White Flower, Black Feather

Interlude 7 – Species Creator

Ken walked down a hallway of one of the many inns in the city, a relaxed expression on his face due to how simple the current task was

Officially, he just needed to show the contents of the box he was carrying, to an apparently humble researcher that was visiting the cities, and listen to his opinion

Officially that was it…

The blonde aide of lord Maxwell, knocked on the door and waited

A young looking boy wearing a green casting robe with the markings of an apprentice on its sleeves, opened the door and flinched back nearly tripping with the luggage near the entrance of the room

The old man sitting in one of the beds, looked confused for a moment, but returned to the scroll he was reading, he had more scrolls in a case next to him

“Y-yes?!” the boy hadn't screamed even if his expression showed to Ken, that he really wanted to do it

“Good morning” but Ken chose to pay not attention to that “I’m here by orders of lord Maxwell, to talk with the creator of a snake species” the old man looked up from what he was reading and gave a calm stare to the aide

“One of them would be me” the man spoke after a few moments, before nodding “That research was a group effort, I can’t take the whole credit” he stood up with the help of a cane and moved near the boy “You can call me Owl”

Ken introduced himself while the trembling assistant was sent to fetch tea

The room was simple, with two beds that had a chest near each of them, and a small table with two chairs. Being in the bottom floor meant a floor made of stones while the walls and ceiling were of wood, a single crystal in a beam above, was the only mean of illumination for the room

Ken chose to stay next to the door, mostly because nearly every walking space was full, with either scrolls, or more luggage

“Perhaps a bigger room would be more comfortable…?” he offered as a way to start a conversation with the researcher, but the old man just shook his head while looking for something in the mess

“There is no need. More space means more time while looking for something…” the blond chose to calm himself, and try to ignore how inefficient the old man was being “And no offense to your lord, but I’m just traveling to spread what little knowledge I have, not to get tied to a place… at least until my body lasts”

“Don't worry” Ken smiled “Lord Maxwell used to be an adventurer, he would never think about doing something like that”

“That’s good, there are too many nobles these days… ah” Owl with took with care a thick book from one of the boxes “Here it is” he placed the leather bound, thick stack of parchment, on the table “What do you need again…?”

Ken gave a smile that hide his sudden tiredness, and opened the box he was carrying, but before he could say anything-

“Ah… magic snake skin” the old man identified it just by looking at it, with a smile… before frowning and picking the cylinder of skin, paying closer attention at the scales

“That was fast” Ken used a tone that he hoped was amiable, while watching the man analyze the skin

“We killed a lot of them when the experiment was over…” Owl looked at the aide “Where…?”

“The forest, naturally” the researcher hummed and started to look for something in the book “There are rumors about something new in the forest, it seems to eat ridiculously often. And while the sounds it makes are those of a snake, this is the only piece of evidence that points to that”

The man just hummed again

“Everyone that knows about snakes, that the adventurers guild has talked to, says that: whatever our beast turns out to be, it eats too much to be a snake” Ken paused for a moment before continuing “When we got the information about your titles from the gate guards, lord Maxwell thought that you could be the judge on this”

The old man stopped reading the book and took a seat, he rubbed his back for a moment before saying anything

“Snakes take days to digest their food” his gaze seemed to look back into the past as his finger moved the pages “One of the reasons why we used snakes for our experiment… look at this”

He pointed to two squares of snakeskin, each attached on a different page with pins

“Can you see the difference between them?” he asked the aide

“One seems to be smoother than the other” was the answer that Ken gave, his expression not revealing that he already noticed something else from the three samples

“Correct, the smooth one without ridges, plus the petal shape of the scale, mean that this girl” Owl moved the fresh sample closer to the others “Is a magic snake… a bigger magic snake, than the ones we ever made during the experiments…”

Ken gave the old man a smile, while trying to ignore that a shadow on the corner of the room, that was looking at Owl’s back, became darker

“Can you explain me this experiment? I feel that I need that, to understand what you really mean by bigger” he already had noticed the size difference, but like this, he was sure to get the information he actually wanted

“Oh, sure!” the man was still looking at the new sample with glee on his eyes, unaware of anything else “It was an experiment to: measure the effects that a high concentration of magic in a specific place, has on the creatures that live in it” he looked at the aide “I’m meeting the scribes of the temples tomorrow, to have them copy the contents of this book, just like I have done with five other cities. I recommend you to read it once is done” he looked back to the skin on his hand

“Sounds impressive!” he smiled again, even if he already could see that it worked, he chose to have Owl speak, to see what else he could get “And I’ll certainly will read it, but can you tell me something to report to lord Maxwell? For example: Are these snakes dangerous?”

