The Newt and Demon - Chapter 4.39 - Therapy

“Well, how am I supposed to do the thing if it isn’t done?”

Sledge gazed up at the unfinished temple. Ziz’s crews were working on it constantly, but it was far from finished. The blocky exterior didn’t look evil. Magnificent? Maybe. At that moment, it looked incomplete, and Theo had not considered what they’d do when they arrived. He snapped himself out of it in a moment, though. There was a reason for them to be there.

“I brought you here to get a feel for your core. How it interacts with the town’s upgrade.”

“Alright, keep your shoes on. Let me see.” Sledge closed her eyes, her wet face twitching occasionally. Vague pulses of mana came from her chest, uncontrolled and unmeasured.

Even the alchemist could feel how unpracticed she was in the [Fabricator’s Core]. After long moments of magical groping, she wrapped her will around the building. It was like a kitten wrapping its paws around prey. “Yeah, I got the system to recognize my connection to the building. It feels like a weaker version of a seed core building to me.”

“Excellent.” Theo clapped his hands together. “Let’s go practice on something that’s completed.”

Within the walls of the town, there were a few buildings that had been built by hand. Theo and Sledge made their way to the shacks that housed the water boilers. There they sat down on the muddy ground, giving the Marshling time to wrap her core’s power around the building again. Unlike the unfinished temple, this one took her a while. The alchemist coached her in the best way he could, helping her feel her way around the magical energies. It reminded him of when he first started understanding his Drogramathi mana, and how he applied it to alchemy.

“I don’t think the system is happy about this building.” Sledge’s eyes were closed, face twisted in a pained grimace. “I’m not getting a message like I normally do with seed core buildings.”

Theo was certain that she had the right skills. Sledge had not been training as hard as she should have, although he wouldn’t blame her. It was hard to expect everyone to be as fervent as him about development. A good leader wouldn’t yell at her for being lazy, they would work with her. So, the alchemist sat down and walked her through the steps of manipulating her mana.

“You have the basics.” Theo sat with her, cross-legged and focusing on his own cores. His intuition said that her technique was wrong. The way he used his mana was one of infusion, or decomposition. She needed to focus on wrapping that mana around the building, then pushing her will into it. “Think of it like a fight. You’re trying to restrain the building.”

This might have been the most troubling building they could have picked. Theo doubted it had a parallel with any seed core buildings. It was a shack that housed boilers, nothing more. Core buildings normally came in flavors of shops, production chain buildings, and so on. But Sledge was relentless with her efforts. Bantari Marshlings had an innate willpower that the other races of the world lacked. More than the Elves, Dronon, Half-Ogres, they were known for their stubborn willpower.

Sledge drank [Mana Potions] as they worked on dominating the boiler shack. It took hours to make progress, but her will seemed absolute. Once Theo presented the problem as a fight, she was all in. The ribbons of mana were now visible to the naked eye. Outside of any magical senses, they lashed against the building like strangling vines. Another hour of failed attempts and the exhausted Marshling screamed.

“You’re mine!” Sledge shot to her feet, holding her hand out with palms opened.

The tendrils of mana formed into solid roots. They wrapped around the building, buckling the shack. It creaked under the pressure of her command, the wood warping slightly. Sledge closed both of her hands and the roots dug deep into the ground. Shimmering with raw, unaligned mana, the building flexed then settled.

“You did it!” Theo shouted, holding his hand up for a high-five.

Sledge slapped his hand weakly, then fell back onto her butt to draw ragged breaths. “Yeah. Hooray for me.”

There was no better time to see if it had worked. Theo examined the new building while Sledge rested on the ground.

[Boiler Shack]

Owner: [Broken Tusk]

Faction: [Southlands Alliance]

Level: 1 (0%)

Rent Due: 7 Days

Expansions:

None

“The ownership defaulted to the town.” Theo probed the building with his senses, but found little there. It seemed somewhere between a hand-built building and a seed core building. He withdrew a [Monster Core] from his inventory and held it near to the building’s wall.

“Wait!” Sledge said, clutching her head. Her face was twisted into a pained expression. “Got a system message when you tried that. There’s a cooldown period for the new building. You need to wait two days before you can add upgrades. Something about the system recalculating for a new building type.”

Theo returned the core to his inventory, his brow knitting his as looked at the shack. “No one has built a [Boiler Shack] in 60,000 years?”

“Can’t wait to bang my head up against the backup shack.”

Theo nodded, his mind drifting off. He didn’t need his intuition to tell him Sledge was acting strangely. She was very easy to work with today. Too open to learning new things, meaning something was off. He joined her back in the mud, withdrawing a clump of [Moss Nettle] from his inventory. “Chew on this. Swallow the juice, not the moss.”

