We passed two fruit stalls before turning down an alley. Azeneth had to hold me closer to her body to let a woman with a basket pass. I was trying to see the jars in a shop window over her arm and ended up looking at my own blade reflected among them.
Before we get there… what do I need to make a potion?
The system appeared on a crate beside the wall. Its legs moved without following the street’s motion. I only had to look the other way to find it in front of my eye again.
[The raw material appropriate for whichever potion you wish to brew.]
What about containers?
[Containers are for storing the result. You only need the raw material.]
I kept thinking about that distinction. I had poison stored away and still hadn’t managed to produce a single drop of anything. I looked at the jars again until Azeneth stopped at a door and left me facing the wood.
I was the one who had asked her to make this stop. I wanted to leave with something I knew how to use and stop having to find answers in the middle of a fight. I waited while she found room to push the door with her shoulder. She was helping without even asking what I planned to do with the materials.
“Here we are.”
She pushed it open without knocking. Inside smelled of worked wood, dried herbs, and something sweet I couldn’t identify. Shelves lined both sides, with a counter at the back. A man looked up from the object he was cleaning.
“Azeneth.”
“I’m back.”
He looked her over from horns to boots and set his cloth on the counter.
“I see that. What do you need this time?”
“She’s here to find some things for herself today.”
She lifted me a little. The man looked down at my eye.
“I’m Zaelia,” I said.
“Good afternoon, Zaelia. What are you looking for?”
It reassured me that he waited for my answer instead of asking Azeneth everything. There were jars behind his shoulder and a low table near the entrance, but from where she was holding me, I could only see one side.
“Materials for potions. I thought I’d start with something for healing.”
“Then you’ve come to the right place.”
Azeneth leaned her staff against the counter. I asked her to put me near the table, and she lowered me to the floor. As soon as she withdrew her hand, I raised my grip and stood upright, pommel up and tip hovering above the floorboards.
The man followed the movement with his eyes. Then he pushed a stool aside with his foot to make room for me.
“Now we can see each other better.”
Before looking for what I’d requested, he took a bottle from under the counter and offered it to Azeneth. She accepted it with both hands and held the glass up to the light.
“For me?”
“For you to try.”
“I knew you missed me.”
He removed the cork before she could start struggling with it. Azeneth drank straight from the bottle. I waited for her to lower it, but she tipped her head farther back and kept drinking.
“The most basic healing potions are grade one,” the man explained as he turned toward a shelf. “They’re made from green slimes.”
I remembered the slimes that had entered our shelter. Azeneth had already told me they were used in remedies. I’d imagined needing herbs and other things mixed with them.
“Just slimes?”
“Slime matter is what you need for those preparations.”
He placed a jar with a green mass inside on the table. I moved close enough to make it out through the glass. This time, I could choose where to position myself without asking Azeneth to turn me.
“A Health I potion restores three percent of maximum health,” he continued. “The blue one, made from blue slimes, restores three percent of maximum mana.”
“Are there other colors too?”
“Red and yellow, among the basic ones. The red one uses red slimes and increases attack by three percent for a while. The yellow one uses yellow slimes and increases resistance by five percent, also temporarily.”
I looked at the containers he was placing beside the green one. I had four possibilities in front of me, and I wanted to try them all. I made myself listen before choosing whichever color caught my attention most.
He didn’t look to Azeneth to confirm my questions. When I approached the blue jar, he held it at eye level and waited. I liked deciding what I wanted to see, even if someone still had to lift things for me.
“Does the percentage depend on how much the person drinking it has?”
“Exactly. That’s why you should know what you’re buying and who it’s for.”
The blue one caught my attention again. I could leave a potion ready for Azeneth when she needed it, even if I wasn’t in her hand. I approached the jar, then backed up a little. I was still learning to judge the distance between my eye and the glass without bringing my edge too close. The man waited for me to settle before moving it away.
Azeneth set the bottle on the counter with a soft thud. When I turned toward her, her cheeks were flushed, and her smile took a moment to fully appear.
She already looked drunk. We’d only just arrived.
“He makes staffs too,” she remarked. “He made mine.”
I looked at the weapon resting beside her. I remembered the wall crumbling, the lizard beneath the ice, and how easily she’d lifted us above the trees.
“You made it?”
He slowly closed the last container.
“That was information better kept to yourself, Azeneth.”
She raised the bottle and pointed its neck at him.
“Don’t worry. I trust her.”
She said it without hesitating. I kept watching her face and took too long to remember that the man was still looking at her. Azeneth took the opportunity to have another drink.
I still had so many questions that I didn’t know where to begin, and she’d just trusted me with something her friend wanted hidden. I wanted to say I wouldn’t tell anyone. I got distracted trying to find words that didn’t sound too solemn, and by the time I was ready, he’d already gathered the jars.
