Chương 507: B8—Chapter 14: Six Bummers and Good Times

Once the lake unfroze and everything around it bloomed in the full colors of spring, we got back on the boat and returned to Mili (the river) to continue heading north. We reached the Gate at the end of summer. We could have made it faster, maybe even by midsummer, but I wanted to properly test my new healing artifact. Our first stop was a big city about two weeks upriver, right before the river bent sharply left and emptied into the sea, forcing us to abandon water travel and continue on land.

The city sat on an important trade route from the islands, and we actually had trouble finding a place to dock the boat. Eventually, Mahya cursed, did a U-turn, and steered us away from the city. Once we were back in open country, she stored the boat, and we flew in under Invisibility. Mahya went off to look for new horses we could hitch to my core-carriage, while I went hunting for a decent middle-class inn.

From experience, those were the best places to advertise healing services without attracting rich people with demands. This time, before actually healing anyone, I pressed the new healing artifact against their bodies first, just to see what it would do. That experiment immediately taught me a few things I really should have thought through beforehand. The first problem showed up fast. A family arrived with two kids who clearly had something similar to influenza.

Feverish, runny noses, sore throats, the whole miserable package. The artifact did absolutely nothing. I rubbed my face, disappointed, but not truly surprised, once I stopped and thought about it. The thing worked on the principle of regeneration. Disease healing, though, was a different beast entirely. That was more about the immune system doing its job than about repairing damaged tissue.

Even though the artifact pushed the affected areas—the nose and throat—into full regeneration mode, it didn't touch the actual root of the problem. The kids still felt awful, only now their noses were orange, not red from blowing them raw. Bummer. Of course, I healed them the regular way and kept experimenting. The next disappointment came not long after. The artifact did nothing for bad teeth. I hadn't really expected it to, but that didn't stop it from being frustrating. This world had a lot of dental trouble.

I eventually figured out why when we worked in the orphanage. They simply didn't have the concept of brushing your teeth. No brushes, no powders, not even wiping them down with a cloth. Food debris just stayed there until something started hurting. Some of the items Al prepared for them, and taught the new Alchemists to make, were actually toothpaste and mouthwash. Not like anything from Earth. His versions were clearly inspired by what he had grown up with, but they did the same job.

Titi was convinced that once the idea caught on, it would become the orphanage's best-selling product. I personally thought they were awful, but I kept that opinion to myself. The toothpaste was actually a tooth powder, and the taste reminded me of a mix between licorice and cooked coriander. Both those things were great on their own, but combined? Ugh. Even worse, the powder left a stingy aftertaste that lasted for at least an hour and colored everything I drank or ate afterward with a lingering licorice flavor.

The mouthwash wasn't much better. The taste was quite similar, only with celery mixed in. The one advantage was that the aftertaste didn't last nearly as long. Despite my strong dislike of the stuff, everybody else loved it, even Mahya, who preferred it to the toothpaste from Earth. Yes, we still used toothpaste. She didn't have the Clean spell, and I liked the minty freshness. Unfortunately, even with potential proper dental hygiene, there wasn't much I could do once a tooth was damaged. Teeth didn't regenerate.

Enamel especially. Once it was gone, no amount of "grow it back faster" magic was going to fix that. Second bummer. The third issue took a bit longer to notice, but it was the most important one. The artifact didn't work on non-infectious diseases. This world didn't have cancer or diabetes, thankfully, but it had its own equivalents. Heart and lung conditions, mostly, along with a number of autoimmune disorders. From a medical standpoint, it made sense. The artifact pushed regeneration. It repaired damage.

But missing or damaged tissue didn't cause those diseases. They were systemic problems. Organs wearing down over time, immune systems attacking the wrong targets, bodies malfunctioning at a regulatory level rather than a structural one. You couldn't regenerate your way out of that. Third bummer. This one with a growl. Once we got back on the road, Mahya and Al drove most of the way, and I went back to my wood slabs and script books, looking for solutions.

I remembered all the symbols once I had learned them, but still. It was a lot like learning a language. Once you learned a word, you knew it and knew how to use it in a sentence, but sometimes it sat at the tip of your tongue without quite passing through your lips. I was hoping to find something like that. Something already there, just waiting to surface. I found nothing. Fourth bummer.

