"Yeah." James is less enthusiastic than the others, but willing to stay with the group.
"Yeah, that sounds good. Really want to know what those are." As they walk he makes frequent nervous glances back towards the shop. He may just be a bit more worried than he's letting on.
"Monsters called horror-moans, you say?" Professor Mirialis Drossel asks while you seat on a creaky sofa. Her house, or at least what you can see of it, is almost sterile clean, bookcases covering the walls with tomes in a variety of languages, and the air smells of citrus and alcohol. The only personal touch, almost out of place in the cold environment, is a small portrait of a woman on Mirialis' desk.
"I believe you must have misheard the name" she says, heading to a shelf and waving a gloved hand. Immediately the footprints you had left on the ground disappear, and your own clothes and skin become squeaky clean. Even Licorice's fur looks fluffy like he just came out of a bath. "as the only ones I know with a similar name are Aurumvoraxes."
She picks a bestiary and shows you the image of a mean-looking beast. "They are eight-legged burrowing mammals, eating precious metals, hence the name, as well as meat. Their fur is highly valued by tailors, and cubs can be domesticated as guard animals. Why did you want to know about them?"
Isaac pried a suckered tentacle off from his face with a wet popping noise.
”Professor, you said there were these things,” Isaac started but had to stop and remove the tentacle from his face again before continuing, ”These things called horror-moans that made people act funny and want to be alone together and stuff.”
The small boy was currently in the affectionate, if damp and salty, grip of perhaps the largest octopus any of you have likely seen. The boneless mass of muscles and suckers had clambered out of its tank and greeted Isaac with all the enthusiasm of a large dog and promptly went through his pockets to see if he had and seafood treats stashed away. Its skin was rippling with different colors in the a simple display of excitement.
Isaac was wise enough to sit on the floor on towels provided for just this situation and briney water to keep his friend appropriately moist for the time being. He had no trouble navigating the house with the octopus clinging to him despite the fact that it was nearly as big as he was.
Vorin's eyes are wide as he looks around in amazement, taking in all the books. "Wow. Have you read all these? If you did, you must be 100 years old!"
When the professor does that apparent cleaning spell, Vorin grins, "That's way better than mine! My cleaning magic can only clean a bit at a time." He looks down at his hands, and says, "At least Mr. Vinder can't call my hands dirty anymore."
Isaac's pet octopus gets a grin from him, "That is so cool. Weird, but cool."
Then, his attention is turned back as the professor shows them the creature, and he takes a slight step back even from the picture, "That's gotta be the scariest looking thing I've ever seen!"
Enlightenment starts to dawn on James' face, and against his will a slight blush starts as he realises what may be to come. Still, he looks at the professor with big, wide-open eyes.
"Two hundred and thirty-six, actually." the elf nonchalantly replies to Vorin before taking in Isaac's addendum. Her demeanor becomes even more academical as she descends into a long explanation, looking detached and almost slightly condescending. "Making people act- AH. Hormones, Isaac, they are called hormones. They are lipidic or proteic molecules which bind to- well, let's say they act as sort of messengers and regulators in the bodies of most animals, including humanoids. They are used by your body to tell the various organs what to do: for example, if you are dehydrated, you will secrete a hormone that wil act on the kidney, making it so that you keep water inside your body instead of expelling it as urine. This way your body can regulate its balance."
"Growth is another function mediated by hormones, unoriginally called growth hormone. It tells your bones, muscles, veins and nerves to grow longer and thicker, so that you become taller. And the ones I was referring to are androgens, estrogens and progestogens, which among other things lead to the development of your secondary sex characteristics, such as facial hair and increased muscle mass for males, and breast growth for females. This development happens during a phase called puberty, when your bodies become capable of reproduction. And in that phase, the surge of hormones in your brain will make you experience a plethora of different feelings: rebellious rage, unwarranted sulkiness, and of course attraction towards other people, along with a desire for intimacy and physical contact. The alchemy dealing with love still has many open questions, although it's laughably easy to simulate infatuation with the right compounds. Still, those feelings will be new for you, and you will feel a lot of different impulses, often leading to reckless and illogical behaviour. Does this explanation satisfy your curiosity?"
