The Slime Farmer

The apothecary, a middle-aged man with blonde hair and a perpetually bored expression on his face, snorted in amusement when Defi told him what he wanted.

The man wore an exceedingly loud red coat with large purple stripes. The sleeves of the coat, only reaching to below his elbow, looked like the lower part had been hacked off and what was left badly re-sewn.

"Savras?" he drawled, as he stretched from the recliner he'd been half-asleep on when Defi came in. "I suppose I have nothing else to do."

He accepted the two sample bottles, flicked the piece of paper label on the first to see it marked 'Zav' and shook his head. He uncorked the bottle and poured some of the contents into the hollow of his palm. He tilted his palm this way and that.

A curious light lit up in the formerly uninterested eyes. "You did say it was savras?"

"Savras and zaziphos." Defi glanced toward the apothecary from where he was looking through several of the fresh ingredients displayed in preservation boxes.

"Savras is barely a mystic plant; you diluted it more? The efficacy of this…" The man huffed. Then his voice grew lower. "But how did it become so clear?"

Not really so clear, Defi thought. Compared to the slime vinegars, the extract from the savras-fed slimes was tinged with a dark green, making the liquid look like the clear greenish glass Ontrea used for mirrors and statues.

The apothecary rubbed the liquid between the pads of his fingers, then clapped his hands together and rubbed his palms as if warding away the cold. A faint hint of grass and zaziphos spread around him as his actions heated the liquid between his hands.

Not satisfied, he brought his cupped hands to his nose and inhaled. He sighed, brought out a strange tablet. "It certainly smells better than any savras extract I ever encountered."

It did not sound like a compliment, so Defi ignored it and focused on the tablet. He doubted the man was actually testing the smell anyway.

It looked like the summon-tablet Defi had used to summon Turq actually, except it was larger and the etched symbols on the slab of rock looked more intricate and elaborate.

The tablet's designs were focused around a central hollow inscribed with glyphs.

The man brushed his wet hands over the bare skin of his inner arms, holding them up to his gaze, to Defi's confusion. Then the 'Zav' sample was poured into the tablet. The apothecary tapped his finger to one of the glyphs, and the slime extract in the central bowl-shaped cavity moved, climbing up the inscriptions and filling the channels of the engraved designs.

"How curious. A new variety of savras? But then I would have heard of it." His eyes were not so dull anymore, a spark lighting up behind his apathy. "But the scent…"

He tapped another glyph and the liquid drained out of a spout at the side of the tablet. The man caught the drain in the sample bottle. He flushed the tablet apparatus and wiped it dry.

Quickly, the second sample was poured in and the process repeated.

"Hm, hm, excellent." He turned to Defi. "How did you retain the efficacy of the savras with this much adulterant? Is this the result of a decoction? A distillation?"

"I am not the one who made these," Defi said, entirely truthful. "I only wanted to know what they were."

"And the maker? A name, a face, what can you tell me?" The apothecary looked at him so keenly expectant, no trace of boredom lingering, that Defi was a little sorry to disappoint him.

"The names were foreign, and the face – I am afraid the faces defied human description."

"There were two?"

Defi pointed wordlessly at the tags on the sample bottles, which were in fact recycled condiment bottles.

"Ziv? Zav? This tells me nothing!"

"They are effective then?"

"Effective?" The man scoffed. "No more effective than the common tincture of savras. But this clarity, this method of creation, I have never seen it before! Young man, if I knew how to do this, do you know how many other things I could make?! This method, this process, wasted to make savras taste like fruit, of all things!"

Defi smiled at him. "Thank you, sir. Your assistance has eased my worries greatly. If there is anything…?"

The man pointed immediately at the slime extract samples. "May I have these?"

Defi wavered.

"I must test further!"

Defi did not know how the bodies of slimes worked to produce the extract. Perhaps a purification, or something similar. But recreating the substance without the slimes would be desirable. It was best if the extract did not stand out too much or come from only one source.

So he agreed to leave the samples.

"Of course, of course, you should not give up secrets of the trade so easil—" The man whirled. "What, I can have them?"

The enthusiastic man in front of him was such a departure from his recent experience of the apothecary that if Defi didn't know better he'd have said it was a different man.

"My name is Karlant. If you have any more substances to test, don't hesitate to bring them here."

Defi nodded, made his goodbyes and left. The apothecary Karlant immediately closed his shop and disappeared into the back, the sample bottles held close to his chest.

Defi hoped he succeeded.

Sarel had already praised him for having managed to dilute the thick vinegar somehow. It was a little strange to be praised for having failed, in fact.

He was still hoping to recreate Jar's vinegar quality.

He sighed. Shouldn't older people challenge the younger generation to greater heights or something?

This Lowpool was truly strange.

He could not stop the small smile that curled his lips.

Strange enough to hide all sorts of people. Enough to have him wondering, what story did that apothecary have? Wouldn't research opportunities be more plentiful in the university cities? He thought about all the people he met unexpectedly. Was the man a hidden savant as well?

He shook the questions away. He was not one to go digging in other people's pasts.

