§117 Apothecary

 Without a word, they picked their way through the maimed bodies. The amount of blood was very modest, all things considered, and they were able to reach the ground floor without leaving bloody footprints behind them.

"Hold on." Taylor made her wait while he hammered the tiny bell at the reception counter. 

"What are you doing?"

"These people sold us out to slavers. I want a refund."

"Taylor, even if he wasn't in bed with the slavers, do you think he has the courage to come out here and face you? You wrecked his place," she reasoned with him. "That's like a refund. Besides," she jingled a leather purse that definitely wasn't her style. "The leader was loaded. Let's just get out of here."

"Fine. I need a coffee like you wouldn't believe."

When they stepped out into the street, someone was waiting for them.

She was another green-and-wheat colored elf, standing in the middle of the street, dressed in black leather armor with a whip in one hand. Mana-sealing manacles dangled from loops on her belt. Several more elves stood around her, wearing metal armor, bearing pistols. Every barrel was pointed at either him or Ophelia, aimed to wound instead of kill.

The leader, assuming that's who the woman was, gave them a satisfied smile before issuing the order. "Fire."

The praxis weapons used magic instead of gunpowder and were nearly silent. Each one cast a Rock Shot spell on activation, and at least two of them shot elementally-enhanced projectiles. Every shot swerved and missed, redirected by Taylor's Spatial Defense, and impacted against the inn behind him.

His response was instant and final: he swung his greatsword at neck height and loosed a Slice imbued with force, fire, lightning, and thunder. His enemies' necks were obliterated in a shower of blood. The building behind them took the remaining damage. Elven heads thumped to the ground. Their bodies soon followed.

The leader still lived, because she had the presence of mind to duck.

"Not bad," she said as she stood, "but it is your misfortune today to meet with glorious defeat. I am …"

The slaver boss vanished, Elided from existence. She would return when Taylor willed it.

"No monologues before coffee," he complained.

Taylor looked up and down the street to see every door and window closed against the pre-dawn light and sudden mayhem. The building across from him, fatally damaged by his four-element Slice, gradually caved in on itself. Finally, after extended complaints, it collapsed in a cloud of splinters and dust.

People huddled in their homes. Battle fugue clung to Taylor. His sword was ready, but there was nothing to fight. In the sudden quiet, he could feel the Army of Lightness, ready to come to his aid. For Ophelia's sake, he summoned them in a single chord of sound and searing light.

"Jalil, lookout. Tanya, Premi, protect Ophelia. Saria with me."

"What happened here?" wondered Tanya, a bear spirit in purple and white stripes.

"Slavers, we think," said Ophelia. "A lot of them."

Saria followed Taylor to the rear of the inn and helped him drag the prisoners to the front.  He used Slip to make a track that they could be dragged along with ease. He dismissed the bands of scarring light – his enemies were marked enough. Then, he took Saria into the inn and upstairs. They halted at the landing, at the end of a dimly lit hallway.

"Taylor," whispered his best friend. "This is something we should talk about."

"Idiots who start fights with strangers don't get to complain about how the fights end."

"I'm not worried about them. I'm worried about you. You should have called us. You didn't have to do this on your own."

He closed his eyes. Talking helped push away the ruthless edges and brought more thoughts into his head.

"I woke up fighting. I didn't want to stop. I was pretty nice to them, actually, until they said they were slavers. They got hold of Ophelia."

"Ah." Saria filled the hallway with a gentle light. She knelt and examined the stunned, maimed elves. Their missing appendages were healed over with twisted blue and purple flesh. "What did you do to them?"

"I made sure they would remember. If I can't live in secret, then people need to learn what it means to take what is mine."

"Interesting choice of words. What happened to that one?" She pointed at the end of the hall, at the elf with a dagger in his neck.

"Ophelia happened to him."

Taylor made a new track with Slip going down the stairs and across the ground floor. They tossed the prisoners down the stairs and let their momentum carry them into the street.

It took hours for help to arrive, and in all that time, not a soul stirred in town. He could feel the village's population as little mana sources tucked away in basements, attics, and secret rooms. It would be easy to take their fear as a slight for daring to think of him as the bad guy. He was a dangerous stranger to them, taking over the town. Or, the town was in league with the slavers, and they were terrified of his retribution. Either way, Taylor was past caring.

While he waited, Taylor dressed and made the coffee he wanted so badly. He pulled what he needed from his bag and made a large pot, then served it to Ophelia and his summoned spirits at a table covered in a flowery tablecloth surrounded by folding chairs. He lacked pastries, but they toasted bread over a portable hotplate and enjoyed it with butter and Wokehaad jam.

That's how the elven military found them: at breakfast in a silent town.

Their leader was Lady Botei. She wore the ornate robes of elvish nobility and was old enough to show wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and gray in her hair. She had the gravity of a creature who had seen millennia of history. In truth, elves didn't live nearly as long as arcs and beastkin, but they had a talent for wearing their age well.

Ophelia was the first to speak. She presented their papers to the lady's underlings and made it clear exactly who Taylor was, which ambassadors and great spirits he was friends with, and that he had recently carved the magnificent statue of Okanyana, the elven goddess, now residing in the capital's temple. She made it all sound polite and natural, obviating the need to ask, "Do you know who you're dealing with?"

"He came here to seek the advice of a respected apothecary," Ophelia concluded, "and was set upon by slavers in the middle of the night."

The functionary said nothing, but turned to his lady. Botei's eyes scanned the prisoners. "A pity you missed their leader. There is a substantial bounty on her head."

"I have her," he assured Botei. "I'm waiting for someone to take possession of her."