Owl shook his head and laughed, but he frowned again looking at the bigger scales in his hand

“No, no… they ate even less that normal snakes, and their venom was unremarkable… what worries me… is that we killed them all…”

“Could one of them have escaped? And by doing that, spread afterwards?” Ken pressed him for information, sparing a glance at the shadow in the corner, but it remained immobile

“We were in Almend, less risk of creating a plague, if we did the experiments in one of its islands” Ken nodded seeing some of their logic “As for the experiment… it was simple really, we created several sealed habitats, and raised the normal amount of magic that was inside each of them”

He closed and opened the book again near the beginning, and pointed to the layout of the habitats

“This one” Ken memorized the magic formula that was written near all of them, but payed more attention to the one Owl was pointing “Was the one that consistently altered some of the snake eggs, to be of a new kind. The rest were either, too weak, or too strong, making normal ones, or killing them, and their parent, before they were born”

“Just by increasing the magic density…?” Ken seemed to be thinking deeply “Did you tested different elements too…?”

Owl laughed

“Yes we did! But sadly we couldn’t determinate if the magic snakes were capable, of reaching the same elemental capabilities as lizards…” his gaze seemed to go back to the past again

Irritating Ken internally…

“Was the experiment canceled…? Or there was some kind of accident?” he asked with a polite tone

“No… we… we all agreed, that…” he sighed “The smallest and weakest of the magic snakes, had a one in five chance of evolving into a bigger magic snake, that actually could do magic. You know why we force all domesticated lizard into becoming Hunters, right?” he looked at Ken

“Elemental magic makes them… uncooperative” he answered, causing a chuckle from the older man

“With snakes was similar…” he leaned forwards and started to pass the pages of the book pointing at the drawings and formulae in the pages

Unaware that a Doll partially came out from the shadow in the corner behind him

Ken moved closer, half reading the book while memorizing it

‘YOU MORON!!!’ Half glaring at the fucking idiot that was controlling the puppet, already knowing who it was…

And unwillingly, ready to protect the researcher

“We couldn’t determinate a way of guarantying the magical evolution, and the others that keep evolving into more venomous varieties, or lizards, required different raising methods…” Owl went on a tangent

The Doll silently unsheathed a dagger and pointed to Owl, then to its ears. The way it clenched a hand was meant to say that the puppeteer was tired of listening

“… lacking the proper means to avoid elemental lizards, meant that we were forced to keep a low sample size…” droning, while slightly complaining about things

Ken took out a dagger and pointed it to the Doll

“… with all those things and some other problems too… while we reached some interesting conclusions, and good Titles, we had to cancel it. Killing all our samples” Owl seemed to still be capable of talking for a long time, so…

“Did the others agreed to share the research?” Ken tried to make him say something that would make the idiotic puppeteer to back away

Dolls were too valuable to be wasting them like this

“Oh, yes they did. We all know where the others are going, and agreed to meet after our travels are over”

The Doll sheathed the weapon and moved back vanishing from sight, not before making a rude gesture at Owl

“I have a couple of questions then…” he smiled, smoothly hiding the dagger while bowing. Happy than even the idiot was aware, that killing the researcher meant, that his colleagues would come and ask questions eventually

“Sure, happy to answer them” he seemed really interested in the conversation about his research

“I can figure out the answer to this one…” the blond started, picking his words carefully “But just to make sure, Grudge wasn't tried, right?” he adopted a concerned posture

“Not at all” Owl waved the question away “Some consider Grudge, as the opposite of life. Our experiment took years, if we had tried to use that we would have expended a lot more time, trying to create something that could survive in it, before we turned into Undeads” he laughed at his joke “Like the creatures of this forest, snakes avoid Grudge, in fact I can’t think of a creature dumb enough to stay close to a source of it”

“Monsters…?”

“Oh, those aren’t creatures!”

“Then…” Ken pointed to the skin Owl was still holding “If this is a new one, how and where did she originated?”

That made the researcher to lean back in the chair and hum, as his assistant came back with the tea. Flinching again as he saw the aide was still there

“Is something wrong?” Ken asked keeping his annoyance behind his neutral facade, he also politely refused to drink

“He was just a farmer until a few months ago” Owl said “He is not used to be near high level people…” the researcher gave him a calm stare before continuing “One hundred and seventy-five?”

“That’s…” the blond needed a second to calm himself, nearly pulling out his dagger again “And seventy-three actually…” he gave a lower number that his actual level “How did you…?” he turned his whole attention to the researcher ignoring the boy

‘Glad to see the disguise working, but…’

The old man laughed

“I must be getting better!” he drank some tea before answering “As a researcher I had to guess the level of our samples, eventually I got my instinct to work on that and got a trait… but as I never was in combat, I couldn’t develop it further”

He pointed to his assistant, who flinched again even if the aide was still looking at the researcher

“After we finish traveling, if my colleagues get other promising youngsters and we get the backup of an interested noble, we might get them to create a proper training to get that, and other skills, we discovered in the way”

“But didn’t you say that you weren’t interested in being tied down…?”