"Well. If it isn't Sarel's little errand boy."

Defi glanced at the speaker, a man in his late twenties, maybe early thirties, hair a rather arresting dark blue. Or maybe black with blue highlights, he could not tell.

Of all the people to run into today.

"Lemat," he greeted. The man was a farmer who had helped Aire concoct the sleepbombs used in the smuggler incident. Incidentally, the man also was an apothecary. There was, however, a reason Defi chose another shop. "Have you been well?"

"Augh, so polite. It brings up bad memories, don't do it. I once met a man who determinedly clung to propriety even as he was poisoned to death. He wouldn't even scream. I hated him."

Defi processed the implications of those statements, then deftly put them in a box at the back of his mind and ignored them as not relevant to the present.

"Why are you accosting me?"

"Can't I not be curious about the person a friend is spending time with?" Lemat shrugged. Then he eyed the slime on Defi's shoulder. "That is not your usual companion. Or have the three kids you adopted taken that one as their own?"

"There's been no adoption."

"You brought them to the orphanage, yes? A good thing you had the gold to sponsor them. I don't think Aire and Lergen could have afforded more."

Defi hadn't thought of that, in fact. He'd just wanted to keep the crab away from the one who thought to extort a child. Aire and Lergen's circumstances had not touched his consideration then.

He felt a frisson of guilt. He had dumped three children on the doors of the orphanage and did not think of what raising them would entail.

He stepped away from Lemat.

"Where are you going?"

"Delivery."

"The docks aren't busy today."

"Yes, they aren't."

Lemat fell into step with him, peered into Defi's face. Then stifled a laugh. "Are you, are you feeling guilt? I just said you paid for it, didn't I? What guilt do you have? You can just continue on in the warm experience of having saved three children from a fate that would doom them to despair and destruction."

The man waved his arms about, raising his voice at the last three words.

"I see."

Lemat sighed and walked with him, silent.

They entered the tavern, through the front door this time.

"Young Defi," Rocso grinned in greeting. "And mestre Lemat. A table?"

"He's not joining me," Defi pointed at the man who had stepped as he stepped, stopped as he stopped, stumbled as he stumbled all the way to the tavern.

Why would he want to sit with someone who mocked him so?

Lemat made an expression of hurt feelings so real that Defi nearly stopped to admire it. "How rude. After I accompanied you in your moments of unwarranted misery over actually not thinking of one thing?"

Defi exhaled audibly, turned to Rocso who looked amused. He gave the man the slime he had with him. "I have this for you. The docks weren't that busy today, so I didn't come with the delivery."

Rocso's eyes sparked in youthful enthusiasm. He tossed the wild blue-green slime up and down in his hands with a grin. "Ah, so nostalgic. What's this one's name, then?"

"I haven't given it one. But I made sure it won't exude anything poisonous, malodorous, or unpalatable."

"Oho, you can do that?" Rocso looked appreciative. "I still owe you three dishes, hm? Come, come, both of you. I'll be sure to cook the best tavern food you've experienced."

Lemat perked up. "Oh? I'm curious."

Rocso smirked and waved them onto a table at the side, one of the more private in the establishment. "Bandits have been acting up lately, so all our dishes today are all made with ingredients from the Lowpool."

Lemat all but pushed Defi to sit.

Defi did so with a sigh. "Bandits?"

Rocso shrugged. "It's the beginning of fall. The trade caravans are fully-stocked and optimistic. So are the bandits and thieves, whose activities seem to go into frenzy during harvest season. It's fine. The town guards finish training recruits at around this time as well, so the town's always prepared."

Rocso, the tavern's primary cook, went back into the kitchen.

Nearly immediately, utensils and several side dishes were placed before them.

Lemat eyed them, saying to Defi, "You know what I said earlier was a compliment, right? I notice that people don't take my compliments too easily."

"The way you compliment people is deplorable," Defi answered.

"I have been told that before. This way suits me though. How else would I get to know people?"

"Even if you pester me, whatever reason Sarel's mad at you has nothing to do with me. Aren't you two friends? Ask her."

A server stopped at their table, plates of food in his arms.

Lemat, who was closer to the aisle, passed a few plates to Defi, waved a hand airily, eyes trained on the large board listing the tavern's food offerings. "Oh, I know. And we're not friends. I merely poisoned all those who plotted against her and tarnished her name."

Defi paused, glanced at the food the man had passed to him.

Lemat pinched his doubtful look away blithely, like some semi-murderous great-aunt. "Oh don't worry. Extenuating circumstances."

Defi knocked the hand away.

Come to think of it, Defi's great-aunts, having been warriors or priests or warrior-slaves all likely knew more than a few ways to be viciously murderous.

He sighed and reached to take one of the side-dishes.

"Isn't this a lot of food?" Lemat wondered. "Is he feeding us the entire menu?"

Defi thought the plate-sized portions were better than the tub of soup he got the last time. Did they change their serving style?

In one of the other tables, a man who had paid little attention to them, but whose ears had been quietly listening, put down his spoon and slipped out of the tavern.