There was a weird girl standing in front of the gates. He didn't think she had noticed him yet. Well, at least he thought they were a she, it was hard to tell with some monsters. Hadn't ever seen a monster like her before, but the high pitched sound of the shouting made him think she was a girl.
"Alrighty! Alrighty! You've got this! Walk in, walk out." Then the girl started to punch the air, for some reason. "Hyah! Hwah! We can do this me!"
Was the weird girl weirdly referring to herself in third person trying to pump herself up for the inane task of entering Home? Weird.
"It's like exploration! Never mind how exploration was how you got into this mess in the first place! Go through the gates, meet some of the monsters, go back out! It'll go—
Then she noticed him, her words dying in her throat as she saw him literally standing beside the gate in plain sight. Shining metal armor and scales for all to see beside the gates to Home. Green eyes met gray.
He waved.
She ran, scampering away.
He shrugged to himself. If she wasn't biped and wingless, he would've thought she was a Whimsum. She was literally running from the least threatening thing for miles around. He was part of the literal Royal Guards for goodness' sake, there was no reason for her to be scared of him.
He noticed two green glimmers look out at him from behind a stalagmite that was too narrow to hide anything.
He waved.
They squeaked.
The girl was absolutely precious.
Precious in two ways. In the way that would make anyone go dawww and pat them on the head with four legs and feed them donuts and in the way that you could instinctively tell that they wouldn't be able to say no to any offer and hand over as much gold as you asked for. Then, after emptying their pockets you would squish their cheeks again and ask them to come again.
If only the girl wasn't so precious.
"Well—um, as you can see here... this is a lime. It heals, which is neat. It, um, also tastes pretty good... and this is a bakery right?" The girl said stuttering up a storm in front of the counter.
Tressa skittered a little closer, holding up a placard with one of eight limbs in response:
"Yes dearie. This is a bakery."
It was a slow day, so she she amused herself by watching the girl fumble with her words.
"Well then," the green-eyed girl started out with a deep breath, "I've got the deal of the century for you!" The girl said, injecting excitement into her voice, surprisingly not stuttering and squaring their shoulders while putting on a serious look as if they were getting into character.
It made her want to pinch their cheeks.
She rolled three legs to indicate the girl to continue. She was curious where this would go.
"I'm Bea, the representative of LGIT Business and friends incorporated."—Dawww—"Our mission is to distribute healing limes over the entirety of the Underground in order to bolster hope and joy in every single monster from the littlest spider to the biggest anthropomorphic goats."
She blinked four eyes. The girl was doing both worse and better than she had thought. The play-acting was cute and the pitch wasn't half bad.
"I have been sent by the higher ups in the hopes that our two groups could collaborate to take advantage of a gap in the market. One that is both morally righteous and financially rewarding."
Two things she quite liked. She dipped a leg in ink and scrawled out a question.
"What?"
"I'm glad you asked. Our mission relies on this, our incredible product," Bea said, holding up a lime, "a healing lime, one of many."
Tressa looked quizzically at the lime and gestured a leg vaguely at their surroundings. An interior of rich faux mahogany that breathed coziness to create a home away from home that customers would be able to relax in. A speaker tittered overhead and heralded customers in with a cheery jingle that brought a grin to even the most downtrodden monsters as their tension melted away over a hot cup of cider and rich doughy donuts fried to a crispy brown finish that hid a fluffy texture within.
Her shop, a place where customers of all shapes and sizes could wander around and search for a cozy nook to relax in to make their own. A hundred chairs of all makes and materials; one for everyone and anyone. A home they could call theirs and sink into to forget all their stress and worries as they closed their eyes and listened to the melody of cheery jingle, juice presses, and the underlying beat of wood pulleys and conveyer belts ferrying un-fried dough all around the room in a wordless symphony.
Bea seemed nervous. Which was good, she was the customer the entire shop had been built for.
"Ah! What does this have to do with you and your esteemed business you ask? Well, I want you to distribute them."
Tressa blinked five eyes.
