Some Questions Are Better Left Unanswered

Commotion drew Kairan’s eye, after a moments deliberation he strayed from his current path – a neat row between the potato sprouts – now intent on observing this new interest.

A growing circle of men – farmers, he judged from their clothes – crowded around a crude corral. The wall of bodies hid the corral’s contents from view.

Kairan approached haphazardly yet remained unnoticed. The farmers kept their attention fixed on the happenings within the corral. Muttering and idle chatter filled the air: there was talk of coin, an appraisal of character and bemoaning of such results.

Curious, Kairan pressed on. Taking note as he neared; several small creatures drifting aimless about the corral. Their plump, fluid bodies rippled and wobbled with every shift. Their flesh dark brown like mud.

Kairan gazed at the creatures with keen interest. Their odd features bemused him. The nearest stared back at him, with blank white dots for eyes.

Now standing at the outskirts of the group, Kairan watched as one of the men – one notably different from the rest, likely an adventurer – toss a blue, palm-sized crystal into the centre of the corral. In an instant the demeanour of farmers changed; the air became charged with their cheering and yelling.

The once seemingly docile creatures within the corral turned territorial. One made to grab for the crystal, a gaping maw appearing from below its eyes, intent on swallowing it.

There was a thwip! Suddenly, the creature was recoiling, its eyes a mere fraction of the size earlier.

Kairan had almost missed the strike; a muddy tentacle had lashed out from another of the creatures and struck the first across the eyes.

“What’s going on?” Kairan asked a nearby farmer.

“Jus a wee bit a sport,” the man answered, then retreated in surprise, finally noticing Kairan. “Monster!”

A wave of panic rippled through the crowd, and they attempted to disperse.

“Halt! You daft fools,” yelled the adventurer from before. The crystal once again in his hand. Kairan spied a glistening shimmer dancing a few centimetres from the crystal.

The adventurer held a dagger in his other and had posted himself with one foot leaning atop the corral fence. There was pause as recognition filled his eyes, “Now aren’t you that myconid from last night? The one Maria and her boys captured? The one that talks?”

“The very same.” Kairan raised his hands and tilted his head, a bow of acknowledgement. “Unless they captured some other extra vocal myconid.”

There was a murmur of shock amongst the crowd. At his words a second adventurer vaulted the corral fence, closing the distance to Kairan.

“Relax, I’m only curious,” Kairan said, nodding towards the creatures.

“Oh, showing interest?” the first adventurer said slyly. He waved away the second adventurer. “We could deal you in, if you have the coin?”

Kairan squinted at the corral; the game being played was obvious. Had it been an animal he was familiar with he’d most likely have been disgusted but he only felt apathy to the creatures. Something was lacking within them.

Curiosity urged him to take part, “What’s the buy in?”

He pointed at Kairan and gestured for him to approach. “Starting bid is 50 copper.”

“I have a silver coin.”

“My, such wealth. Feeling like doubling the bid then?”

Kairan gave a thought, staring at the collection of creatures before him. “No. 50 it will stay.” Kairan smiled to himself. If 1 silver was considered wealthy, then perhaps he really could repay Blake.

“As you wish then,” the adventurer said, failing to hide the disappointment. The two traded and Kairan was handed back 5 copper coins. They were full-piece unlike the silver coins and had a large X-like shape across the one face.

“Oi! What this?” he demanded. “This is only 5 coins.” He held his palm bare for all to see.

“What are you, blind? Or daft? Them’s clearly-” the adventurer stalled, a smile creeping across his lips, he managed to stow it. “Not familiar with coinage? How you manage to get them silver pieces anyhow?”

“Them’s ten-piece coppers,” a farmer leaned in to assist.

“Thank you,” Kairan replied to the farmer, “A bit of honest labour, helping out a desperate family with some firewood,” he shot at the adventurer.

“Ain’t no one paying two sliver for firewood.”

