Edge Cases

100 - Book 2: Chapter 37: Meeting

Emily's home was unremarkable, for all that she was apparently a witch of sufficient prowess to warrant the coveted position of nobility in Elyra.

Derivan thought it was cozy, certainly; there was clearly a lot of care and effort put into every detail of the house. The place was spotless. The walls were painted a bright white, and had paintings of a multitude of exotic plants hanging up on them; nothing Derivan had ever seen before. One of them even looked like it had a mouth! Which was... a choice, certainly.

Handwoven baskets hung from the ceiling, with flowering vines drooping from them, dangling low enough to touch even Vex's head. Derivan almost didn't have the space to walk around. Even the baskets were about the same height as his helmet, forcing him to duck and weave between them to get to a seat on Emily's couch.

Before long, however, they were all seated, and Emily was preparing some tea for all of them, despite their protests. Derivan in particular had no idea what he was meant to do with his tea, and was vaguely tempted to pour it into the slits in his helmet that were meant for his eyes.

That would probably be stranger than just not drinking the tea, though.

"I have to thank you again for helping me out with this," Emily said. "I was a little worried no one was going to pick up the request."

"You said you would've asked Elyra for help if that happened, right?" Vex asked.

"Yeah, but like I also said, I don't want to." Emily made a face.

"I was more wondering if you knew anything about the food and crop issues they've been having." Vex glanced outside at the fields; as far as he could tell, all of Emily's plants were healthy.

"Ah." Emily seemed to sober up a little; Derivan noticed a small spark of reluctance, like she didn't entirely want to talk about this. "I've noticed that it's taking a lot more mana to push my crops to grow," she said. "Do not tell Elyra that, though. I don't want them to come over here to 'investigate', again."

"Had issues with that before?" It was Misa that asked the question, an eyebrow raising slightly at their host.

"Mostly because I keep refusing to live inside the main kingdom and benefit from being a noble or whatever, yeah. They want to know how I make my reagents." Emily shrugged and smiled. "I'm not telling them, though. And they're not going to get me to live in Elyra so I can be one of their spoiled little nobles."

Vex coughed at that, snickering a little bit. Sev cocked his head. "I mean, shouldn't you be worried that we're from Elyra?" he asked. "We haven't shown you a Guild badge or anything..."

"You also haven't tried to pry any secrets from me or climb into my fields without my permission." Emily grinned a slight grin. "I would've known if you were from Elyra, trust me. You're adventurers. Though now that you mention it, yes, I would like to see your badge."

Sev handed them over, and she whistled. "Gold? I didn't think they'd be sending gold-ranked adventurers."

"Silver, by leveling standards," Sev said, sounding a little embarrassed. "It's not that impressive."

"If you're silver by the normal standard and the guild gave you gold badges anyway, I think I'm entitled to be even more impressed." Emily handed the badges back with a shake of her head. "Now I'm worried that I'm keeping you from doing more important things. Don't you have ancient dungeons to delve? Deep secrets to uncover? Maybe a town to save?"

Derivan didn't react but Sev, Misa, and Vex all grimaced a little bit at that.

Emily noticed, of course. The smile faded from her face, and she frowned a small frown. "Am I actually keeping you from a town to save?"

"Not exactly," Sev hedged. "Think of it as... we can't do anything about it right now. We're going to work our way there, though."

"Not giving up." Emily nodded to herself, pouring herself a second cup of tea. She'd apparently already finished the first. "You're classic adventurers, I see. The heroic types."

"I don't know if heroic is the right word." Vex fidgeted. "We're just trying to do the right thing?"

"...What do you think heroism is?"

Vex deflated a little. "I just don't think it should be all that special," he said quietly.

Emily took a sip of her tea, then sighed and sat back in her seat, looking over the four of them. She didn't respond for a moment, but she seemed to be taking them a little more seriously than before. "You already spoke to the Guild?"

"They've made a couple of attempts, but it hasn't worked," Sev said. Not even Max's [Right Place, Right Time] had been able to break through the barrier. "It's not... It's probably not correct to say that it isn't urgent. But it's reversible, hopefully, and no one is dying."

Yet, was the unspoken word that all three of the other adventurers heard. Derivan cast a glance to Emily to see how she would react, and saw that she seemed... contemplative.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she finally asked. "I'm not a therapist or anything, but I've had a few people use this place to let out their worries."

"Well, it's not why we're here," Sev said, glancing around to make sure that no one else seemed to want to take her up on her offer; no one did. "Thank you for the offer, though. We're just here to help you with the harvest. We've, uh, had our moment of catharsis."

