David and Niala not-quite-ran through the market, gathering everything she needed for a cubed beef roast with veggie mash on the side, and spring-berries crumble for dessert. She also picked up some uncooked bread dough from the baker's, planning on making oven-fresh loaves to go with the meal.

  David managed to somehow not salivate.

  They rushed back home and began prepping everything on the double, both of them dancing around each other in the kitchen as they did.

  It was only once everything was ready and slowly cooking that they realized they had barely spoken to each other during their time in the kitchen, and yet had felt as if they did.

  They looked at each other, puzzled, but also excited in the way a researcher gets excited when they don't get their expected result, hinting at something new hiding just under their nose.

  They were pulled out of their thoughts when they heard the door open, followed by Leandro greeting Linzy, and then by a feminine voice they did not recognize.

  Niala grinned in victory and sauntered to the storefront, David shaking his head and following.

  They walked on Leandro, wearing his usual noble's jacket and pants, flanked by a tall and intense-looking bronze-skinned woman with straight black hair, adorned in a blue silk patterned tunic and pants, with piercing amber eyes and an aquiline nose, a line of small golden loops adorning one of her ears. The woman noticed Niala and David and angled her head toward them, yet said nothing.

  Leandro spotted the woman's reaction and turned to see his two pupils, his mouth drawing in a wide smile.

  “Boy! Girl! Please meet my academy friend, Marshalla Airenne. A formidable woman with the mind of an owl, and the temperament of a rose.”

  The woman, Marshalla, threw a piqued eyebrow at Leandro before offering an amiable smile and small bow to them.

  “Greetings, David and Niala. The caveman has told me much about you. I was eager to make your acquaintance, and just as eager to start investigating those gifts of yours.” She said with a somewhat nasal voice and clipped words.

  Niala's eyes flashed as she was reminded why this woman was here, just before she offered her a smile in return. “Welcome to our home, Marshalla! I'm so very grateful that you came all this way from Abassara! It's quite a trip, and this town is nothing like the Great Desert Gate!”

  The dark-skinned woman quirked an eyebrow. “You have seen Abassara?”

  Niala nodded. “When I was little, my father brought my sister and me there as part of a business trip. It was such a nice city, with all the waterfalls and gardens!”

  “Aaah, you visited the water district. It is a favourite of visitors after all. It is true, Abassara has many beauties to see. Yet, I find myself enjoying this small town. It has its own charm, and the weather is certainly more welcoming than the blistering Abassaran days.” She offered, along with another small bow.

  “As long as it's not winter!” Niala agreed. “Anyway, let's go up to the living room while we wait for the other guests! I made some tuber flats to snack on!”

  “Tuber flats?” The woman asked.

  David nodded. “Salted and spiced crunchy carbs. You won't want to stop eating them.”

  Niala smiled. “That's right! It's a Majestic specialty, Niala-style!” She affirmed before looking between the two guests and at Linzy. “You going to close up and join us soon?”

  The goblin gave a thumbs-up. “You got it, boss. Just a few more minutes, and I'll be up as well. Keep me some flats, alright?”

  “No promises,” David said.

  Niala gave him a small slap. “You'll have your plate, Linzy!” She said, turning and leading everyone upstairs.

  The four of them made small talk while devouring the flats, Marshalla finding them to be quite to her taste, especially the spicier ones. Linzy soon joined them, and they settled in to wait for, at the very least, Karline. They had sent Jordo to go find and invite her, as well as Anaakendi and Hodge, but he hadn't come back yet.

  While waiting, they learned a bit more about Marshalla and her story with Leandro. They had, as the man had said, met at the Amberose Royal Academy, both being minor nobles, and had found in each other a similarly driven individual who sought excellence. They drove each other with a friendly rivalry that never quite went away, even when they themselves did, and had kept in touch over the years, meeting a few times.

  Much to Niala's chagrin, they had never been romantically interested in one another, both more than content with simply having a like-minded friend while they focused on their own careers.

