Fallen Mage Regressor

"We'll be heading to the estate. My brother needs to talk to me more—last night was mostly spent explaining what happened on the way. You guys will get the chance to explore the manor and maybe meet some of my relatives."

Mal strode across the rickety bridge, his long cultivated balance the only thing that had prevented him from tumbling and making a fool of himself. Philo was walking exceptionally slowly, probably terrified that he was going to overweigh the bridge and send them all to their doom.

Mal noted more than a few dirty glares being shot in their direction. In Philo's direction, more specifically.

"You sure your family is going to like us?" Mal said. "I don't know if you've noticed, but Philo is being marked like enemy number one."

Rolam winced. "Elves are a... we're a proud people. Draconids are our natural enemies, so the idea of one being in our capital city is a little bit controversial. There was a petition filed to have him removed, though my brother managed to block it."

"Philo sees why you wanted us to visit," Philo said. "Your home truly is a delightful place."

As the two launched into yet another argument, Mal ignored them and glanced back at Lusia.

"How are you finding the trip?"

Her maid dress had been repaired—almost certainly not by her. The lines were clean and smooth, to the point where Mal could barely detect that it had been ripped at all.

"I'm enjoying myself. The city is pleasing." She paused and frowned. "However, I did not enjoy the air ride."

Mal tried not to crack up laughing. "Yeah, me neither."

Her face had been utterly serious, not a hint of humor. How she could remain so straight-laced was truly beyond him.

"Ah, this is where I used to play as a child!"

Rolam ran up to an open section of the tree and out of the bridge. There was a box filled with dirt on the ground, wide enough for a handful of people to sit in it.

"We used to play games like Elves and Draconids. One boy would be the Draconid, and the others would be the Elves. It would be their job to capture and kill the Draconid."

"Philo suspects he wouldn't have liked this game."

Rolam smirked. "I didn't enjoy it either. I was always the Draconid."

"Why were you always the Draconid?" Lusia asked. "Did you enjoy being a Draconid? How did you turn into one? I was not aware that elves could transform into other species—"

"It wasn't literal, Lusia. We were pretending to be Draconids. Well, I was pretending to be a Draconid."

"I see." She blinked. "Why were you always the Draconid?"

Rolam didn't say anything for a little bit, then pointed up at his ears. Compared to the doctor and the other elves that Mal had come across, they were noticeably shorter.

Half-elf. Philo had called him that multiple times, but Mal had never really registered the reality of it. How does one become a half-elf in a place like this, where nearly every elf that Mal had seen seemed to be full?

Mal glanced back at Lusia. "I'll explain it to you later, Lusia."

Yeah, once I figured it out myself.

"Welcome to the ancestral home of the Knilum family."

In Mal's head, a manor had a very specific outline. It would be a grand building with sprawling across grass, maybe with a few geese and duck on a perfectly manicured lawn.

But the Elven idea of a manor was very different. Rather than a building, it was a tree.

Of course it was a tree.

There was a walkway extending from where they were standing into the entrance. The tree itself had windows grown all across the sides. There were large branches that appeared to be side rooms coming off of the main central hall. The entire tree looked to be hollow, at a guess. Mal could see hints of a staircase winding through the inside.

"Unlike those other buildings you saw—" Rolam stepped onto the vine bridge. "—we own the entire tree. From top to bottom and side to side. Everyone you'll see is either a member of the Knilum family or a servant."

How was it that this guy couldn't afford his own bail? Wait, screw it, why doesn't he just ask that?

"How couldn't you afford your own bail?"

Rolam flushed red. "My family is well-off, as you can see, but—me personally, I..."

His mouth flapped open and shut a few times before he squeaked out a few more words. "Could we just talk about this later?"

Mal grunted. Rolam seemed to take this as acknowledgment and hurried along.

When they reached the front, two Elven guards glanced at him and nodded.

"Master Knilum," one said. "Your brother will be returning shortly. He had some business to attend to. Once he's back, he'll meet with you and your… friends... in the dining room. In the meanwhile, you can show your friends around the manor."

"Very well," Rolam said. "Is my father in?"

The guard shook his head. "No."

"And—" a hitch in his breath. "Mother?"

The title was foreign, hesitant. His lips shifted, as if he wasn't familiar with using the word.

"Visiting her parents."

He gave an audible sigh of relief. Mal pretended he hadn't noticed.

The guards opened up the doors, revealing the inside of the manor. A spiral staircased weaved up the side, but the interior was completely open. Mal could look up and see the very top of the tree's inside. There were a handful of doors interspersed across the staircase. Lanterns with glowing orbs of light floated in the air, suspended by magic.

"And this is the manor proper." Rolam gestured at the inside. "We've recently done some renovations, so there might be some things out of place."

Mal grunted in acknowledgement. Philo immediately walked over to a book that had been left open on a table.

He flicked through a few pages, then frowned. "Philo can't read this."

Rolam walked over and picked it up. "Ah, elvish script. Old, as well." He glanced over at Mal with a faint look of amusement. "Perhaps you'd like a shot at it, Honored leader?"

Mal shrugged and picked it up. After a few minutes of staring, he grimaced and set it down, forced to admit defeat.