Vorin blinks at the answer. It hadn't, until that moment, occurred to him that elves live that long. And then, of course, it clicks that he could live that long too!
Grinning, he says softly to himself, "I'm going to have lots of time to have fun."
Shaking his head as if to shake that thought away, he looks back up to the professor at the long explanation. But, with exception of some of the more unusual words — to which he responds with a look of confusion — he seems to follow the gist of it.
"Illogical behaviour sounds right. So... Shariss grabbed me and kissed me because of these messengers?" Then, he's confused again as he says, "Could her dad be in that puberty stuff too? 'Cause he was illogical too. He was yelling at me about getting... I think he said a lunch mob? He was yelling really loud, was kinda hard to understand."
"Hmm..." Empheria sulks. "I want to get bigger. But I don't want to get horror-moans. Is there any way to get bigger without them, Mr. Professor?"
|
Andi zones out during the biology lecture. This is really boring... not a word about horror moans...Wonder if Licorice is interested in going swarmy to make things fun around here.
Andi picks up some empathetic connections from Licorice that doing so would be a very fun idea indeed. But she surpresses the impulse for the time being.
Isaac stood up and went bank to the large tank of saltwater and sundry accoutrements to keep his cephalopod friend happy. It took some time and effort, but he eventually extracted himself from the creature's arms.
"That makes sense, Professor. Core assumption issue. I had thought they were external and violating free will," the boy was a sponge for new information. There had likely been some kind of off-handed mention of hormones previously and without a full explanation, Isaac had drawn his own assumptions.
"Can you look at Ms. Helbang? She had a fall."
"Good analysis, Isaac. There actually are some agents which cause erratic behaviour, but they are mostly vegetal-based substances." Professor Drossel moves to Empheria, checking her head and back for bruises. "I doubt that Mister Vinder is undergoing puberty, for humans it ends around the sixteenth year. But many things can make people, especially humans, act illogically. Rage, illness, stress, and of course love. Love- well, knows no age."
She takes a short but noticeable pause before resuming to speak. "Possibly he believed you were trying to take advantage of his young daughter. As for you, Miss Helbang, there are magical ways, but they mostly just increase size, or simply have cosmetic effect. Time manipulation as would be required to actually age you is dangerous beyond comprehension. And you just have a few bruises, one night's sleep will have you right as rain."
"Yeah." James adds, desperate to rejoin a conversation that has moved far beyond him "Big Todd ended up having to marry Sarah after Sarah's dad caught them kissing in the cowshed." James nods knowingly as he reaches for half-remembered gossip from three years ago. "Maybe he doesn't want her to marry you."
Vorin looks thoughtful at that answer from the professor, frowning a bit.
Then, at James' comment, his eyes pop open wide, and he says, his voice squeaky in sudden alarm, "I don't want to marry her either!"
"Well. Not up to me. She kissed you, but. She might want to marry you. I dunno" James pauses, struggling with a question "What was it like?" he finally asks.
Empheria sulks at the thought of having to deal with horror moans herself in the future, but she composes herself. She walks away from the professor as soon as he finishes checking her bruises. "Well, maybe we should go tell Shayliss the news?" she suggests. "I'm sure she will be happy to know that it's going to leave her when she turns sixteen."
Vorin bites his lip at the question, going quiet for a moment before he answers, "It was… Kind of nice. But really weird."
Andi's comment makes him giggle, though, as if it was a running joke. "I know, Andi. But not for really, really long time."
He looks back to Emmie and says, "You can, I don't wanna go anywhere near her! Her dad might kill me!"
"Well, thanks Professor. We'll get out of your hair now," Isaac said as he straightened his now somewhat damp clothing and motioned to the others to head out with him.
"Take care." Mirialis replies, putting the book back to the shelf in its place. "Ah, Isaac, davolash bu yaqin kelajakda tananing o'sishi uchun tayyorgarlik."
