Heretical Fishing

Book 4: Chapter 10: Grove

The afternoon sun shone down upon us as we strode through the streets of Tropica, purpose and anticipation fueling our steps. Ahead of us, a giant tree guided our path, its canopy visibly moving in what most would mistake as a strong breeze.

“Looks like Lemon is excited,” Leroy joked, knowing better than most.

“What gives you that idea?” Maria replied, her eyes glittering in the day's waning light.

Sergeant Snips hissed her agreement from the crook of my arm, wiggling to get even closer to my torso. I smiled down at the blissful crab as I patted her with my other hand, taking solace in her sturdy carapace.

We passed by groups of people, some traveling past unbothered, more staring in open-mouthed recognition.

“How long until they stop looking at us like that?” I asked, peering down at Snips.

She blew uncaring bubbles and shrugged—ever an impressive feat, considering her distinct lack of shoulders.

“What do you mean by us?” Maria gave me a haughty look. “They’re clearly only interested in the magnificent form of Sergeant Snips. What makes you think they would be interested in the bland, uninteresting, and sometimes stinky man carrying her?”

I groaned and mimed being struck in the chest by an arrow, reeling backwards from the non-existent blow.

“Oh, shush,” she said, grabbing me by the arm and bringing an abrupt end to my dramatics. “I can only make those jokes because we both know they’re not true.” She punctuated the statement by planting a swift peck on my cheek.

I stopped walking for a moment, the unexpected show of affection making me forget all about the retort I’d been preparing. As we continued walking, I touched the spot absentmindedly, relishing in the tingling sensation she’d left behind. Before my thoughts could move elsewhere, we rounded the corner to the park-like area in the center of Tropica.

Right in the middle of the giant stretch of grass, Lemon’s new trunk stood proud, its limbs and branches reaching up toward the sky. On the outsides of the park, a dozen or so villagers lounged under the shade lemon provided, gathering individually or in pairs.

The moment Lemon caught sight of us, her canopy vibrated. The violent movement of so many leaves caused a cacophonous roar to wash over us. Some of the people that’d been enjoying Lemon’s shade had clearly been asleep, because they shot upright, panic on their faces.

Lemon, unable to help herself, immediately made the situation worse.

The ground vibrated as her massive roots shifted around beneath us. One of them split the surface, and the next thing I knew, it was rocketing toward us so fast that a regular human might miss it. She wrapped us up and whipped us around to the other side of her trunk, depositing us with a surprisingly gentle touch considering how aggressively we’d been relocated.

“Thanks, Lemon.” I patted her unraveling body before looking up at the reason for our visit. On the ground before us, four bushes stood, their forms squat and branches laden with... “Uhhh, Leroy?”

“Yes, Fischer?”

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I made a vague gesture toward the bushes. “What happened to the passiona berries? They were the whole reason we came.”

When I’d seen the bushes before, they were covered in dark purple berries. Now, the fruit had been replaced by pink-tinged parcels that looked more like origami than a natural occurrence.

Leroy’s only response was to smile at me, his eyes wrinkling at my expense. I looked at him, at the bushes, then back at him. I had no idea what he was trying to…

“Ohhh!” I clapped my hands together. “Passiona husk!”

“Just so,” Leroy replied, bending down to pinch one of them. It crunched and crumbled, the remnants falling into the open palm of his other hand. After carefully plucking and remaining husk from the base of the now-visible berry, he stood and held it before Maria and me. I reached out and grabbed one of the smaller pieces, rubbing it between a thumb and forefinger.

It was thicker than I expected, but with a little pressure it easily ground down to a powder. Maria and I gave each other a look, and without needing to say a word, each dipped a finger into my palm before placing it on our tongues.

The moment the passiona husk made contact, it was like someone had set a bomb off within my mouth.

“Whoa,” I wheezed, tears swimming in my eyes. “Straight to Flavortown.”

“What...” was all that Maria could wheeze, her mouth pinched as if eating a sour candy.

Seeing our reactions, Snips scuttled forward. I might have warned her off, but I could barely speak. She dipped her claw and collected a fraction of what Maria and I had gathered. Before anyone could stop her, the powder disappeared into her mouth.

The reaction was as immediate as it was ridiculous. She released a torrent of bubbles from her cute little face, the stream spraying the surrounding grass. It was over as fast as it had started. Snips shook her entire body, her core radiating regret.

Leroy, who had been containing himself so far, cackled at her expense. “As it turns out,” he said between choked laughs, “the husks of these bushes are far more potent than the ones that were grown back in the capital. The power of the thing you stole from Gormona’s grove, the thing that let them grow lemons and passiona despite the world having no ambient chi, was nothing compared to what Tropica can produce.”

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I sent my senses down below ground, tracing the lines of chi that connected to the plants’ roots. What I found there took my breath away. Well, it would have had the passiona husk not already done so. I spun toward Lemon, squinting through watering eyes. “You did this?”

Her canopy quaked so hard that a normal tree might have split in half, my spirit pal entirely overwhelmed by her excitement.

“What is it?” Maria asked. “I can feel a bunch of power down there, but it seems… normal?”

“Remember how when the king attacked, Lemon and the unnamed spirit bro washed clean essence over the battlefield, helping keep the corrupting chi at bay? It’s kind of like that, but to a lesser extent. She’s channeling power their way, but it’s like... how do I explain it?”