That was... actually quite a good plan. One of the biggest hurdles in starting a business was advertisement, she had gone through it herself when she was just starting out after all, why would a monster try some new fangled product when they already had one that they trusted. If they didn't like the new product, that was money down the drain that they would never get back. By skipping the build-up process, she was both saving money and the mad-grab for repeat customers by taking advantage of the fame the spiders had built up.
Of course, this was only a good idea if the product was any good and if Bea was actually making a genuine offer instead of play acting. Perhaps this was the girl's way of asking for an internship?
"We, at LGIT Business and friends do not have have the infrastructure to successfully achieve our mission in a reasonable time frame. We need a group that already has a foot, or eight, in the bizz. A group that has the image, the branding, that instills trust in the people and tells them that all products with the mark of the illustrious spider clan is sure to only have goods of the highest quality."
Bea winked at her. It was probably supposed to be discrete and sly, but it was just too cute to be anything else.
And they had never been referred to as a clan before, though she did quite like the name.
She briefly wondered if Bea was delusional. The girl was being surprisingly serious and in-depth for what she had assumed was a play-offer that the girl's friends had put her up to. She directed a singular eye up at the ceiling where maze of wooden beams and century old tapestry of webs lay and alerted Ariadne with a tug of some strings. Ariadne's eyes swiveled towards her as some spiders came up to Bea with some donuts and apple cider.
She looked back up at Ariadne and moved a leg to the gleaming wood counter. Tap. Push forwards. Double tap and curve.
[Yes] [Outside] [Monster]
Ariadne shook her head in response.
Curious.
Well, she supposed she could give the girl a chance.
11/10
It shouldn't have been possible. It shouldn't have been so effective. So powerful.
Overhealing?!
She quickly went over her every step, searching for a rational, sensible reason for what should have been impossible.
She had Bea pick up the lime and drop it into a small barrel. The lime had quickly dispersed into the water and colored it a pleasant light green that almost seemed to sparkle when looked at from a certain angle. She had considered it impressive at the time, that the lime which was a twentieth of the water's volume had caused such a change to the water. She had considered it a potential way to create color variation in apple cider and nothing more.
Then, she took the smallest of sips...
Tangy. An explosion of flavors that melted and danced on the tongue. It popped. It fizzled. It skipped and played jump ropes without a care as it ran free and took control of the mouth and shattered the ceiling of sweetness despite being so diluted. It was too much. Too much for such the healing construct spread so thin.
Then there was the overhealing.
It should've been impossible. Being so diluted as to be functionally a drop in a glass of mundane water. Healing would have been understandable, it was a green construct after all, but overhealing!? It took exponentially more magical strength to heal above a monster's threshold. The healing power it took to heal twenty hp was equal to one hp overhealed. And to make matters even better, it tasted good.
She looked to the barrel, quickly calculating the amount she had drunk and the remaining liquid gold still inside. She did a little dance. She could take a thousand more sips and the barrel still wouldn't be empty. And even if the small sip she had was much more effective because of her diminutive size, and a similarly sized sip would be much less effective on a moderately sized monster, it was still incredibly valuable.
She looked at the girl with gold in her eyes. Quickly penning a note.
"100 g" it said, much too low for such a precious object. Even eight-hundred gold coins would be a steal—
"Deal!"
...the girl was simply too precious.
She crossed out the 1.
"200 g"
"... Deal?"
She had thought the girl was good at business, the pitch certainly had been well performed. Clearly she had been wrong. She crossed out another number.
"300 g"
"Sure? Is this how haggling works?"
It wasn't. This wasn't how haggling worked. No matter how cute their little back and forth was, it spat in the face of the very concept of haggling. If the girl returned to her company with only a pitiful 300 gold coins for such a precious object she would be fired before she could open her mouth. To make such an object, it must have taken days of devoted effort built upon decades of relentless single-minded fervor in the dual fields of magical constructs and healing.
All to make the perfect product.
"600 g"
"Wow! That's six times more than the price you offered at first!"
Her instincts were practically begging her to reel in the easy meal, but she held herself back. A one time payment was nothing before the potential profits of a long-term relationship. This was a test, it had to be; a test of her morals. The monster that had chosen to send Bea to promote the Lime was quite sneaky, but she knew what to do. Not scamming the girl was the best way to make money.
