Chapter 776: Green Growth

“And then what did she say?” Sorcha asked, her face lit with a mixture of horror and amusement.

“Mostly noises that can’t really be considered words,” Jay laughed as she churned the pile of dirt in front of her. “Estelle was too embarrassed to really talk. But once everyone got their clothes sorted, we were able to talk things out and have a laugh. Well, not Estelle. Again, she was too embarrassed to laugh.”

“Is she going to be alright?” the goblin asked as she dumped a bag of some kind of white powder into the soil that Jay was mixing. “She isn’t going to be able to look you in the face again, is she?”

“Maybe not for a few days,” Jay chuckled. “But she’ll get over it. Estelle’s stronger than she looks. Kinkier, too, going off of the things she and Cora were saying to each other on the roof.”

“I feel like I should be surprised that you’d listen to all that, but somehow, I’m not,” Sorcha shook her head before turning away from Jay. “Now, where did I—hey! What are you doing, you giant fruit! Give me that sack back right this instant before I have Hans cut you up for dinner!”

Jay watched with growing entertainment as the goblin enchantress jumped off the stool she had been using to reach the raised garden bed and chased after the large, ambulatory plant that had stolen a bag of her fertilizer. The plant didn’t have a mouth, much less a face, but Jay couldn’t help but feel as though the big bush was grinning as it waddled around the greenhouse, forcing Sorcha to give chase. Considering the plant was supposed to be under the enchantress’ control, the thing really was a troublemaker.

Sorcha’s tertiary class, Bonded Enchantress of the Eldritch Bloom, had the bizarre starting spell that allowed her to transform a single plant into a servant that would follow her around and do her bidding. The plant’s physical attributes were directly linked to Sorcha’s Eldritch stat, so the more powerful she was, the more powerful her leafy minion became. The guardian bloom also gained various abilities based on the nature of the plant in its original form, seemingly influenced by what alchemical properties they possessed. The paddleweed plant that Sorcha had initially transformed proved to be uniquely useful in that regard, as the altered form produced an aura that cleansed the air around it of the demonic toxins that were poisoning the land.

Since the spell mentioned that the servant plant would retain its altered form despite becoming inert if the spell was cast upon a new plant, an experiment had been performed before they had left Kastoria. Sorcha had used the spell on a new paddleweed plant with the intention of potentially covering the land in giant versions of the humble weed and using its air-purifying aura to help fix the damage done to Volto’s lands. Unfortunately, the experiment had not gone as hoped.

As soon as Sorcha had transferred her spell from one paddleweed to another, the first plant had gone inert, just as expected. Much to everyone’s disappointment, the aura it exuded while ambulatory also went with it. Through further testing, it was determined that the enhanced powers that the guardian blooms gained were only in effect while they were Sorcha’s active servant. Once they were dismissed from service, they went back to being ordinary plants.

Well, ordinary was probably the wrong description to use. The paddleweed had retained its massive size, turning it into something of a freak of nature in that regard. While it wasn’t able to cleanse the land through a magical aura, the plant was still completely immune to the toxins that the Erinyes and the Demons had put into the air, and it was still able to be used to purify the land, both through alchemical use, and just by being a sort of large, extremely efficient filter. Since the altered forms were still extremely useful, Sorcha had created dozens of enhanced paddleweed plants and given them to the Dryads who had stayed in Kastoria to help with the restoration efforts and, from what Jadis had seen, the huge weeds had been put to excellent use. The original paddleweed, however, had come home with Sorcha and had earned a position of great honor inside of the compound’s large greenhouse.

That said, Sorcha was not content to have one single guardian bloom that she used for any and all occasions. As soon as they had returned to Eldingholt, the real experimentation had begun.

Everything from the rare magic herbs to garden variety flowers found themselves turned into guardian blooms by Sorcha’s spell. She transformed so many that they rapidly ran out of room to keep all of the changed plants at the compound, and they were forced to find a different home for all of them. Fortunately, Villthyrial’s temple was happy to take the many unique, magically altered blooms and care for them in their massive garden. Only the plants that Sorcha deemed the most useful were kept at the Fortune’s Favored compound, though the definition of “most useful” seemed to consistency.

“Gods! Thank you!” Sorcha said as she snatched the sack of fertilizer back from her current guardian bloom. “Go sit over there and—and—and stop being so bloody weird!”

Jay watched as the huge bootberry shrub drooped its leaves and slowly meandered over to the corner of the greenhouse that Sorcha had pointed at. Despite being described as nothing more than a servant that would follow and defend its master, the guardian blooms seemed to each have unique personalities. Jadis wouldn’t go so far as to call the plants “intelligent” or anything like that, but they definitely all had strange quirks. Aila theorized that the eccentricities of Sorcha’s plants were all based on the goblin’s own pre-conceived notions, a theory supported by the fact that multiple different guardian blooms that came from the same species of plant acted in exactly the same way. However, Sorcha denied having any pre-conceived notions about how exactly a sunblood plant was supposed to behave, so it was a hard idea to prove.