“It’s the perfect amount,” Leroy interjected. “Any more, and the passiona bushes would be overwhelmed. Any less, and the growth wouldn’t be optimal.”

“That’s really insightful for someone that hasn’t had any breakthroughs, Leroy. There’s more, though. It’s not just that the amount flowing into the bushes is perfect. It’s also where she’s getting the power from. Though the world is flooded with chi compared to how it was before, there’s a sort of... equilibrium to it. If I pull power from one spot, for example, it throws everything out of whack. I’ve never pushed past the feeling of wrongness that comes with doing so, but I suspect it could lead to something disastrous.

“Define disastrous,” Maria said, giving me some side eye.

I mimed an explosion with both hands.

Maria’s expression turned incredulous. “Have you told anyone that...?”

I shrugged. “I told Ellis, and he said it’s probably fine. Even if someone else—like our unnamed tree spirit pal, for example—tried to draw too much power, I could just cut it off immediately. It’s not like when I had to struggle to find that spirit beast. If anyone draws directly from the Domain, I know about it.” I glanced down under Lemon’s trunk, where said tree spirit’s awareness was listening to our conversation from. “No offense meant, tree spirit homie. Just using you as an example.”

He sent me the equivalent of a shrug back, not at all bothered by my words.

When I looked back up, Snips and Leroy looked as incredulous as Maria, all three of them staring me down.

I blew a raspberry their way. “You’re all so uptight today. Ellis said it was all good, so everything is fine. Anyway, back to what is so impressive about Lemon’s actions here—she is drawing chi so subtly and from so many areas that I didn’t even know she was doing it.” I bent to inspect the berry we’d removed the husk from. “I’m surprised you didn’t tell me straight away, Lemon.”

Leroy cleared his throat. “I wanted to tell you, but she requested that I keep it a secret.”

“A secret? Why...?”

“Well, because Lemon was hoping to reveal more than just four bushes.”

At those words, Lemon’s treetop shook even more vigorously than it had earlier. She sent out a tendril of essence toward me, giving me the mental equivalent of a tap on the shoulder. Following her lead, I trailed the power with my awareness. Only ten or so meters away, I found an odd bubble of air underground, making my brow furrow.

Absolutely oozing glee, Lemon opened the ground above it, seamlessly sliding around patches of grass. Simultaneously, she raised the pocket of air to the surface, lifting a field of tilled soil into the light of day. Sprouting from its nutrient-filled soil, hundreds upon hundreds of little seedlings grew, each with twin leaves reaching toward the sky.

My eyes unfocused as I inspected them with my chi, finding the tiny trickles of essence that Lemon was providing them.

“They’re...”

“Passiona,” Leroy replied. “Every. Single. One of them.”

I wandered forward, kneeling down to get close. I reached out with a finger, but pulled back before I could make contact. Passiona seeds were tiny, as were their sprouts; it wouldn’t do to damage them by accident.

“Lemon!” I laughed, whirling on her. “You devious tree spirit. You hid these when you raised a root, didn’t you? You disguised your action by making it seem like it was your excitement making the ground shake!”

She radiated glee, not even trying to deny her ruse.

“How long?” I asked, glancing back down at the plants. “How long have these been growing?”

“A few days,” Leroy replied. “Despite how much chi is flowing into them, they haven’t grown faster than the average plant. We worked together to find the perfect amount of essence to feed them. I believe once they get larger, they’ll be able to receive more, and their growth will increase exponentially.”

While we spoke, Lemon had raised a thin root, weaving a roughly humanoid shape with it. I slung an arm over her approximation of shoulders. “You are the best of girls, Lemon. Thank you so much for this surprise. It was wonderful.”

She shimmied in delight and her body shot back into the ground, overwhelmed by the praise.

“So...” Leroy said. “You have a choice to make, Fischer.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

He reached into his pocket, pulling out a little pouch. “This is the passiona husk that was harvested from the old grove in New Tropica before it merged back with the main village. If you taste it, you’ll notice the difference immediately. You can safely use them in the infuser. Orrr...” He pointed down at the passiona bushes. “You can harvest the newly grown husks and use them instead. They have a higher level of both chi and flavor.”

I pursed my lips, tapping my chin in thought. “Well, after the abomination we made earlier by infusing coffee with coffee, I feel like anyone with a shred of sanity would use the least powerful of the two, right?”

“Yes,” Leroy agreed. “That would seem the most prudent of courses, because you could always create another batch with the stronger passiona husk afterward. Only the most reckless of people would choose to use the possibly over-powered variant first.” His eyes bunched in the corners to mirror my amusement, both of us arriving at the same metaphorical destination.

Maria’s eyes narrowed. “You’re going to use the stronger one, aren’t you?”

“Who, me?” I drew a hand to my chest in a show of affront. “You would accuse me, the intellectually gifted Fischer, of taking such a brash course of action?”

Her stare only grew flatter, if such a thing was possible.

When it became clear that she wasn’t going to elaborate with words, I grinned. “I’m totally going to use the more powerful variant.”

I bent and started crumbling the husks, collecting them in the palm of my hand.

Maria let out a long-suffering sigh and patted me on the shoulder in parting. “I’ll go find something to put the powder in.”