Still, not one to be discouraged—no matter what everybody else claimed—I kept playing with magic script until I built a symbol puzzle anchored on the idea of Perfect. From that core, I split it into three lines of script meant to fix anything that was not perfect. One handled damage that required regeneration, such as wounds or fractures. One targeted infectious diseases. The third addressed non-infectious diseases. Teeth, however, still stumped me. I learned that teeth do grow over time, just very slowly.

But pushing that process into overdrive felt wrong. I strongly suspected it would interfere with a lot of other systems in the body, not to mention cause damage elsewhere. In the end, I had to give up on the idea. Fifth bummer. By the time I had the new artifact ready, we had already crossed to the next continent, Nimir. Surprise, surprise, the capital city was also called Nimir. And the biggest river on the continent, which was smaller than the major rivers on the other two, was also called Nimir. Yeah. No words.

There, I tested the new version, and it worked better. The healing still wasn't immediate like a spell or fast like a potion, but it was miles better than anything they had, so it was an instant hit. The chain of symbols was fairly complicated and took a lot of time to make, so I couldn't produce many of them, but whatever I managed to finish before the next stop sold like fresh buns, along with all the light plates I had made over the autumn and winter. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere.

Support the author by seeking out the original. Still no class offer. Sixth bummer. Al devised a new item, too, and Mahya and I couldn't quite figure out how he had come up with the idea. It was the most not-Al item we could imagine. He invented a metal plate meant to be hung inside coops, one that doubled the number of eggs each chicken laid. Or, well, tokoko, which were similar enough to chickens to earn the proud name.

By the way, each continent had its own distinct language, but all of them had tokoko, and the name was exactly the same everywhere. I finally broke down and asked him, "How did you even think of it?" He looked down his nose at me.

"It is a logical idea. I am surprised you did not think of it." I was sure there was more to it, but Al was Al. The secretive bastard. Mahya still sold the same wooden items as before. Heat-keeping bowls, food storage crates, wooden toys, etc.

"Don't you want to invent something new?" I asked her. She waved me off.

"I'll let you boys do all the innovative work. I stick with the classics." I snorted.

"Classics, right. You came up with those ideas last year." She made a face and sniffed dismissively, copying Al.

"Details." Toward the end of summer, we finally made it close to the Gate, with one last town on the way. We stopped there to sell the remaining items, since we had no idea what world we would reach next or whether there would even be any demand for our new inventions, and to sell the horses, which I did not put into a food coma with lettuce this time. After that town, it was nothing but wild nature all the way to the Gate.

Once we got there, we learned it was only a few days before the end-of-summer festival, which was a big deal in this world. We heard about it back in Mili as well, but didn't stay for it then, since we were itching to be on our way. This time, I insisted we attend. I wanted to at least experience some of the culture before we moved on. On the day of the festival, I expected things to start in the evening. They started in the morning.

We stayed at an inn on the main road, and the moment we came downstairs, the noise hit me first. Voices outside, laughter, music already drifting in from somewhere farther down the street. The inn smelled different too, sweeter somehow, like fruit and fresh bread instead of last night's stew. The innkeeper was waiting by the door with a tray. He pressed a wooden cup into each of our hands, filled with a dark red juice that smelled of berries.

"May the blessing of autumn enrich your fields and rain prosperity upon your lands," he said, smiling so broadly it creased his entire face. I blinked at him, cup halfway to my mouth. I had no idea if there was a proper reply to that, and my brain stalled out completely. Mahya saved the day. She lifted her cup slightly and said, "May every blessing you offer us return to you manyfold, with the blessing of the Protector." The innkeeper's smile widened even further.

He nodded, clearly pleased, and made a broad, welcoming gesture toward the open door.

"How did you know what to say?" I asked, lowering my voice as we turned away. She lifted one shoulder in a casual shrug.

"I talk to people."

"I do too," I griped, trailing a step behind her. She glanced back at me with a flat expression.

"Apparently not about the right subjects." I didn't have an answer, so I stuck my tongue out at her. She laughed and gave me a light shove. Al and Rue exchanged a glance, and both shook their heads, as if we were ridiculous. It seemed that everybody was in a good mood today. Outside, the streets were full of stalls, people selling just about everything imaginable. Most of it was arts and crafts, but not all of it.

