They walk a little further along the strip of vendor booths before Musa stops abruptly at a weapons stall flanked by hovering jade lanterns.

  Aster follows his gaze up—way up.

  At the very top of the display, encased in layered stasis runes and perched like it has better places to be, is a weapon that radiates patience. Not flash. Not power. Patience. Like a librarian holding a secret that could erase your ancestors if provoked.

  It doesn’t look like a weapon at first glance. Just a curved, bark-veined branch coiled inward with intent. Its root base curls protectively like it has teeth. Moss clings to one side as though invited. The entire thing glows softly, not magically—emotionally.

  “You see that?” Musa nods at it. “The Verdant Rootbludgeon. That thing’s never on sale. Most people can’t even scan it without triggering a personality incompatibility rejection. Want to try?”

  Aster narrows his eyes. “What happens if I’m incompatible?”

  “It’ll ignore you,” Musa says. “Or worse, you’ll hear it call you a fraud. I saw it shrivel in disgust at someone once.”

  “Delightful.” Aster focuses his will and activates the scan.

  The air tightens.

  A pulse like warm breath passes over his skin.

  The scroll’s voice slips through his mind—not to him, but through the scan system like a perfume ad made by a sexually repressed botanist.

  “Scan initiating!”

  “Consent ping... received.”

  “Oh my.”

  ═════════════════════════════════════════════════════

  ITEM SCAN: Verdant Rootbludgeon

  Type: Staff/Club

  Tier: Standard D Grade

  Element: Wood

  Cultivation Requirement: Saint – Nascent Sprout Stage

  Down-To-Clown: Self-aware sapiosexual, curious but cautious

  ═════════════════════════════════════════════════════

  Description

  "From the fractured bough of an Astral World eldergrove that once dreamt itself into sentience, the Verdant Rootbludgeon was carved only after a decade of whispered permission. Its wood weeps sap at dawn and drinks the dew of thoughts."

  Used primarily by staff-wielding cultivators attuned to the element of growth, recovery, and patient wrath, the club amplifies harmonic resonance between the wielder’s intent and the natural world.

  Effects

  ? +22% Spiritual Regeneration Rate

  ? +28% Effectiveness to Barkskin or Wood-Type Defensive Techniques

  ? Grants “Thornburst Echo”: On striking an enemy, embeds latent seeds of psychic thorns that erupt after a 3-second delay, dealing minor psychic damage and spreading disorientation.

  ? Enhances compatibility with Rootstyle martial arts by 1 tier.

  Functionality:

  The Rootbludgeon is heavy but warm, like a grandfather’s embrace—or the promise of revenge carried patiently in bark. When swung, it hums with a harmonic drone, and striking the earth causes mossy patterns to bloom in a 3-meter radius. When held, it feels like a living thing trying very hard not to shiver with anticipation.

  Down-To-Clown:

  Technically, you can insert a finger into the knothole near the root base and whisper your safe word. If the Maul vibrates back in Morse code, consent is given. From there, its sap-resonance lattice responds to rhythmic stroking and warm breath along the spiral notches near the grip-root junction. Initiating a ‘growth communion’ ritual (see p.142 in Pollinate Me Gently, My Warden-Branch), cultivators can coax the bio-wood into a softened pliability ideal for intimate exploration. Stimulate the root base while whispering compliments to encourage full woodflower bloom during climax, where it releases a burst of spores that smell like cedar and taste like bittersweet apology.

  Relationship Status:

  Prefers long walks in sun-dappled forests, gentle dominant lovers, and partners who aren’t afraid of mutual rooting. Gets off on muted emotional intimacy and intense courtship displays.

  Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  Gets flustered by direct eye contact but secretly fantasizes about being used in a three-way with a watering can and a dryad.

  Final Warning:

  Do not lie to it about your affinity with nature.

  If you fake a connection to plants, it will sulk, rot slightly in the rain, and begin whispering unflattering truths about your lovemaking during sparring.

  Tell it it’s pretty every full moon or it’ll lose structural cohesion mid-fight “just to see if you notice.”

  Bonus:

  ? Hidden Talents: Can photosynthesize positive affirmations into temporary defense buffs. Occasionally sprouts strawberries in battle.

  ? Has a moaning frequency during impact, which some would describe as satisfyingly needy.

  ? Mood: Quietly hopeful. Yearns to be held. Slightly smug about knowing more about lichens than you do.

  ═════════════════════════════════════════════════════

  Aster stares at the glowing interface window like it has just propositioned him. Because technically… it has.