"1,000 g" A price where they would both benefit.
"I have no idea what's going on, but I'm all for it!" Bea cheered.
Simply too precious. She wanted to tug on the girl's cheeks.
"Alright!" Bea said, cheerfully. "So that'll be 15,000 Gees for me! Whatever Gees are!"
What?
Before she could decipher the meaning behind Bea's words, the girl in question opened her satchel and brought out another lime. Shining brightly even in the warm glow of her shop as it settled upon her countertop.
And another.
Two more.
Brighter and brighter stood the pile
Five more.
Ten.
Again and again as Bea failed to notice the thousands of widening eyes from every corner and shadow of the room as they realized that the girl truly had fifteen-thousand gold in healing limes lying unprotected in her satchel. Did Bea not care about the amount of gold involved in this transaction?! Fifteen healing limes of the potency presented was truly a mammothian sum. 'LGIT Business' was truly a frightening newcomer if they could supply so many limes to an intermediary seller like Bea.
The girl was simply too precious. Her wares too precious... to hold onto for herself. Her mercantile instincts didn't like the thought. Moral responsibilities were annoying.
With a sigh, she quickly penned another note, a longer one this time.
"If your mission is to 'bolster hope and joy in every single monster'. You might want to make another stop."
Cat-kin were known for being stoic against all odds, facing the most ludicrous and impossible events as if they were everyday events. Dispensing not a single iota of emotion.
Cat-kin sat straight, stared at everyone with unnerving slitted eyes, straight whiskers, and pointed ears.
Cat-kin did not twitch in the slightest even if a monster walked through the door with a dessert spoon stuck in their thigh. Even if they wobbled in with a leg stuck in a wheel of cheese. Or even the most absurd of magical accidents. It did not matter how horrific their injuries may be, they were all treated equally.
Clinical treatment paired with calm disposition. That was the ingrained self-replicating culture of the Cat-kin that each of them made a part of themselves.
Which meant that he was failing.
A letter from Tressa never failed to break his façade, she knew that. She took joy in it. Breaking out in a strange eight-legged dance each time as if breaking his calm was an achievement to be proud of. Though to her displeasure, and to his own joy, he was slowly getting used to her insane rambling. He was now able to maintain a calm disposition for five minutes whenever Tressa visited.
Every second seemed longer, all the more dreadful, when she was around so he couldn't help but time it.
Each time he held his composure a little longer, must to his own barely suppressed glee.
Each time, after coming off the adrenaline that was like a partner to Tressa, he simply couldn't help the warmth in his chest that made him break into chuckles that rang through the monotony of the dreary sterile halls like a knife. Basking in his continued success and the triumph of continued improvement
Then she would leave.
And he would return to being the perfect image of tranquility; forged in the fire of annoyance, doused in the waters of chaos, and held to battle against the hordes of insane ramblings. He was the perfect image of tranquility.
Leo had seen it all. Heard it all. Experienced it all.
...
Well... not really.
He returned his attention to the girl with green eyes and a familiar air of chaos and was in her hands, a black letter with an even more familiar air of chaos. The girl was also holding a lime, which was weird, but that wasn't the important part.
It was her.
He frowned.
The girl smiled for some reason, and it reminded him of Tressa. Which wasn't a compliment. More of an acknowledgement that he was going to have a headache even if he didn't know who the girl was or what the letter contained. The simple fact that it was related to Tressa promised migraines and refused to give anything less.
He sighed. Tressa just had to throw this headache at him on one of his more relaxing days didn't she. He turned the envelope around in his paws, feeling the weight of the paper and the fear it elicited in him despite being nothing more than folded black paper containing white paper. He sincerely wished Gerald would walk in right now with his leg lodged in a cheese wheel, a dessert spoon stuck in his thigh, and burnt off eyebrows...
...Perhaps?
He leaned on the desk, his elbows digging into a very important document as he propped his chin on his hands and gazed longingly at the glass swivel door that marked the entrance to the hospital.
