by Pirateaba
I look back at Teriarch. Suddenly he looks tired again. He touches the teleportation circle at my feet and the symbols glow bright.
“I wish you the best of luck Ryoka Griffin, for the riddles as well as your device. It has been long since I have found this much enjoyment in mortal contact.”
Oh. It’s really over. I look up into those two magnificent eyes and feel a pang in my heart. Do I really have to go? So soon?
“I am afraid so. I do not entertain mortal visitors for long. And this is too dangerous a place for casual visits in any case.”
I blink. Teriarch smiles at me. He’s right, of course, but even then, I disagree. I’d risk any peril to come back just to look at him. But can I return? Do I have permission to return? Did I have only this one chance?
“Do you think you’ll need a Runner in the future? For another delivery, perhaps?”
He laughs softly; the breeze ruffles my hair as he stares around his cavern, vast for me but barely adequate for him.
“I do not receive letters as you Humans do. If Reinhart has business with me, she will use mage spell. No; I am done with you. Rejoice, Ryoka Griffin. You have seen a Dragon and lived.”
He smiles at me, exposing rows of teeth that make me wonder what could ever challenge his kind. Not armies, not tanks—hell, a Tyrannosaurus Rex would roll over at the sight of those jaws. But he still looks far kinder than the mage I first met.
“Go. And tell no one of what you have seen. Hmm. Perhaps you will. But I would like to believe…yes, I would like to believe you can be trusted.”
“I swore I would not tell. You are only a…mage I met, once. I keep my promises, Teriarch.”
“Perhaps you do.”
He bows his head. And then he speaks a few last words as the light begins to shimmer around my feet.
“Huma—Ryoka. Even if it was mere flattery, I was glad to hear that your people still tell tales of my kind.”
I look him in the eye. Magic swirls around me. Do I have to go? I felt safe here. Safe and—
“I meant every word.”
One last smile. I have seen a Dragon smile.
“Farewell, Ryoka Griffin. We will not meet again.”
No. But before I open my mouth, I’m gone. The last thing I see is Teriarch’s smile. And then—
—-
Octavia hurled a potion bottle at Erin. It was empty and so Erin only dodged splintering glass. But the other girl was searching for more ammunition, and Erin had already dodged a chair and a set of scales.
“Get out!”
“I’m sorry! I didn’t know it would do that!”
Erin danced and dodged as Octavia raised a log of firewood like a club. The stitch-girl was trying to hit Erin as they danced around the shop counter when they heard a sound like rushing wind.
Both young women looked around just in time to see Ryoka appear two feet off the ground. The girl was frozen in place for a second until the swirling magic light around her vanished. Then Ryoka blinked, tried to take a step, smacked her head on the ceiling and fell to earth.
“Fu—”
She landed on the ground and crouched to distribute her weight. She did not fall over or stumble. Erin and Octavia looked impressed, before they remembered to gasp in shock.
“Ryoka!?”
“How did you—?”
Ryoka got up slowly. Her head was dizzy, and she felt vaguely like throwing up. She stared around the wrecked shop, with smoke clinging in the air and the smell of a thousand horrible things adding to the suffocating miasma. She stared at Erin, sheepish, wide-eyed, and Octavia, uncharacteristically upset. She nodded to herself and then pointed to the melted pot she’d seen earlier. The liquid was still bubbling in the ruined metal..
“Uh, try cooling down the carrots with something before you add in the Corusdeer horns. And use some flour as well.”
Both girls looked at each other, and then at Ryoka. Then Erin raised a hand.
“What kind of flour?”
2.40
Ryoka knew that she didn’t have the same sense of normality she used to have. Her reactions to things like monsters and magic had been tempered by her experiences in this world, and she could look at Goblins and magic spells without batting an eyelid.
And of course Erin and Octavia were both independent young women who had experienced just as much, if not more, than Ryoka had. But it was still slightly worrying that of the two of them, Octavia was the one who reacted normally.
“How did you—was that a teleportation spell?”
