Alchemical transactions

Tricia had trouble reconciling the readings from her equipment and the low tech set-up that had been used to create what she was analyzing.

"You said that this is made of various secretions of your dryad?"

"Yeah, her breasts produce it instead of milk. But lately she also harvested some from the spirit tree of her glade, I think." John left out the other way it was produced by Sylvia, since it wasn't used when she needed to collect a lot of it anyway.

"I presume that the initial fluid is already charged in Life and Nature energy, as well as having a few interesting biological and chemical properties. It has a pretty high sugar content, but it also seems to contain a lot amino acids and minerals necessary for animal and plant consumption. Someone could survive on only this for months if not years and be perfectly healthy. Marvellous! I never heard of this aspect of the dryad species. Then you alchemically purify and concentrate it, before enchanting it, making it even more potent!" The powers of this young mage seemed absurd yet worked. It should have taken him years of studies in old libraries, experimenting for months to get this result. He would have had then to travel to an already existing realm containing real dryads rather than to create an unstable illusion barrier whose content was doomed to disappear on short notice and couldn't leave it anyway. Negotiations with tree spirits to literally milk them or touch their spirit trees were a recipe for slaughter. This boy cornered a whole market, he would have a monopoly on such a product and while there existed similar or even superior healing products on the market, they all were really expensive and difficult to produce.

"I think it could be a good source of income for my kingdom. There is something I thought about, given the sugar content, do you think it would be easy to make some **** from it? Life infused liquor might fetch an even higher price than our current dryad elixir."

"That's... very clever. It wouldn't be hard, but we would need to set up a sort of alembic, a bigger one than the small thing you have. My equipment can accomplish more advanced work than yours and in a sense do larger batches of your elixir, up to the enchanting part that you will have to do yourself. But it isn't designed for making liquor or industrial scale production. This is really exciting; you have a flair for business. I'll come up with a way to improve your current recipe and list what we would need to make it large scale; I'll send you the specs soon."

"So, you wanted to study the fauna and flora of my kingdom, where do you want to start?"

"There's just too much to see. What was that creature who called us for lunch? And what is the material that you used to create the suit that the fire cursed elf is wearing? And what is with your bed?"

"Ohh, that's Algernon. You see there were mice in my castle, as one of the kingdom's perk is that when I gain what it calls an element, it adds a species to the ecosystem. So, yeah... I have a summoning spell, it's pretty crappy, summons mostly small useless creatures for short amounts of time for a huge cost... One of them was some sort of super intelligent lab rat, and he... Well... Most of the rodents alive now who survived the war they wage against the insects living in the tunnels are his descendants. And later I used spells to upgrade one of them, Algernon, and he is now the patriarch of some kind of super rats. Do you want to see him?"

"When you say that you upgraded it, what do you mean by that?"

"I have a biomantic spell which allows me to modify parts of living creatures. The base function is to increase or decrease size and performance, but I unlocked the ability to increase some characteristics. The truth is that the effects were a lot more pronounced on these rats than what they should have. You can come in, Algernon! Please remove your armor and approach."

Algernon raised from his hiding place in the stairs and entered the lab, shedding his armor and letting it lie on the floor.

"Self is impressionated, none escape the vigilantity of the powermost leader. Why is self needed? What assistenance can self bring?"

John pointed at the small platform next to the biological scanner. "Please stand there! My friend would like to check something, it won't harm you."

Tricia blushed, as John had not hesitated one second to call her his friend and he was perfectly truthful in his statement according to her suit's computer. She launched an analysis routine and looked startled, before she turned back to face John and looked at him in a very accusatory way.

"What did you do? Where did you find him? You can't... Did you lie to me?" she nearly screamed at him, in an instant her confidence and relaxed status had vanished, her suit was even sending her warnings regarding her anger.

"Wait! What are you talking about?"

"Self is puzzlated, master of this land is great in truthdom and honnesthood. Why is tenebrous friend of him angried?"

