BabaVader
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Chapter 316 Fibre
🕑 Added 2023-06-08 21:20:03 +0000 UTCAuthor's note:
I have something for you. A little chapter of Owl. It's been difficult the last few weeks but I think I'm slowly moving towards a better place. Something about taking small steps and everything. One productive action per day, and then sometimes a second. I'll see if I can get back to some semblance of a schedule but I'm not making promises right now. Other than the story will be finished.
For now, enjoy the chapter!
Cheers!
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The next steps were rather simple. After I confirmed that the bags were sturdy enough, I made a few more trips into the closer areas to plant more Ethereal Bloom where it was more easily accessible for the bark-kin. I was also confirmed in my initial attempts at using the leaves of Ethereal Bloom since that bag lasted much longer. Mostly because it did not get corrupted immediately on touching even the slightest bit of taint. For the deer, that was not a problem, but when I used the tawny owl to carry things the bag would always touch the tainted ground before it could be cleansed. I had one close call of the owl’s body almost getting corrupted before giving up on that version of the bag.
Elder Bloom was starting to warm up to me as well, which felt a bit weird. I did not really want to form a connection with these people. Their mind control related religion around Hive was creeping me out. It was two days later that the bark-kin finally managed to make their own version of a simple silverwood shoe to move over tainted ground. With their expansion now becoming self-sufficient, I decided to try for another deep exploration.
I used the tawny owl to bring two Ethereal Bloom flowers deep into the tainted land. The first went beyond the first set of ruins just to the east and the second I placed on a hill not far from the city where I wanted to break open the trap door. A second trip placed a few dead forest mice in both places just in case I had to spend a night there.
I almost considered using my main body to try and break open the trapdoor with a void-aspected attack from range but it was simply too dangerous. So I used another Ethereal Bloom instead. I made sure nothing was moving inside the ruins before slowly moving down for a landing. This time, I was using another ‘normal’ bag instead of the one resistant to taint. I might have to leave it behind and that potential waste was something I wanted to avoid.
The area was clear, as far as I could tell, so I dropped down the final bit. The bag splayed on the tainted ground and the soil spread out in a small pile. The leaf bag was already disintegrating and I made sure to quickly let go.
“Tell me if you notice anything”, I sent to Catori.
“I will. You can probably just get back in the air and circle the area, though.”
“I’m taking a look at this first.”
The trap door was still looking a little cracked where I had started to dig into it the last time. I realized I had not made all that much progress before that dog-thing had chased me off. Now that I looked closely, there were still a few stains on the wall. Purple splotches on slightly-lighter-purple stone were not that easy to make out.
I picked at the corrupted wood a little more before deciding to let it be for the moment and take the safe approach Catori had reminded me of. It would be a little exhausting but it did not look like rain so I was going to be fine.
A few hours later I was convinced I would have to return the next day. The Ethereal Bloom had still another few centimetres left before the cleansed area would reach the trap door. At least it was interesting to pay a little closer attention to the process.
As the circle of normality spread, the ground simply turned back. Some rocks cracked into smaller ones, yes, but there was mostly no change to anything like earth, stone, and gravel. Metal parts seemed to fall apart into a crumbly dust like rusted iron if one rubbed it between their fingers. Anything organic simply disintegrated into fine powder. And then, new grass sprouted. Somehow.
Where there should have been nothing but dead soil and rock, a small meadow was sprouting happily. Sure, the grass was a little short at first but it grew very quickly. That seemed to be a simple side-effect the Ethereal Bloom had on its surroundings. After all, even the small dirt mounds they sat in while in their bags had grass beginning to sprout before I delivered them.
“That’s interesting”, I sent to Catori, “What do you think? Is there enough herba in the Blooms to do that?”
“I… wouldn’t say so. At least not to grow it from nothing. But I can guess that the soil you dug up already had some grass seeds inside and when the Bloom starts cleaning up, the excess energy has to go somewhere.”
“Maybe we can take a closer look at the process with my main body. The aura senses should be helpful.”
“Use one of the closer checkpoints. That should be safe.”
I nodded.
“Good idea.”