Fruits and vegetables, tokoko chicks, homespun fabrics, clothes, pelts, and much, much more on every street and corner.

"We should have kept some items to sell at the festival," Al said.

"I'm glad we didn't. I'd rather enjoy it than work," I said. Mahya didn't offer an opinion. She was too busy inspecting an embroidered scarf. Rue was already gone, racing down the street with a group of kids he'd made friends with over the last few days. Besides the stalls, there were people playing music on street corners all over town. Most of them played a string instrument with a narrow body and four strings, but some played flutes, each a different type. Drums were everywhere.

The kids mostly jumped and danced around the drummers, while the adults very clearly avoided those areas. I personally saw two people move their stalls as soon as a drummer claimed a corner. For half the day, we wandered through town, moving from stall to stall and looking over the offerings. Nothing really stood out as special or exciting, but it was still interesting to see what a town like this produced and what people considered worth selling. By early afternoon, the mood shifted.

People started bringing out tables and setting them right in the middle of the streets. That was when it finally clicked that we hadn't seen a single cart or horse all morning. The roads had been left open on purpose. As we walked, women came out of their houses carrying covered dishes. They set one down on the table on their own street, then moved on to the next street to drop off another, and then another.

"You have something ready?" Mahya asked.

"Yeah," I said.

"I was just thinking of giving them some to get in the spirit." I didn't have a lot of food ready, but I did have some. On one street, I set down a plate of cookies, which earned me a stink eye from Al. I lifted an eyebrow and waited to see if he would admit, once again, to his cookie addiction, but he didn't say a word. I got a pang of sympathy—probably the good mood getting to me—clapped him on the back, and told him telepathically, sparing him Mahya's teasing,"Don't worry. I'll make you new ones."

He pretended not to care, but I knew him. He cared. About cookies, he definitely cared. On another street, I set down a pot of devil rabbit stew, and on the next one a mushroom quiche. That earned me another side-eye from Al, but this time it was far less murderous. He definitely loved his mushrooms, just not the way he loved cookies. After dropping off the food, I felt entitled to sample in return, and that's exactly what we did until evening. We moved from table to table, tasting everything.

Savory dishes, sharp local cheeses, various kinds of cured meats, then cakes, pastries, and fruit desserts that tasted like late summer. Rue wasn't with us, but I was sure he was getting his fair share of sampling too. Otherwise, he would've shown up and demanded to be fed. Once that thought crossed my mind, along with the memory about the size of his portions, I checked my Storage to see what else I could contribute to help cover the glutton.

In the evening, people dragged the tables to the sides of the streets and lit bonfires. The musicians regrouped, no longer scattered on corners, but gathering together near the fires. Once the flames were going, they switched to fast songs, and people danced in wide circles around the bonfires, shadows leaping along the walls. Men came out of their houses carrying bottles and barrels, setting them down right in the streets. I was honestly glad to see that.

I hadn't found much to contribute that would cover Rue's consumption, but I did have something else in abundance. Or rather, we did. Alcohol. It took me a few minutes to decide what to give them. At first, I almost rolled out a barrel of beer, but then I had a mental image of Rue staring at me with accusing eyes. Next, I considered a barrel of whiskey, but stopped myself. Al's nerves had already suffered enough from the cookies and the quiche. There was no reason to give away his favorite drink too.

I personally liked good wine with dinner, and I still hadn't come across anything worthy in any of the worlds we'd traveled through so far. In the end, I gave up on the barrel idea altogether and set out bottles of sweet liqueurs we didn't really like, placing them on every street we visited. That choice earned me approving nods from both Mahya and Al. Phew. Later, we joined the dancing circles. Sometimes I jumped in alone, and sometimes Mahya dragged me along with her. Al didn't stoop so low.

Not my words, but his thoughts. I could almost hear them. I thought about singing as well, but in the end didn't. There were a couple of bards at the festival. They were easy to spot, with better instruments and better voices, but they played alongside everyone else. I didn't want to encroach, so I stayed on the sidelines and enjoyed it as a tourist rather than a performer. It was a good festival.