The Slime Farmer

Chapter 98: Bright and Shadowed Morn

When Defi woke, half the morning had already gone.

He frowned.

The bed was unfamiliar, so was the room.

He pushed himself into a sitting position, looked around.

He spied his bag on a chair next to the table in the room. Did that mean this wasn't an abduction?

He slid out of bed, padded to the window. The street outside was not familiar, narrow and murmuring gently with morning pedestrians.

He opened the wooden shutters and leaned out, curious. The sun was already halfway up its climb to the zenith, drenching the city in pleasant warmth.

Ah.

The larger street to his left had some familiarity. He was likely in the Sunsparrow Inn, on the same street as the Bluzand building.

He pulled his craning neck back inside and closed the shutters.

He didn't remember how he got to the inn. Defi pressed a finger to the slight crease between his brows. 

The events of last night were muddled slightly.

One moment he was watching a barge pull away from the docks, the next Tennar was before him, hands on Defi's shoulders and saying they should leave the docks.

What he felt though.

He felt a sliver of the rage he'd wielded last night return.

The man on the barge

A figure he thought he'd only see after much time searching; improbable to coincidentally run into again.

And yet, last night, the improbable had been before him.

He had many daydreams of meeting the man again, many bloody dreams, satisfying dreams.

He'd taken the opportunity.

He jerked, looked around. Where was Turq?

He could still feel the summon bond, so the slime was not dead.

It was also nearby.

He washed quickly, changed to fresh clothing, and strode out of the room.

*

Vesia was sitting at one of the tables, talking to Chomar who was gesturing while stuffing his mouth with bread.

Both of them were feeding Turq small pieces of various foods and watching in fascination as the foreign pieces of material that entered the slime's body were quickly assimilated, visibly disappearing within the semi-opaque body.

Vesia looked tired, but Chomar's energy was making her smile.

Defi walked toward them.

It was Turq who first noticed, crawling toward him on the table top.

"Defi!" Vesia beamed. "You're awake already."

He nodded. "You are all well?"

Chomar mumbled something.

"I'm not sure what that meant," Vesia huffed, "but it's certain to be on the lines of 'we weren't the one to leap off a moving carriage and run toward danger like an idiot' or something very similar."

Chomar nodded emphatically, mouth full of bread. Then he pointed at her and made a gesture.

"We are not the same!"

Chomar made a gesture to himself, then waved his hand at them all, looking at her in disbelief.

Defi laughed lightly and pulled out a chair for himself. Definitely, it was both of them who had pulled Chomar into this. He was just happy none of them were hurt. He reached out to pat Turq on the back. Or was it the head? It was all the same anyway.

The gloomy shadow cast by yesterday inside him was slowly dissipating.

A cup was placed before Defi, the fragrance of sweet hot tea reaching his nose. He glanced thankfully at the server.

"What happened yesterday?"

The two turned to him, surprised. 

"You don't know?"

"Parts of it are a blur. I'm guessing you met the Bluzand people and followed to the docks?"

Chomar swallowed the load in his mouth, reached for another bun. "They flip all flailed around when we told them you'd gone after, what, smugglers or thieves?"

Vesia gave him a half-hearted glare.

The boy shrugged. "When merchants fight, it's always smugglers and thieves, ey?"

Vesia wrinkled her nose but did not refute.

Chomar then eyed Defi, nudged over a plate. "Eat more, you look draped."

Vesia snorted. "You're thinner than he is."

Defi picked up a bun and bit into it. Flaky on the outside, soft insides surrounding sweet fruit pieces. "This is great."

"Told you that bakery made the best buns."

Defi belatedly remembered that he'd promised this meal to her. "Definitely worth a recommendation."

He shared the bun with Turq, grabbed a few more before Chomar could completely decimate the table.

"Try this one as well." Vesia pushed a plate at him. "People say it's the best of the bakery."

He thanked her.

"Go on, try it," she urged. "Tell me what you think."

He paused at seeing her expectant gaze. Chomar looked over in interest as well.

Realization crossed Defi's mind.

"Most of what I said last night was rot, you know." His technical knowledge on cooking did not reach even an average cook in Ascharon, so his 'analysis' of last night's spices were mostly personal impressions.

In short, he'd run his mouth as far as it could go.

"I knew it," Chomar laughed.

"Even then," Vesia sighed, "in an atmosphere like that, you had the stones to filibuster?"

Defi shrugged. He picked up one of the recommended buns. The filling was not fruit, but a soft paste of some kind. The sweetly nutty, earthy taste was surprising. 

"It's very good. What is this filling?"

