39. Ink (Patreon)

“Breath in, breath out,” Aloe told herself to calm her shaking hands. “Karaim was being melodramatic with Infusion almost killing him, right?” She added with a wry smile. “Besides, he tried the ter’nar, which is a tree and needs more vitality. And he was old. And I am young. And I am full of vitality. And I am... I... I am delaying it, aren’t I?”

Aloe hid her visage with her hands, she couldn’t deny she was scared, but most factors told her that she wouldn’t die. Her grandfather was impossibly old and didn’t die, so what were the chances she would with a full deposit and a healthy young body?

“Okay, I can do it. I can do it! After refreshing myself!” She rushed to the oasis to wash her face.

It still wasn’t high noon, but it was getting close. Aloe could feel the sun pelting down her hair with relentless force. After she cleared her thoughts with a bit of water and washed away her rather irrational fear, Aloe went back to the oasis.

“Let’s see. Aloe Veritas is a plant, a big one, but a plant. It isn’t a tree, and it’s a bit smaller than normal aloe vera. This means it should take... double than the pistachios? Huh, that isn’t much vitality. Well, it’s a lot, like two-thirds of everything I have, but it certainly wouldn’t kill me, right?” She sighed. “I should stop doing that. I’m just trying to convince myself to not do it. But if I don’t do this, I won’t be able to do more advanced stuff. And I want to do advanced stuff, damn it!”

Aloe sat down cross-legged before the Aloe Veritas, recalling her first experiences when dealing with vitality and Karaim’s account, she couldn’t even trust her legs while kneeling down.

Carefully and slowly, Aloe put her palms against the parchment-like leaf of the Aloe Veritas, her fingers tracing the ink spots with her fingers.

“Now!” Aloe infused her vitality into the plant. “Huh?” Her reaction was instantaneous as the evolved plant did not accept her vitality. “Why isn’t it working?”

She tried to infuse it one more time, yet the results were the same. Fear stilled fast in her mind, thoughts of having crippled herself or having already died and all of this being a deadly hallucination bolstered in her imagination. But before submitting to terror, Aloe quenched those thoughts and tried another thing.

Sensing the vitality of the Aloe Veritas.

“Aloe Ayad, you are such a big fucking moron!” She jumped out of her spot, crying hysterically as she grabbed her hair. “The plant is already infused! Arghhh!”

Her guttural screams proved more monster worthy than the grunts of the actual monster in the oasis.

“Why. I. Am. This. Stupid!” Aloe bashed repeatedly her head with the side of her fist. “Of course, Karaim would have already infused all the old plants you dum dum.”

Strength left her body, mostly out of stress, and she collapsed on the ground. Her back was being punctured by cobblestone and aloe leaves, but she couldn’t care. Her right arm lay on top of her face, obscuring her eyes, cold sweat dripping on her back.

“I want my fear back.” Aloe mussitated. “I want all the worry and suffering removed from my system.” She told no one, maybe the heavens. It wasn’t like they would respond though.

She stayed there, lying motionless on the ground for a few minutes, before finally deciding to stand up as her back was killing her. Aloe remained sat.

“What should I do now? Evolve an aloe vera to have an evolved but uninfused plant to mettle with?” Whilst it was a valid suggestion, it didn’t make much sense to make another Aloe Veritas. “Nah, the leaves grow too fast, and there are still some in the jar. And it isn’t like there are things like I can identify with them until I make new evolved plants. That’s going to take a while. I guess I could identify some normal plants, I haven’t tested that yet, but Karaim did. There are some descriptions of the palm trees and grass. It would be better if...”

The next words died in her mouth as a strike of radiance illuminated her mind. Aloe jumped out of the ground and swiftly picked up the knife laying on her hip. Her hands no longer shook from before, instead, they were confidently driven.

Her knife cut easily through the Aloe Veritas and Aloe herself picked up the leaf, carrying it with care so the ink from the cut section didn’t taint her.

She had another objective in mind.