“We’ve known each other a long time,” he told me. “Long enough for me to know she could be thinking about absolutely anything right now.”
“I’m thinking this wine is delicious.”
She lifted the bottle to check how much remained. I looked at the staff again. We’d come in for potions, and I’d found the person who’d made that thing.
She lowered the bottle, surprised.
“Don’t you know a mage needs a catalyst?”
“I don’t know what that is.”
She leaned against the counter and looked at me for a moment, as though trying to decide where to start.
“Something you use to channel mana. You make it flow through it, and you can cast a spell.”
I waited, but she brought the bottle to her lips again.
“Does it have to be a staff?”
“Not always. But it has to be able to channel it.”
She moved away from the counter, spotted another staff resting behind the man, and reached for it.
“Look. I’ll show you.”
The owner caught the end before she could drag it across the wood.
“That one’s mine.”
“I’ll give it right back.”
I watched him keep a hand on the weapon before letting go. He hadn’t taken his eyes off Azeneth since she’d leaned against the counter. I looked at her staff, within reach beside the wall, and hoped the demonstration would end soon.
She finished the wine in one swallow and set the empty bottle beside the jars. Then she took the staff in both hands. She had to adjust her grip after taking it too close to one end.
I backed up until the table stood to one side of me. I’d heard her explanation, but I didn’t know where she intended to aim and preferred to find out from there.
“Azeneth,” the man said. “Don’t destroy my shop.”
She looked around.
“There aren’t any customers. It’ll be tiny.”
She aimed at an empty crate beside the wall. Air stirred around her skirt, and a gust crossed the gap between the furniture. The crate struck the wall and burst into loose boards.
The noise made me lower my tip to the floor. I looked at the space the spell had crossed, then at the staff. Azeneth moved it once more, but this time nothing happened.
“There,” she announced, satisfied.
The man took the weapon back. He ran his fingers over its surface and pressed his lips together.
“You’ve overloaded it.”
“But the crate was empty.”
“I mean the staff.”
She stared at him, then looked at the scattered boards.
“Oh.”
I moved just close enough to see the weapon without getting between them. It didn’t look broken, but he held it more carefully than before.
I checked the ends for cracks. I’d heard the crate hit the wall and expected some mark to explain why the staff no longer responded. It looked as intact as when Azeneth had taken it. I couldn’t understand how something that looked whole could refuse to work.
“What happened to it?”
“Her flow of mana saturated it. It won’t be able to channel anything for a while.”
Azeneth pointed at hers, still leaning against the counter.
“Mine can take it.”
“I made it for you.”
“That’s why it’s my favorite.”
She smiled and dropped into the chair beside the table. Her head tilted a little before she straightened it again.
“I don’t understand where all that power comes from,” I admitted. “What exactly did you do?”
“I sent my mana through it. The catalyst has… has a little too, and then…”
Her eyes closed before she finished. I waited for the next word until her chin dropped and a ponytail fell over the chair’s arm.
The owner sighed. He put his staff behind the counter and looked at the empty bottle.
“At least she finished before falling asleep.”
I was still looking at Azeneth. A moment ago, she’d thrown a crate against the wall. Now she looked ready to stay there all night.
“Is she all right?”
“Asleep. Give her a while.”
He crouched beside the table to bring himself closer to my eye. I moved away from the chair leg and straightened again. I wanted to hear the rest without losing sight of Azeneth.
“Even inanimate objects have some mana,” he explained. “Very little. But containing it and being able to channel someone else’s are different things. A catalyst lets a mage’s mana flow through it to cast a spell.”
I looked at his empty hands and the spot where he’d left the staff.
“Your staff couldn’t handle her mana?”
“It withstood the spell. For now, it needs some time to recover. If she’d pushed it harder, she could have broken it.”
I turned toward the crate’s remains. Azeneth had said it would be small, and apparently it had been.
“But she only made a gust.”
“A weak one by her standards. Azeneth is a powerful mage from a pure bloodline. Her reserves are extraordinary, even compared to elves, who tend to have considerably more mana than usual.”
I watched the fingers resting on her skirt. I remembered them tightening around my grip at the fort, when every blow forced us back.
“Then her staff…”
“It’s of the highest quality. Above all, it’s far more resilient. I made it to withstand the flow she uses routinely. An instrument like that could serve for very demanding spells. Azeneth uses it as other mages would use an ordinary staff.” Get faster updates on NovelPing.
I struggled to look away from him. He’d said that as calmly as he’d explained the potion colors.
“The power comes from her,” he added. “The staff lets her use it without losing her instrument halfway through the spell.”