"Yubiroot and groundnut." Vesia nodded in satisfaction.

"Enough with the buns! Do you know," Chomar looked at Defi excitedly, "they captured the leader of a pirate crew last night? Not just any river pirate, but Ramad Degaine!"

"I don't know who that is." Defi had a suspicion though.

"The rivers of the empire are too large and mysterious to be completely free of pests," Vesia said. "Degaine's river pirates aren't the largest, but they're one of the most vicious."

"He has one of the larger bounties," Chomar looked slightly regretful. "Whoever gets that is in the butter for a lifetime! I hear it's one of the city guards. I still think it's whoever blew his barge up."

"What?"

"When they got to the pirates, their boat was nearly in pieces. How could you not know?" Chomar groaned. "You were staring right at it!"

Ah.

Turq had been influenced a bit by his mindset at the time, likely.

The Sixth Circlethere were some aspects of it that Defi still could not control. The Sixth Circle was what prevented Ontrean warriors from becoming berserkers out of rage, guiding them to use their fury to fuel cold calculation.

"You two were allowed into the docks?" He was certain official people started to flood in not too long after the hull of the barge visibly cracked.

Defi tried not to smile at that particular memory. That man had nearly topped head over end into the river.

He gave Turq a whole bun. Good work.

"When the big fish are parting the waters, you don't see the small fry clinging to their tails." Chomar downed the last of his tea.

"They were all captured?" Defi was almost certain none of them died. Not even that man.

"When the guard deployed their boats, the pirates were already sinking. They couldn't get away just with swimming away." Vesia sighed, despondent. "Right now, they're still diving for the sunken cargo, but some of it has already been identified."

"Bluzand?" He recalled the expressions on Vodren's face yesterday, and the head clerks nearly excessive actions against strangers in the warehouse. Stolen cargo then?

"Not a lot, but yes."

Defi knew that meant Caria the assistant was now under suspicion. "Did you talk?"

Vesia stilled, then nodded. "I heard her. She thinks her son's death is Bluzand's fault."

"Is it?" Judging by Vesia's expression, Caria's case was now more than suspicion. Had she been on the barge as well?

"I spent half the night in the archives." Vesia shook her head. "He signed up with us after his three-year tribute service in the navy ended."

"Protecting Bluzand ships?"

Vesia nodded. "The ship he was on, the 'Darron Belth' had to put in at the Samrad Isles in the southwest. They decided to do some trading while there. He was killed during a dispute between two local factions, trying to protect Bluzand merchants. They buried him at sea."

Ascharonians did not cremate their dead, Defi recalled. They buried them, sending their bodies to the depths of earth and sea.

He studied his new account manager. She had been promoted because she knew too much but, after spending some time with her, he knew she was level-headed under the lively exterior. She was one to rise to a challenge.

It wasn't like his business with Bluzand was complicated.

It was just vinegar, after all.

Tennar was also unlikely to give her any other assignments that would be too strenuous immediately.

She would be able to recover well from this blow.

"It's just," Vesia waved her hands around in lost confusion. "How could she work for the company so long when she thought that?"

Chomar snorted, a trifle bitter, stopped pretending he was engrossed in the last of the stuffed buns. "You can live strong on spite and anger, do you know?"

The sudden impact of that sentence, revealing perhaps more than the boy wanted them to know, turned the already awkward air darker.

The server, coming to their table to refresh the tea, felt cold sweat at the back of his neck as he attempted to pour as elegantly as he could in the silence between the three.

They watched him all but scurry away without saying anything else, in contrast to the smiles and offers of more dishes that the servers at the other tables gave freely.

"My great-grandfather once survived being captured by enemies by taunting them at every turn, until they turned black from anger and let him go." Defi suddenly put in. 

To be specific, that great-grandfather turned them against each other with only his words and then simply walked out of the dungeon as the lone survivor. But Defi felt that telling the whole story would plunge the conversation more deeply into depression.

Vesia laughed, not precisely in amusement.

"He once said that mentors come in all sorts," Defi added, "and it is the duty of the student to love and hate them at the same time."

She laughed again, a bit more amused now. "You're just saying that, aren't you."

Chomar laughed as well.

Defi put his hand to his chest. "Do you disdain the wisdom of my ancestors, distilled from centuries of debate and oratory?"

"You mean they liked to bullshit a lot, huh?" Chomar smirked at him.

"I cannot agree with unsolicited opinions."

"Sure, sure."

"Why are you here, anyway?"

Chomar shrugged, his smirk not abating any. "Haven't been paid yet."

The air of the morning was lighter. Three young people, who met in odd circumstances, laughed the shadows in their eyes away.