Chapter 21

Getting Jerked Around

Snarly, who was waiting for us outside, seemed to be fine, insisting he realized the orb would have to be given up once we got back to town. We checked his eyes, there was no sign of the dark haze around them that the wolves were showing and he seemed to be his normal self. So we headed back to town. None of this situation makes sense. What infected the wolves? Did the ice demons have more magic than just ice magic? Were the ghosts actually in charge? Usually they aren't together enough to execute complex plans, they're just drifting souls gone mad after refusing to move on. What do they get out of ordering a bunch of ice demons around? Where did the orb come from in the first place and what was it doing in that cave? How did this wanderer know about it?

"Go get the orb to this person, I'm going back home to cultivate," I told the others. "We'll have to leave right away once we get the location we've honestly waited too long," I neglected to mention why, part of it was my fault and Malachite wasn't exactly to blame for that dragon getting cursed or whatever it was and doing that side quest in the middle of all this. But it hadn't helped the situation any, that was for sure. "So we need to get going before she moves again. I'll want my new offensive ally spell ready to go for our confrontation."

They agreed that would be for the best, all four of us didn't need to go simply to hand over an orb and watch someone do divination magic. So I let myself back in at home, still sort of marveling I had a house to go back to, and headed to the workshop. I fed mana into my core and was rewarded with the sense of it expanding, so I easily made another copy of the ally spell and slotted different spells into it. Somewhat different spells, anyway. The invisibility stayed, attacking from hiding was just too useful, but then came the conundrum. Did I go with elemental needle, or elemental bolt for the offensive spell? Bolt was only knockout, so it did "more" damage but the wolf proved even a single decent hit wasn't enough to drop a foe. It couldn't become lethal, after all. Which in many cases could be a benefit, I had lethal magic if it came to it but choosing lethal for the ally limited it to only lethal strikes. On the other hand it was long range, rather than medium, and I wanted a bird that could stay out of range of bows and the like while still being able to attack. In the end the flexibility of bolt won out, and I slotted that in. Two grade three spells was all I could "afix" into the spell, and it successfully was engraved on my mana core. I wasted no time creating a bracelet made of stone that could hold several spell tokens, and loaded the spell into them. I made them double sided, all I needed to do was touch it and say ally, then later use stone shaping to get it out and flip it over. Then put it on the bottom and raise the next one. Hopefully not needing 6 at any one time they could then be reloaded and reused forever. An elegant solution, I thought.

I was out watching my (invisible) bird flying around when the group returned. I had simply put it into my necklace at the time, no need to "spend" a token just to get a sense of how it moved and such. "Come meet Besom," I told them. "Isn't she beautiful?" I directed her to land nearby.

"I assume this companion is also invisible?" Hanz asked.

"Indeed so! Observe!" I held a hand out and she put a wing in it, becoming visible. She was a giant hummingbird, I figured the ability to hover would help her aim better. She was a brilliant blue, angular like Athame, and clear like glass.

"What's wrong? Wait, don't tell me." She vanished, as I didn't need her around anymore. The others looked a bit angry, rather than excited to leave to go finally get Jekserah. "Someone already got her so we won't get any credit for her capture?" Though knowing these people it would be her corpse we delivered, not her.

"They said to come back tomorrow," Malachite told me. "They were pretty excited about the orb, wanted to start studying it right away. I don't even remember leaving the shop but there we were outside."

"Did they say what it was?"

"Apparently the theory I read about may be the correct one," Hanz told me. "It could be some kind of gateway to an elemental plane. They wish to somehow reproduce the work and create another, proving the theory. A risky venture, given it may trigger the existence of more ice demons. But I suppose it is their risk to take."

"I just hope they don't screw it up and freeze the whole town," Malachite mused. "They don't seem very put together, not like you, Orchid."

"Well, we can't all be perfect," I agreed, wishing I had hair to flip back that would have been the power move right then. I think?

"Exactly."

"Beep beep! Oh sorry, that was my sarcasm detector going off," Hanz apologized. "I thought I had it in silence mode. Don't mind me."