“What kind of flour did you mean, Ryoka? Did you mean acorn flour, or wheat flour? Oh and, how did you do that?”
Ryoka felt like throwing up. Her insides felt like someone had shoved an electric egg beater in them. It had been like that last time as she recalled, although at that point she’d appeared above the rooftops of Celum. She’d been more preoccupied by not sliding off the roof she’d landed on to worry about throwing up.
The smell wasn’t helping. Octavia was staring at Ryoka in shock, but Erin had, in her own way, adjusted to the situation in a second. There was almost something commendable about her mental resilience.
“So was that a spell? Oh wait—you look like you’re going to throw up. Here!”
She handed Ryoka a large, empty jar. It looked like the disposal container for failed alchemical reactions. The taller girl pushed it aside and took a few deep breaths.
“I’m fine, Erin. Just give me a moment. And fresh air.”
She stumbled towards the door of the shop. Erin hesitated, and followed her. Ryoka had to step around upturned chairs and avoid two puddles of potions. Octavia’s shop was trashed. What had happened here?
Oh, right. Erin.
It took a while for Ryoka to regain her internal sense of balance. Her head was still spinning, but when she felt ready to explain things and not throw up, she looked around.
Erin was standing next to Ryoka, staring up into the cloudy grey sky. The winter air blew her hair wildly, but she didn’t appear to notice.
She was smiling. It was so surprising to Ryoka that she stared. Despite being marooned in an unknown city and all she had presumably gone through, Erin was still smiling.
Ryoka touched her own face. She wasn’t smiling. She rarely did.
Erin grinned at Ryoka. The other girl was clearly happy. Then she threw her arms around the other girl.
“Hey!”
“I’m so glad you found me! I was so worried—but you just poofed out of nowhere! How did you do it? Was it magic?”
“No—it was a mage. I met a mage on one of my deliveries, remember? Teriarch?”
“You mean that grumpy mage guy? He teleported you?”
Ryoka hesitated.
“Yes. He did. He helped me find you and get to you. I was…worried. But it looks like you were okay. What happened?”
“I don’t know! One second I was taking a nap as Toren pulled me around, the next…poof! I’m out in the middle of nowhere and there are wolves and bears! Well, just one bear.”
Ryoka listened as Erin gave her a garbled explanation of what had happened. She shook her head.
“You fought off a wolf pack? And scared away a bear?”
“Um. Yes?”
Ryoka wanted to disbelieve, or at least believe Erin was exaggerating or boasting, but one look into her eyes told her Erin was telling the truth. It almost made Ryoka’s adventure seem normal.
Almost. The Dragon and the game of riddles still trumped beating down wolves with your bare hands. It felt like a dream, even minutes after it had happened. She’d talked with a Dragon. A Dragon. They were real. He was real.
Ryoka sighed. She was back in the real world. She had to focus. She noticed Erin still hadn’t stopped hugging her and frowned.
“Okay. That’s enough. Get off.”
She broke Erin’s hold and the girl beamed at her.
“I’m just so glad you’re here! You’ll never believe who I met! That girl in there—the an
gry one—she’s named Octavia and she’s an [Alchemist]! Can you believe it? She’s got all kinds of cool potions, too!”
“I can believe it. I know her, actually.”
Ryoka looked back inside the shop. Octavia had left the two girls alone for a few moments to try and mop up some of the potion on the floor.
“What the hell happened? I saw a bit when Teriarch scried you—”
“Whoa! He can scry people?”
“—But I didn’t get a good look. Erin, what are you doing?”
“Come on, let me show you!”
Erin tugged Ryoka back into the shop. The instant they entered, the noxious smell in the air assaulted Ryoka’s sinuses again. Her nose had already gone numb.
“No! No! Out!”
Octavia shouted the instant she saw Erin enter. To Ryoka’s surprise she jabbed the mop at Erin like a spear, trying to keep the [Innkeeper] at bay.
“Hey! Watch it, Octavia! I’ll help clean up! Ow!”