“Try Harold’s mother and boy.” The name sent a wave of silence through the crowed, Kairan caught the flicker of distaste across the adventurer’s face, “After you lot all but abandoned them, they’ve no choice but to rely on outsourced muscle.”

The adventurer removed his foot from the post, sheathed the knife. He rubbed his stubble and gave a quick sniff just short of a snort. “Not my business where you get your coin anyways. Be weary of them lot, next it’s you whose gone mad. Well? Get on with it. Pick your elemental.” He flung his hand outwards.

Kairan’s eyes wondered between the creatures, none of which stood out as impressive in any way. His eyes finally settled on a creature of lighter complexion to the rest. For no particular reason he picked it.

There was a chuckle from the crowd that grew into laughter.

“All wagers are in, no changes can be made,” the adventurer said.

“So why the laughter? Did I choose the wrong one?” The adventurer only grinned before tossing the crystal back into the corral.

It became obviously apparent that he’d chosen wrong. As soon as the crystal landed before the creature with a lighter complexion, it was overwhelmed; beaten until its form broke apart into a pile of mud.

Once his loss was confirmed, it was explained that the weaker an elemental was, the lighter its colour was. An unfortunate loss, but one he laid the path for himself.

The rest of the fight didn’t last too long, and a victor finally emerged. It approached the crystal, seemingly apathetic to the pooling remnants of its kin, and reached forward with a gaping maw.

Silence. The farmers, even those upset with their loss, watched on with bated breath. As the crystal was ingested, the creature began to bubble and then rupture. Copious amounts of mud began to excrete from the blob before reforming, building until the creature was eight times its original size.

“What the hell,” Kairan muttered.

“You scared, Myconid?” the adventurer taunted in a sly voice, “Don’t be, my partner’s more than capable.” At his words, the second adventurer entered the corral again, this time his attention on the giant elemental blob. With a series of swift slashes from his greatsword, the beast fell, bursting apart into mud.

At its death, a flurry of activity sprouted, the first adventurer began spouting orders and handing out winnings to the farmers. Once finished, he called for the attention of those still present, folk who didn’t appear to be your average farmer, folk more distinguished. And began auctioning the mud.

Once everything had concluded, Kairan finally approached him.

“What was that about, are you conning these poor folk with mud?”

“You really don’t know? Guess you must be daft then. Ain’t no con here, just business. Those critter’s mud is rich in mana, makes for great compost when dried and mixed with soil. Plants love it. Truth is, most folk come for the sport. Watch the critters beat each other to death and betting on the outcome, but that’s not where the real money is. Its who come after, wanting that mana-enriched mud where we make our bounty..” The adventurer retrieved the blue crystal – its colour considerably duller – and pocketed it.

“How exactly does that crystal turn them from docile to aggressive? Kairan asked, musing aloud.

“Ya say something?”

“I’m curious, how does the crystal send them into a killing frenzy?”

“Don’t know myself, but they always go crazy for the crystal so long's its charged. Now, if you are feeling like taking part in our game in the future: every three days, same place right after the fifth bell.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” With that, the adventurers walked off, leaving Kairan to his devices.

With nothing left to pursue, he returned to Blake’s cottage. Where he spent the rest of the day trying to amuse himself; there wasn’t any cleaning left to do so he continued reading until that became a bore after which he tried doing some physical training.

Eventually the door creaked open as a very confused Blake made her way inside, clutching the pitchfork in her hands.

“Why was there-What happened here!?” she asked, overcome with surprise. Her eyes drifted over the body that lay sprawled out over the floor.

“I’m bored,” Kairan moaned from the floor. The wood was still as cold as it had been an hour ago.

“For a brief moment I was afraid you’d died.”

“Me? Nonsense.”

“Now then, why was there a broken pitchfork outside my door?”

“Someone left it there this morning,” Kairan said as he got to his feet. “Couple of farmers came to start trouble,” he yawned, “so I chased them off.”

“You didn’t hurt them, did you?”