Tricia was taking deep breaths, trying to remain calm, and finally reactivated another limiter. She had obtained enough data from good experiences today that remaining calm was more important than continuing her experiment.

"This... Algernon! He can't exist! He does not make any sense! His outside appearance is rat-like, but internally his bone structure and some of his organs are almost human-like. Don't get me started on his DNA; it's a total mess, it doesn't look like anything I have ever seen! There are bits that look like normal earth DNA and bits that look like some structures found in abyssal creatures, but the rest... The rest either looks totally artificial or should not work at all, and yet he's standing there, perfectly healthy... And you told me that he was able to reproduce! Even if your summoned rat is the source of this... It should not have worked! He shouldn't have been able to interbreed! Did you do something else? Did you lie to me? I need to know! Now!"

John took a step back during her outburst; he could read two emotions on her face. Anger and a sense of betrayal. He felt an urge to hug her and reassure her, but he realized that he had no idea how she would react in her current state. Better defuse the situation first, he thought.

"Listen, Tricia... I have tried to be honest. We have known each other for a short enough period of time that I haven't been able to tell you everything there is to know about me, but in the subjects that I discussed, I have tried to be truthful. You asked me to keep some secrets for you, and you understand that you are not the only one who asked this of me, but even if a subject was something that I couldn't discuss with you because of this, I would tell you. Not the thing you want to know, but that I can't tell you because of a promise that I have made. I told you, I have no idea if the creatures and plants here are normal to begin with, and this summoned rat only lasted 20 minutes, too short to study it in detail. His description did say it was a genetically engineered, super smart rat. If you add up weird kingdom, weird rat and tampering from my powers... I trust you that it looks like a mess. What I find more impressive is that the whole thing is holding together and that Algernon could survive it. Don't you agree?"

Tricia had looked him in the eyes during his answer, he was either honest or the best liar that she had heard of... She had given herself the most advanced means that she could find to analyze what people said and why they said it, and her suit was detecting only honesty, empathy and affection in what he was saying. She had trouble believing it, as it made more sense that he was lying to her, but everything pointed in the other direction.

"Listen, Tricia, let's do a few other tests. Why don't we look at a creature native from this place that I didn't modify, and then at someone from earth that I did modify? By recouping the data you should be able to isolate what is inherent to this place, what is caused by my powers and what came from this weird summoned rat."

"That... That is actually the most rational thing to do... Sorry for the outburst, for losing control, I... I'm not really used to being around people that I can trust, and it seemed like you lied, and... I have been too quick to come to conclusions. I hope that you can forgive me."

"Forget about it, things like that happen to me pretty often, people seem to be thrown off by the fact that I tell them the truth most of the time. Do you want me to go pick some creature outside?"

"You know... I mean it would be logical to start with what we have available. We don't have anything to keep specimens in the lab right now... Wait..." Tricia stopped talking and looked at Algernon, still standing on the scanner's platform as he was ordered to. "You speak weirdly, but why did you call me tenebrous, obscure and somber?"

"Wait it's right, it was bothering me too," added John.

"Simpliciousness exaltened leader, self was referencening the shade of leader friend skin."

"Algernon! What are you talking about? Tricia has white skin and blonde hair, her skin is not dark."

"Oppositely, her fur is goldened indeed, but her skin is black as the darkest tunnel of the down bellow."

"I don't get it, Tricia; they can see in the dark, so I don't understand why he sees your skin of the wrong color."

"John, did you increase their sight?"

"I'm not sure, it works by area, but I did improve his head, which is probably why he can talk, so it could have enhanced his senses too, why?"

"I'm... You know that I told you that I had to be careful about my gift? Well my main defense for it is a suit that I am wearing, it's made of nanites and covers all of my body, and it contains limiters that control the emotional reactions that I have to what happens to me... The reason why I had one eye opening is that I had deactivated some of them for our meeting today... I wanted to see if I was able to handle social interaction without the full array activated. I'm telling you this because I'm feeling hypocritical for calling you a liar while hiding this from you. This suit can take the appearance of skin, with the correct coloring, but in its initial state it is pitch black... Your rats can see it under the coloring somehow, which is something that I had never considered possible."

