NOVEL NEXT Chapter 50: A positive catalyst
Rick Boyer
Ever since the anger, over our treatment, had erupted from mother when she arrived on the island and the dressing down grandfather had received he avoided the home. Almost understandably he would return late from wherever it is he went during the day. Returning only to change clothes and pick up food rather than actual sleep. I didn’t know if at higher levels you even needed a house to sleep in, but he didn’t seem to be doing his sleeping here so I wondered where he was doing it. The weather was getting colder but if your endurance and vitality were high enough would it actually difference whether you were sleeping inside or outside? I did not have any passives, titles or skills to support sleeping outside but that didn’t mean there weren’t any. It was not hard to imagine how dwarves with their durability and giants with their strength would have enough stamina to sleep in the snow. Waking up with only a few missing points on it rather than frostbite or not waking up at all. Not that there was any snow or much chance of it, to be honest, but with winter coming I was going to be missing out on St Nick and all the festivities that came with it. I wondered if they had something similar, a winter solstice or a harvest festival to keep the winter nights at bay. It was bad enough that my presents had gone up in flames but I hadn’t heard anything yet and with our once again enforced isolation on the island I certainly wouldn’t be going to any parties any time soon. Maybe I could make my own here. Although the party food would be restricted to . . . fish and the drinks to . . . water.
With how cross mother had been I was surprised that Grandfather even came back at all. But he continued to check in with us as a family if only for a minute or two every day all he received from her was a continuing simmering, bubbling and sometimes exploding level of anger that she didn’t seem to have given up on. Seemingly reassured by our continued health and growing resources that we were fishing, farming or building up here on the island. Personally, if I was in as much trouble as him I would have stayed elsewhere even if it meant building it afresh. But maybe he had other cave homes or a lean to in the woods somewhere on the mainland.
Either way, I was particularly surprised to find he was going to look after me today. Even more surprised that my mother was letting him.
“Just thought I’d take him up to see the top of the island. It is, after all, his now.” He had explained this morning. “I’ve noticed the plants that you’re trying to grow here.” He pointed out the seedlings sprouting along the window sill. They had sprouted a lot quicker than I had thought they would and the plugs would need repotting soon at this rate. I had carefully made sure to keep watering them daily but only ever giving them a tiny amount of water at a time. “There is a place up at the top of the island that might be a good place for some of them to grow.” He explained his reasoning. “It gets light most of the day being higher up and out of the shade of the island as well as sheltered from the elements.” Sounded like a good place to be planting the seedlings. Although I was nervous about leaving the home without either another family member or Des or Sinis. All three of them had gone with father to sell some of the salt I had been making. Well, I evaporated the water, Des and Sinis collected and carried the salt while Aleera sold it in town having convinced Father to sail them all across to the market. They were limiting themselves to only selling half of what we were making in an attempt to not completely flood the market with salt to the point that it started to lower its price. So I would be alone with Grandfather if mother allowed him to . . .
“I expect him back in the same condition as he is right now.” Mother pointedly responded before permitting him to take me off her hands. Personally, I didn’t, feel like I was much of a bother compared to most babies. But I suppose the fact that I was playing with the building blocks of magic instead of wooden ones meant that she kept a rather closer eye on me than maybe she would with a more normal baby and what I was doing was probably as equally as stressful for her as maybe watching to make sure your baby didn’t crawl up or rather off anything high enough to hurt themselves.
“We’ll be back this afternoon, I’ve packed us a lunch to eat at the top, although if you have any milk in a bottle to take up with us I will make sure he gets it.” He seemed to be trying to make up for his earlier treatment of us. What I didn’t understand was why it seemed to be working.
“Take care, both of you.” Mother said as she passed him a small bottle of milk she must have collected at some point. Now that we were all back together again I was still getting my mothers milk either from herself or from Father in a bottle. This must have been one of those. I suppose family forgives one another even maybe when they have gone beyond what should have been acceptable or forgivable.
I was packed up in the rucksack again to be carried although I had a little flap I could look out from underneath. Grandfather didn’t run up the side of the mountain but it hardly took very long for him to make his way up to the top. Maybe some skills were being used maybe not it was hard to tell from within the bag although it would certainly have taken me or even Aleera significantly longer to have made it up to the top. There I discovered we had another little volcanic crater at the top of the island.
When we arrived at the top, I was greeted by the hidden sight of a small crater hidden at the top of the mountain. There was very little soil up here but some plants had managed to make their way up to the top and seemed to be growing some seemed to be thriving within it. I wondered how much soil and water we would have to cart up if I was to make my dreams of gardening here a reality.
A caldera, on the top of a mountain, forming an island, within a lagoon, in the middle of a caldera, at the center of an island, somewhere deep into the Western Sea. Made you wonder if the sea was in an even bigger crater or ring of earth. But apparently, it wasn’t the Compass Kingdoms that were on the only known continent to our East and formed the center of the known universe.