“Not us…” Owl pointed to his assistant again “A new generation of researchers”

“I see…” Ken said, still not looking at the boy “Then, for my previous question…?”

“Hmm… while we worked on places with high magic density, they were still safe places for us… is any place like that in this city?”

Owl knew that even if the forest was what it was, those that could measure magic density, all agreed that the forest was normal in that aspect. The trees didn’t leaked any of their power to their surroundings

“I don’t-!” Ken suddenly snapped his fingers, making everyone to look at him. Even if only the puppeteer fully understood the gesture “Before summer, there was a report of a snake inside the city… if I remember correctly, there is a alchemical workshop near where it happened…”

He knew it would be foolish to let the moron deal with the whole thing, so he committed to memory to check that place himself. After telling someone else to remove any evidence, that linked them to that place

“Impressive memory…” Owl nodded “If they use eggs for any of their recipes, then there is a chance of one becoming a magic snake… a very low chance, but accidents occur…” he shrugged

“I’ll make sure to check. Is there a chance that the beast is a magic snake then…?”

“I doubt it…” he drank some more “We were unable to get them to evolve more than once… but just with this sample I can’t give any more ideas… it took far longer than a season, for us to get a snake to evolve into one that could use magic…” he tapped his fingers on a section of the skin that looked like a scar… “But who knows what the forest is capable of making by itself…”

Owl mournfully returned the skin to Ken, and it was placed in the box

“If we are still here when the snake is found, please consider letting me see the corpse? I might be able to determinate what it actually was”

“I’ll keep that in mind, anything else you can tell about the snake?”

“Just that during the experiment we believed that, while snakes start stronger than lizards, lizard have ‘cheaper prices’ than snakes in the system that creatures use. But I don’t see how that will help you finding her…”

“That is still interesting…” Ken said already making more plans in his mind “Is that related to how lizards seem capable of becoming dragons…?”

Owl smiled

“I have never heard of a snake becoming a dragon… but on this side of the Line… you might want to make sure she doesn’t get the chance…”

“Do not worry” the aide smiled “The cities will never fall because of a creature… but one last thing, you only seem to speak about the experiment results as ‘magic snake’ is that because…?”

The old man sighed

“Because I don’t want to get into an argument of how properly pronounce Xetnoxia, the last one lasted a few hours…”

-----

Some time later, Ken was walking back towards Maxwell’s office with a relaxed smile on his face, while his mind was furiously processing all the information that he saw in the book

‘I can replicate all of that… I won’t be able to use the Spawner below to test this, until I can produce something similar… but with this…’ he tried to remain calm on the outside ‘If done properly… with this… we’ll stop needing the monsters for the production of Dolls… and so much more…!’ but he was elated

He would need to send someone to copy the rest of the book, just in case there was another gem in it. Someone that wouldn't make Agatha suspicious, but that would be easy…

‘If I time it with Justice’s death… and while the other nobles distract the priests on the uproar…’ he nearly chuckled at the idea, but seeing “someone” begging on the side of the street, made him calm down

A few women were anxiously nearby, not quite looking at the “man”

Ken moved to the “beggar” and placed some coins on his hands, hiding on his palm a small piece of wood with notches on it, that the Doll had between the bones of its fingers

“Take this for now, but try to go to a temple for work…” the Doll nodded at his words and both moved in different directions. Making the women nearby to look at Ken with appreciation

‘Justice. Meting. Ready.’ as he walked away he rubbed the wood with his thumb decoding the message

And smiled internally

A series of inconveniences had happened, but things were finally ready to proceed with one of the plans he had prepared

‘The information of Justice wanting to kill the boy, will be leaked. Maxwell already said that he wants them alive, his wives too. Once we get rid of him, we’ll have the favor of Maxwell… yes…’

If everything went perfectly, what he had learned with Owl would have been for nothing. But their main objective would be complete in months, instead of decades…

‘Yes…!’ he was happy…

-----

Owl looked at his assistant once the aide was gone

“Are you ok boy…?” making them flinch with his words

“Y-yes…” the assistant looked torn but after a moment they spoke again “We are going to the t-temples tomorrow?”

“Yes…?” Owl waved to the piles of documents “That is why we must make sure everything is here. Drink your tea and start with that” the old man waved at his assistant before reopening the book in the table

The youngster decided then, to wait until they were in the temple, before voicing their concerns… they would wait until meeting with a priest and tell them about their ability… about how the air of the whole city, and the man that was in the room with them…

Smelled like death…