He could see it now. Gerald would smugly approach the pure glass swiveling door. Then their eyes would meet and Gerald would know exactly how he felt about seeing him again. He would grin that grin of his. A grin un-suited for Cat-kin, but strangely suited for the Cheshire branch. Then, as if there was nothing to worry about, Gerald would go a couple extra circles around the swiveling door. Pretending each was the last, but going for another spin as his annoyance soared. Around and around for the sole purpose of making his eyes twitch.
...
He could see it now. The dumb Cheshire grin plastered on Gerald's face as he swaggered in with mildly distressing injuries, perhaps a spoon lodged in his throat or twenty-seven wood splinters lodged in his fur that barely missed his vitals from some one in a million magical accident. Then Gerald would somehow grin even harder at the exasperation that was clear on his face no matter how hard he tried to hide it.
...
He hated his imagine scenario, but he also wished it would happen. Even if the thought alone made his whiskers stand on end.
...
Anything to put off reading the letter.
...
He gave it a few more seconds. Watching the swivel door our of the corner of his eyes as it stood in place. The overhanging lights illuminating his only hope.
...
The incessant tick of the clock was deafening to his thoughts.
...
Nothing.
He groaned, typical Gerald.
With a long, suffering, and hopeless sigh, he extended a claw and ran it under the lip of the black envelope and slowly drew out the plain white sheet of paper filled with curly purple words that filled him with dread. It was her. He had already known, but he knew for sure now. He couldn't hope any longer.
He started reading, a tightness pulled at his chest:
"Heya Leo~ How'ya doing?"
She knew. She knew how he was doing. Even if she didn't know how he felt before opening the letter, she definitely knew how he felt after opening it. He continued reading, promising himself that he would finish the letter before shredding it into a thousand pieces:
"The girl currently in front of you, named Bea, claims to be a part of LGIT Business and friends incorporated (Yes, I know how that sounds, I wouldn't believe me either) and has healing limes that heal a thousand HP a pop (Yes, I know how that sounds too) supplied to her by her company. So I thought of you! The jolliest fella around! A do-gooder that lives more in the hospital than at home! Hash out a deal with the girl won't you, I know you guys never have enough.
Much love,
Tressa
P.S. Tell the girl my name is Tressa!
His eyes kept going back to the same line:
"A thousand HP a pop."
His instincts told him that she was lying, but after a few seconds of contemplation he knew his instincts were wrong. Even if it sounded impossible, even if she constantly messed with him, he knew Tressa wouldn't lie to him. Which, in turn, meant that a fundamental magical law he had been taught was simply wrong.
And Tressa's words wasn't all the evidence he had either, the lime the girl had placed on the table at some point in his internal monologue was plenty. He could see that it was different with a single glance as it radiated a pleasant green light on the countertop, some part of him knew that instinctively and made his ears stand on end.
He pawed the lime and shivered from the power radiating from it as he held it up to the lights hanging overhead.
It's clear, was his first thought. And his second thought was naturally, that's impossible. But no matter how he tilted the lime there wasn't a hint of cloudiness to be seen. As if it were glass instead of a magical construct. Complete Conversion the professor had described it all those years ago. A complete conversion of un-attuned magic to a singular aspect. "Impossible" the professor had described the concept with a ruffled squawk and yet here it lay... Green magic in its purest form. The first one he had ever seen, the first that the hospital had ever seen, and the first that the entirety of the Underground had ever seen.
This was so far up his paygrade it wasn't even funny.
Tressa was right. The lime were essentially so valuable he probably wasn't supposed to be handling them. He wasn't actually the manager, just the hospital receptionist that spent more time filling out paperwork than sleeping. He glared at the Lime.
He really wasn't supposed to be handling this. It was quite nerve wracking to be entirely honest. Its creator had to have spent years honing their craft to achieve this level of purity. Even if he didn't quite understand the intricacies of healing magic, he still had a great deal of respect for its creator.
The person that delivered the masterpiece on the other hand? Well, suffice to say he found the choice of messenger questionable.
"Kid. Put the snow globe down."