The bootberry shrub was one of the small number of enhanced plants that Sorcha kept around the compound, though she didn’t usually make that specific plant her guardian bloom. That honor almost always went to the sunblood plant. Not because Sorcha regularly needed the healing ability that the alchemically valuable magic herb possessed, but because the sunblood guardian bloom had a polite and undisruptive personality. Sunblood made for an obedient servant, as it turned out, unlike the bootberry bush.

Bootberry was, for whatever reason, playful, highly active, and responded to scolding in the same way as a puppy, which made it a somewhat frustrating servant. It was also one of the few that didn’t have any strong uses like paddleweed or sunblood. The only enhancement that the bootberry got from becoming a guardian bloom, other than growing big and becoming ambulatory, was that it produced an obscene amount of berries at a shockingly rapid speed. Which was exactly the reason why Sorcha kept the mildly annoying shrub around. Bootberries were a favorite treat of Sorcha’s mother, Tyree, and having lots of the little red fruits around was a great way to keep her, and by extension the rest of Sorcha’s family, happy.

“So, what is this stuff supposed to do again?” Jay asked, pointing at the bag as Sorcha dumped all of the black powder that had been inside into the churned dirt of the raised garden bed.

“It’s a special formula,” the goblin replied as she grabbed a hoe and began to mix the soil. “It should help grow some of the seeds Ammy sent me from the Rubaline Dominion.”

“Why don’t we just grow them in the hydroponics planters?”

“Because these are rare magic flowers and herbs that only grow in highly specialized environments,” Sorcha grunted as she continued to turn the soil. Picking up her own tool, Jay began to help so that the enchantress wouldn’t have to work as hard. “I’m following the instructions I got from the books I read that the priests and Villthyrial’s temple gave me. Meli and Tegwyn agreed on the method, too. These seeds are rare. I don’t want to risk the plants not growing.”

“Well, you’re the gardener,” Jay shrugged. “Whatever you think is best.”

“Yes, I am,” Sorcha stabbed a finger at her. “And I do know what’s best. Which means, keep your own ‘seed’ away from these plants!”

“Excuse me?” Jay put her hand to her chest in mock surprise. “I have no idea what you are implying.”

“Yes, you do,” Sorcha grumbled as she smoothed out the soil, apparently having reached a satisfactory state of mixture. “Sabby is already using way too much of your plum sauce with everything she’s doing right now. I want to do these seeds without that kind of help, okay?”

“Fine by me,” Jay smothered a laugh. “But if you do end up needing a boost…”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sorcha pulled a wand out from her belt and waved it dismissively at her. “I know whose cock to suck.”

With another wave of the wand, this time pointing it at the garden bed, Sorcha cast a spell that caused the soil to glow slightly for a few seconds before fading. Jay couldn’t see any different in the dirt after the fact, but she knew that the wand in question was Sorcha’s Soil Enhancer wand, which was supposed to improve fertile conditions for plant growth. With the magic part done, Sorcha nodded once before putting the wand away and pulling a small bag out of her belt pouch. With great care and delicacy, the goblin began to meticulously plant each individual seed eight inches from the next, giving them lots of space to grow. Seeing the attention that Sorcha was giving to the rare herbs, Jay was halfway convinced that maybe she should insist that they utilize one of the enchantress’ bonded skills to help ensure a healthy growth. However, when she saw Sorcha’s determined concentration, she decided not to press the issue and just watched instead. If her lover wanted her help, she’d have it, but she wouldn’t force her to use tools if she didn’t want to.

Sorcha had gained almost the least number of levels. Not the least, as that title went to Maeve, and not the second least, as Severina held that position. However, she was at third least with nine levels, which was still a lot relatively speaking. Most of those levels were in her tertiary class, since it had been brand new at the start of the siege, with only a handful going to her other classes thanks to the bonus experience points being so spread out around her.

The single level Sorcha had gained in her Garden Herbalist class had been from thirty-one to thirty-two, so it had only resulted in two attribute points. The two levels that she had gained in Villatic Wand Witch had been a little more interesting, as going from twenty-nine to thirty-one had resulted in at least one new skill.

The skill was the first time Jadis had ever seen the System reference itself in such a direct way, as well as the first time she had heard of what were essentially regional guidelines. Of the two, Jadis was more interested in the reference to System Equipment Guidelines. Upon delving into some research, Aila found out that in the same way that some skills were based around an individual’s race, there were others that were based around culture. The System didn’t necessarily distinguish a difference between a witch from Glitnir versus a witch from the Verdant Sea. So long as the title modifiers were the same, most abilities would remain the same as well. However, what constituted a witch’s robe in a southern imperial province was quite different from the kinds worn by people who lived thousands of miles away. Because of those innate cultural differences, the System would sometimes specify what it meant when it came to gear or other equipment to avoid confusion. In a way, the skill description was no different from the general terms used like “light armor” and “polearms” that Jadis had seen before, just a little more specific.

