Gifted

I spent a while focusing on my Path of Running as it was clear to me that the reminder of Gramps’ exile from the country of Meravia bothered my mother. The questions I had gotten answered had given me much to think about. I had thought between the Myriad Paths and the magical nature of my new world that things might be a little less complicated. I was, of course, utterly wrong. Which shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me. Societies were never simple, even if they sometimes appeared so on the surface.

The question I had was, where would I fit in? I knew now that there were a variety of reasons that people wanted to go into Dungeons. Operations to extract resources, both the more mundane kind as well as the aether-rich resources for alchemy, enchanting, and other such crafts. So, to no one’s surprise, least of all mine, wealth was a driving reason to enter into a Dungeon. Then there was what Gramps had told me previously. Dungeons by their nature were filled with aether which sped up the speed at which Paths developed.

I didn’t want to bother mum too much, but I couldn’t help it as I pestered her with yet another question. “Dungeons help speed up Path progress, right?”

My mother, patient as an angel, and matching in their appearance as far as I was concerned, answered me despite her clear emotional turmoil.

“They do. The deeper the floor, the thicker the aether, and the faster the progress. The first two floors, the effect is minimal and the aether is quite thin. The deeper you go the more dangerous it becomes and the faster Paths progress.”

I was about to open my mouth and ask how deep Gramps had gone, when I remembered that my grandmother had died in a Dungeon. I didn’t want to remind Mum when she was already sad and changed my question.

“Is that why adventurers go into Dungeons? To progress faster?”

It wasn’t much of an improvement, but it was better than nothing, I decided. Either way, Mother looked like she was having an internal battle rather than being sad, and I realised after a moment that she was deciding what she wanted to tell me.

“It’s one of the reasons, but probably not the main one,” she finally said, as though the words were not what she wanted to say.

I could tell she didn’t want to answer me, but at the same time she didn’t want to lie to me, so I felt a little bad when I nudged her to finish the explanation.

“What’s the main reason then?”

She sighed, closing her blue eyes. “Dungeon Paths.”

I blinked, my brain short circuiting. That was not the answer I had expected. I’d thought she would say something about Champions and Trophies, like what Keryth the elf and Gramps had discussed when the Rift broke a couple of years ago. My mother clearly wasn’t going to continue talking without prodding and I was well known for my curiosity so I asked the obvious question.

“What are Dungeon Paths?”

The silence stretched for a moment before Mum answered me. “They’re Paths you get when in a Dungeon or a Rift to deal with specific threats. They don’t count against your active Paths that you’re working on and are usually something like ‘Defeat some Champion’ or ‘Destroy the Rift Anchor.’ There are lots of variations. But they come with decent rewards, especially Unallocated Stats or extra steps along Paths.”

The moment she had finished explaining, I knew why she hadn’t wanted to tell me. My loving mother didn’t want me to put myself in danger, and she knew that with my obsession of progressing my Paths that such a reward would be a form of ambrosia or narcotic to my numbers-go-up addicted personality. She didn’t want me to go into Dungeons where I would be putting my life at risk, but how could I not when Dungeons would help me to progress so much faster. Especially since I was pretty confident that my Talented Attribute impacted rewards that increased my steps on a Path.

I clamped my mouth shut, hurting my teeth, before I could loudly yell how I was going to delve every Dungeon and Rift I could find. That is, when I was old enough. For now, I still had a long way to go and years of improvement to prepare myself, but I now knew with certainty what my future would hold.

My mother eyed me askance, clearly noting my silence, and it seemed we both agreed without words to drop the subject. The last few minutes of our walk to Magatha’s was done in quiet contemplation, my mother no doubt thinking of ways to keep me safe, especially from myself, while I let my imagination run wild with thoughts of defeating giant spiders with feats of swordplay and magic.

Magatha’s garden smelled as delightful as ever, the Hedge Witch waited for us on her porch. Her flowers defied the cooling weather and bloomed in a rainbow of colours. The gentle puff of smoke from the chimney turned the dark stone cottage into a vision of warmth rather than remote loneliness. I would’ve expected lichen to be crawling up the building given the weather and climate but none seemed to be able to touch the rocks the cottage was built from. I expected it was due to an alchemical concoction of the Hedge Witch’s rather than a Skill.

“Penny, you’re looking divine this morning,” Magatha called out as we approached, clearly noting my mother’s mood before her green eyes slid over to me. “I hope my pupil hasn’t been giving you a hard time.”

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My mother smiled, reaching out to rub my shoulder gently in solidarity. “He’s just a curious boy with lots of questions.”

Magatha harrumphed. “Curiosity is a sword that cuts both ways. Well, you can rest your feet and enjoy some tea while I put him to work. Maybe that will dampen his curiosity.”

She turned though I heard her mutter softly, “I seriously doubt it…”

Entering the cottage, my nose was assaulted by a medicinal smell I would’ve expected from a hospital room. The smell was coming from one of the wooden workbenches. I approached the source of the scent and found red and blue stains covering the table. I ran my fingers along the grooves in the wood that could only have come from a knife while behind me, Magatha got mother situated with some tea and cookies.