"Unfortunately, it looks to be beyond my knowledge."

Rolam took the book back. "It's probably my brother's. He always brings his study materials home. Ever the diligent student."

Rolam took them on a tour through the rest of the house and Mal found his eyes fluttering asleep. The only interesting room had been the library, and even that had been a downer. All the books were in elvish script, just like the one they'd picked up earlier. Sure, it was newer, more modern script, but Mal could only sound out letters. He couldn't speak the language with any kind of fluency.

All the other rooms had been more or less useless. A dining room, Rolam's bedroom—

"And this is the greenhouse."

At that, Mal perked up.

Finally, something practical.

Rolam swung the door open, revealing the interior. Light shone through the glass roof at the top and a blast of temperature controlled air rushed out the entrance. Rolam quickly pulled them in then shut the door behind them.

Plants hanging from ropes. Plants in boxes all along the floor. Plants in tiny pots. Plants in big pots. It was a veritable cornucopia.

"Fascinating. Can we go now?" Philo said

Mal glared at him. "Absolutely not. I want to see if I can identify them."

"Ah, yes, your gardening hobby." Philo snorted. "Really, Ape, you should find something else to occupy your time with."

Mal resisted the urge to smirk. None of them had yet to connect the dots on his witchcraft or push him too hard on his magical items. They likely assumed that he was just casting upper-level spells.

"It's relaxing." Mal walked past Philo and inspected one of the plants up close. "And interesting."

Rolam hummed. "You have odd interests, honored leader."

There was a sign next to some plants.

Fireglove (DO NOT TOUCH)

The flowers were a striking red. Small sparks came off the petals and disippated in the air with a light sizzle. In the air, red mana faintly surrounded it with a dim glow.

Mal remembered this from his lessons with Cassandra. She'd explained how to safely harvest the seeds and noted that Fireglove was an essential part of his future garden. She'd also noted that he really needed to stop putting his Airgrass on the roof.

Most of the Fireglove was in full bloom, but there were a few in the back that had begun to form the seed pod. The petals had fallen to the ground, and, sadly, were already brown—which meant they weren't good to be used for brews or items.

On the other hand, the seed pods looked nice and mature.

Mal glanced from side to side. Rolam and Philo were arguing about whether a flower was green or blue. Lusia was looking at him, but he was certain she wouldn't tell a soul.

Mal reached out and plucked a few seed pods and put them into his satched. He leaned back and stretched dramatically.

Nobody was looking at him.

He circled around the garden a little bit further and paused in front of one with a fluffy white top.

Cokane

Mal had heard of this plant. Its sale was restricted extensively in the East. There were two primary purposes—it was a muscle relaxant highly useful for certain types of spells, and more famously, it was an inducer of extremely pleasant hallucinations.

Its sale had become mostly restricted in the East, only being grown by certified authorities. Each sale was tracked and marked and the kingdom was extremely wary of allowing it to get into the hands of your average student mage.

Which basically meant that it was the closest thing to a money printing machine he'd be able to get his hands on.

Once again, he glanced left and right to make sure that the others weren't looking at him.

He cut off some of the shoots from the sides and scooped up some dirt off the ground. He wrapped the bottom of the cut off shoot in the dirt using some cloth.

Cokane was one of those plants that, when the shoot was taken off, under the right circumstances, it would simply grow a new root network straight out of the cut off section.

He placed the plant inside of his satchel and made a mental note to make sure it got plenty of sun in his room. He'd have to set it up by the windowsill. He'd also need to move it to a pot as soon as possible.

He circled around the garden and stopped in front of a plant that he didn't recognize. The leaves were a milky white, and faint clouds of steam rolled off of the edges of the leaf of the stem.

He read the sign with the plant's name on it.

Cloudfern (cross between Fireglove and Waterrose).

"Rolam, what is this?" Mal asked.

Rolam paused his conversation and glanced over at Mal. "Oh, that? One of my distant aunts has been experimenting with breeding plants. Apparently, it's a part of an old tradition. You can create different types of mana from it."

"Different types of mana? What do you mean?"

"Apparently that's steam-type mana. Or rather, the plant is full of steam-type mana."

Mal snapped his head back around. Now that he was paying attention, there were indeed little white flecks that were completely unlike the color of any other mana he'd seen before.

Intellectually, he'd known that there were multiple types of mana beyond the basic elemental four and the handful of extra ones that he regularly came in contact with. What he didn't know as that it was possible to just... breed them into existence.

But then again, he thought. This way takes a lot longer, and there might not be any practicality to these extra mana types. Still, it's worth looking into.

He was about to ask for further details when there was a knock at the door.

It swung open and a man strode through, back straight and shoulders aligned. He looked to be around four or five years older than Mal based off of the peach fuzz on his chin.

He sort of reminded Mal of Savaly. That perfect control, that sense of nobility that seemed to envelop them completely.

Like Rolam, he possessed the reddest hair Mal had ever seen. Unlike Rolam, his eyes were a sparkling, crystal blue, and his ears were nearly twice the length of Rolam's.

"Brother," he said. "What have I told you about letting strangers into the deeper parts of our home?"

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