser Thrust, but Light Shield is going to stay the same until it maxes out its rank,” I asked.

“That’s the short of it,” said Spivy.  “You had strong feelings about what a light thrust was, so your essence naturally reformed that ability.  That’s pretty normal if you have a strong preconceived notion that a power does.  With a light shield, it is operating more like it should so you’ll need to wait for it to fully develop.”

“Any idea what it will develop into,” I asked, making the shield whip around me rapidly like I was knocking a puck across an air hockey rink.”

“Either one bigger shield or multiple smaller shields, most likely,” said Spivy.  “Haven’t seen you fight enough  to confirm, but that’s what shield powers typically do.  When the power ranks up, it will take care of itself.”

I pushed the disk over my head and gripped it.  As I pulled I could go neither up or down, because the shield was affixed to my essence bubble and pulling it was the equivalent of pulling my own leg.

Then I leapt up into the air and moved the disk below my feet.  When I landed, the disk absorbed the impact for a hot second before bursting in a flash.  I stumbled to the ground, without falling over.  Mainly that was because I was expecting it, but it was interesting.  The impact from landing on my shield was significantly less jarring than landing normally.  Sort of like my own personal airbag.

“What are you doing,” asked Spivy.

“I was trying to jump on my disk to see how it handles falls,” I said, embarrassed.  Everyone was quiet for a moment.

“You are being silly, chum,” said Shade.

“I guess,” I said.

“He’s right, you’ll never figure out how far you can fall with that little jump,” said Spivy.

“It is like he’s not even trying,” said Shade looking around and pointing at a nearby tree.  The very tall tree, with very high branches.

“Do it,” said Spivy, like an evil emperor.  You know the one.

I was climbing before I really thought better of it, “How high should I climb?”

He yelled, stupidly.

“I can mend bones, so at least the middle branch,” said Spivy from far below me.

“Oh, that’s good then,” I replied, realizing this was even dumber than I thought initially.

“I am sending you happy thoughts,” said Shade, and climbing the tree became much easier.  I got to the middle branch, some twenty feet up and looked down for the first time realizing how stupid this was.  I was standing twenty feet in the air jumping to impress who?

“Tuck and roll!” yelled Shade happily from below.  He was running in a circle, looking overjoyed.

Hell with it.

I jumped, bringing the reformed light shield below me.  Twenty feet was probably going to sprain just about everything on me, but Spivy was here and she could just heal me.  I landed hard, but not nearly as hard as I would have from a normal drop of that height.

The instant before I landed my shield slammed into the ground and spread out, flattening all the grass under my legs just as the shield popped.  My feet hit next, and I used essence to strengthen my constitution and agility allowing me to tuck and roll which further reduced the damage.  I rolled to my feet and my legs hurt, but they just hurt.  It was a manageable pain, more of a deep soreness than something more serious.

I grinned like an idiot, “That was great!”

“Look what you did to the grass,” said Shade.  The shield gripped things as they passed through it and me landing like that pressed it into the earth before I rolled away.  In the moment between when I landed and rolled, I managed to dig a good half inch of topsoil right out of the ground in a perfect concave bowl, while at the same time tearing the grass to shreds.

“Think that would work on a monster,” I asked.

Spivy looked at the finely shredded grass, “It would be criminal not to try.”

I looked back up at the tree, “I could easily do that from the next limb.”  It was only fourty feet, that should be safe.  I started back towards the tree.

“We were trying to be discreet about this?” asked Shade, “Because the angry woman is coming back.”

The problem with all my powers being light based was that they were very noticeable.  When I landed, the flash from the landing was visible to the street.  Several people were looking in at me, and pointing.  I snuck further back into the garden away from prying eyes.

Spivy looked around for a bit, “Alright, I’ll see you criminals in a bit.  I have to kill a Squirbit.”

Before I could ask, she vanished.  Not hard considering we were in a massive garden and she was four inches tall.  I spent a moment examining the flowers, seeing if I could spot her but when I didn’t, I shrugged.

“Let’s go,” I said to the air as my traitor dog was also gone and we avoided the angry elf.  Gloria had dropped us off close to the entrance, and that translated to about a two minute walk before we broke out of the garden and onto the main path to the entrance.