The Hedge Witch joined me a moment later, watching as I inspected the damage to the table.

“Bloodstains?” I asked.

“Yes. This is where I processed the storm eagle and coldfangs,” Magatha answered, pointing out the red bloodstains for the eagle and the dark blue for the coldfangs. There were far less of the latter, though Gramps had mentioned they were quite small.

Magatha steered me away from the workbench to a closed cupboard at the back of the room which she opened. Inside were multiple glass jars, filled with liquids and various animal parts, or in the case of the coldfangs, the entire snake. The coldfangs were short. I guessed that stretched out they would be less than a quarter of a metre long. They were attached to the lid of the glass jar by a small piece of thread hooked through their mouths and even in death their bodies seemed to want to coil up slightly. I noted they had been bled, a thin cut tracing a line all the way down their body with some extra notches to either side of their shovel-nose. Those pockets looked like something had been extracted, and at a guess, I was assuming those were their venom glands. The long cut seemed to have been done to remove their organs which I thought might be a small pile of blobs of flesh in another couple of jars.

Besides the three snakes, there was what looked like a heart bigger than my fist floating in a larger jar, and then a series of blue and white crest feathers in another jar. The final jar held a pair of floating eyeballs that were as big as my own with the dark yellow of a bird of prey. I stared into them for a moment, wondering if I would see anything, but they were just eyes, devoid of life.

Next to the floating remains of the storm eagle was a small bag of feathers that I judged to be far too few to account for a bird the size I saw strapped to Hurin’s back.

“Where’s the rest of them?” I asked, pointing at the bag.

“Hurin took them as his payment. They make very comfortable pillows. He also took the rest of the carcass once we were done processing it.”

“Is that your payment then?” I continued, pointing at the bag of feathers.

“That, the eyes, and the talons,” Magatha replied, pointing out a bag in the corner that must have had the storm eagle’s talons inside. They were bigger than my hand. Hells, they probably could’ve closed around my head. The thought gave me a quick shiver despite the warmth emanating from the crackling fireplace.

“So, am I helping brew the potions for these?” I asked, pointing at the coldfang serpents and the storm eagle heart.

Magatha snorted. “You’ve brewed some alchemical base and now you think you’re going to help me concoct a potion that needs to work with a ritual? No, today, you’re brewing a cleaning solution for removing blood.”

I sighed and prepared for a day of being used as slave labour, brightening immediately when I thought of the additional steps on one of my Paths and how useful something that removed bloodstains could prove in the future. Unsurprisingly the first step was creating an alchemical base, though since this one was meant to permeate wood rather than human tissue the plants involved were slightly different. They also weren’t aether-infused which meant my Path of Aethersensing wasn’t progressing. The morning whittled away with me boiling water or grinding out oils under Magatha’s watchful eye while she made small talk with an undercurrent of flirtation with my mother. Thankfully, my Path of Brewing was gaining steps as I worked.

I completed the brewing of my first potion after lunch, if it could be called that. The lack of aether involved annoyed me on a fundamental level but my Path of Brewing clearly didn’t agree with me. The final solution was clear and smelled heavily of alcohol, which had been one of the key ingredients. The other was an oil from ground up leaves. The two hadn’t mixed at all until Magatha had me add a soapy excretion from a different leaf that functioned as an emulsifier.

Magatha finished inspecting my work before nodding. “Passable. The ratios are off slightly but it will still work and it’s not bad for a first attempt.”

I didn’t say anything as I glanced at her before returning to cleaning up the mess of leaves and washing out the mortar I had used. One thing Magatha had drilled into me throughout the day was how important it was to keep a clean work environment for conducting alchemy. Mother had taken issue with a few of the horror stories Magatha had used to drive her point home, like the alchemist who mixed his health potions in an unclean mortar and accidentally poisoned a dozen people. The Hedge Witch had shut her mouth and refused to answer when I asked if anyone had died, my mother’s glare the source of Magatha’s tight lips.

Even without knowing whether people had died, the story was enough to drive home the idea of keeping your workbench clean as well as making sure you trusted whoever was making your potions. The last thing I wanted was to drink a tainted potion and keel over. I wasn’t ready to see the Ocean of Souls again just yet.

After I had finished cleaning up, Magatha reviewed my work again before giving her nod of approval, her blonde hair held up in a bun and not moving in the slightest. The faint smell of alcohol and soap still filled the air, mixed with just a hint of smoke from the fireplace where a fresh pot of water was boiling.

“Alright, you did well today. Would you like to watch as I begin the brewing of your own potion?” Magatha asked.

“My nightvision potion?” I replied in confusion. I had thought we were going to brew that together.

“No, your Shadow Affinity elixir,” countered the Hedge Witch with a knowing smile.

Oh, by the Hells, yes! I thought.

The excitement in my eyes was answer enough for Magatha and my mother.