  David figured it made sense; Leandro was known to be a career man. Although he was certain the man must have had a few paramours in his life, they had either all drifted away, or he was better at hiding things than he thought.

  Jordo eventually showed up, with Karline, Anaakendi and Hodge trailing along.

  A Hodge who had imbibed the slick skin potion, and now had moistened, healthy-looking, wrinkled baby skin. David and Niala's brains couldn't reconcile what they were seeing, no matter how long they stared.

  Hodge seemed to believe the two were staring because they were awed by his new appearance, and gave them a great half-toothed smile. The familiar sight of his cataclysmic dentition snapped them out of their trance and back to reality.

  Introductions were then done, greetings were exchanged, and the time for dinner had arrived.

  There was, however, one guest missing.

  David and Niala had debated introducing him, but given that everyone present knew, or would need to know, many of their secrets, they figured it was inevitable they'd meet him.

  So David brought out his marine draconic blue sausage.

  He went to his inner world and triggered a world-ending explosion. A relatively small one.

  A savage rip in reality appeared in the middle of the living room, capturing everyone's attention, the hair on the back of their neck rising in alarm, as a singular bead of cold sweat rolled down their temples, their minds unfurling at the edge, and-

  A pony-sized Leviathan was pushed through the tear like scaled blue dough, inflating to its normal form, regal and powerful. The jagged hole in reality was nowhere to be seen. The room's atmosphere returned to its benign mundaneness.

  Under wide-eyed stares and silent mouths, David introduced his new friend.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “This is Leviathan. He's my mana. Say hi, Levi.”

  The sea serpent looked from his lord to everyone assembled and bowed his head. “Greetings, honoured friends of my Lord.”

  The room erupted in questions.

  Except for Karline.

  She stared into the distance and kept eating flats.

  It wasn't worth it.

  They managed to corral everyone to dinner, where Niala's food helped shut everyone up, and other topics were broached, including a recount of the hosts' trip and especially the more exciting events, such as the kidnappings.

  Leandro was both angered and disappointed at the nobles playing their little games still, while everyone else just listened to what was, all things told, an interesting story.

  Niala handed out little souvenirs from their trip, which she had accumulated over the towns they had passed; mostly thoughtful little things, such as soaps, lotions, candies or snacks, and spices.

  The bells rang on, and everyone went back home late at night, with promises that David would answer questions about Leviathan in the coming days.

  The table was cleared, dishes were cleaned, and beds were filled.

  Exhausted after their trip, and the last-minute dinner preparations, David and Niala drifted off to sleep, entangled together, as usual.

  They were back home.

  Leandro walked beside Marshalla, escorting her back to her lodgings.

  Not that the woman needed protection. He had introduced her to the pleasure of physical training back at the academy, and it was an activity she practiced to this day. Under those silken clothes lay hidden a well-toned body. The escort was a matter of chivalry.

  And, he also knew that, after meeting David and Niala, she had questions that he had better answer as soon as possible.

  “Have you known about the boy's ability long?” She asked, looking ahead as they walked.

  There it is. “If you mean his... summoning, no. I learned of it at the same time as you, although I knew he was attempting to perform such an act.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Mana corruption. From what they learned between Jordo, the rat, and the fairies, corruption can be staved off when you regularly deplete your mana reserves.”

  That caught her attention. She turned her head toward him. “Do they have empirical evidence? It aligns with the theory that the reduction in corruption cases coincides with greater mana usage.”

  He shook his head. “I am not certain. Jordo seems to hold some records from his time. The empire which created him was apparently plagued by corrupting individuals. I believe the fairies would have more significant insights.”

  She let her gaze linger on him for a few seconds, returning her sight forward. “I would like to have access to those.”

  He snorted.

  She spun her head in his direction. “What!?”

  “I could have never guessed you would like to see research papers.”

  With a humph, she turned her head back forward. “I at least have kept up with my studies, unlike someone I know who let all of his brilliance funnel into punching things.”

  “Someone has to punch things, Marsh.”