"Anyway, at least this gives me time to work on stuff," I told them. "You can head there in the morning and we can leave right after that. If they keep their word, anyway..." And doesn't skip town now that we've gotten them what they want. Aren't they living in an abandoned inn? Not like they have a lot of possessions to lug around in that case.

So the next day rolled around, and I had a good selection of product for my supplier, and a sack of every sort of spell token I could possibly make. No sense making a barrel full when I didn't even know if the shopkeeper would even agree to sell them! I would head there, make my pitch, and see what she said. In a pinch I could play the two against one another, mention if she didn't take them to sell perhaps her competition across the road would? But it wouldn't come to that, I was sure. She would see the logic and be greedy enough to want the income for no effort. The others had been gone for maybe an hour already but once again returned looking even more angry than they had the day before.

"Where's Snarly?" I asked, looking around. "Getting supplies, for the journey? That we definitely have a destination for now?"

"She's screwing us," Malachite announced, slamming a sheet of paper on the table. I looked it over, it seemed to be a map and a crude drawing of a plant of all things.

"How so?" I asked, eyes narrowed.

"She says she needs this herb, biteroot, to do the scrying. She's sent us out for some."

I blinked at him for a moment, this was difficult to process. "I'm sorry, she needs what?"

"A plant," Hanz said, simplifying it.

"Yes, but-" I looked back and forth at the map and them. "That's not how magic works. Yes, you can carry around the so called 'enhancer' for a spell, and use it up to make a single spell slightly more powerful. But you don't need it. I've never met a magic user that bothers, it's too much of a hassle and easier to just empower the spell with more ambient mana than trying to get a rusted nail or whatever out of your backpack. Needing a plant to do divination? It's nonsense. Divination magic works better if you have something that belongs to the target, or a picture of them or something, but a random weed has nothing to do with it."

"Perhaps you would like to go back and tell them this?" Malachite asked. "Snarly will probably still be there."

"Be there? Why? He's not being held hostage or anything, is he?" Please say he just offered to help clean the place up a bit or- wait it's Snarly… Cleaning? No, he's more likely to roll around on the floor collecting an interesting scent.

"He's sitting in the street waiting for a bell to reappear."

"He's- what?" Again I was having trouble processing this.

"Believe me, they're made for each other. Both kooky as clams. At least he seems to have object permanence, they seemingly forgot about the deal we made!"

Yeah, I was afraid of that. Without the orb we can't prove we made a deal with them for information. "But you reminded them?"

"That's right. So what do we do about this? Endless fetch quests for this nut? I mean what if it never ends?"

"We could check out the spirit temple, that was the other suggestion for how to find her," I reminded them. "It's still an option. We could at least ask what the cost there is. Maybe bring a contract back to this person, with these plants, that specifies exactly what else we are going to be asked to do before they give us what they promised." Or maybe beforehand? Just to be sure this will be everything.

"That would stop them sending us out endlessly. If they can't do it just say so. But we're taking the orb back in that case."

"Agreed. It seems pretty dangerous to just have hanging around especially if they're as bad as you say."

"Once Snarly comes back we'll decide on which way we wish to go," Hanz decided.

"Agreed," we both agreed.

Why is nothing ever simple? Well, back to work I guess?

Snarly came back soon enough and said he didn't really care which way we went, but did remark they knew of a plant that resembled this biteroot we could provide much easier than the real thing. I cautioned against this deception.

"I have no idea what this person thinks they are going to do with the root, but if they do wind up using it as an enhancer for a spell and it's the wrong thing, the magic could easily backfire and kill them. If you want to risk having that on your conscience, in addition to then not getting the information we paid for with the orb, be my guest. If we continue this route we should do it properly."

"The spirit cave is an unknown," Hanz remarked. "And would probably want some kind of sacrifice for the service."

"No good deed," I muttered. "Let's just go for the root. If they go all the time it can't be that difficult to find."

