D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad

--- Kat ---

They’d worked out a system. Sort of. Appoline went around and gathered some of the ingredients to start with and then had Kat memorise their appearance, a rather easy thing. Then, the pair organised a rough grid of the room, excluding the stuff that spilled outside of it because it was pretty easy to point those out. Especially as Appoline was set up in one of those offshoots. Simply saying, grab this from the room next to me, was pretty easy after all.

Things didn’t need to be perfect either. This wasn’t a program and Kat wasn’t a robot. If Kat was told to go to row twelve column five and the plant in question was missing, she could look around in the adjacent areas as well. Usually finding the plant in question on the edge of one of them. A few times though, she simply didn’t find the thing she was looking for. At that point Appoline would either direct her somewhere else, or Appoline would finish the potion she was on and go check herself.

Because the potions were just healing potions, this usually didn’t result in a long break, and Appoline could look around the area and refresh herself on where everything is. There was no point in sending Kat to the same area time after time for the same ingredients. The whole point of this system they’d setup was to try and take no more than they needed from any one plant to keep it healthy for harvesting in the future. So these little refreshes were quite useful to keep her memory sharp.

Sometimes Kat would be given more complicated orders. Such as finding plants, of fungi, that hid in other plants. Most of the time these requests were voiced Appoline wasn’t even entirely sure the second plant in question would be hidden in the first. Usually they were, but not always. Still, it was an interest little adventure a lot of the time. With her small size, it meant that crawling into some plants was an option.

An example of which was when she needed to find some ’core fungus’. A sort of magical fungus that replaces the core of a tree and then starts a symbiotic relationship. Kat would have assumed that something like that would be purely parasitic but apparently not. It was why Appoline wanted it collected carefully and without unduly damaging the plant. Kat had to find a crack in the bark, and then squeeze inside. In theory anyway.

In practice there was a large open not in the tree she was directed towards and sneaking inside had her coming face to face with the core fungus in question. It looked kind of like chocolate up close even it the smell was more like rosewater. Which was weird. Not roses, specifically rose water. The scent was oddly diffuse and the texture, at least when touching it, was oddly non-Newtonian. It was squishy and your fingers would sink right it... but if you slapped it, instead it was quite hard.

To collect it, Kat needed to scrape away a bit of it... specifically using the same bark as the tree she was inside. This meant that Kat needed to grab some of that first and then start to carefully scrape away at it. Apparently if you didn’t use the same bark it attacked you. It was slow work, as you couldn’t take too much off at once or move too fast with both causing issues.

Once Kat had a decent clump she gathered it up and dumped it in the jar Appoline had given her... and then went back for a second helping. Apparently the fungus here would fill in the gap if she gave it a short break, and Appoline was correct. Kat had been warned to take no more than two trips’ worth of stuff, but that was fine. It’s not like Kat was tempted to take more. She had no idea what it was for after all.

So when she dumped it in the desk, Kat asked, ”So... I have a bunch of questions about this stuff. Is it cool if I just ask?”

Appoline nodded, ”Of course. Just remember to relay it to Lily later as well. I have enough ingredients to work on... perhaps three potions while you ask your questions. Even then we’ve made good progress so feel free to ask away.”

Kat could already tell Appoline was a lot calmer now then she had been at the start. It seemed that the number of potions she had in stock correlated far too closely with her agitation. The question now... was that something Steel already knew? And if not, was it something Kat should tell him? *No. Appoline is... maybe not a friend, but an acquaintance at this point. If Steel knows, that’s fine. If he doesn’t, I’ll not hand over that lever. Even if Steel is also an acquaintance.*

”So... how do people normally harvest that stuff? Obviously most people aren’t tiny,” Kat asked.

”There are a few ways, most of them with different levels of risk and reward. The best way, is to find a gap, sneak in a straw, and then suck the fungus out that way. The issue of course, is that it really shouldn’t be swallowed so you’re best to use something enchanted... but if it’s too enchanted the fungus would react and attack it. Oh, and the device has to be made with matching wood of course,

”Another common option is to find a crack in the wood and widen it to get at the fungus. But you have to act fast and scrape away the fungus before it closes things back up. However, you can’t use that technique too often because the fungus... perhaps not learns, but it gets better at repairing cracks once they’re revealed to be a bigger issue then before. It means that eventually, you run out of cracks to dig into and even the first method will fail.

”Then of course, some people simply cut down the entire tree but the fungus WILL attack if you do that and you tend to need to destroy big chunks of it to ’kill’ it which reduces the potency pretty heavily. It gives you volume, but not quality... but even if you lose half it’s still a massive amount of product you can sell. The superior methods aren’t that common so most won’t even know they’re being shortchanged,” explained Appoline.

”Ok... and what does it DO?” asked Kat. ”For potions and for the tree?”

”Well for the trees it inhabits it gives regeneration and increased metabolism efficiency. It makes the tree a better tree, and provides it with some defences. Poisoning critters that try to eat the tree, and it’s capable of actually attacking if it needs to. That just takes a lot of energy so it usually doesn’t.

”As for potions? What doesn’t it do is a better question. It’s one of those ingredients that you can use in just about anything to increase the potency of them or as a substitute for other ingredients. It’s exceptionally versatile and moderately potent so it can even increase the potency if you use it as a substitute in weaker potions. It’s not the most powerful ingredient but it IS one of the most versatile. I can use it for healing, poison, invisibility, and flight potions and have it be a proper valid ingredient,” cheered Appoline.

”What’s with the caveat at the bottom?” asked Kat.

Appoline sighed, ”Well, technically, you can add just about anything to any potion. It’s not optimal. You’re wasting money, and you’ll need to add other, potentially expensive ingredients to counter your own idiocy but you CAN do it. So it’s factually incorrect to say it’s one of the few ingredients that can be added to just about anything without adding that caveat at the end.”

”Right...” said Kat with a slow nod. ”Why didn’t you ask for it earlier if this is so useful?”

”Because for the moment I don’t actually need it,” admitted Appoline. ”Frankly for simple healing potions there are plenty of things here that I can use. Plants are great for them and the plants here were all clearly meant for potions, or at least that’s my guess. Even the grass here is decently potent.

”I’d need far too much of it of course, so it’s not worth picking up. It’s not THAT good, it’s just not normal grass. So... yeah I was using this break to try and pick up something really useful that I don’t need right now. It keeps pretty well, so I don’t need to worry about it going bad for quite a while, and you can dry it out to have it last longer. Though that does restrict its usage somewhat and reduce the potency,” explained Appoline.

”Is it easy to grow?” asked Kat.

Appoline pouted. She actually pouted upon hearing the question, with her eyes drooping and cheeks puffing up for a few moments. ”NO. It’s a massive pain in the ass! They hate growing together, they hate growing too far apart. You can’t isolate them completely because they just sort of die, but if it’s too crowded they might leave the tree. Yet there’s at least two trees here with it in them!

”The fungus is such a picky piece of shit. GAH. My family has been trying to grow them for generations but sometimes it just... shows up! I hate it! I mean it’s a great ingredient and I love it... but I HATE IT!” insisted Appoline.