Born a Monster

335 235 – Potions and Poltergeists

Plotline: Main

Type: Social, System

“And remember.” Madonna said, before heading up to her own work, “Twenty eight days. One month.”

“What happens in one month?” Yan Di asked.

“I’m supposed to get one of you to second level by then.”

“No wonder Bei Lala was always so hard on us.” he said.

“No, it’s an entirely reasonable goal. Two hundred experience points turns out to be a little over seven experience per day. And that would presume that you had no experience to start with.”



“That’s still insane.” Tsi Ba said, crouched over a fire pit. On the fire, a lidded pot sat.

“What did the two of you find to cook?” I asked.

.....

Yan Di broke out into a big grin. “Healing potions. We purchased the recipe through our Systems and started while you were away. Turns out we both got five experience just for sharing formulas with each other. Almost as much as we spent!”

I felt a spiderweb of pain starting to throb from my pineal gland, just behind my forehead. “Almost as much?” I asked.

“Well, yeah.” he said. But at five experience per potion...”

“Told you it didn’t work that way.” Tsi Ba said.

“It might for your System.” I said, “But for mine, and as I understand it, most Systems, the experience goes down rapidly after the first one.”

Yeah, but their Systems weren’t crippling them with a divisor greater than their age. Together, we could do this.

Yan Di’s smile froze in place, losing much of its emotion. “But making Healing Potions is so easy.”

“Well,” I said, “I hear that some Systems award experience for making healing potions by a new formula, so you should each try with each other’s formulas.”

“Told you.” Tsi Ba said.

“Come on.” I said. “Lets get some of this mana out of the crystals so that we have it for later today.”

Tsi Ba looked at me, a moistness in her eyes. “I like making potions. I purchased Skilled Alchemist so that I can critical at it.”

“We do still have our quotas to meet.” I said. “But yes, we can finish this potion, since you’ve started it.”

“It’s actually a batch of potions.” Tsi Ba said. “We had the ingredients for five, and thought we’d get that much more experience for making them all at once.”

“My System doesn’t work that way, but let’s find out if yours does.” I said.

It didn’t. It awarded them double for the batch job, but Tsi Ba.

“I put all that effort into it! All that mana! Why am I just getting a success?”
“I failed at my first attempt to brew a healing potion.” I said. “And here you both have succeeded at brewing up and enchanting multiple doses at your first. Already, your abilities out-shine mine.”

“I earned at least an orange critical.” Tsi Ba muttered.

We poured the potions (blue, for they were infused with Water mana) into pocket vials, and carried them carefully outside, where the Shrine Sisters were happy to distribute them among the comatose.

“Well, back to our work. Mana purification, conversion, and storage.”

“I hate our normal work.” Tsi Ba said. “It isn’t even worth experience points anymore.”

“And yet,” I said, “it is our work. The quicker we finish, the quicker I can teach you something new.”

“It’s not fair.” she said. “It’s only two elemental shifts for you boys, and I have to go through three. You should make all the fire mana.”

“And you can make Metal mana from Earth?” Yan Di asked.

“Why do they need stupid Metal mana, anyway?” Tsi Ba countered.

“If we get this all done with enough time, I’ll see if I can get a Metal Adept to answer that.” I said.

“I don’t care.” Tsi Ba said. “Metal is a stupid element. I don’t need it.”

“Ah!” I said, raising a finger. “More meditation and spiraling the mana, less mocking of other’s magical traditions.”

“Metal and Earth are the two stupid elements, though.” Yan Di said.

“No misunderstanding your own elemental traditions, either.” I said. “Just cycle the mana. Imagine the impurities, and spin them out into their own areas. Release the impurities back into the natural flows of mana.”

“I don’t see why they don’t finish cleaning the mana before putting it in the gemstones.” Tsi Ba said. “We need to clean the mana and the crystals.”

“They don’t have time.” Yan Di told her, the same thing that Incinerator Bei had told us.

“I wonder.” I said. “If we were to gather the raw mana from the ocean, we could clean it. They must have people tapping the mana who don’t understand how to purify it.”

“Like who?” Tsi Ba asked. “Little children?”