We headed out of town and I enlarged Malachite once again, steeling myself for once again having to fly high in the air. But I trusted him, I was sure he would drop Snarly before dropping me, and allowed myself to be picked up so we could get there and back in a reasonable time. The area wasn't actually that far away, apparently this wanderer went there regularly so that helped. He almost went straight there, her directions must have been pretty good, and started circling around looking for a good place to land. I had my eyes closed as he swooped over the place, but he shouted to us.

"Plenty of movement around there!"

Movement?

"I'm looking at a bear much bigger than normal," Hanz told us. "The area seems to also be home to some carnivorous plants."

"Whath those?" Snarly asked, pointing.

"Some kind of creature I've never seen before," they admitted. "But that's fairly far away they shouldn't bother us."

"I'm landing near one of those bushes!" Malachite announced. "Hopefully it's the kind we need."

I felt us swooping down and suddenly we were on the ground again. As my spell had been cast to get us to the place it of course went away, and when I opened my eyes to see a normal size Malachite he was fumbling his sword out. Some distance away were plants with teeth, snapping away, and two cave entrances were some meters away. A narrow strip of land separated us from another section the bear had been hanging out in, and several bushes dotted the area that had the leaves I had seen in the drawing. We just had to get some and get out of there. "That bear is coming over here, why am I small again?"

"One second!" I told him. I started gathering mana.

"I think I 'ee the right bush," Snarly announced, bounding away while getting rope out of his pack. "I'll yank it out."

"I shall cover him," Hanz decided. "Power." Their gun arm powered up as they activated my magic. "Oh, don't worry little one, I won't hurt you."

I looked to see what he was talking to and a small, yellow, rabbit had crept out from under another bush nearby. It had a black horn like a unicorn, and I wondered if it was some kind of very, very strange cross breed when it jumped onto Hanz's arm and bit into it.

"Get it off, get it off," they shouted, waving their arm about. The rabbit hung on tenaciously.

Why can't anything be easy?

I finished casting my spell on Malachite, causing him to grow to three times his normal size again and roar at the bear. It didn't back down, despite now facing something twice its size.

Is everything in this place somehow being enraged? I don't get it. Most sane creatures would look at something the size of Malachite and run the other way. But it's not.I looked around briefly, there didn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary apart from the weird looking plants. Some kind of pollen effect?

Malachite took a swing at the bear which stunned it, but didn't actually seem to do much damage. Meanwhile Snarly had his rope around the bush, trying to tug the whole thing free with a supreme effort. You know I can just use telekinesis magic and yank the bush out of the ground with ease, right? Ah, let him have him fun I guess. Hanz was lasering the rabbit, who seemed to take it in stride and wasn't giving up on their arm.

Okay, what is going on here?

I turned my attention back to Malachite, who was rearing back for another blow. I did an instant casting of the magic I had bought for Snarly, adding magical damage to his weapon, so his next strike was more effective.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Hanz actually miss the rabbit, which had hopped away from them, so I did a quick successful strike spell, because that was simply nonsense I wasn't going to stand for.

I then went back to trying to empower Malachite. I actually tried twice, but the magic fizzled. It's that stupid grow spell. Any time I'm trying to maintain magic and cast something else, even a spell as simple as this, it goes wrong. That's why the whole spell symbol expenditure. Figures you give someone the ability to basically never miss what they swing at, then suddenly they want to be huge as well. I can't win. I'll just try and empower it next time.

My third time it worked, and I had time to cast a sure miss spell on the bear just in case, didn't want it laying a hand on Malachite after all. It finally went down, having taken another blow as I had tried to empower Malachite, so I looked around again. Three hits from a sword that big, two of them enhanced with magic? That thing could have torn me apart with a casual swipe! The animals here are all crazy, why? The bunny was gone, scorch marks on the ground showing Hanz has scared it off at last, rather than killing it. Snarly hadn't managed to more than budge the bush out of the ground, it was fairly large after all, so I figured it would be up to me after all.

A roaring sound came from the nearby caves I had only glanced at, sounding much like the bear had. And there were two of them, getting closer. It makes sense. In the mountains and the cities even halfway to the beach, you're never out of reach from a bear.

"Oh for crying out loud, let me," Malachite muttered, pushing Snarly out of the way.