  “Didn't have to be you, Leo.”

  He sighed. “Can we stop that argument now? We've been having it each time we met since the academy.

  She looked at him from the corner of her eye and mumbled. “Doesn't make it any less true.”

  Leandro rolled his eyes. You KNOW I can hear you...

  “Just ask the next question burning your tongue.” He moved on.

  “Hmm, fine. The girl, your letter said she had inherited an incarnation's abilities.”

  “From what we know, she did, although we do not know how. That also was not a question.” He pointed out.

  She spared him a glance. “No, I guess it wasn't. Fine, then. The donor, was it the older woman? Anaakendi?”

  Leandro quirked a brow. “It is. Did you just guess? Or...?”

  Marshalla brought a hand to her earrings. “These are imbued as mana sensors, tuned to various types of resonances. They tell me much, including that the girl is hiding something else.”

  He tilted his head. “Hiding what?”

  She shook her head. “I do not know.”

  A voracious smile splayed across her face.

  “Yet.”

  Over the following days, David went and took ownership of the warehouse, workshop and transport autocar, as promised by Caleb.

  He then promptly had them transferred under Niala's name. This was all for her Old Woman empire, after all. He had no use for it himself.

  Jordo also informed them that Totori had sent word that their first shipment of herbs was ready for transport, and that she would be sending over the hundred crates as soon as they were ready.

  This led to the need for a workforce. Thankfully, Riverwall had a relatively large population of transient workers in the form of adventurers. Most of them were here because they couldn't hold a job, didn't want to hold a job, or were outright minor criminals on the run, but a dozen of them to move crates for a single day... that should be doable.

  He delegated the cartage oversight to Jordo, while he went to make a Courier posting to help find a few workers for Niala's new enterprise, either local or willing to relocate, and hashed out the contracts with Linzy.

  Throughout all of this, Niala mainly did her best to ignore what David was doing, somehow still managing to convince herself the drink was just a fad that would die out eventually.

  But she didn't know.

  She had never acquired the taste.

  On her side, Niala busied herself with restocking her potion stores and, perhaps more importantly, ran tests on Lychee.

  The Bumblemoss seemed mostly unaffected by its continued consumption of random potions, with a few, mostly behavioural, exceptions.

  For one, the creature was displaying much expanded mental faculties. Where it had once been rather mindlessly pursuing sources of nourishment, it was now clearly listening to Niala and Linzy, and reacted to its surroundings in a way that hinted at an awareness of the self. Whether this was due to its bigger size or to the intake of potions, Niala was unable to tell.

  Secondly, it had developed a pronounced taste for potions, to the point where it mostly refused to drink plain old water if it could at all have access to some of Niala's brews.

  The last, and most equally disturbing and interesting change, was found when Niala decided to use the opportunity to give Lychee a “trim”, rounding off the moss into a smoother, more pleasant shape. As she was sweeping up Lychee's shavings, she got curious and decided to test them for alchemical compounds.

  They came back positive, in an impossible way. Not all shavings were equal, but they all had compositions that did not make sense, holding opposed compounds in a seemingly stable arrangement, something Niala had only been able to accomplish using her weaving.

  The implications were breath-stealing. If Lychee were accumulating the leftover potions' compounds into its body, then it would be possible to feed her specific potions, containing specific compounds, to create impossible ingredients.

  What's more, the fairies had been clear in their instructions: when you trimmed a bumblemoss, the shavings had to be burned, or you risked finding new bumblemosses growing out of them.

  Niala instantly envisioned a farm of Lychees, fed various combinations of potions, each one turning a different colour and producing shavings with curated compound contents.

  This could...

  This could revolutionize compound alchemy.

  No!

  The whole of alchemy! No longer would they need to collect specific ingredients! If they could grow bumblemoss with the compounds they needed...

  This needed more research. A lot more research.

  Niala turned her gaze toward Lychee, a hungry glare in her eyes.

  The bumblemoss discovered it could feel foreboding, though it didn't know that's what it was called.