Sledge took it without complaint, shoving it in her mouth and chomping away.

“Anything going on that you want to talk about?”

She fidgeted with her clothes, picking at errant threads. “Growing up, I guess.”

“I don’t even know how old you are.”

“25. Not that bad looking for a 25-year-old Marshling, huh?”

Theo had no frame of reference for how a Marshling should look at that age. Throk had to be at least 50, but he looked just as young as his daughter. He had to search the Tara’hek to see that Tresk was around the same age as Sledge. “You look great. So, you’re maturing? That’s it?”

“Things were bad when you got here. There’s some people in town who say it’s your fault.”

“They’re not wrong.” Theo shrugged. That was a fact. Someone had manipulated the town to suit their needs. It was likely Khahar or Drogramath, but he had long suspected Fenian was involved. He was surprised that more people didn’t see him as the villain.

“Well, that’s not my point. Just taking a jab, you know?”

“I know.”

“Things are more stable here. We got money. We got food.” Sledge was poking around the edges of what she wanted to say.

Theo forced his intuition on her, the same way he bent reality in both Tero’gal and the Dreamwalk. She held something deep in her heart. A hope that she had never shared with anyone.

“What is it you want, Sledge?”

“Babies. Is that weird?” Sledge asked, looking up at Theo with a searching glance. “A clutch of crazy little kids running around town. Tossing mud. Getting stuck in hollowed out logs.”

Theo couldn’t hide his laugh. When she shot him an angry look, he pulled her into a hug. “Everything is stable, so you want kids. That’s totally normal. Who is the lucky Bantari dude?”

“Huh? Bantari can reproduce asexually, my guy. We all have at least once clutch in us. Even the guys.”

“So, how does that work? You just think really hard and you get eggs?”

“Something like that.”

“But you’re still worried about something, aren’t you?” He could feel it in her words. A silent fear for the future? Perhaps it was something else.

“We’re all so busy. Who is gonna raise them?”

Theo pulled her into a more firm hug. “Bob and his educators, for starters. Child care is free, remember? Even if you don’t want to send them off to school every day, you could just force your woodcutters to watch them.”

Sledge looked up with wet eyes. “Yeah? You think it’s a good idea?”

“Absolutely. Have you seen Marshling babies? I want to puke every time I see one—they’re so damned cute.”

A silence set in between the two. They sat on the damp ground, basking in the heat of the day, while they rolled it over in their heads. Perhaps this was always a point of selfish desire from Theo. Now that he knew Marshlings could have babies whenever they wanted, that opened possibilities. Tresk could do it, right? But that would put her out of action, removing her from a vital role. They needed more citizens, no matter the cost.

Sledge stood without warning, pushing away from the hug. “Alright. Come find me when the temple is done. I have a lot to think about.”

What she left behind after leaving was a void where Theo’s thoughts wouldn’t gather. He telepathically told Tresk he was ducking into Tero’gal, then fell through the realms on the spot. Passing over the Bridge of Shadows, he saw nothing out of the ordinary. Even the nothingness that rushed by felt calm, as though the realms themselves were still.

Theo kicked his shoes off when his feet hit the soft ground of the realm. It was silent for a long moment before Belgar’s voice echoed from the other side of the island. Only then did he realize the landmass was bigger. Perhaps only a few paces on every side, but it was noticeable. The alchemist trudged across the floating island, finding his way to the shallow pool of water. There Belgar rested near the bank, his form more solid than ever.

“Good morning, Theo. Is it still morning?”

“Just about midday, actually.” Theo sat near the water, dangling his feet into the pool. “How has the realm been?”

“My thoughts are still forming on the matter.”

Theo wasn’t sure what he thought of Belgar, yet. The impression of the man he got before meeting him was one of a spoiled demon. Someone who had taken pride in his work with nothing to back it up. The reality was far different. Dronon were constantly on the move, typically serving their respective masters. They were the only race he was aware of that was tied specifically to a god. A singular god. Drogramathi Dronon were different from Zagmon Dronon. Drogramath gave the Drogramathi a clear set of instructions.

Run and hide.

That forced Belgar to work with simple tools to perform his alchemy. He never had a building with amazing upgrades. Never had access to artificers to make him new gear. The man didn’t have access to a community. All this struck Theo as a cruel twist by Drogramath. But as with most things involving the heavenly beings, they had plans that stretched on forever.

“Zarali was excited to hear you were alive.” Theo might have fumbled the delivery of that one. She hadn’t even written him a letter, yet.

“She was always the strong one from our brood.”

Theo shrugged. “Time to cheer up. Benton should be—yup. There he is.”

The frigid archway opened up near the pool of water. The bear god, Benton, stepped out with his arms wide. “Greetings!”