“Eh, just their pride, I guess. Speaking of pride,” he pulled the silver coin from his pocket and tossed it to her. “Repayment, hopefully it makes up for what I’ve eaten. Got a handful of coppers too.”

She caught the coin and inspected it, eventually tossing it back, “Keep it, you’re not indebted to me. More likely the other way round, besides you’ll need every bit coin you can gather. I doubt a boat to Dyovaris is cheap.”

Kairan eyed the coin in his palm, before pocketing it, “Thanks. So then, when can I start learning magic?”

“First, I must finish my experiment, until then, you can read…” she trailed off as she inspected her book chest. Panic took her voice as she began to fret, “No, no, no.”

“The shelf above you,” Kairan said, “I figured they deserved being stacked on a bookshelf. I also sorted your notes.”

As she looked from Kairan back to the shelf, her brows furrowed. “Thank you…I was going to sort them soon; I just didn’t have the time yet.” She handed him a book.

Kairan grumbled. “Read it already, didn’t do me any good,” Kairan complained, handing Rudonin’s guide to magic, back to her.

“Then you’ll need to read it again and take your time to understand it. There are no shortcuts to learning magic, and this book was written by one of the best minds of today’s age.” She turned away and began fiddling with her vials. With little choice, Kairan began his second dive into the meticulously complex mind of Rudonin Za’ari.

This second delve was not particularly insightful, it was still a tall order trying to comprehend what Rudonin wrote about, even on a second read. Kairan felt he’d sooner fall asleep than derive anything of merit. Part way through a section field fundamentals, Blake arrested his attention for further samples. Nothing evasive this time: saliva, bits of skin and the like.

Kairan felt his eyes glazing over as Rudonin started down a tangent on absorption rates and dilution. Something or another about diets.

Blake called on him again, she was curious about his hearing. The two conducted a simple test, localising his hearing organs to be on either side of his head just behind the eyes. Of course, there was no obvious signs to their presence.

Finally, Kairan managed to dredge something of use. A passage discussing how and why certain spells were separated into distinct classes. Rudonin seemly agreed with the concept, but disagreed with the execution, stating the rules that defined each class were flimsy at best and required a more thorough development. Always one to make it more difficult.

In essence, currently each classification grouped spells together based off similar effects.

Evocation – calling forth that which did not exist, Transmutation – changing the physical properties of a material, Illusion – manipulating the senses, Fractation – surging energy to destroy a target, Enchantment – compulsions of the mind and body without altering their states, and several other classifications that played with the arcane to achieve some desired effect.

Flimsy indeed. Illusion and Enchantment both seemed to overlap in some sense and by technicality everything is by some degree evocation. I suppose we agree on something, much to my displeasure.

There was one classification that went against Kairan’s preconception. Necromancy. The purpose was to help lay the undead to rest. There was however mention of necromancy specifically used to raise the dead, but it was cast aside as a blasphemous and vile practice that stained the magic’s true purpose.

He only managed to make it through the first chapter when a frustrated moan broke his concentration.

“What’s wrong?” Kairan asked, looking over the top of the book at Blake, who furiously rubbed her hair as she bent over the table.

“This doesn’t make any sense!” she complained, gesturing to her now many concoctions.

Kairan got up to look over her shoulder. The one yellow vial was now half empty and stood next to two others he hadn’t seen before.

“Is something supposed to happen because I just see a bunch of different coloured bottles? Or am I supposed to draw conclusions off that?”

“First, draw your attention here,” she dragged him around the table to her diagram. “I can’t say with full certainty, but I don’t think you are a myconid.”

“What exactly could I be then, not many creatures out there with mushrooms for heads. What’s that saying with the duck? If it looks like one and talks like one, it must be a duck?”

“I don’t know about any ducks, but look at the facts.” Her finger traced across the sketch, tapping things of interest as she listed them off, “The most obvious things, you have a mouth, myconids don’t. Then you also have five fingers on each hand, it should be three. Finally, your feet. You have five toes a foot, myconids don’t have any and for good reason: they crush food underfoot and absorb the nutrients through their feet. Yet, you can’t do that, instead relying on a stomach like most creatures.”

