Chapter One Hundred and Forty-Two - Sap Strength

  To say that I was a little distracted the next day would be something of an understatement. I couldn't stop thinking about Becky's face, and the sparks that went off around her when she... yeah. Also, kissing Jane.

  I could use more of that, actually.

  Shaking my head, I refocused on the now. I was heading in to work. It was Tuesday morning, and today we had... not too much going on. More training, but less physical stuff. The idea being that we shouldn't do complex workouts the day before hitting a portal because it would mean dealing with sore muscles.

  And yeah, I was a little sore from the day before, but a few hits of Soothe Minor Pain kept the worse of it at bay.

  Anyway, when I arrived at work it was to find the office pretty quiet. Whatever training we were going to do today, it was going to mostly be self-study. Probably why I found Sol in the small kitchen area, sitting at one of the tables with a tablet propped up on the desk before him.

  "Hey," I said. "What're you watching?" I figured it was fair to ask if he was listening to some stuff unmuted in a public space.

  "Morning," he replied. "And I'm listening to a report on Brightbarrow's press conference."

  "Oh, the one they did yesterday?" I asked.

  I hadn't seen it yesterday. Or not the yesterday I just lived through. I had seen it the previous time I looped through yesterday, though. It had been twenty minutes of corpo 'it's not us' propaganda delivered by some pretty-enough public relations officer to a room of paid-off journo shills that didn't ask a single pertinent question. I'd clicked off of it.

  "Yeah," Sol said. "I have some BB stock. Was wondering if I should sell it off. It's been fluctuating a lot, lately."

  "Yeah," I said. I came to stand behind him a bit and watched. There was some podcaster-looking dude sitting in front of a green screen, the Brightbarrow PR thing playing behind him while he paused, yapped, then unpaused for a few seconds. "So, what's it all about? I know they crashed a drone in the city."

  "They're saying it's nothing," Sol said.

  "And people are buying that?" I asked.

  "Nah. It's obvious they're up to something, but no one is sure what. Brightbarrow has a huge R&D budget, so it could be important or it could be nothing. They've mostly focused on tech stuff, but over the last couple of years they've been dipping into magical-tech."

  "So what do you think it is?" I asked.

  "Dunno, but it's messing with my portfolio," Sol said.

  Shrugging, I left him to it. Brightbarrow wasn't on my shortlist of suspects at the moment. They were definitely doing something, but I didn't think it'd matter in the long run.

  Maybe in my next week-long loop, I could deep-dive it a little more? There was always a chance, and that was worth looking into, just in case.

  I wandered over to my office, but paused halfway there when I saw Dharti moving by. "Hey," I said.

  "Ah... hello. And good morning. How are you feeling today?" Dharti asked.

  "Good enough," I said. "You?"

  She smiled. "I'm well. Were you coming to me for more advice on your spellwork?"

  "No? But I mean, I won't say no if you have any. I was thinking I could start trying to pick up another first or second level spell. I've mostly got Grasping Growth down."

  Dharti eyed me, then shrugged. "Certainly. Come. We can have breakfast. You shouldn't skip yours like that. Not when you're still so early into a new rank."

  I blinked. How had she known? Was it some Nature mage bullshittery? Actually, it might be. If she had healing spells, then it stood to reason that she had some sort of diagnosis spell as well.

  "Since you haven't gone through medical training yet, I think it would be unwise to try and learn anything in that direction. Would you mind if I offered you a particularly interesting spell?"

  "What spell?" I asked.

  "Hmm, it's a First Level spell called Sap Strength. And it's not the spell I truly want you to learn, but it is one that you ought to learn as a stepping stone."

  I stepped into Dharti's office and took a moment to eye all of the plants all over before moving over to one of the free seats next to the low table that Dharti used for making tea. She moved to the back, opening a small fridge and then popping something into an air fryer that she pulled out of a cupboard. I waited, letting her do her thing. She returned and started to prepare tea.

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  "There's a spell called Mourning Vine. It's a rather powerful Second Level Grief magic spell. Would you like to see it?" she asked.

  "Sure," I said.

  Dharti smiled kindly, then gestured, and one of the taller plants next to her, some sort of spider plant, twisted, and its leaves reached out towards me. Dharti gestured, and I reached over, letting the long leaves wrap around my hand and wrist. They were surprisingly sharp feeling, though they seemed to angle themselves to avoid cutting me.

  Then Dharti made another gesture. "I'm activating the spell, now," she said.

  I started to nod, then let out a surprised sigh. I felt like something was sucking through me, pulling at all of the heat in my arm and leaving it feeling suddenly cool. It wasn't just cold. As I pulled my hand back, I suddenly felt a strong wave of sleepiness pass over me.

  "Oh, that's... unpleasant," I said.

  Dharti nodded, then stood. The spider plant returned to where it had been. "I'll make some tea to wake you up a little. And give you a little pep as well." She tapped my shoulder in passing, and I sat up as a jolt of energy shot through me. It was like taking a few shots of espresso all at once and then licking a battery.

  "Oh, what was that?" I asked.

  "An energizing buff," Dharti said. "Don't get used to it. It's to make up for the loss of energy from the spell I just used." She did something at the counter and I perked up at the smell of something warm and bread-y and very testy smelling.

  "That was Sap Strength?"

  "It wasn't," she said. "That was Mourning Vine. It's a second level spell, but it's one so complex that it's only a hair's breath away from third level. You could spend a few weeks training and practicing to learn it. Seeing your rate of advancement, I'm sure you'd manage it. But if you learn the building blocks first, you'll better understand the mechanics and fundamentals."

  "Right," I said. That made some amount of sense. "So, I need to learn Sap Strength first?"

  "It's a useful spell. It allows you to pull at a person's magical energy, draining it."

  I perked up. "And I get to keep it?"

  "No. That's another spell. A third level one that I'd advise against. It's a very simple spell, first level in complexity, but it's labelled as a third level spell to warn people away from it."

  "Why?" I asked.

  "Because it may well lead to some dangerous temptation," Dharti said. She placed a plate before me. There was some sort of warm bread on it, a large round thing pressed into small round bundles, covered in a layer of melted cheese.

  I reached over and broke off one of the buns, and it came with a string of sauce that smelled like garlic and butter and oh boy, I hadn't realized how hungry I was.

  Dharti served some tea, then sat. "Sap Strength takes magical energy and disperses it. It's a decent way to disable a mage or magic-using foe, though it requires physical contact. Mourning Vine, like Grasping Growth, empowers plants and essentially allows them to cast a version of Sap Strength."

  "So suck people's power away using plants," I said.

  "Yes. But it also loops back around, empowering the plant and the spell itself. It's not a perfect loop, but it does allow you to turn a bit of vegetation into a surprisingly effective weapon and trap without costing you too much magical energy to maintain the spell as long as it can reach a target."

  "Okay, yeah," I said.

  This would have been a nice spell to have in that one portal, with the dinos. Grasping Growth was too expensive to throw around all the time, but this sounded like it only cost more to cast, but sustained itself otherwise. "Alright, so where do we start?"

  "We start by following the text book. Or rather, you do," Dharti said. "Come back to me in a week or two when you have mastered Sap Strength, and we'll see."

  I sniffed, but... yeah, her time was valuable.

  I stole another bread bun though, because they were tasty.

  ***