Ryoka caught the mop and stared at the girl made of fabric and stitches. Octavia looked like a normal person, albeit with a Frankenstein-esque appearance with all the stitches on her shoulders and neck. She also looked uncharacteristically flustered. She pointed at Erin.
“Ryoka, you know this girl?”
“Hi, Octavia. What’s happening?”
The dark-skinned girl waved her hands and tried to push Erin back out of the shop.
“Do something about her! She’s an insane fool who’s going to get us all killed!”
“Oh come on! It was only o—two accidents!”
Erin protested, but Octavia was clearly upset. She glared at Erin, fists clenched.
“You melted a hole in my kitchen! And then you nearly poisoned us both!”
“What happened?”
Ryoka interposed herself between the two girls. Both tried to explain at the same time, with much arm waving and accusations.
“I just wanted to make some magical stuff! Like food or a potion! I even paid Octavia a lot of gold to help me out!”
“I thought you wanted to do a few experiments! I had no idea you were this insane!”
Octavia pointed a trembling finger to the part of the shop where the smell was most overpowering. Ryoka saw what looked like the epicenter of a localized disaster; a cauldron had partly melted, and a thick purple residue clung to all the nearby surfaces. The [Alchemist] turned to Ryoka, imploring.
“Please, keep her away from my ingredients and potions! She just keeps mixing them together without any sense of the danger.”
Both girls turned and stared at Erin, who looked hurt.
“That’s how alchemy works, though, right? We have to experiment to—”
“No!”
Octavia clutched at her dreadlocks. Ryoka had to agree with her on this one.
“Erin, you can’t just throw ingredients and potions together. If alchemy is anything like science, you need to document your work. And all this stuff is magical. You need safeguards.”
“What, really?”
“That’s what I said! But you create a poisonous cloud and melted—”
“Octavia, shut up for a second.”
Both girls shut up and stared at Ryoka. She almost felt like an elementary school teacher dealing with a bunch of brats. But still, Ryoka had to smile a bit. Erin was fine, and she’d even managed to piss off Octavia. And Ryoka had a bag full of money and a spellbook. Wasn’t something supposed to be going wrong by now?
“Let’s start over. Octavia, I’ve just finished a delivery and I came here to find Erin.”
“But how—I don’t know anyone who can just cast a [Teleportation] spell out of nowhere. Wait—that delivery to the High Passes…”
“Runner’s confidentiality, Octavia. I can’t tell you anything.”
The stitch-girl looked disappointed. But then her eyes widened.
“Is it the potion maker? Do you have another—”
Ryoka sighed.
“Shut up. Please. Octavia, this is Erin. A friend of mine. She’s an [Innkeeper] in Liscor, far from home.”
“Hi.”
“And Erin, this is Octavia, an [Alchemist] who talks too much for her own good. And she tries scamming everyone she meets, so don’t take any of her bargains.”
“That’s—”
“Now, explain to me how you two met. And what happened. From the start.”
Both girls looked at each other. Then they began a more coherent narrative that Ryoka could actually follow.
The story went like this: Erin, coming into the city had a jar full of bees and two jars of honey. She also had a desire to get rid of said jars, and thus went to find an [Alchemist] to sell them to. Octavia, being known as the enterprising (and annoying) [Alchemist] she was, was only happy to take Erin’s goods and her money if possible.
The interesting part of the story was that Erin was only too willing to give Octavia both, if she helped Erin do her own experiments. Octavia had happily accepted, but it turned out that Erin’s style of experimentation was insane, to say the least.
“She just threw two potions into the mixture. Just like that.”
Octavia pointed a shaking hand to the place where all the poisonous smoke had come from. It had been neutralized by some kind of white powder, but Ryoka and Erin were both keeping clear of the area.
“That was after she melted a hole in my best cauldron trying to make soup with ground up Corusdeer horns!”
Erin shrugged helplessly.
“I thought I could make something warm and tasty, you know? Something magical.”
“I told you it wouldn’t work. Corusdeer horns can get so hot they’ll melt through almost anything. Putting them over a fire is just asking for a melted fireplace. And in a soup? You’d melt a hole right through your stomach!”
