74. Work (Patreon)

The promised week quickly passed by. Whilst mentally demanding, the position of the scribe of commoners wasn’t a difficult job. Aloe’s memory was constantly being challenged as she was forced to remember the names of multiple individuals related to the city’s upkeep and management, plus her own management of districts, cities, and villages. There were a lot of scribes to help her besides her personal scribes, so the end problem lay in its difficulty rather than quantity.

Thankfully, she wouldn’t have to deal with that the next three days.

“Alright!” Aloe stretched her arms as she jumped out of her office’s armchair. “Lulu, I’m going to go to sleep early, I want you to wake me up tomorrow early.”

“As you wish, Aloe.” The maid responded obediently.

{*}

As promised, Lulu woke her up the next day even before the sun came out.

“Won’t you need luggage and provisions for the journey?” She asked with a hint of worry.

“Fret not,” Aloe responded while changing into the original dress she brought to the palace. “I have everything I need for these few days at my home, and I’m not going to need much luggage. There’s food already in the greenhouse, so I guess I’ll just go lightweight.”

“It’s foolish to trek the desert without appropriate amounts of food and water.” The maid said sensibly.

“Don’t worry, I’ll bring something at least. Just in case there’s a sandstorm or something.”

“Wise.” Lulu bowed. “Then I bid you farewell.”

“You are so dramatic, Lulu.” A chuckle escaped Aloe’s mouth. “See you in three days.”

{*}

The activity on the bazaar’s streets was astonishing. Even at this time of the day, life unraveled with hasty breaths and long strides. First light loomed on the horizon as Aloe made it home. Not only she had to save up as much time as possible because she only had three days, which had to include the round trip, but she also needed to prepare her travel equipment.

First things first, she donned her desert garb. She wouldn’t need much baggage, neither provisions nor clothing, so a satchel was more than enough for her needs. This would also mean that her ride would need to carry less weight. Aloe filled three waterskins and left home.

Soon enough, she found herself in the stables where she met with the despicable stable master. She didn’t allow him to utter a single word, just shoving the necessary drupnars on his face for the maintenance payment.

The man counted the copper coins and grunted, then he made a motion with his hand indicating Aloe to follow him. Funnily enough, the first one to speak wasn’t even human.

“Wrooo!” Fikali grunted excitedly as they approached, somehow having sensed her.

“Hello, girl!” Aloe talked with a silly voice, the one people used for babies or pets. “How have you been?”

“Wrooo!” The dweller tackled the woman with expectation.

Thankfully for the petite scribe, Fikali was gentle, more of a weak headbutt than a tackle of an animal with the weight of a dromedary.

“I also missed you!” She patted the dweller’s head vigorously. Even though it had only been a few weeks, she had truly missed the company of the dweller after being permanently around her on the oasis. “Now, stay still and allow the man to put you in the saddle. We are pressed for time and we gotta go as fast as we can. Got that?”

“Hroo!” Fikali affirmed, swaying her snoot up and down vigorously.

Obediently, the dweller stayed in place and allowed the man to put his filthy hands on him. Aloe wasn’t being derogative here – at least not totally – the stable master did have his hands covered in soot.

In less than five minutes, Aloe and Fikali were already in the city gates. The guards – who were severely sleepy as their night shift had yet not ended – did not stop them, allowing them to pass without a question.

Once the coarse sandstone ended and the desert opened up, Aloe mounted Fikali and they continued to go on a slow-ish pace for a quarter of an hour.

“Here should be okay,” Aloe commented, her neck turned back to look at the minuscule Sadina behind them. “Fikali, stop.”

“Wro,” Fikali grunted shortly, obeying the woman without making a fuss.

After the dweller stopped, Aloe dismounted her and stretched her limbs. However, that wasn’t the reason why she had stopped.

“Alright Fikali, do you remember how I told you that we needed to go fast?”

“Hroo!” The dweller affirmed, unable to understand the concept of rhetorical questions.

“I’m going to try something. Something to make you faster, I don’t know if it will work, it’s the first time I’m trying it, but it should – in theory – make you faster. Though it may hurt a bit, I’m not sure. You got that, Fikali?”

