The Innkeeper

It had been 3 days since he visited the tunnel, and this was the first opportunity he had gotten for some privacy – mainly because everyone was focusing on the tunnel so much, Ptolemy included. Of course, because of all the hubbub created due to his discovery, Lex had learnt a great deal about Spirit wells, which is what caused him the most frustration!

Some people at the camp had started calling him their lucky charm, but he didn’t feel lucky at all!

After ensuring that he really was alone, and that there were no animals or beasts around, Lex withdrew one of the many acorns in his bag and crushed it against the cliff side. A short while later, a thin and weak looking root emerged from the cliff.

“Everything alright bro? You contacted me a lot sooner than I was expecting. Don’t tell me Goli discovered you?”

“No, Goli did not find me. But why didn’t you tell me about the Spirit well? That would have helped even more than a mine! Because I didn’t know what it was, I ended up telling the camp about it, and now neither I nor you will be able to benefit from it!”

The root froze for a moment as it tried to process what it had heard. Spiritual energy tended to flow from one area to another and had currents much in the way there were ocean or air currents. Of course, the flow was not based on going from regions of high to low concentration, as this energy had its own sets of behaviors, but that was besides the point.

Sometimes these currents faced an obstruction, and instead of flowing, spiritual energy started to gather in spots with increasing concentration. At this point, there were many ways in which spirit stones could be formed, and the way in which they would be formed would dictate their purity and concentration.

What was more important to Lex, however, was the fact that, even after the spirit mine was created, the concentration of energy did not drop but continued to increase, there were chances of a well being formed.

If scientists from Earth studied this phenomenon, their attention would be most attracted to the fact that, following this logic, spiritual energy being contained in a liquid state of spirit water had a higher concentration than in the solid state of a spirit stone. The truth behind such an occurrence was that spiritual energy was a lot more complicated than it seemed at a glance, and many more matters were at play here, but at Lex’s level there was no need for him to know of them.

All that mattered was, a single spirit well was better than several spirit mines put together. If he had known this matter beforehand, he would have directly used the method Karom gave him to dig underground and bypass the Druk.

Eventually, Karom spoke hesitantly, “I was there when Goli moved in. I swept the whole area myself, there was no Spirit well anywhere that I recall.”

“Well, how long ago was that?” Lex asked the question that really had him feeling frustrated. It occurred to him that an oversight on his part was treating a Trelop similar to humans when he clearly recalled that due to their different physiology, they treat the world differently. Trelops especially…

“It was some 60,000 years ago, I think,” Karom said, as it was counting the years in his mind.

Lex let out a defeated sigh, as his suspicion had proven true. Trelops had a very different sense of time, since their lifespans were infinitely longer than humans. The amount of time Karom was talking about was more than enough for a spirit mine to turn into a spirit well, not to mention all the landmarks he knew to change that could be used to identify the location of the mines.

There was no point in explaining to Karom how it had messed up, Lex would rather move on to the next issue.

“Alright listen up Karom, the situation has changed. There’s no way of knowing if the spirit mines you knew about still even exist, let alone being able to find them. On top of that, if they end up really discovering a spirit well, then it’ll only be a matter of time before the academy takes over. When that happens, I won’t be able to get any spirit mines and you won’t be able to absorb any of your cousins’ forestland. So, if you want to go ahead with your plan, we need to come up with a solution and act on it within the next few days or at most a week.”

Karom was once again silent for a while, before he answered.

“I understand bro. I will think of something, come back in a short while.”

“Make sure you confirm with me before doing anything,” Lex told him, not at all trusting the sensibility of the Trelop. In the end, although Karom agreed with him, Lex ultimately decided not to rely only on him.

“Hey Lotus, if there was a Spirit well there, why weren’t you able to sense it?” Lex asked, after tapping his back.

“Mr. Innkeeper, I can only detect spiritual energy if I physically feel it. With mines and wells, their energy is completely shielded and blocked from escaping, which is what causes a mine to develop in the first place. Otherwise, not only me, but everyone would easily be able to detect mines.”

“Figures,” Lex muttered as he made his way back to the camp. His trip to the cliff had not been so simple, and he had to hide and run from some predators a few times, but even when he came back to camp with his clothes clearly having suffered damage, no one batted an eye.

Instead, whoever saw Lex let out an excited cheer. He was the man of the hour, the good luck charm, and some even called him the noble prince. Lex naturally maintained the banter with everyone, but did not stay for long as he needed to get back to his tent and rest up. The backup plan he had made was fairly simple.

He had already shown everyone where the tunnel was, but they had not proceeded to exploring it yet as a Druk was not an easy foe to face, even assuming there was the only one Lex saw instead of a whole family of them.

Lex had decided, despite his better judgment, to join them on their exploration of the tunnel, for even if they did discover a spirit well, no one would notice if he ended up absorbing some energy from that as well. Right?

He figured, as long as the well wasn’t completely drained, he would be alright.

Ptolemy, on the other hand, took Lex’s insistence on accompanying them as a form of mistrust, as if he would deny Lex’s role in finding the well if he didn’t accompany them.

He felt so frustrated, in fact, that a part of him even wished that there was no well to begin with.

While all of this was going on, back in his own domain, a small humanoid clump of leaves that sort of looked like Lex walked back and forth trying to figure something out. Karom had spent too long as an adolescent, and unless he could find a way of expanding his territory, he would be stuck like that.

“Broooooooooooooooooo I got it!” he suddenly yelled, as an idea came to him. If the humans were too preoccupied to determine the existence of the well, that would give Lex more time to find spirit mines and lay down his seeds.

Why was he stressing out over such a minor issue? All he had to do was distract the humans, maybe even trap them for a few years – that would give Lex plenty of time to search.

He was so enthused by his new idea that he completely forgot about Lex’s warning not to do anything without consulting him.

‘Dear aunty Jeena,’ he started to write down on a rock, preparing to send it as a letter. ‘You will never guess what I just saw. Goli has been meeting with humans…’

Karom wrote down his own version of the ‘latest gossip’ of how Goli had decided to embrace the humans. The fastest way for Trelops to grow stronger was to absorb parts of other Trelops. This was why there were so few of them, not to mention the fact that so few of them ever remained close to one another.

Karom did not specifically lay down any allegations, but the fact that he was so nonchalant about Goli deciding to work with humans would obviously insinuate that Karom was not the target of Goli’s and the humans’ cooperation.

How this beloved aunty would take this news, he did not bother speculating. Soon, a massive boulder could be seen being pulled by hundreds of roots through the forest, its body entirely covered in writing.