Regardless, Sorcha looked really cute in the pointed, wide-brimmed hat that Sabina had made for her.

The rest of the levels Sorcha had gained in Kastoria had been in her tertiary class. Going from level three to level nine in the class had resulted in three more free attribute points to add to the four she had gotten from her other two classes, all seven of which she had put into her Endurance. While not her most valuable stat, Sorcha had complained for a while that she didn’t have the stamina to keep up with the other, more physical members of their group without resorting to using her wands to empower her stamina regeneration. Going from thirteen to twenty wasn’t huge, but it was a big change for the small witch, and it was once that quickly showed results as Sorcha was able to last longer in the field. And elsewhere.

The new skills that Sorcha had decided on to fill the three slots granted to her by the levels she had gained in her enchantress class had stolen the show when it came to her personal growth, of course. Personally, while Jadis liked all the options Sorcha had picked, she had been a little disappointed that her lover had only taken a single skill that was lewd in nature and had avoided the other one that had been an available selection. Then again, a skill that required the two to have sex in a prepared pile of dirt probably would have been uncomfortable, not to mention unsanitary. At least the option Sorcha had gone with wasn’t quite as messy.

The first skill was just a basic attribute booster, but a good one. It had been a choice between two different skills that offered the same number of attribute points and Sorcha had picked Focus over Will. Considering how easily the goblin could regenerate her magic through other means, an increased reservoir seemed like the better option.

The second skill, Guardian Bloom’s Shadow, was strikingly similar to Jadis’ own Mirror Shine, in that it helped redirect enemies from a vulnerable target and onto one that could handle the attacks better. Technically, Sorcha didn’t need the skill to hide. She already had a wand that could turn her halfway invisible. However, Guardian Bloom’s shadow was a passive skill, so it was always on, making it a better preemptive defense. Plus, the skill turned out to synergize well with Sorcha’s partial invisibility, making her even harder for enemies to spot.

The final skill was the erotic one that Sorcha had picked instead of a ritual that required some literally dirty sex. The fact that it was yet another skill that demanded some of Jadis’ cum to work was starting to cause the Nephilim some concern. Did the System have a fetish or something? Or was it basing the choice on her own admittedly perverted proclivities? Either way, she hoped that some of the lewd options that came in the future involved things other than her semen. There was only so much of the stuff available, even with her inexhaustible libido.

Thoughts of Sorcha’s lewd spell caused Jay’s eyes to wander over to the column of hydroponically grown sunblood flowers that the enchantress had grown with the help of the cum-powered magic. The batch of plants had truly grown at an amazing pace and looked to be full of vim and vigor. However, just as the skill description had warned, the plants weren’t exactly normal, either. Sunbloods were a magical herb that were an important ingredient in most alchemical healing potions. They were small, leafy green plants with red and yellow stripes on the underside of their leaves. The flowers were red, sometimes orange, and looked like tiny suns when in full bloom. The sunbloods fertilized by Sorcha and her perverted spell were different, having red and white stripes on the underside of the leaves, and flowers the exact same shade of violet as Jadis’ eyes.

Sorcha, Meli, and Ammy had tested the crop for differences as soon as the plants were big enough and their conclusions were mixed. Did the altered sunbloods still function as powerful healing herbs? Yes. Did they change the nature of the potions produced? Also yes. From what Sorcha and Meli could tell, the potions weren’t any stronger or weaker than normal, though for some reason they seemed to be able to produce a little more potion with the same amount of material, though they couldn’t figure out why. Ammy, on the other hand, claimed that the Jadis-watered sunbloods had strange side effects when used in her potions, including giving the users a mildly euphoric sensation that lasted only a few minutes after imbibing the concoction.

Ammy also said the altered sunbloods were significantly sweeter in taste compared to the original plant, though Jadis hadn’t contrasted the two herself to confirm.

“I just want to see what these are like normally,” Sorcha spoke up, her own eyes drawn to the altered herbs. “Before we, uh, modify them. I might have different results with my wands, depending on your involvement.”

“That sounds likely to me,” Jay nodded in agreement.

“Anyway,” Sorcha visibly shook off her thoughts as she resumed planting the rare and valuable seeds. “Don’t you have anything better to do with your time then hang around in the dirt with me?”

“Nope,” Jay grinned at the blushing goblin. “I’ve got all afternoon free, at least for this body, anyway. Syd’s busy helping with the new airship and Dys is preparing for tomorrow, but this part of me gets to spend my time with my adorable little garden goblin.”

“I’ll goblin your garden,” Sorcha muttered under her breath before frowning. “What are you preparing for that’s happening tomorrow?”

“Cobbler’s trial,” Jay replied simply.

“Oh. That’s going to be a radge show, isn’t it…”