Ostentatiously, grandfather was here to show me where I could grow my plants now that they had begun to outgrow the windowsill. However, it was a little colder than it had been and it would probably be best to plant them when it started to warm up again. That being said though, the crater appears to be incredibly sheltered from both the oceanic winds and out of sight of the town and the ridgeline.
Looking down into the crater I could imagine how I could slowly terrace it to support growing a variety of plants that I was growing the seeds for. Again, out of sight of the residents of Wester Isles. The main problem would be getting enough water up here to support the growth of what I hoped to achieve. But if I could somehow create a tunnel up here for all the steam I was generating producing salt it was not entirely impossible. Improbable, certainly, and a lot of hard work but not impossible to do. My own little water cycle. Till then though I would have to get Des, Sinis, or a family member to haul up enough water for my little plants.
Still, I could dream of building my own ‘initiation well’ like the one in Sintra, Portugal to funnel water up from below but first I would have to dig, cut or tunnel a hole to support the plants. It would probably be simpler to distil the water when making the salt and then pump it up somehow. But where would the fun be in that? Although barring some magical fix that was looking like the easiest solution to get the water up here. A series of pools up the side of the mountain to pump up from one to the other once I have desalinated it from the lake. With enough water, I would be able to create a veritable cornucopia of produce on this island much like Aogashima. Lost in my daydreams, I walked around the inside of the crater hidden from sight I imagined bond villain’s lairs, fantasy citadels, ancient classical ruins with magic wasn’t anything possible.
Startled from my daydreams I jumped as my Grandfather lifted me to look at him. “You are not normal, are you?” pondering as he held me up to contemplate. I realised that I had spent the last hour walking around the inside of the caldera pausing to imagine how things would or could be.
“Mama, says I’m special.”, responded as simply as I could. Cautious about where this conversation was going.
“Yes, special. That’s one way of putting it. But there are common babies, there are noble babies, there are babies of different species, elves, giants, dwarves, beastkin, gnomes etc and then there’s you.” He said sitting down as he put me down on the ground in front of him.
“I might not be able to see stats and in theory yo,u shouldn’t have grown into them yet. But I have skills that can help me to get a sense of how strong my enemies are as well has to help me know how hard I can push students in order to train them better. Aleera and your mother are nearly noble so awakening magic although early was not a surprise. Clarity can come with training and Charisma can be and has been bought. But while physically immature your training here has hardly ever come close to hurting your health, mana or stamina. As I said I can’t see them but I can get a sense for your resources and either you have far larger resources available to you than most 5 or even 10-year-olds have or you have developed skills that allow you to avoid using them at all. It simply doesn’t make sense, Kai.” He paused biting his thumb as well as his tongue while he stared at me as if he could somehow draw out the secrets hidden within me.
“Did you Kai that you had an older brother?” he took the conversation in a different direction.
“No, just Aleera,” I replied confused with where this was going.
“Yes, well your mother has put her stats into her mental abilities, magic, mind, senses, then secondly vitality, dexterity, lastly strength and endurance. You were very lucky to have been born alive Kai. When too many stats are put into strength and endurance the baby simply doesn’t survive. Oftentimes noble children are cut not born from their mother's wombs. On the Compass Continent, within a noble family, they will have the healers, medicine to support this but out here we don’t. I warned her that her physical stats were creeping up too high but Kaius wanted a son and so she tried to give him one. Your older brother didn’t survive the birth. You were lucky to. Even at birth, you were more robust than you had any right to be.”
Silent I digest this little bit of family history I was unaware of. It had been a challenging birth but I hadn’t realised that my levels and blossoming stats had been the only reason I had survived it.
“And now . . . now have you noticed? Your mother and father don’t seem to have done but I have. You are growing too slow, yet you are too smart, moreover, you see and hear far too much. It is as if you are half-elf, half-gnome and half-beastkin all at the same time even though I know you are not.”
Still silent I am unsure how to respond. Although this all seems rhetorical as he continues his thoughts out loud.
“I pushed because I could tell you weren’t close to breaking or even having a tantrum too calm by far, too thoughtful, too aware. Aleera she notices and as much as she calls you a monster, again I know you are not one, or at least no more than any man can become.” He rambled on.
“Did you know that Aleera has gained twice as many levels in the last 14 months playing with you than she has in the combined 14 months worth of training she has had with me over her lifetime?” he asked unexpecting an answer.
“Did you know that your mother who while she has always been musical had reached a plateau in her levelling skills suddenly halfway through your gestation was able to level, humming, whistling and singing, as well as her magical skills of sense mana and mana manipulation?” he added to his argument
“Did you know that your father who has probably spent the least time with you has been able to gain a level or two in swimming despite his failure to drown you while teaching you how to swim?” clearly not a fan of my father.
“Even I have managed to gain a level in a multitude of skills I had stopped levelling a long time ago, climbing, knife skills, stealth, quick reflexes. One might have been happenstance, twice a coincidence, but three and even four times that is a pattern." he paused.
"You, Kai, are a Catalyst.”