End the Morning in Frowns

Defi examined the barrel again, comparing it to the original Bluzand emblem. He smiled in satisfaction when he saw there was no difference. He'd thought himself hallucinating last night, but he'd actually managed to recreate the company's barrel protection/preservation/durability emblem correctly.

He lined up another seven barrels and affixed the glyph-papers he'd painstakingly drawn, activating each to inscribe the emblems on the barrels.

Finally, today, he was going to milk the eight slimes he had fattened for over a week.

He started with the two assigned to Jar's thick flavorful vinegar, both chosen for their slightly viscous slime extract and the fact that it had tasted slightly sour like fruit, not sour like rotting food which some other slimes had smelled like. He'd named the two of them already; Jarvon, the darkish-green emerald-colored slime and Jarto, the green slime with the gold stripe.

He put Jarvon in a bucket and started kneading.

He'd found some odd stretchy gloves that shopkeepers selling delicate or slightly dangerous seafood or raw materials used. It was made of the cured inner hide of a type of giant seaslug. They called the material thalassen vellum, which was different from thalassen leather which was from a different animal altogether.

The apothecary he'd seen using the gloves, he only met because his neighbour Allise got a minor fever and her husband was so worried he nearly overturned their boat. Apparently the youngest in the household was the most sensible as he ran to get Bree, who got Defi, who had to go into town to buy medicine because both of the men of the north farm were panicking.

When he delivered the medicine, his face must have been a sight, because Allise assured him she would be going to the birthing rooms in the town physicker-hall when the time came, and both men would not be in charge of her.

Defi could not say he was not relieved at her words.

The gloves he got went up past his elbows and weren't stiff or uncomfortable to use.

He lifted Jarvon from the bucket, dripping extract. The gloves completely prevented the fluids from reaching his skin. Excellent.

He put Jarvon in a basket of food and filtered the bucket of slime extract into a large bottle. He estimated two litr of fluid had been milked.

That was normal. He poured a sample into a smaller bottle,

He washed residue off his gloved hands, and turned his attention to the rest of the 'wild' slimes.

After Jarto, came Malvon and Malto, who he hoped could reproduce Malachite's light vinegar, then Larvon and Larto, who could possibly recreate Larimar's lotion. He filtered and bottled samples of everything.

He turned his attention to the two slimes that cost more in feed than all the others. The savras was nearly gone, and tomorrow he'd have to feed them zaziphos until the savras sellers came next week. Of course, that depended on how the extract came out.

He'd named them Zivenof and Zavanas, a reference to an alchemy folktale in Ontrea; Ziv and Zav in short.

The extract from the savras slimes was of a viscosity between Jar's vinegar and the lotion. The scent was of sweet zaziphos and at the very least, the fluids did not seem to be poison. He filtered and bottled them. He would have the apothecary test them for efficacy before he needed to do anything else with it.

He labelled the sample bottles and wrote down the particulars in his slime farming journal. He dug out the sample bottles from Jar, Mal, and Lar as well.

He brought the sample bottles to the kitchen, arranged them on the table, and took out several small bowls. He poured the extract from the thick vinegar into tasting bowls. He brought a bowl to his lips and let a touch of vinegar reach his tongue.

Jarvon's extract tasted well enough. He sipped water to drown the taste, then tested Jar's vinegar to compare.

He put down the bowl, took another sip of water, and tested Jarto's product.

It was recognizable as vinegar, but there was a difference in the taste. Jar's had a richer, fuller flavor. The extract from Jarvon and Jarto were similar enough to each other that he could not discern the differences, save perhaps Jarto's was slightly more viscous. But their extract only approximated the richness of Jar's. If he could taste that minor difference, then it definitely would stand out to the tongues of the gourmand chefs of Ascharon.

He sighed. Mystic crab versus ordinary crab – there really was no contest. Maybe he could get a closer taste if he increased the ratio of crab in the slime feed.

He noted down the results, tapped the pen absently as he thought, then jotted down possible avenues for improvement.

For instance, Kern's herb hybrids were already planted. He'd stopped most of his nightly forays to heal the orchard land so he could focus the Current on the herbs. They were greedy, greedy little herbs. He could see how they would wither a whole farm so easily. And Kern had planted whole fields of them.

Even with the Current, Defi would not be able to sustain more than a quarter-hecte while he was healing the land as well.

He really wanted to know what effect the herbs would have on the extract from various slimes.

He put down the wool-tipped pen and washed out the tasting bowls. The Jar series vinegar had passed the first test. It would have to pass the Sarel taste test next. Today was a delivery day and he was heading there later in the morning, so it was no problem.

He started on the Mal series next, pouring the light vinegar into the tasting bowls. A minute of tasting, and he was noting down that Malvon and Malto had more of a success. Again, they needed to pass the Sarel taste test.

The Lar series was a bit of a problem. The considerations for lotion were different. It didn't require a taste test. The viscosity of both was good, the zaziphos scent was stronger than in the original, and testing on skin did not irritate or cause a rash. Did he need to send samples to the Bluzand company again?

He packed all the samples in his travelsack, even the originals. He'd get Sarel's thoughts, then head to the apothecary.

He peered into a basket he'd just set up yesterday. A blue-green slime, a slightly darker hue than Turq's, lay munching on zaziphos inside.