“But Ryoka said—”
“Erin, Octavia has a point.”
“What?”
Erin looked at Ryoka as the other girl shook her head. For her part, Ryoka was uncomfortable with Octavia’s description of Erin’s activities as well. Erin could easily have blown up Octavia’s entire shop or killed herself trying her mixtures out on herself.
“I know you’re excited, but you should really try and think over what you want to do before experimenting. Set a goal, make a hypothesis, and then mix something up, okay? And run everything by Octavia first.”
“Aw.”
The shorter girl sagged a bit. Octavia looked relieved.
“Good. Now, I’ll expect you to pay for damages. I’ll send you the bill—you can leave and—”
“What? I’m not going. I haven’t even finished half of the things I wanted to try yet!”
The [Alchemist] froze.
“What? You can’t be serious.”
Erin looked indignant. She grabbed her money pouch and jingled it in front of Octavia’s face.
“Didn’t I pay you for experiments? Sure, a few of them went south, but I still get to try out more stuff! You promised!”
“I said that, but—you can’t seriously expect—”
Octavia spluttered and tried to argue, but Erin was already looking around for more ingredients and potions to mix and match.
This looked like one particular bargain that had backfired spectacularly for the stitch-girl. Ryoka’s lips twitched. She saw Erin looking at a rack of mana potions. Octavia angrily reached for Erin’s shoulder, but Ryoka caught her arm.
“Don’t try to stop her, Octavia. Erin’s a better fighter than I am; I’ve seen her kill zombies with only a frying pan. She can beat a Gnoll in a fistfight.”
That was all true, but it made Erin turn red and Octavia hesitate.
“But—now, I understand a deal’s a deal, but let’s be reasonable here, Ryoka. You can’t just expect me to fulfill my end of the bargain now, can you? What about damages and the costs of my lost reagents? True, I factored that a bit into the price, but I should be recompensed for my damaged shop and trauma, I really should. You can’t really justify
letting Erin continue after all she’s done, can you? Let’s call it quits and I’ll throw in one—two potions, free gratis, alright?”
Ryoka watched Erin’s eyes glaze over as Octavia wheedled and pleaded with her. She raised one eyebrow at Octavia.
“How much did Erin pay you for letting her use the shop?”
The stitch-girl hesitated.
“Um—”
“If it’s over ten gold coins, she could probably buy out that entire rack of potions. I know they’re not high-quality. And how much do carrots cost? A few Corusdeer horns?”
“Well—that is to say—you can’t just simplify the base ingredients cost to a few coins, Ryoka! You know that. You and me—we’re businesswomen. You know there’s transportation fees and procurement costs for adventurers and in the winter prices go sky high—”
Ryoka stared Octavia in the eye until the other girl’s words ran down. She looked back at Erin.
“Go ahead, Erin. Do your worst.”
Erin smiled brightly. She already had some carrots in her hand and another Corusdeer horn. Octavia went pale.
“Stop that! Don’t you know how much those c—no, not that one! That’s rare! I only have—Ryoka, do something! Ryoka!”
—-
Alchemy really was quite fun. Erin didn’t want to be an [Alchemist], and Ryoka had told her she shouldn’t take any other classes in any case, but she enjoyed the feeling of experimenting with all the things Octavia had in her shop.
True, she’d nearly poisoned herself once with that terrible cloud, but that was a mistake. Now that Ryoka was here, Erin was taking things slow. She wasn’t even mixing potions now; she was doing something she’d always wanted to try. She was making magical food.
Slowly, Erin stirred the last of the powdered Corusdeer horn into the big pot of soup bubbling over the fire. This time the powder dissolved without causing the entire liquid mixture to glow white-hot and melt the pot, so Erin considered that a good sign.
“Mm. Smells good, doesn’t it, Ryoka?”
“Mhm.”
That came from a desk a few feet away. Ryoka was lying on the desk, slumped over, using one of Octavia’s stools as a seat. She’d cleared away all the alchemy equipment so she could sprawl out on the smooth surface.