Tricia hoped that it was a good idea to be honest, well, kind of honest... After what she did, keeping such secrets risked to greatly jeopardize their relationship.

This time, John couldn't resist his instincts. He hugged her.

"I'm really sorry that you have to live like that. I... My social interactions were not the best before I got my powers; in fact many of them were horrible. But not even letting in the small pleasures of life seems dreadful," he brushed her hair with his hand, amazed that the blushing cheeks on her face were not in fact her real ones but some sort of camouflage. "If you ever want to come back and test your limits and what you can do while remaining in control, you are welcome to do so here. You have only friends here, and no risk of it getting out in a public setting. Do you want to continue? Or...?"

Tricia enjoyed being held in his strong arms, more so than they looked she noted, his warm body against hers. The thoughts that she was having were conflicting. The next logical step from a scientific view of things was also really socially awkward. But she calculated that there was a good chance that he would accept it and not think of her as weird.

"There is something that would help me a lot with my studies." Not telling which field of studies she was referring to wasn't a lie, right? "Well, someone actually, You! I had really strange readings when I healed your hand, and I would like to do a more advanced exam of what your powers and the enhancements that you have made have done to your body..."

"So I guess you want me to strip down and get on the scanner." She had expected him to remove his clothes, not to suddenly be naked without any transition. Her blushing was intensifying. He looked really healthy, his body was muscular, but lean rather than bulking out. Her eyes were drawn to the member dangling between his legs, its sized a good hint that it was one of the things that he had enhanced, which might explain the slight hesitation he had when talking about this power. The strange aspect was that he was making no attempt at covering himself. "You know, between Sylvia and the sisters, pretty much no one here wants to wear anything. We were dressed for you, because we had a guest. Vesta's suit is made of a material that I fabricate out of slime material; it helps her go around without risking to burn people. It's the same stuff that I used for the bed. Which makes it a pretty awesome bed by the way," he explained like it was perfectly natural for him to be naked. Tricia wondered how he had shed in a few days life-long instincts and taboos about nudity. Tricia knew about slime, Moira had told her about having had a bad encounter in a barrier full of them recently, but she had not given many details. She had never heard of items made of slime though, how could it work? Was it still alive?

"You're... naked all the time when you're here?"

"Except for when we went in the tunnels or if we have guests, the most I wear is a pair of boxers, but I often don't even bother with that. If it doesn't bother you, could you show me what do you look like under your suit?" Tricia looked at him a bit shocked, but he was standing naked in front of her because he told her that it was necessary to gather data.

"I'm... I look... No one ever sees me like this usually... My skin is very pale, because it doesn't get sunlight. It's not really pretty, you know."

"But it's you. I won't judge you for it. I know you didn't choose this, and I know that I want to help you."

Tricia selected the interface of her suit and made the part covering her head invisible, revealing her true appearance underneath. The pink skin, red lips and traces of makeup disappeared, revealing a face of a sickly white complexion, with dark rings under her eyes like she lacked sleep.

"The real you is still pretty. If you want to take some sunlight in a place where you won't be seen, you are welcome to do it here, and if you want once you get some understanding of my powers and trust in me, I could try to use them to make your real skin look more healthy."

This time John could see her real cheeks blushing. Her face was still pretty, and he was very interested to see if he could help her with her skin color. Seeing a nice girl like her think herself a freak was heartbreaking. He was beginning to think that her discovery of social interaction and the fact that she had chosen him may have some objectives going beyond the discovery of the magic of Friendship, but he wouldn't want to haste anything further than what she was comfortable with.

"Studying some interesting subject, I see!"

Both of them looked in the direction of the stairs and saw Anna standing there, watching them. This might need some explaining.