"Sorry?" said the girl mid shake, looking mildly embarrassed. White specks rained down on a cozy cabin.
He would've expected someone... older. In a suit or some other article of clothing that commanded respect as the viewer compartmentalized how professional the monster was by how expensive, boring, and unwrinkled their clothing was. A dress for the occasion so to say. A dress suited for presenting a magical marvel.
A dusty T-shirt and jeans was very much at odds with his idea of the person who would present such an important object.
"It's fine. Tressa—the spider lady you talked to—says you've got a deal for me?"
"Tressa? Is that her name? She fed me donuts!" Bea said as her eyes sparkled over the inane accomplishment of learning the name of someone who fed them donuts.
She hadn't even answered his question.
"Healing limes. What's the deal."
"Uhhh, oh, yeah" Bea said, still getting over learning the name of the 'donut lady', "I'm selling them. Do you want them?"
"Yes." He nodded. "This hospital, like all hospitals, needs healing items." He said matter-of-factly. "And no, I am not being sarcastic in any way whatsoever."
Bea squinted his eyes at him. Likely searching for some sort of tell that would indicate he was lying.
He was not. Other monster's often came to the conclusion that he was being sarcastic rather than direct, which was fine, but this deal was too important to risk alienating the messenger and likely the creator if they had chosen to send Bea to sell their products.
"Healing is one of the rarer disciplines," he continued. "Rarer are those that can heal effectively. The existence of constructs that can heal without the presence of the caster would be a boon for our ability to care for our patients."
He gave Bea a second to process his words.
He didn't have to wait long for another senseless remark.
"Alrighty! How many do you want?" Bea said confidently, as she rummaged through her satchel.
He raised a brow.
"Well, I would need to know the price of each individual Lime first before I am able to do that. The funding from the king is finite and limited despite his best efforts. We would need to come to an agreement on the price before we can proceed." He stated.
He wasn't prepared for what Bea said next.
"Why wait?" Bea declared, "I can sell these for free!" the girl cheered with a smile that made his eyes twitch at the sheer insanity of the statement. Then the insane girl started to rummage through her satchel and tossed out thousands of gold worth's of transparent green limes. Their glow distinct even under the bright hospital lights and each of them were as transparent as glass. There was already ten on the table and more were coming.
He barely restrained himself from massaging his temples.
"I'm afraid you don't entirely understand the situation." He said, trying to make hand gestures to better get his point across. "The supplier of the healing limes needs to be renumerated—which means getting paid—enough to cover the cost of dedicating a large percentage of their days for the sole purpose of helping others, even if it's just enough to pay the bills. While the intent is appreciated, I do not believe you have the authority to decide something so significant without input from those higher up in—" He looked back down at the note from Tressa. "—LGIT Business."
He still couldn't get over the name.
The girl looked at him weirdly. As if she found it absurd that she couldn't decide how the resources of a company would be used. Their frown turned into a squint with the beginnings of understanding that he hoped would show her the gravity of the situation.
"Umm..." Bea started, a confused tilt to her head as if she wasn't sure what she was saying either, "I know this may be a strange question, but what's your opinion on the monster that created these limes?"
A strange question for sure, but he had a simple answer. "The monster that created these limes must have had spent decades perfecting their craft and developing an entirely new branch of magic to create these transportable healing constructs without sacrificing potency. A monster whose actions are synonymous to selflessness and relentless dedication to their craft. I am sure that this monster is quite remarkable and deserves every ounce of respect I feel for them even if I haven't met them." He said with a resolute nod. "Do convey my respect when you see them again, I feel like they deserve it."
The girl had a weird look on her face as she looked at her own hands.
"Though the respect I feel," he continued, "is slightly diminished by the name of the company; The name LGIT Business comes off as a joke and fails to convey the grandeur of the company and its products." He finished. The name of the company was important to its success and this was a company he wished to see succeed. he didn't like the fact that it diminished .
Bea frowned, "I came up with the name—"
Oh. That made sense.
"—Then my respect for the creator of the limes is not diminished." He responded.
"Hey!"
Ah. That was quite rude of him wasn't it?