Chapter 2233: And You Will See |
--- Kat ---
So, turns out? Riding on someone’s shoulder isn’t as fun as Lily makes it look. Kat has no idea if she just automatically accounts for her girlfriend’s safety, it’s something in the way Appoline walks, or if this is just how it’s meant to be, but trying to stay on the shoulder of a running elf is a massive pain. Kat eventually just gave up and took to flying beside Appoline instead. It was nice to note that she could keep up with Appoline just fine when she was flying. Top speed was uncertain but it seemed like her speed wasn’t as limited on the ground. Then again, it wasn’t like her wings ever obeyed the laws of physics to begin with.
Eventually Appoline came to a stop... though it was far earlier then Kat wanted. Instead of stopping at the greenhouse, she stopped at the collapsed room. Where they meat the shapeshifting... thing in their original delve. The one that had taken out Tanisha’s arm. And Appoline was giving it looks that were far too intrigued. "I feel like I know the answer, but what are you doing?" asked Kat.
"I’m working out if it is worth diving into this cavern for more exotic ingredients," Appoline answered.
"Pretty sure everything that wasn’t the monster was eaten by said monster," commented Kat.
"Yes but the monster itself could be good for regeneration potions. Others too perhaps, but regeneration is the most notable at the moment," offered Appoline.
"Not healing?" asked Kat.
"Shapeshifting monsters rarely have a true healing aspect to them. I suspect it’s due to the fact that ’damage’ is a bit more of a nebulous concept to them. They can just shapeshift a lot of it away, and the stuff they can’t do that to tends to really confuse them until it eventually heals," explained Appoline.
"But regeneration is fine?" squeaked Kat.
"I’ll take your word for it... but the thing mostly disappeared after we killed it. I really hope that there isn’t more and I’m certain I could fight another while I’m like this," Kat explained.
Appoline sighed, "Alright fair enough." Appoline gestured over her shoulder indicating they should continue on and then took off promptly, leaving Kat to fly after her. Kat didn’t mind. Honestly, any excuse to get away from this place faster seemed great. Especially while she was so diminished in size. Her worries about killing something like that were quite real.
Between its massive size and her own lacking speed she wasn’t sure she could get to anything important. Instead, she’d just be lead around while it shuffled the important bits away. Assuming it was smart enough to have any sort of self-preservation.
They had no further interruptions before reaching the greenhouse and it was much the same as when they left it yesterday. Or today? Probably yesterday, it was surely past midnight at this point though the lights didn’t exactly give anyone a clue. The ones in the greenhouse were on... but Kat wasn’t sure if they ever turned off.
Appoline paused at the entrance, ears flicking around notably, or maybe that was just because they were most of what she could see. "What’s wrong?"
"I’m basically wondering if I should ransack the place, or keep things sustainable. I could rip out plenty of the plants here, tear off all of the leaves. That sort of thing... or I could take a few bits and pieces from every plant and I would expect most, if not all of them to survive. Mostly depending on if they’d have done so beforehand and how aggressive their neighbours feel," explained Appoline.
"Right... are you looking for my opinion?" asked Kat.
Appoline shrugged, "Why not? What do you think?"
"Well... first, what’s the difference here? Like why would you want to keep everything, and why would you want to loot as much as possible?" asked Kat.
"Well the argument for why I want to take ’everything’ is that we need potions now and if I was to take basically everything I could spend days making potions. We don’t know when exactly we’re going to be attacked next, or even if we are going to be, but having more potions can never be bad...
"Of course the counterpoint to that is that not every part of a plant is as useful as the others. Some my have valuable leaves, other valuable bark, and plenty with valuable roots... but ultimately, completely destroying this place for ingredients might only yield... something in the ballpark of three or four times the amount of ingredients. Which is a horrendous ratio when in theory you should be able to get at least ten times as much from stripping everything clean.
"The issue is that different parts at different stages of growth aren’t all as useful as each other, and then the fact that say it’s a plant with most of its energy concentrated in the leaves. If I take the whole plant, the leaves might be seventy percent of the potency with thirty percent being the entire rest of the plant. Most of the extra ingredients we’re getting is just from over picking the leaves in that case, and the rest is nearly a waste.
"I’m confident I’m capable enough to make SOMETHING out of the scrap parts... but that’s extra effort we might not need to spend. Some of this stuff could regrow in a day or two and if we come back to visit we can get another haul. Not everything here obviously, but even if I don’t decimate the area I can likely still get days of ingredients from it," explained Appoline.
"Well... that seems like the best course of action then right?" asked Kat.
Appoline sighed, "In theory yes... but some of the more valuable plants require extremely careful trimming. Most of those are ones I need the roots of. You can’t disturb the soil too much, can’t cut away too much... but also not too little. It will likely take me FAR longer then just ripping the plant out and taking all of the roots,"
"How do you keep those sorts of plants normally then?" asked Kat.
"Normally you just rip out the plant once it’s reproduced and then take all of the roots. A few of them you can just slice the roots off leaving a little bit and it will all regrow, but most of them reproduce properly with flowers and whatnot. Anyway, you want to force them to reproduce, then wait for at least one offspring to take, then you cut out the roots," explained Appoline.
"Ok... why not do a mix then?" asked Kat. "Take everything from the more difficult ones, and then leave the ones that are easier to collect growing."
"Could disrupt the ecosystem too much. It might make the easier ones die. I have a decent eye for plants, but for something this messy I wouldn’t know. I’m almost an expert when it comes to carefully cultivated plants, and these are basically wild," explained Appoline.
Kat sighed, "Alright I see why this is more complicated then it seems... how likely are we do die if we don’t destroy the place?"
"Well you’re pretty likely to live through it all," joked Appoline. Kat just sent a raised eyebrow back at her. A few seconds of silence proved that she was now too small for that to be quite so obvious. Especially when Appoline started to look confused.
"I’m trying to be serious here," grumbled Kat.
Appoline shrugged, "I don’t really have a better answer for you Kat. Even if I’m being serious, there’s just too many variables to know.
Kat sighed, "Then should this really be my choice? I can survive, Lily can probably survive. If everyone else NEEDS those potions..."
"But I don’t know if they do!" Appoline cut in. "This sort of thing doesn’t normally come up. Normally I’d have a big stockpile of everything. I haven’t been low on potions since I was a literal child! Do you not remember my big storage room? That wasn’t even all of the potions I had squirreled away."
"Ah," intoned Kat.
"What does that mean?" snapped Appoline.
*It means I didn’t realise you were using your potion stockpile as a giant glass safety blanket. That now that it’s gone and you’re finally in some danger you have no idea how to properly react. Part of me wants to suggest just leaving to get more ingredients but the problem with that is that as soon as we’re seen leaving I’d bet there’s a team ready to go in to attack. Which is really not good. I could maybe try flying out? But the roof means you can’t really get so high nobody can watch you.*
"Why don’t we start with the easy stuff and you can brew a bit as you go? It might take us longer but we’re not in a rush. As long as you’re ok with missing some sleep..." Kat offered instead.
Appoline nodded "Skipping sleep sounds PERFECT right now. I might crash later but that’s perfectly acceptable. Plus you’re right. We might as well get the easy stuff. Once I’ve got a decent stockpile I can start brewing while sending you out for the rest."
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