Kairan folded his arms and nodded along. She certainly made it sound like he wasn’t a myconid.

She continued: “I say all of this, but then you have a mushroom, you release spores and have two hearts. Those traits do belong to myconids.”

“So what then? Am I a mix between a human and a myconid?”

“For your sake, I wish to say yes, but there are other problems. Follow me.” She brought him back around towards her brewing setup. She took hold of a yellow, and red vial and showed it to him. “These are your spores, this red one is from another male myconid; I bought them from a travelling apothecary. Mix them with those of a female, provide some energy in the form of sugar and protein, and then boil. The solution will turn red like you see here and small growths will start formulating in the liquid. Yours don’t, they stay yellow and empty. The problem is, myconids are like humans and al-faun, despite varying appearances, they can breed naturally. You can’t, another strike for the theory that you aren’t a myconid.”

Kairan was stunned, confused and quite possibly bamboozled. He had no idea how to respond.

“But here is another peculiar thing,” she withdrew the vial with his blood. “Mana passes throughout the body following your blood...normally. But for you that doesn’t seem to be the case because if I take this shard of sellethite, a compound that is highly reactive in the presence of mana, it glows blue when encountering it. If I drop this in the vial and then try supply it with mana, nothing happens. Almost like some barrier is preventing transfer.

“Hmm, the mage who helped capture me, mentioned something about his paralysis spells wearing off too quickly, maybe I’ve got a natural resistance. Hang on, why the hell are you checking if my ‘spores’ can reproduce or not? I thought we wanted to learn about the curse, not my body!”

“Well, to understand your curse we must see limits of its effects, and its because of these facts that I don’t think you are a myconid. Now, you mentioned a natural resistance…but how would that work? What does that even mean? There is no such thing as resistance or tolerance to magic. You don’t understand, your body needs mana to live, just like how you need food, air, and water. Everyone has mana, everyone should be equally vulnerable to magic. Of course, ignoring any specialised defences...you don’t have any do you? Not secretly a powerful mage playing tricks on me.” She squinted at him in a joking manner.

Kairan shook his head. “Afraid not, though I almost wish it was the case.”

“This does raise another point that has been pestering me for a while. Everyone, whether mage or not, releases a wisp of mana. That which isn’t consumed by the body is let off back into the environment, but I can hardly see any coming off of you. A feint flicker here and there, seemingly implying that you barely have any mana. Maybe just enough to keep you alive.”

“I see. Actually, no I don’t. So then what am I? I very clearly look like a myconid, but my internal structure is more...what?”

“I don’t know.”

Kairan pondered on a thought. “What if I’m a crossbreed, like mules? They can’t breed, correct?”

“Yes, that is true and would explain the infertility but humans and myconids aren’t compatible at all, there is functionally no way for them to breed so we could never gauge if you would be the result of that process. Your form simply doesn’t make sense, you’ve been cursed to be something that doesn’t exist naturally. How is that?”

“I don’t know. You’re scholar.”

“Curses don’t work that way. When you make a curse, you are the architect behind its effects. This is why they are always simple in execution, you understand? A curse of gluttony, petrifaction or infatuation for example. Your form was changed to such a degree I can’t begin to explain how you even live. If I were to hazard a guess I’d almost say this is more than a curse. Like something created you.”

Kairan felt a sense of unease take him. His mind went to the being trapped within the Artefact. What exactly had he released?

“Regardless,” Blake said, snapping him back to reality, “It just means we have to do more tests. Be it curse, miracle or ancient magic, we’ll find the answer.” She gave a small twirl suddenly holding several vials between her arms.

“And what of teaching me magic?”

She pursed her lips and give it some thought, “Well, it’s not exactly possible if you still intend to stay for only one day. Magic requires both patience and practice.

Kairan couldn’t help but smile, forgetting all about the uneasiness he’d felt, “I see your game.”