He almost forgot.

He had to deliver Rocso's slime as well.

He washed up, and grabbed Turq, who'd been lazily creeping along the wooden bench near the food baskets.

"You know, I've been too focused on glyphmaking to actually look into your species again." He grumbled. "This was much easier with a translator just reading out the passages."

He walked into the central hall, fell into a chair, and opened the neglected books on Abrechal, cradling Turq in an arm while lounging with a blanket around him to ward of the early morning chill.

Every chapter he tried to read, there was a translation in Ascharonian common, and a dictionary. There were a number of Ascharonian root words from Abrechal, so his progress was somewhat steady.

After slowly reading a chapter, with reference to the common translation, he took a break to make hot tea. Then he brought out pen and another book in Abrechal, which he tried to decipher without referencing a translation.

The process worked for him. He could now infer about half the meaning of most sentences in the books. Ask him to speak it however, and he'd be lost. No matter. He only needed to know how to read it.

He'd gotten tired of battling multiple tenses with gendered words and was struggling with calculating how to make one emblem activate another when certain conditions were formed, when his current housemates stumbled out of the bedroom wing.

He greeted the sleepy children and went to start making the morning meal, moving Turq from his shoulder to the top of his head.

The children mostly did follow Aire's schedule of waking up an hour or two after dawn, though from their half-dead impressions as they shuffled into the kitchen he wondered if he should make them sleep earlier in the evenings.

He contemplated his current schedule as they ate.

Today's meal was milky samad and bread stuffed with grilled fresh Lowpool herring doused in starcherry sauce.

The oily herring was a sea-fish, said one of the sellers, but the ones caught in the Lowpool had no way of returning to the ocean and were forced to adapt. It was the most common fish in the lake. They were smaller than the common sea herring and less oily, but the flavor was delicate and sweet. The seller claimed that eaten raw, it tasted like a melon.

Defi was in no hurry to verify the claim personally, especially as the seller chomping down on the raw fish in front of him had proved it well enough.

He eyed the children.

"Do you want to move your studies to the mornings, and sleep earlier at night?"

"No," said Renne immediately.

Markar chewed his bread carefully, before answering. "You're busy in the mornings."

"Leaving us here?" Bree looked worried.

"No," he told the child.

It couldn't be helped that most days his free time was after sunset, and that was when he could help with their studies. Renne and Markar had advanced reading, and could write already, so Defi could only give them the essay questions and logic problems he remembered from his own studies at their age. He'd even asked Orain to acquire a book on the literature of this world so satisfy the 'songs' part of the curriculum, and then a book on the local laws to assist in debates.

As for Bree, the boy often turned around the letters when he wrote, but his reading was coming along fine and his comprehension acceptable. Most of the youngest boy's work was in writing, and Defi had to supervise closely or Bree would gain bad habits.

He also started Bree on reading literature and simple logic, in preparation for history and philosophy.

A well-rounded education was valuable, as the elders said.

He contemplated that. Should he then start them on handling weapons? They did not appear to be trained; that was an oversight in their education.

"What weapons are normally taught to children?"

The older two, once more, looked at him like he was growing another head. He was confused. Did Ascharon not teach weapons combat? Natanel had offered to teach him swords, hadn't he?

"Swords!" Bree said immediately.

"You want to learn the sword?"

Bree nodded. "Flying swords."

Defi smiled ruefully. "I can teach you the basics of the sword arts. But the flying is up to you."

As a low-adept, he was allowed to teach apprentices. To teach the advanced arts, a master was needed. His sword master had rated him to mastery in only a single sword art – the Stormhawk Sword; he had only needed to pass the Trials to be able to teach.

He ℎ𝑎𝑑 passed the Trials, technically. The lord of Rimet's interference was indicative; had he not passed, there would have been no need to interfere. He just as skilled as any single student who passed, only he held no tokens of achievement, no badges of honor, no stripes on his sleeves to show his skills.

The Stormhawk Sword was a foundation art more than a combat technique – most people who learned it did so for the insight into the basics. Defi had been learning several other styles that needed a good foundation and he had been planning to find a good teacher after the Trials. Needless to say, that was impossible now.

"I thought you hated swords?" Renne asked.

"I do not hate swords," he said, wrenching down a sudden memory of how easy it was to slide a sword into human flesh. "I am able to teach one sword art and two spear arts, not to mention hunting and archery, various literary arts, the flute and the lyre, and finally, mathematics."

The kingdom of Ontrea had long had a prohibition on kingdom information crossing the Gates. But a foundation sword art and two of the least-powerful spear arts in the thousands of weapons techniques available to the warriors of Ontrea…would it really do that much harm?

"Why are you offering?" asked Markar.

"I've been thinking of getting back into practice. Teaching the basics is a good way to do so." Not to mention, were they not in danger currently? The children were being hunted, while Defi was being watched by people who had been in conflict with him once already.

"We'll have to think about it."

Renne frowned at her brother, but he only stared back silently. She huffed.

Defi nodded, knowing they would discuss it when he was not present, only sighing out, "It is better to know something and choose not to use it, than not know something and need it."

He would have preferred a life where he did not have to pick up another weapon. But he should have known better than to hope.

The morning meal ended with frowns on three faces.