3. Night (Patreon)

Name: Aloe Ayad

Species: Human

Description: Female member of the human species, a species known for their ingenuity, high adaptive capabilities, and societal structure.

Even after reading it for a second time, Aloe still doubted what her eyes were showing her. The parchment read with pristine clarity; a calligraphy so perfect that it seemed impossible. The ink spots that formed the words had stopped moving by now, but Aloe still felt herself shaking. She clasped her hands together, hoping to make them stop.

“How?” She muttered in confusion.

The woman traced the ink written on the Aloe Veritas leaf, trying to sense it with her touch as none of this felt real. The ink didn’t adhere to her skin like normal ink would.

“This… this plant has… it knows me. How?” Aloe picked up the parchment-textured leaf, observing it from below, trying to decipher any tricks or ploys. Alas, she found nothing. “How does it know my name?”

The fact that a plant could know her name and write it out scared her far more than the idea of bandits coming to steal some jars from her grandfather’s… her house. One she could understand, the other… the other was unsettling on many levels.

It took her a bit, but she finally comprehended this wasn’t any ploy, but some sort of magical… something. If there was a place to look for answers, it was in the diary before her.

“Unless the leaf has lost its efficacy you should have seen by now your own description. This is the effect of the Aloe Veritas, the best plant I managed to cultivate through Evolution before mortality caught up to me.”

“Is this what Evolution is?” Aloe read once more the contents of the evolved plant.

Aloe felt something shift inside of her.

She had thought Karaim had been an old man overly obsessed with plants, enough so to forgo his family until it was too late. But maybe, just maybe… he was right. This wasn’t normally botany or gardening; however, he had managed to come to the thing he called vital arts and the Evolution process, it was something far bigger than himself.

Something worth devoting to.

Gripping the Aloe Veritas leaf with force, the juices pouring out from the cut section, Aloe couldn’t help but feel angry at herself. Because she had given the reason to his grandfather. Because Evolution was incredible, and she would be lying if she said she wasn’t interested in the arcane arts needed to perform these seemingly acts of magic but still, it felt wrong being on the same page as the man who abandoned them.

Nonetheless, Aloe continued reading the diary with a burning passion.

“Aloe Veritas is able to inspect the objects or people it touches. With objects I mean living beings, or at least, what used to be living. Plants and humans have different descriptions, but very similar formats, I haven’t yet tried it with animals or monsters, but I’m inclined to believe they should work as humans. If you haven’t tried yet to use one on another leaf, I encourage you to do so. Anyways, I have copied my results on the next page.”

Species: Aloe Veritas

Sobriquet: Bitter Truth

Description: An evolved member of the Aloe Vera species, a species known for their ability to infer with the Records and manifest knowledge onto the surface of their leaves.

Alignment: Information, Arcane

With scholarly curiosity, Aloe took another leaf out of the jar carefully so as to not touch the cut sections or not allow the other leaves to do so. Karaim had said that they reacted to the touch, and whilst that was true, he had forgotten to concrete that it only happened when the sap from the cut touched another living being. Otherwise, it made no sense that the rest of the leaves in the pot were free of text, only populated by senseless ink spots that looked like gibberish.

“Hmm, does it fade with time?” Aloe left her question aside as the rubbed the new leaf with the old one that had her name written on it.

Sure enough, it showed the same description as the book.

“I understand the sobriquet part, even if it’s a weird term, but what is the alignment?”

Both the Aloe Veritas leaf and the diary pointed out the alignment of the plant as Information and Arcane, whatever that meant. Aloe consulted the book again for answers.

“The recollection of Aloe Veritas is a bit cumbersome, as the instant the sap touches skin or other plants, the leaf is consumed. They are one use only. I recommend using tools to cut the leaves but leave the plant intact. After all, single Aloe Veritas will provide limitless leaves.”

“Well, that answers some of the doubts I had, but that’s not what I’m looking for. Though it’s interesting the unlimited amount of these leaves.” The scholarly applications of the plant alone were staggering.

Before peering back into the book, a stray yawn escaped Aloe’s mouth. The inadvertent reaction prompted her to look outside the open window, the starry clear skies of the desert revealing to her. She was still in her desert garbs so she didn’t have much cold, but when she was to go to sleep, she would need to close any open windows. The chill of a desert night was not to be underestimated.

“I guess I should go to sleep now…” She added between yawns. “But I need answers. Just one more page.”

The next section alleviated part of her itching curiosity.

“Overall, plant descriptions produced by Aloe Veritas are composed of four parts: Species, which contains the name of the plant. Sobriquet, this is the only optional field as not all plants have alternative names. Description, self-explanatory, a brief statement glimpsing at the capabilities of the plant. And finally, Alignment.”

Aloe was annoyed as the explanation ended there because the page ended there. Ignoring her previous statement, she turned over to the next page.

“Alignment is a field I’m still a bit dumbfounded by.” Karaim admitted. “I have only found three alignments as for the current time of writing, though I doubt I’ll be able to find any more. These alignments are Life, Information, and Arcane.”

It hadn’t escaped Aloe’s mind that she hadn’t seen this Life alignment on the Aloe Veritas.

“All common plants have Life alignment, though even some of the evolved ones I detail in this book also possess such Alignment. As far as I can tell, every plant has Life alignment, though I have yet to decipher why that is not the case with Aloe Veritas and others. My current hypothesis is that their properties don't have anything to do with life as a whole, but it’s a flimsy theory at best. I have only seen Information and Arcane alignment on Aloe Veritas and another plant, whether I tried it on the leaves or the whole plant, and once more, I have no explanation or description about them.”

Aloe couldn’t help but frown at what she had just read. Karaim had been working in the greenhouse for years, maybe even decades, so Aloe couldn't comprehend everything the man knew about his ‘Evolution vital art’. She didn’t forgo the idea that maybe it was explained further down the book, after all, this was just the beginning. The latter pages had to be updated with newer knowledge, even if it was just by a few months or even days.

“My best speculation on the effects of every Alignment is the next one: Life, related to living beings or healing properties. Information, related to knowledge or ‘The Records’. Arcane, related to magic. Mind the emphasis on Records, I don’t know what they may truly entail. Take everything with a grain of salt, as my knowledge is shallow, I wish I had discovered Evolution earlier in life. Not only because of the time I could have dedicated to the craft, but because I would have enjoyed more vitality to dedicated to the plants if I was younger, and therefore accelerate my findings.”

“More vitality…” Aloe muttered as she grazed her pink lips with her dark index finger. “Right, he wrote before that Evolution needed ‘vital energy’ or something like that.” She tried to remember the exact wording but found her mind failing her.

She tried to go back to read the book again for answers, but like her memory, her eyes faltered. Her vision became blurry the instant she set her sights back on the desk. Another yawn, far louder than the previous one, broke away from her mouth.

“I guess it’s sleepy time,” Aloe said as yet one more yawn came to her.

Sluggishly, she got up from the chair, picked up the scholar’s light, and rounded the house in search of any open windows that she closed promptly. After locking the main door, which she had forgotten to do before with the scare of possible bandits being in the house, and checking the whole house was secured and closed, she directed to her grandfather’s - now hers - bedroom.

With a groan, she removed her dirty desert garbs and boots leaving them all on the ground without any care as she was left in her underwear. Aloe dropped to the old, dusty bed, and even if the sleeping conditions were less than optimal, she fell asleep in seconds.