I turned back to Azeneth. Her head rested against the backrest, her face half hidden by her hair. I was glad I’d asked, though every answer seemed to widen the gap between what I knew about her and everything I still had to learn.
“Thank you for explaining,” I said. “I’m starting to get to know her better.”
The man let out a breath and picked up a board beside his foot.
“That takes time.”
He’d spoken to her with a familiarity that made me want to keep asking questions. He’d known Azeneth long before I arrived in this world. I stayed near the table, trying to choose a question that wouldn’t make him uncomfortable. If she trusted him, I hoped to learn more about the woman I’d chosen to accompany.
Azeneth shifted in the chair. She raised her head, brushed her hair away from one eye, and found me in front of her.
“Zaelia.”
“Yes?”
She smiled and stood. Before I understood why, she bent down and closed her hand around my grip. I stopped hovering when she lifted me to her waist.
“I’m going to try it with you.”
I looked at the staff that had stopped working. Then at her hand.
“As a catalyst?”
“Yes.”
“No! I don’t want to explode!”
Azeneth brought me closer to her face, still smiling.
“You won’t explode. At least, I think so.”
“Azeneth!”
The man dropped the board and turned toward us.
“Wait. Don’t do that in here.”
She raised me toward the ceiling. From there, I could see the beams and a lamp hanging to one side. I wanted to turn toward the owner, but her fingers held me firmly, and what I felt next made me forget where he was.
Something traveled along my blade from the grip. It wasn’t the gentle warmth of Healing I. Pressure spread through my metal, and my perception wavered, as though Azeneth had moved me without the beams changing position.
“Too late,” she said.
A drop of water appeared above my tip. It hung there, round and clear. For a moment, I thought the man and I had overreacted.
The drop grew.
Azeneth stopped smiling and reached her other hand forward without touching it. More water gathered until it hid some of the beams.
The jars on the counter were reflected in its surface, distorted and growing smaller. I tried looking around one side for the owner, but Azeneth tilted my tip to follow the sphere. Water filled my view. I wanted to ask her to lower me, then stopped myself at the thought of what might happen if she aimed at the shelves.
“I’m only creating water,” she murmured.
“Then stop creating it!” I shouted.
I tried to focus on my body, my blade’s position, her grip. The pressure remained. I didn’t know which part of the spell depended on me or how to stop it.
The owner appeared beside the sphere. He glanced toward his staff, then back at Azeneth.
“Undo the spell!”
“Not a chance,” she replied, her eyes fixed on the water.
I glanced sideways at her. Surprise had given way to such intense concentration that she didn’t seem to hear us. I called her name again, more slowly. Her fingers tightened on the leather, but she didn’t lower her arms. I could still feel mana passing through me, and I started worrying in earnest about the word break.
I would’ve liked to ask what she found so interesting. I could barely keep my eye open as the sphere stretched upward, dragging another current along my edge.
The water shot up.
A beam snapped with a sharp crack. The sphere tore through the roof, lifting boards and leaving a hole through which I saw the sky. Azeneth lowered me against her chest while the man stepped away from the falling pieces.
Above us, the water broke into a fine rain. The first drops struck my blade and the counter. Then the floor, the shelves, and Azeneth’s face as she looked up at the opening.
Nobody spoke.
I tried to follow a drop and ended up looking at the same broken beam twice. The world took far too long to settle, though she was no longer moving me.
The owner looked at the roof. Then at the water running down his sleeve.
“Azeneth!”
She burst out laughing. Her knees bent a little, and she braced her free hand on the table.
“I’ve just found a very interesting toy!”
I couldn’t decide whether toy or interesting worried me more. The system appeared beside my eye, ears raised and flowers swaying on its antlers.
[That was so much fun!]
Fun?
[But be careful. Misusing amplification can cause serious damage to your Durability.]
I kept going over those last words. I’d just repaired my body and could still feel the passage of that pressure through my blade. When I looked around the shop again, the man was still protesting, and Azeneth was wiping her wet cheeks without stopping laughing.
I tried to sort out what had happened. She’d wanted to create water. I’d felt the flow, and then the roof had disappeared above us. I hadn’t chosen to increase anything. Next time, I needed to know what I was doing before Azeneth decided something else was worth trying.
What just happened?
The owner pointed at the shelves, then the roof, then her. Azeneth waited until he turned to move a board off the counter. Then she picked up her own staff and secured me against her chest.
“We’re leaving,” she whispered.
“Now?”
Light surrounded her boots. The floor dropped away before I could find another word. We passed the broken beam and flew out through the hole, the last drops sliding along my edge.
The man shouted her name again from below. Azeneth tilted her staff and carried us away from the shop, still laughing, toward her castle.