The midday sun of the desert assaulted Aloe violently. Apparently, those few minutes were more than she had thought. Nonetheless, she trekked into the oasis. Trying to hit all the shades along her path, of course.

“Fikali!” Aloe cried out to the dweller who was lazing off, a hint of grass coming from her mouth.

“Huo?” Fikali wondered with the hesitation of drowsiness.

“You are awake, I see. Perfect. I just need you to be still for a second.”

“Huo?” The dweller inquired again, this time out of doubt.

“Yes, yes. Huo, huo. Stay still for a sec.” Aloe knelt down and rubbed the cut section of the Aloe Veritas leaf on Fikali’s cheeks. “Let’s see what it says.”

The senseless arcane scripture of the Aloe Veritas shifted into a cohesive one. A smile drew on Aloe’s face.

Name: Fikali

Species: Desert Dweller

Description: An evolved member of the Talpidae family, a species known for its ability to swim in sand and store high reserves of water and fat.

“Good, good!” Aloe hopped, much to Fikali’s confusion. “This solves a lot of questions, though I guess it brings even more new ones. What’s a Talpidae?”

She inspected every detail of the information the leaf presented her.

“This is identical to my own identification.” She pointed out. “No sobriquet, no alignment. But it does have the presence of a name. Now,” Aloe circled her finger around Fikali’s written name, “does this mean that evolved animals are treated like humans, or that humans are treated like animals? Hmm... I don’t feel comfortable being treated like one, even if it’s by a plant. I rather think the first.”

The description and species seemed correct, possessing even more information than what Aloe herself knew. Though the name part raised some questions.

“What happens if I analyze a dweller that doesn’t have a name? Will they have the same description format as plants or a new one I have yet to see? And once again, how in the heavens does it know Fikali’s name?”

“Wro?” The dweller reacted upon hearing her name.

“No, Fikali. I wasn’t talking to you.” Aloe dismissed. “Here, take a stroll whilst I think.”

Aloe left the leaf on the ground to undo the knot as she needed both hands to do so. She had made a strong one just in case Fikali got too playful and undid it by mistake. Or worse, on purpose. But as she turned to face the dweller, the Aloe Veritas leaf was gone.

“What?” Her eyes quickly diverted to the monster. “Fikali, stop!” Aloe cried as soon as she realized where the leaf had gone. “Stop eating it! I was reading it!”

But as she yanked the leaf from the dweller’s mouth, it snapped in half, splashing ink everywhere.

“Are you happy?” Aloe scowled at Fikali.

“Wrooo!” Fikali responded happily, which made Aloe’s eyelids twitch.

A lot of curses were brewing in Aloe’s mouth, but before letting them out, she stopped herself. The leaf was still readable, and she already knew the contents. And she could as easily make another one. The worst part was the ink, but she thankfully had avoided any splashes. Though the same couldn’t be said for Fikali’s face. To say it lightly, the dweller looked like a botched piece of art.

“Still eating that?” Aloe inquired as she saw Fikali’s jaws rise and fall. “I don’t think you should, I doubt it’s... Well, aloe is edible. But what about the in- Damn, squid ink is edible, so this should be extra edible. Ehm... enjoy I guess?”

“Hro.” The dweller grunted indecipherably.

“But you made quite a mess.” Aloe sighed looking at all the ink. “Imagine if we were inside. I would have killed you. Ink is impossible to...”

Aloe’s words died out and her course of thought jerked to a sudden halt as another idea blinded her mind.

“Ink...” She led her finger to the section of the Aloe Veritas leaf, specifically where Fikali had bitten. Sap poured viciously in a hemorrhage. Aloe dipped her fingerprint in the puddle of ink and led the tainted finger to her mouth. “It’s ink. It’s ink!”

Her mind’s gears spun at absurd revolutions upon the discovery.

“Forget about plants... this is... revolutionary. If the veritas wasn’t the best plant, now it certainly is.”

It was ink. Real ink. If not identical, incredibly similar to squid ink. And ink was highly expensive.

The corners of Aloe’s mouth curved in greed.