Botei's lips curved up, barely enough to communicate pleasure. "Those with bold reputations so often disappoint. But tell me, Dux Twilight, where are your armies?"

"Waiting for something less trivial, Lady Botei." He went to the spot where the lead slaver had been Elided from and returned the missing space. His quarry collapsed in a state of near-suffocation, in no shape to fight. Botei's soldiers bound her with ease.

The town slowly returned to life while Taylor and Ophelia answered questions. In deference to Taylor's title and deeds, Botei's functionaries kept him only until noon, and the lady herself hosted him to a humble lunch at the town's least mediocre restaurant, enhanced with a white wine from her personal cellars. He was supposed to feel honored, but all he could think of was how to get through the meal with sufficient grace not to be counted as a boor.

At last, with the day more than half done, they knocked on the apothecary's door. According to Ophelia, he had discovered most of the drugs that people used when they leveled up their classes. When Knexenk increased a skill or attribute, the pain of leveling up could be intense. This was especially true when taking attribute improvements at threshold levels. So far, Taylor had always kept his points in reserve.

"Papa isn't seeing anyone today," said a voice behind the door.

"Tell him Ophelia is here. He's expecting me."

"Ophelia!" The door opened to show an elderly elf with blue skin, shielding a younger one. "I said in my letters not to come. It's not safe here! You don't realize what's been going on." The elf's eyes widened when he saw Taylor in his battlesage's robes, mask, and prayer beads. The look had become famous in arcaic circles since his meeting with Wen-Silvain was captured in the Arcaic Times. When he noticed the four spirits behind Taylor, his jaw dropped.

"Maestro Mensa, allow me to introduce Dux Twilight, Taylor, to his friends. Taylor, this is an old friend of mine, and the most brilliant apothecary in the world, Maestro Mensa."

"What an unexpected pleasure." Taylor offered the maestro an elven bow, which was to say, a Japanese one. "How old a friend are you?"

"Ha!" The maestro bowed in return. "She knew me before my skin decided what color it wanted to be."

Taylor felt another stake get hammered into his childish crush.

The alchemist didn't notice his audience's distress. "Ophelia always had a knack for making friends in high places. Say, maybe you can do something about the bandits running loose in the countryside. We can't let our children outside. We're afraid they'll be taken."

"Do you mean the lady with the whip and her pack of green elves? Consider the matter handled. Botei has them in custody."

"You don't say... Adoja!"

"I'm right here, Grandfather. You don't have to shout."

"Break out the sake for our guests. And the good tea. And find out if that insufferable busybody next door has snacks."

"You mean Mom?" The young Adoja rolled her eyes and headed for the rear door. "I'll ask her."

Taylor and his group were treated to a second lunch as neighbors and acquaintances found their way to Mensa's home to gawk and bow at Taylor and his four spirits. He felt more comfortable around the simple neighbors than he did the lordly Botei, and he knew how to handle the free-floating admiration that came and went with each group that passed through the apothecary's small house. Where Botei schemed to use him to her own ends, most people just wanted a few minutes in the presence of a celebrity and then moved on.

"So, what brings the Dux Twilight to this old herb mixer?" They were well into the afternoon by the time Mensa and Taylor could talk behind a closed door. Saria was the only other person in the room with them.

"I'm about to acquire an uncommon skill, and I have to know how much Ease of Intellect to take. What's the maximum that will do me any good?"

"How many skill points are you spending?”

“Three hundred.”

“Three hundred,” Mensa repeated in awe. His reaction was understandable, since the largest documented price for a new skill was fewer than a hundred points. “What exactly have you gotten into? What skill requires three hundred points?”

“The kind that isn’t normally available to anyone under any condition."

"Excuse an old man's rudeness, but should you be taking on a skill like that? Have you considered declining?"

"Not seriously, no."

The maestro took a large set of calipers from the wall where they hung and began measuring Taylor's skull in every direction. "Is this part of a class path, or did you come into contact with a related object?"

"Related object."

"Is it a skill you desire, or are you taking it because Knexenk wants you to?"

"I'd really love to have this skill, Maestro."

Mensa asked several more questions in a similar vein and asked to see Taylor's attribute scores. When he was satisfied, he wrote a set of instructions.

"I recommend a combination of Ease of Intellect and Bolster Mind, but don't take any more than this. The dose is calculated from the physical size of your brain. The usual amount leaves a wide safety margin, but in your case, you should take the maximum. But no more than that. What your brain doesn't use turns into poison. Overdose a little, and you'll feel like death warmed over the next day. Overdose a lot, and your armies will be looking for a new general. I'm pairing that with a body relaxer. It won't make you sleepy, but it will keep you calm. We've had excellent results using it with high-cost skill acquisition."

The notes continued. When and what to eat. How long to sleep the night before. Side effects. Warning signs. What to do if something went wrong. He might be semi-conscious for hours, and he needed someone to watch over him. It had to be a mortal, because summoned spirits might disband while he was skilling up.

As far as Mensa knew, nobody had ever spent so many points at once. Anything could happen.

After the apothecary's granddaughter filled his prescription, Taylor and Ophelia recovered Daisy and returned to Wokehaad, where they would split up. Taylor would stay at the farm to rest and skill up. While he was occupied, Ophelia would catch a train west to Celosia. Her job was to prepare the way for him: submit his application to Celosia Academy and scout suitable houses. Then she would board the train again to make contact with the dwarves of Snowdon. To Taylor's surprise, Chambers asked to accompany her.

"I am the most familiar with the needs of your house, Young Master. Maestro Nelis's capable staff will take care of things here while I am gone. Please leave this to us."