"Speaking of," Vex said, changing the subject. "That thing about it taking more mana to grow your crops is really weird. It's not a mana shortage problem, right? If that were it Elyra would definitely have a means of getting enough mana."

"Right. The Ashion house." Vex flinched a little bit when Emily said the name, but a lot less than he usually did. Misa gave him an encouraging thumbs up. "Keep in mind, you're still not in Elyra proper. The effect is a lot stronger closer to the Elyran agricultural fields, I've heard. To the point where all the mana put into those spells get instantly sucked up."

"Oh. That's... worrying." Vex frowned. It matched up with what his brother had told him; growth magic suppression.

"Yup." Emily placed her empty teacup on the saucer in front of her. "Nothing to be done about it, though. At least the Guild is kind enough to send assistance... Anyway! The harvest. How many of you are versed in magical reagent collection?"

Vex raised his hand, and the other three stayed silent. Emily watched them for a while, pursing her lips, and then nodded to herself.

"Yeah, I can work with that," she said. "One is better than nothing. So!

"First thing to know: magical plants are very sensitive to mana usage! That's not to say you can't use mana at all, but if you use it, you better know what you're doing. A stray [Mana Manipulation] can ruin a whole plant, and all the ones next to it. Any skill that uses mana shouldn't be used, whether it's a spell or not. That's worse than [Mana Manipulation]."

Derivan's eyes narrowed slightly; he wondered if that had something to do with the way the system interacted with mana. They'd seen the difference in mana now between Teque and the rest of the world, and Vex had talked about how the usage of system skills could chase ambient mana away. From what he could see, Emily's fields had the same carefree mana they usually observed in forests and plains, away from people.

"Second! I have gloves for you. They're gloves that are specifically enchanted to provide some mana insulation, and also protect you from the harmful side-effects some of these reagents have on contact. Keep them on at all times. Do not ever, ever touch your eyes with those gloves. Actually, just don't touch any body part with the gloves. Unless you want to experience an unnecessary amount of pain."

"...Concerning," Sev commented, picking up a pair of gloves and staring at it with what was probably an undue amount of suspicion. Misa did, too. Vex just put his on, looking a little bit silly with how the too-big gloves fit onto his hands; the sleeves fit all the way up to his biceps, and made bending his arms awkward. He seemed used to it, though.

Derivan stated blankly at the set of gloves that Emily was offering him, and then glanced around at his party helplessly. They did not look like they would remotely fit on his armor.

"Is that amenable to a size enchantment?" Vex asked, evidently deciding to help him. Emily blinked, glanced at Derivan, and then glanced back at the pair of gloves she was holding.

"Can you not just take off the gauntlets or something?" she asked. "A size enchantment would probably break the magics on this thing."

"I am afraid they are quite stuck," Derivan said. "As is the rest of my armor, unfortunately."

Emily glanced at him, then at the necklace he still wore; he'd almost forgotten about it after the Guildmaster had gifted it to him. "I won't ask," she said, without questioning it any further. "I'm honestly not sure if I can replicate the enchantment on your armor. Do you know if it protects you from magical effects?"

"What sort of magical effects?" Derivan asked.

"Just the usual ones," Emily said, and when Derivan looked at her blankly, she elaborated. "Heat is probably the one you need to worry about most; there are some ice effects, and some more esoteric ones that might warp flesh if in direct contact"

Sev choked a little on his tea as she said those words, and she ignored him. "But nothing that should affect metal, as far as I know. As long as your armor itself isn't too magical, it shouldn't be a problem."

"I am... unsure how magical my armor is," Derivan said, glancing at Vex for help. He essentially was just magic armor.

"His armor's pretty magical, but the effect is mostly focused inwards," Vex said. "It shouldn't affect your plants it hasn't affected any of my magic."

"I'm going to tentatively trust you on that," Emily said with a slight frown. "I'll want you working with him, to make sure that doesn't affect the plants, and I'm going to be present for the first few harvests before I go help out the other two. Just in case."

"We're splitting into teams, then?" Sev asked.

"Sev and Derivan on one team, Misa and Vex on the other," Emily said with a nod, and then paused. "Wait, which one is the lizard again?"

"I'm Vex," Vex said.

"...Vex and Derivan on one team, Misa and Sev on the other." Emily gave them a playful scowl. "Your names are way too similar."

"Believe me," Sev said with a weary sigh, although he sounded amused. "It's not the first time we've gotten that."

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