I took off towards the safe spot I created earlier. Being in the ruined town, even with the cleansed area, was too dangerous since I knew there were tainted beasts there. I just hoped they did not roam this far out.
Once the tawny owl was as safe as it would get right now, I returned my consciousness to my main body. I approached the field of Ethereal Bloom from the village side and spotted almost half a dozen bark-kin gathered close to the edge of the area. They had apparently brought out more of the Blooms from the back of the field and created a spotted track of clean land leading towards one of the locations I had secured. It looked like they were watching for any problems though I did not know what they planned to do about anything that might harm the plants.
I found Elder Bloom with the group and greeted them with a hoot from high up before swerving out a little over the tainted land. With the Blooms already planted, I would not have to get close to it.
My [Owl Senses] went into overdrive as I looked for what the flowers did to grow healthy grass around them. At first, all the vitium-aspected vis blasted my perception, blinding me to any details. It took quite a bit of getting used to how it flowed. It looked like there was a thin layer of vis right above the ground that pulsated slightly, a little bit like a beating heart. I thought it was pushed down by aer vis before I spotted the source. The tainted fibres spread out all over the ground were cycling the vis in and out of their system.
“What’s going on?”, Catori asked, “I can’t see the vis, you know?”
“Right. Sorry.”
I explained to her what I had seen and asked what she thought of it.
“I would say it’s alive and breathing vitium vis if I didn’t know better. Cycling it like that does nothing. It doesn’t change the aer vis around it, right?”
“Correct. That’s what I was thinking about. And the tainted earth isn’t doing much at all. So how does it spread?”
There was a moment of silence before Catori metaphorically slapped her forehead.
“That’s it. The fibre is rotating the vis through its system to spread the taint. Or rather, the other way around.”
“Okay, but why doesn’t it do anything to the air?”
“Probably because the aer vis can simply dodge the vitium. It can move away. Earth can’t really do that.”
“Then the fibre is simply growing like that. And the Ethereal Bloom is breaking down the vitium, which breaks the fibre. Without a permanent source of vitium, the earth is cleansed.”
“And anything that was cycling vis before getting corrupted will crumble as the fibre probably spread through it.”
I nodded.
“That makes a lot of sense. But what does the Bloom do to the vitium?”
“Let’s take a look.”
I obliged and lowered myself to one of the newly spreading fields of cleansed ground. The Ethereal Bloom was holding strong with both sano and auram essence throughout its leaves. Healing and aura. They even matched the herba in the plant one to one. There was a little ordo as well but it was moving strangely. Following the trail showed the ordo spreading throughout the ground around the Ethereal Bloom. Where it touched the tainted land, purple fibre was breaking down. I could easily make out how the ordo was attacking vitium under the protection of auram. The vitium broke down into praecantatio and perditio which then combined with ordo into more auram and permutatio. The auram returned to the Ethereal Bloom and split some sano into vitium and ordo which spread to the edges, one part growing new grass, the other setting out to break down more vitium.
In short, the Ethereal Bloom was eating the aspects of the tainted fibre. The taint was destroyed and some of the energy went into making new life.
“Soo…”, Catori began, “How does it live when there’s no more taint?”
“It’s a normal plant. The auram and ordo probably still move around in its range but other than that… Oh! The grass it’s growing will start a new ecological cycle which then sustains the Ethereal Bloom through normal means… Or something like that.”
“That makes a lot of sense. I think we got it at least partially right.”
“Not that we were really planning to figure out everything today”, I chuckled.
“True. Do you know what this all means?”
“Yes. If our theory is correct and the fibre is really what spreads the taint… You just need to prevent it from growing.”
Catori snorted.
“Easier said than done. At least we have something to work off, now.”
“We’ll take a look at that cellar tomorrow. You can have some time for yourself after that.”
“I appreciate it. Do you want to stay there when the meeting starts, or?”
“I think I’ll make my way further east. Maybe I can run into Stormbringer.”
“Fio…”
I laughed.
“You know just as well as I do that we should try to communicate with something like that. I’ll probably use the falcon to scout while keeping my main body around the bark-kin. Just in case.”
“Okay. You’re right. At this point, we really should figure out if the dragon can help us. What’s there to lose, right?”