“Ah-ah.” Yan Di said, “We are children, yet we know that. Perhaps newborn babies?”

“Adults, from what I saw.” I said. “Whomever is gathering that mana transfers it to adults, who then walk from the gathering areas to meet us inside the outer zone of the fortress.”

“But that’s ridiculous. Living auras and mana contaminate each other.” Tsi Ba said. “That’s... they should just move the sapphires around.”

“Yan Di, do you need to explain why sapphires are rare, or should I?” I asked.

“I don’t know why.” Yan Di said. “I just know that finding crystals, which are part of Earth, and yet attuned to other elements, is rare. I can’t imagine why.”

“Ugh.” Tsi Ba said. “This is so boring. And useless. And dull. Why can’t mana just stay cleaned?”

I ran two fingers across the floor. “Why can the floor not remain clear of dust? It is the nature of the world that nothing pure remains so for long.”

“Don’t tell my mother that.” Yan Di said. “She already talks my ear off, that I sleep in the same room as a girl.”

“I am a young woman.” Tsi Ba said, “And your mother has nothing to worry about. Bed wetter.”

“That was only the once!” Yan Di said. “You can’t hold that against me, it’s not fair.”

I slapped my hand onto the stone floor to cut off Tsi Ba’s retort.

“Water to Wood and Water to Earth.” I said, trying to be calm. “The elements will resist transforming into each other, and it will cause you emotional duress, as well. Watch your Spiritual fatigue meters, and rest when you are at or below half.”

“I’m already there.” Tsi Ba said. “So can I stop, now?”

“What have you done that has caused you so much emotional duress?” I asked.

“I’ve got a lower fatigue meter, too.” Yan Di said.

“It may be the recent death of Incinerator Bei.” I said.

“Why would that be stressful?” Tsi Ba asked. “She’s gone, and I didn’t have to kill her. I should be happy, right?”

“If she could die, it could happen to any of us.” Yan Di said.

“Would either of you like to go to her funeral? I can learn from the Shrine Sisters when today they are holding rituals over her body.”

“I... Are you planning on attending her funeral?” Yan Di asked, shivering and putting his hands into his armpits for warmth.

For. Warmth.

I did a quick System query. “By any chance are both of you missing almost exactly seven points of mystic or spiritual fatigue?”

“Exactly.” Yan Di said.

“How did you know?” Tsi Ba asked.

“All right.” I said. “I’m going to send you System group invites. It will make it possible to share my mystic senses.”

They joined up, eager to do anything less tedious than process mana.

“Ocean, mother to all life, kindred to my soul...”

“Wait!” Yan Di said. “You can’t use their mana for your own purposes.”

“Watch and learn, Yan Di. Ocean, mother to all life, kindred to my own soul, hear my request, provide me use of your power. I, Shaman, Water Adept, call upon you to enter my eyes and let me see the world as you do. Mystic Sight!”

“Incinerator Bei!” Tsi Ba said, throwing her forehead to the ground. “So sorry, we had no clue you were still around!”

“Why ARE you here?” Yan Di said. “Shouldn’t your daughters be preparing a place for your among your ancestors?”

I learned where the phrase ‘biting your tongue’ came from. Not all truths need to be spoken.

It is less a line between ancestor spirits and ghosts, more like a misty veil. The spirit I was looking at was more remnant than actual ghost, and more ghost than spirit. No wonder the poor thing was eating so much of our spiritual energy; it must be in a continual struggle not to dissipate.

She shrieked at us, a sub-vocal shout that lifted the hairs on the back of our necks. And then, she spoke. “Cheated!” she said. “I was a goddess among mankind, at the peak of my powers, the height of my beauty. All that I perceived, it was my right to own, to take.”

“And then,” she said, “that bitch murdered me.”

I rubbed my forehead. “Black Madonna?” I guessed.

“The very same!” she said. “What? You think I would mis-handle Fire mana? That I even could? I tell you it is murder, and I can prove it!”

“Shall I consult Matron Su-ya, honored elder?” I asked

.....

“An excellent idea. Make a soft cushioned spot in your soul on which I may recline. Bear me to Matron Su-ya. Now.”