Vorin looks up, as he follows after his friends, "Thanks, Professor! Bye!"
Isaac looked back at his guardian while the others moved past him, his pale lips drawing into a line as he nodded in assent to her.
As you set up in search of more adventures, you are again foiled by Sandpoint's calmness. Shalelu has left for her mission, and for three days nothing more exciting than a marketplace brawl happens.
That is, until you head to the Rusty Dragon in the morning to bid farewell to Mister Foxglove, who is heading to Magnimar for business. After he gets in the coach and you head in the inn for breakfast, you notice that Ameiko is conspicuously absent, the kitchen silent and the fires unlit. A timid elderly halfling that you have often seen working there as a maid is tending to the counter, looking obviously worried.
Vorin yells and waves goodbye to Mr. Foxglove, then turns to run inside, with the comment, "I'm starving."
He stops in his tracks as he gets inside, looking around. He looks to the halfling, and asks, his voice quivering just slightly as he picks up on her worry, "Where's Ameiko?"
Isaac has been missing for the past day, an oddity since he usually showed up when two or more of this small gang gathered in one place.
Then the doors to the Rusty Dragon opened and someone who looked rather like the odd boy stepped inside. In the space of a day he had gone from only slightly bigger than Empheria to taller than any of his comrades. It was not just his height, either. Isaac had filled out too. He still dressed like someone was trying to steal the contents of a second-hand store though.
"Isaac? Is that you?"
Sensing that his powers do not work on the boy, Quiin exclaims "It is you! Isaac, you got big!"
"Uh, yeah," the voice that came out of the lad was as uncertain as the rest of him, it cracked and shifted between the higher pitch of a younger boy and something more appropriate to his new size.
"After the goblin attack, I decided it was time to do some growing up," he walked carefully into the Rusty Dragon, moving as though he were not quite certain of his balance on the longer legs.
"Have we seen Mrs. Ameiko?"
"How'd you do that, Isaac?" Empheria asks, too distracted by Isaac's new appearance to answer his question. "Was that time ma-ni-pu-la-shun? The professor said that was too dangerous! I hope you're alright!"
"Wait." James looked up "You can just choose to be grow up? That's awesome! Did you got the pubertys?" James shakes his head "It sounds sorta worse that the measles, and I got that last year."
Another thought occurs "Hey. Does that work for other people too?"
"Uh, I'm a special case, I don't think the Professor's methods would work on you guys, Isaac said, not sure how to explain the lengthy procedure the Professor had employed to make him larger. He did not understand it all himself.
"Wow Isaac. Well, I reckon you'll give any more goblins a bit of trouble if we run into any! And no, we haven't seen Ameiko, she isn't here."
"E-excuse me?" says the halfling maid, sheepishly. She speaks slowly, taking frequent pauses to find the words. "I heard you're looking for Miss Ameiko, and, well, she should be here but, uh, she is not, and I got a bit worried. So I, ah, I know I shouldn't have, but I checked her room and, uh, there was a letter, in Minkaian. I wanted to show it to the sheriff, but he's, well, away, and I thought about going to the Mayor, but, um, I didn't want to disturb, and so, you know a few people, I thought maybe, well, you could get help? I translated it, because Miss Ameiko taught me, and again I'm sorry for intruding, but I thought, well, maybe she's in trouble? That man never was any good..."
I hope this letter finds you well, and with some free time on your hands, because we’ve got something of a problem. It’s to do with father. Seems that he might have had something to do with Sandpoint’s recent troubles with the goblins, and I didn’t want to bring the matter to the authorities because we both know he’d just weasel his way out of it. You’ve got some pull here in town, though. If you can meet me at the Glassworks at midnight tonight, maybe we can figure out how to make sure he faces the punishment he deserves. Knock twice and then three times more and then once more at the delivery entrance and I’ll let you in.
In any case, I don’t have to impress upon you the delicate nature of this request. If news got out, you know these local rubes would assume that you and I were in on the whole thing too, don’t you? They’ve got no honor at all around these parts. I still don’t understand how you can stand to stay here.