“Wro.”

“Let me rephrase it.” Aloe sighed. “Are you fine with me doing things to your body?”

“Wro!” The dweller reiterated in agreement.

“Okay... I expected a bit more doubt, but if you are so sure... then let’s get to it.”

Aloe took a deep breath, her hands on her heart. As she had told her, this was her first time doing this, she doubted if it would even work, but if it did...

“Ready?” The woman knelt on the ground and pressed her hand against the dweller’s torso.

Fikali grunted with her mouth closed in affirmation, sounding less sure than before as Aloe’s nervousness carried over to her.

“Let’s hope it works,” Aloe muttered to herself.

The woman took a deep breath, her hand pressuring on the pelt, and exhaled. The previously latent vitality on her body exploded as it flowed directly into her hand. A wall impeded the vitality from flowing outward. I expected that much. It was a different wall from everything she had seen before. Infusion presented resistance, whilst Evolution was greedy, and internal infusion was more of a switch that was difficult to push but easy to pull.

Aloe instinctively understood it.

What stopped her was a wall of sapience.

It wasn’t like plant Infusion where the plant didn’t actively resist – such a case was more of the innate resistance of the materials – but here that was what the dweller was doing. She was pushing against her. Not only her latent vitality, but also her consciousness.

“Relax...” Aloe whispered with her eyes closed. She could feel it, Fikali had understood that she was going to do something to her, but she hadn’t comprehended that it meant not putting resistance.

“Huo...” Fikali complied in a half-whimper.

“Does it hurt?” The woman asked calmly.

“Hro.” The dweller negated, her body still.

“Nice.” Aloe smiled and continued pushing her vitality.

It took a bit for her vitality to actually go through as first Fikali had to relax, but once she made it inside, Aloe found it way easier to manipulate her vitality. What she was doing right now was the perfect mixture of plant Infusion and internal infusion. She redirected the flow of Fikali’s vitality but also poured her own.

A third down. Aloe mumbled as she continued to work on Fikali’s flow. This was the most complex infusion she had done; it was like infusing a plant and herself at the same time.

She placed her other hand on the dweller’s stomach as she focused on the flowing vitality. One controls mine, the other hers. That was what she told herself, a solid image helped her a lot with her first infusions and evolutions.

The left poured vitality in, draining her deposit in order to infuse the dweller. The right one controlled the existing vitality, shifting the default infusion into another one.

Doing it in the middle of the desert wasn’t the most comfortable thing, the sun was already starting to heat the dunes, but there wasn’t a better option. If she was right, the moment she finished, Fikali would raise a lot of questions if someone saw her.

Two-thirds down. Aloe was ready for this, she reached into her satchel and took one of her many Cure Grass pellets. She let it rest on her tongue. Nine-tenths down. Now.

She swallowed.

Instantly her stomach and throat burned with life, and less than a third of her vitality recovered. I’m outgrowing the vitality pills... Her expression soured as she readied another pellet.

“Wro...?” Fikali grunted weakly in confusion.

“Shh, don’t worry, everything will be fine.” She didn’t say that just to comfort the dweller, judging by the flow of vitality, she truly believed it. In any case, she told that to comfort herself.

Second down. Aloe shifted the vitality with her right hand to accommodate for the incoming vitality.

Third down. The amount of vitality inside the dweller staggered for a moment, she contained enough vitality inside to infuse a field of potatoes. An actual farmland-sized one.

Fourth down. The woman took a breath as the vitality inside the monster stabilized, no longer taking vitality as she herself reached her low tenths. It only remained to put the flow correctly on the dweller.

She focused her both hands on the tasks.

The default flow of any living being was a potent yet slow flow; a filled river, a burning candle. She now wanted an explosion; a rapid stream, a fanned flame.

And she did.

It worked.

Air left her lungs, sweat trickled down her back.

“Wroo!” Fikali grunted at her with excitement.

And rushed flying forward.

She had done it.

She had infused another sapient living being with ‘speed’.