“Whose bright idea was it to replant this?”

  The group’s heads all turned simultaneously to the same guy who’d suggested they skip the appraisal. Seeing it Felix clicked his tongue.

  “Alright, listen. You have a pretty good find here, not enough to strike it rich but if you didn’t screw it up by replanting it you’d probably all be able to get some upgrades to your gear. That being said, if you take it to a merchant like this you’d be lucky to get even half its real value.”

  The group were now all frowning and more than one of them were shooting glares at the guy who’d suggested they replant it.

  “How was I supposed to know, you all smelled it, that dirt was putrid.”

  Felix rolled his eyes.

  “Yeah, a ravenous bog vine dissolves its prey and uses it to fertilise the soil it grows in. By replanting it you’ve basically starved it, this little guy is too young to survive that for very long and by the looks of it you guys got this one almost three weeks ago.

  Felix looked up and saw the confirmation in their expressions so he nodded.

  “I’m guessing you found it in Yahir’s Swampistry For New and Aspiring Travellers, it’s a surprisingly lucky find considering they normally clear out most of the good stuff themselves. They mostly charge you entry for the experience, while the ‘keep what you find’ policy is mostly marketing bluster.”

  The halfling girl who’d first approached him cleared her throat.

  “Uhm, so what do we do about it? Can we still sell it?”

  Felix looked at her awkwardly.

  “Right, sorry, I got distracted. Scratching his beardless chin in thought Felix looked at them. Alright, how about this, I can help you fix this up, you still won’t get the full value, maybe eighty to ninety percent of what it’s actually worth. You give me five percent of the profits and pay for the materials, that should still net you twenty percent more than you’d get taking it to a merchant as is.”

  The same hapless guy tried arguing again only for the rest of his party to glare him down. It only took a look between them to agree. Felix quickly wrote up a list of ingredients and merchants in the square who would have what they needed. It wasn’t a long list but they’d still need to visit a couple of people to get everything they needed.

  As soon as they read the list they looked a little sick.

  ”What the hell is this?!”

  Felix shrugged.

  “I told you, you’ve starved it. If we want to revitalise it we’ll need to feed it. After we dissolve the slugs we can—“

  Seeing how pale their faces went Felix stopped explaining.

  “Right, just go get the ingredients, I’ll take care of the rest.”

  Without further argument they did as they were told and after half an hour they returned with everything he needed.

  “Why did we need to get biscuits?”

  Already preparing a new pot for the vine, Felix looked at the halfling girl confused for a second before he realised what she’d asked.

  “Huh? Oh, that’s for the next step.”

  Felix added all the slugs into the new pot before pouring a pale yellow powder over them. Immediately they began letting out an agonised screech that quickly died in an uncomfortable gurgle. The putrid smell coming from the pot made even Felix pull back his head and crumple his face in disgust.

  Not wanting to endure it for any longer than necessary he quickly poured in a vial of clear liquid before using a stick to stir the slurry. With that done he put on a glove before he gently lifted the ravenous bog vine from the pot it had been brought in. The vines weakly grasped his gloves, desperately trying to dissolve his arm.

  Felix didn’t want the plant to waste any more of its energy than necessary in a useless struggle, so he quickly asked the gnomish girl to transfer the soil to the new pot before he lowered the vine into it.

  With that done Felix could pull back his arm leaving the vine looking like it was drooping in sadness after losing its prey.

  For the last step of his preparations Felix took a container of little flies from the party and opened it next to the vine. Instead of flying off in every direction the flies all simultaneously dove into the soil, shedding their wings and burrowing into the ground.

  With that done Felix took a step back and observed the plant. Seconds ticked by and turned into minutes before the halfling party leader spoke up.

  “Uhm, could you explain what you just did?”

  “Hmm, ah, sure I can. I turned the slugs into goop that’s pretty close to what the plant uses to fertilise its soil. It should perk up a little bit, then we can ask a plant mage to help speed up the absorption. It should help it recover most of its vigour, at least enough to not affect the price too much. It will be a few months before it's completely recovered.”

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “What about the flies?”

  “Oh, those. They’re nifty little fellows, when in their mating season they burrow into the ground to form nests. They die shortly afterwards, becoming fertiliser. Before they do they’ll make sure the soil is in a good state for their young. They won’t like that the slug goop is pooling at the bottom. Give them a few hours and they’ll spread it throughout the soil making it easier for the vine to use.”

  “Then the biscuits?”

  “Those are for Grandma Flora, give it a few more minutes and then you can take your vine to her. Bring the biscuits along with…”

  Felix raised his hand in a hold on gesture and quickly scribbled out a note.

  “Here, take her this note. Tell her that I’ve treated the plant but I’ll need her help with this.” He said, indicating the note.

  “Tell her I bought her the biscuits to say sorry for not stopping by before sending her work. She’ll know you bought them but just insist I told you not to say anything about it.”

  The gnomish girl looked at him sceptically.