Anyway, don’t tell anyone about this. There are other complications as well, ones I’d rather talk to you in person about tonight. Don’t be late.
Tsuto Kaijitsu is Ameiko's half-brother. A half-elf, he was the source of quite some scandal when Atsuii Kaijitsu gave birth to him. Only Ameiko's father's stubbornness kept the two of them married, until she fell to her death off a cliff close to their home. At the funeral the boy accused Lonjiku of murdering his wife, and as an answer the old man broke Tsuto's jaw with his cane. Nobody saw Tsuto again.
Vorin has been too worried about Ameiko to focus on Isaac's change in size for the last few moments, though he's probably been half-listening.
He looks at the letter and scowls. "I can sure bet he's involved, he's mean enough!" Then, nodding quickly to Andi, he says, "Right! And go rescue her if she needs it!"
He looks around to his friends, though, and asks, "But who is Tsuto?"
"Nobody hurts my friends," Isaac said solemnly. With his new size, that pronouncement carried a lot more weight.
"Yeah?" says James as he tries to puzzle out just what the letter means. "Yeah!" he says, more brightly, when his friends decide to confront the problem directly.
"I'm ready to go!" Empheria announces. "We can pretend we got there by accident while playing. Miss Ameiko could probably figure out we came on purpose. I hope Tsuto doesn't figure out, though!" she says cheerily.
"He's sort of like Miss Ameiko's estranged half brother" stammers the halfling "but, ah, are you sure it's not best to, well, warn some adults? Like, maybe, Master Hosk, or Master Gandethus?"
"We know how to deal with goblins, don't worry. We won't let anything happen to Miss Ameiko!"
"You go get help, we will make sure Miss Ameiko is not hurt while they come," Isaac said, starting for the door.
"Yeah. Suito said not to tell anyone." James points out. "We should keep this secret." His eyes lit up at the thought of bursting in in his new armor, with his enormous sword and working bow.
"You're an adult, aren't you? So you'll know what to do if we get lost or hurt, I'm sure," Empheria says sincerely.
Vorin nods quickly to what the others are saying but makes it only a step towards the door before he stops and looks back. "But maybe not Old Gandy — I mean, Headmaster Gandethus — I like him, but if Ameiko's dad did something, he might get so mad he takes him to the basement. He might get turned into a frog or a rabbit or ferret or something! That would be way worse than going to jail."
Vorin quite obviously believes the crazy rumours of what the old wizard gets up to in the school/orphanage basement.
"Almost an adult." James assures Empheria. "That's why I'm the tallesssss..." he trails off as he looks at the suddenly more mature Isaac "Second tallest. Isaac cheated."
You exit the Rusty Dragon, leaving the poor maid to wonder whether she just made a fatal mistake by telling you the details. Swiftly you pack together all of your adventure possessions, Hemlock's weapons, Foxglove's armor and Shalelu's whistles, as well as any trinkets, odds and ends that you possess. You feel galvanized at the prospect of proper adventure: secrets to be unvealed, a friend disappeared, and a villainous mastermind all conjure to give you the feeling that this is finally the beginning of something greater, and you feel stronger and more determined than ever.
"You're so silly, James! I was talking to her," Empheria says, pointing to the halfling maid. "You're an adult, so you'll know what to do if anything goes wrong, right?" she asks her with a smile.
The Glassworks is very close to the Turandarok Academy, adjacent to the monastery (House of Blue Stones) and Alma Avertin's bakery (Sandpoint Savories).
As you arrive, you notice that the Glassworks are closed, heavy curtains drawn over the windows, although smoke is coming out of the chimney. One of Alma Avertin's identical twin daughters, either Arika or Aneka, is sitting outside the bakery, apparently taking a rest while smoking a small pipe.
Vorin frowns as they reach the Glassworks, looking around for an open window to peek in.
Not finding one, he runs right up to the girl. Though he wrinkles his nose as he gets within smelling range of the pipe, he says seriously, "Hi. Have you seen anybody coming or going from the Glassworks?"