Theo sprung up from the pool, his wet feet slapping against the ground. “Good to see a friendly face. How is your realm doing?”

“Very well. We’re working on a few interesting projects. Little domed areas that fight off the constant cold. Not everyone loves eternal winter, no matter if they’re Toora souls or not.”

“Time for tea?”

“Of course!”

Benton and Theo made their way to the cramped cottage. Before long, it was filled with the scent of the potent Toora tea and confections. The alchemist shared the progress they had made in his mortal town. There were concerns about the coming Ogres, but it was nothing they couldn’t handle. Coastal defenses were still lacking, but that would come in time. For now, the alchemist’s mind was focused on building everyone up. That and defending the northern border.

“I’m also thinking of drinking the [Wisdom of the Soul] potion.” Theo dipped a scone in his tea, then took a bite. It was, as always, delicious. Benton required explanation on what the potion did, which the alchemist was happy to do.

“Sounds like you lean on your Wisdom more than anything.” Benton stirred the pot of tea, furry brows rising when Belgar stepped into the room. “Greetings, Belgar.”

“Hello, Benton.” Belgar took his place at the table. His form was corporeal enough to interact with objects at the table. He poured himself a cup of tea and took a scone. “Wisdom is your best bet for the Soul potions. But only because you have this realm.”

Theo nodded. He was happy to see Belgar’s thoughts aligning with his. “Did you experience the negative effects of a high Intelligence when you were on the mortal plane?”

“I did.” Belgar’s ghostly eyes lingered over the table, never locking onto the others’. “That might have been my downfall.”

“I never put many points into Wisdom or Intelligence. Always went for the physical attributes.”

“A wise choice.” Belgar sipped his tea. “You should always take [Intelligence of the Soul] if you don’t have a realm. That’s my thought. Otherwise, Wisdom is the way to go.”

“All my third tier suffuse potions are done brewing for now, Belgar. Should we do another run today?”

“Today?” Belgar asked, his eyes lingering on the middle distance for a while. He snapped out of it. “Ah, yeah. Good idea.”

Benton laughed, slapping his knee. “Hard to remember, Theo. The last time you came here was yesterday. Belgar has been here for quite a few days. A hundred-something days.”

“I let the time slip, Benton. Like you showed me. Otherwise, I would have gone insane with such solitude.” Belgar’s form flickered for a moment, then re-solidified.

Both Beton and Theo picked up on the soul’s troubled thoughts. They didn’t need high attributes or godly abilities to tell them the man was troubled. But they knew that confronting a troubled mind like his directly wasn’t the right way. He might have been holding on by a thread, but it was working. He was too stubborn to release control.

Instead, Theo invited Belgar to inspect his completed third tier potions. They were focused on killing the undead. But they were all test potions, never meant to win the war. Instead, mass-produced potions were the way to go.

“I don’t think an industrial crafting effort like yours has been done for our Lord’s alchemy.” Belgar inspected the completed suffuse potions, nodding with approval. “I would expand your efforts as far as possible.”

“I started working on making third tier potions with your method.” Theo nudged Belgar with his elbow, but the effort passed through the soul’s body. “Had some business to attend to before I started.”

“Well, let me run you through my knowledge. Again.”

Belgar seemed eager to be an instructor. He gave his rundown of how Drogramath made potions. Theo had learned almost everything about base-level potion-making by himself. Gaps were filled by high-level alchemists, but those people were guarded with their secrets. Instead, it was a constant slog through experimentation. But the instructions were more than welcome.

While they could have run third tier potions within Tero’gal, Belgar was more interested in displaying his aptitude of the basics. It was a ploy for him to mess with the custom stills. Theo had to wonder what the man was doing all this time. Sulking in the realm, no doubt. They split their attention between brewing second tier potions, like the [Healing Potions] that sold so well in the shop, and chatting with Benton.

It was a relaxing trip to the realm, but like all things it needed to end. Theo said his farewells after the 12 hours were up and jumped over the side of the island. When he left, Belgar was in much higher spirits. That was achieved in no small part by the alchemist’s constant reminder that Zarali was alive and well. Her thoughts were on her long-lost brother, and he even wrote a note to be carried to the mortal plane.

Theo appeared where he’d left, bumping into someone and falling to his butt.

“Sorry,” Sarisa said, holding a hand out for him to take.

Theo looked down and shook his head. He forgot his shoes again. “No worries.” She reached down, offering him a hand to get up. He accepted. “There has to be at least four pairs of shoes in my realm.”

“Anything interesting happen?”

That was harder to answer than it should have been. “I’m officially the therapist to a Dronon’s soul.”

“Sounds complicated.”

“It is. I’m off to brew some potions.”