  He blinks.

  Then again.

  Then very slowly turns to Musa, face drained of blood and possibly faith.

  “…Did your scan mention ‘pleasurable knot structure ideal for post-mating rituals’?”

  Musa doesn’t even pause. “No.”

  Aster’s voice goes high. “Did it suggest I stimulate the root base while whispering compliments to ‘encourage full woodflower bloom?’”

  “Nope.”

  “It told me the club’s ‘moaning frequency during impact’ was ‘satisfyingly needy.’”

  Musa bursts out laughing. “I told you, you’d regret it!”

  Aster holds up both hands like the scan is a wild animal. “You didn’t say it had a down-to-clown tab telling me in graphic detail how to have sex with sentient objects!”

  Musa doesn’t respond; he’s too busy cry-laughing to even try.

  From deep inside Aster’s skull, the scroll pipes up:

  “That club wants you to be vulnerable. You strike better when you let it see the real you. Consider crying. It likes that.”

  Aster visibly recoils.

  “It has… opinions on my emotional availability, Musa.”

  “Let me see what the scan is supposed to say,” Musa wheezes between tears, flipping through his own scan results. “Mine just says ‘wood affinity, +22% regeneration, don’t use base underwater.’”

  “A base is just a root,” the scroll purrs. “And every root deserves to be nourished.”

  Aster screams. Silently. Internally. With the weight of a thousand cursed incantations and one too-trusting wallet.

  “I need to uninstall it. Now!”

  “You can’t uninstall it, I warned you! A soul-bonded Nootropic-Program directive is pretty permanent by itself, but Blenkinsop’s Consent Clause was his specialty—he believed consent was a contract for lifelong commitment.”

  “I will chisel it out of my frontal lobe.”

  Musa grins. “Nope. It’s there forever. Just you and Blenkinsop. Till death or climax do you part.”

  “That’s the spirit!” the scroll cheers. “Now go touch something knotted. Let’s see if it throbs.”

  Aster clutches the sides of his head. “It’s like being haunted by a horny nature documentary.”

  Musa claps him on the back. “Maybe you’ll learn a thing or two.”

  Aster rants the rest of the way, arms flailing like he’s exorcising capitalism through interpretive dance. His earlier silence—tight-lipped and price-tag shell-shocked—has cracked into a full emotional spill now that the worst is, allegedly, behind him.

  Lena looks up from her reading, perched on a low stone bench beneath a flowering arc of moonvine. Her lips twitch. “So I take it someone got introduced to the cost of cultivation.”

  “I am never going shopping again,” he declares.

  Aster points over his shoulder like the market is a war crime. “That place tried to sell me closure. Closure, Lena. Like grief came in sampler packs. I saw a guy offering emotional healing by the cup. Actual brew-your-trauma tea. There were afterlife loans. I’m one bad decision away from my soul being repossessed.”

  Lena stands, closing her book with a soft snap. “You’ll be fine.”

  “No, I won’t. I’m one cursed artifact away from radicalizing,” Aster says, dead serious. “Next thing I know, I’m torching a karma bank and unionizing the damned. I clicked on a scroll because it was 97% off and now it’s installed in my soul, whispering pickup lines at amphibians and giving me mating-based battle strategies.”

  “It flirts. With me. With fauna. With staffs. And then I get told I can’t uninstall it because of a consent clause. Lena, I’m being spiritually negged by a ghost pervert and it knows my pheromone profile.”

  He leans in, wild-eyed. “It told me how to stimulate a staff for mutual rooting, Lena.”

  She blinks. “Was it wrong?”

  “Technically? Not the point! Morally? I feel like an inappropriate uncle just took over as my main guardian.”

  Musa, grinning like he’s just watched a live-action morality play starring his favorite idiot, claps him on the back. “We’ll help you avoid the worst of it.”

  “Great,” Aster mutters. “At least I’m not alone. Just possessed.”

  From deep inside his skull, the scroll purrs, “Technically, we’re bonded. I prefer the term soulmates.”

  Aster makes a sound like someone losing a custody battle in slow motion.

  Lena tilts her head, a thought seeming to come to her. “What did that scroll specialize in again?”

  “Beast and Artefact Courting. But not the kind that helps in combat. The kind that evaluates mating rituals for compatibility and occasionally suggests I earn trust through vulnerability and when to insert a finger into a knothole and how to interpret its consent through rhythmic Morse code vibrations.”

  A pause.

  Then, very softly, Lena: “…Oh no.”