  “If she’ll know then why do you want us to lie about it?”

  Felix looked at her with a straight face.

  “Entertainment. Grandma Flora doesn’t even like biscuits, she’ll probably hand them out to her regulars. She’s been working this market for decades, there’s no one here she doesn’t know and nothing here she hasn’t seen. A little teasing adds some fun into her day and gives her something to chat about with the people that visit her stall. Every person who gets a biscuit will be walking away hearing about how she got them.

  “You can’t mention any of this, of course she’ll know anyway, but it ruins the fun if you spell it out.”

  The whole party stared at Felix flabbergasted after his explanation. He just shrugged.

  “Every regular market is like this, a community forms in the quiet hours when there are no customers. Rivalries and friendships, gossip or complaining about the weather and lack of customers. It’s the lifeblood of any long-time vendor.

  “Anyway, that should be long enough, you can take the vine to her now. Remember the note.”

  The party looked a little reluctant, but they still picked up the ravenous bog vine, and after getting directions, they set out to find Grandma Flora.

  While they were gone Felix went back to napping, it would take them a while to return. His nap was interrupted a couple of times by regulars or other vendors stopping by to say hello. He even managed to sell one of his less valuable plants known for its beautiful yellow flowers to a mother and her young daughter before the party returned.

  Once they did, Felix tracked down a guard and asked him to keep an eye on his stall while he went with the party to sell the bog vine. They had to leave the market to find one of the shops that specialised in buying alchemical plants.

  Felix wasn’t too familiar with them, only having dealt with them a few times in the past but he’d always found them to deal fairly. After a round of intense haggling with the shop complaining about the plant’s depleted state and Felix pointing out its recovery, they managed to sell the plant losing only fifteen percent of its original value.

  The shop was happy as they could spare a couple of months to get it back to peak condition before selling it at full price. Felix was happy as he’d made far more from the sale than he would have from several days of selling plants at the market.

  The only people who weren’t happy was the party, who after seeing how much the plant sold for, realised just how much money they’d lost because they’d listened to the oaf’s idea to replant it. Between the shop offering less and Felix taking his cut for helping them restore the damage they’d lost a considerable sum.

  Still, they walked away having made a hefty little pouch of coins. Felix kindly recommended a few places for them to spend their new found wealth after they figured out how to divide their spoils.

  After his encounter with the party Felix spent four more days at market before Aunt Eirlys managed to arrange a meeting with her gardening club. By then he’d sold off most of his less valuable stock at the market before selling the leftovers to shops around town.

  He didn’t make much of a profit by selling to shops, but he was in a rush to dump his stock. After finding out when the gardening club would meet he arranged passage for him and Menium on a ship heading west. It would stop by a well known natural formation giving him the perfect cover for his journey.

  He managed to negotiate for free passage in trade for consulting on their stock during the journey. Between selling all his plants, the consultation fee from the amateur party and a small fee he paid to get his stipend for the next three months in advance Felix could almost afford another visit to Starfarer Willow’s library.

  With that ready he stocked up on supplies and got ready to set out on his voyage. The date of his departure still somehow snuck up on him faster than he expected, and before they knew it Felix and Menium left Ilmaréth unaware of just how long it would be before they saw it again.

  Author’s note.

  Today’s chapter is a little shorter than I normally like tehm. This just happens to be a really nice place to cut the chapter and will probably be where chapter 1 ends when I compile it into a book once I’m done with vol2. It's a bit annoying that it's a short one as soon as I'm done with my break but it can't be helped. Instead of leaving you with just a short chapter I thought I’d dive into a bit of world building outside of the normal bonus chapter format. This might eventually be another bonus chapter depending on if it comes up again but I think it’s a little unlikely.

  You might recall that Felix and Menium’s journey to Ilmaréth was delayed due to something called a mana tide. Well if you think about it that term doesn’t make a lot of sense and I didn’t explain what it is exactly in the context of the story.

  Well, you can consider a mana tide to be almost equivalent to a storm, they aren’t uncommon and vary in severity, effect and reach. To be clear, normal storms still exist, mana tides are an additional effect.

  You might recall in book 1 there was a story in ‘The basics of mana’ that spoke about a river that suddenly decided to float. In a sense that could be considered a mana tide, though because it’s stationary and permanent it’s thought of as a zone instead of a tide.

  A mana tide happens when a pocket of mana with abnormal behaviour travels across the land, these could have any number of effects. Rocks might suddenly become squishy, swamps could start raining into the sky, light might behave strangely, gravity could become heavier, lighter, or change direction, floating islands might float upside down or trees could suffer from depression.

  Travellers will often seek out mana tides since studying the mana there can lead to insights that would otherwise be hard to come by. Though heading into a mana tide you don’t have the affinity for could be quite dangerous.

  Anyway, sorry for the short chapter. I don’t think I’ll be making more posts like this, though if there’s anything you’re curious about feel free to ask me in the comments. If I can answer without spoiling, I’d love to share.

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