"Hey!"

He gave a mighty tug and the bush came free, which he scooped up in one arm and motioned us to get into the other.

"I loothend it for you," Snarly insisted. "I think we can all agree on that."

"Sure thing, little man. Come on, Orchid."

"You know how slowly I move!" I glanced back, and those strange looking creatures were coming from one cave entrance, while two huge bears were coming from another. Were they trying to get us killed? Do they not need this stupid plant after all and this was a total setup? That's the only explanation! This place is awful, but how did it get this way? We're not that far from town.

We were once again hauled into the air by Malachite, safely getting away with our prize, that was making a weird, shrill, noise and there were tiny mouths on bulbs that were trying to reach out and bite us. Of course. Bite Root. What were they thinking? Maybe grow some if you need it that badly all the time? But I guess they're squatting in some abandoned building?

Malachite didn't go for subtlety when we got near the town again, simply flying straight over the wall and to our destination. Lots of people gave horrified cries as his dark shadow fell over them, pointing into the sky and yelling about a dragon attack. "They'll get over it," he said when I started to say something. "You want to drag this thing through town?"

It wouldn't be that difficult, all things considered. I'm just thankful there's no one around at the moment to see my undisguised true form. The dragon nonsense was bad enough, can you imagine what they would say about me?

It still had the rope around it, so after landing and the magic vanishing again the group rang the bell and waited. I hastily put on my "Broccoli" disguise as I looked the place over, and yes, the busted sign did say the Crooked Bone, and many of the windows were cracked or broken. Any port in a storm I guess. But aren't they doing magical research of some kind? That's expensive as heck, if they're trying to make new spells on their own. If they can afford that, they could afford a proper lab and proper precautions. I guess if they blow the place up nothing of value would be lost?

The others wrangled the bush through the door, making me snort and try to hide my grin. Snarly called out as the place seemed deserted, but there was no answer.

"I swear, if this person skipped town after getting the orb..." Malachite began.

But how would that even work? They must have stuff upstairs, clearly their lab is not this old bar area with all these broken chairs, half a table, and dust everywhere. Or is it just opportunity, they got something incredibly valuable from a bunch of weirdos, i.e. us, and left before we could figure out what we had given away? They couldn't have known we would give them the orb and so made this their base because they knew we would come- oh here they are.

"Here." Malachite tossed the bush at them as they emerged from the back, and they put up a hand. The bush came to a stop and floated there.

What? That wasn't a spell. Is this person an ESPer? I wish I knew more about wanderers…

"Why, is this biteroot?" they exclaimed. "However did you know I needed some? I was going to go tomorrow to replenish my stocks!"

The others shared an incredulous look. And this person does magical research? No way.

"You just sent us after it!" Malachite announced in no uncertain terms. "We got you the ice orb thing, remember?"

"Oh, that's right. You wanted someone's location in exchange, didn't you? Ah, that's why you brought me biteroot, it all makes sense now."

"Yes. Jekserah," Hanz told them. "Dark elf, wealthy, wanted to take over the town with an army of undead. Say, what did we ever do with that diamond we got her?"

"Diamond? Oh, that old thing?" Malachite asked innocently. "It's kicking around somewhere. It's not the start of my hoard, we could still sell it something- somewhere. Party goods. No problem. I don't sleep with it or anything."

"Uh huh. Anyway, ring any bells?"

"I'm familiar enough with her," the wanderer announced. "One moment while I prepare the paste." The bush followed her up the stairs.

We waited, hearing a banging from upstairs. "Must be 'ubduing the plant?" Snarly asked with a shrug.

Not long after she came back with a parchment in her hand. "Here you are, everything you'll need to know." She set it on the bar and we came to take a look. Malachite, who would be flying there no doubt and so needed the best directions possible traced the hastily drawn map with a claw. "Yes, this seems easy enough to-"

We looked up, and the wanderer was gone.

"Let's just get out of here," he decided, snatching up the paper. "This place gives me the creeps."

What an odd person, I thought as we headed for the door. I looked over my shoulder but the place was empty. She really needed this root stuff? How did she do that?