--- Kat ---
"I just want you to be clear, you should never do this," stated Appoline as she got to work setting up her brewing stand.
"Do what?" asked Kat. Appoline hadn’t explained anything at all. She’s just said ’I know what I must do’ and then started working and from Kat’s perspective she was just setting up her brewing equipnt, sothing Kat had seen her do a number of tis.
"Oh... right," Appoline said as she realised she hadn’t even properly started. "Your idea of mixing together so fertiliser along with the keys inspired ... though I think I’ll need to make so adjustnts to the fertiliser here," Appoline picked up the fertiliser potion. "The problem is that you should NEVER brew using a potion as an ingredient."
"I have a feeling that’s what you’re about to do though..." Kat said slowly.
"You’d be correct, but it’s really not sothing you should do. It’s horribly advanced, liable to fail, and you can’t preserve the results. The only reason this is possible is because I have a lot of experience, I’m not trying to change the fundantal nature of the potion in question, and I’m going to be using it imdiately. You CANNOT store sothing like this and you also couldn’t say... turn this from a fertiliser into sothing that instantly grows temporary plants," explained Appoline.
"That... those two things seem pretty similar..." Kat offered.
"Exactly my point. I’ll give you another one. You can’t take a potion made to treat burns and convert it into one to heal normal non-burn related scarring. Even sothing THAT similar still cannot be done without catastrophic consequences," explained Appoline.
"I’m sure you know I have to ask... why?" Kat comnted. [And I want to know as well!]
"Hmmm... the terminology isn’t the best but think of it like cooking a steak. Or no... even that’s not an ideal taphor because you can heat it up again... AH. Let’s say you’re making a cake. You add all the ingredients, bake everything together, and suddenly. Cake. You can no longer use the eggs inside of it to make mayonnaise. You might be able to make it into sothing cake adjacent, but even then it will usually be a ss. You also can’t bake it again because it’s already cake," Appoline tried to explain.
"Alright... I sort of follow. Or at least I think I’m following. Why isn’t this sothing you can do though? Other than the obvious, which is that the ingredients are all mixed together. Wouldn’t the core still be around?" asked Kat... after being prompted by Lily.
Appoline made a ’so-so’ gesture. "Yes sort of, but also no. The problem is that the core essentially IS the potion once everything is said and done. It’s why it glows or has so sort of other exotic effect. That IS the core and adding or changing it once it’s in that form is hard. It’s not quite so... solid? Perhaps? Or maybe that’s the issue. From a taphysical sense it’s no longer easily changed."
"Right... and you think it’s worth it here?" asked Kat.
Appoline shrugged, "Worth, not worth. It’s a really bad habit that I am saying you SHOULD NOT make use of... but it is sothing that I practiced and if things go poorly then it might kill the Trapdoor Blossom. Which... while not ideal would also be considered an acceptable outco."
"Oh... with how highly you seed to think of it I thought that sort of thing was off the table..." Kat pondered.
Appoline shrugged. "It wasn’t my first plan, and I don’t want to TRY for it. I feel like that would be an unacceptable crossing of the line... but if it happens accidentally then I’m not going to be upset about it."
"Right..." said Kat slowly, not sure she agreed with the logic but also not able to care for the plant as anything more than... a plant. If it got destroyed Kat was certain she wouldn’t be bothered.
Appoline ran off for a mont as the water was starting to boil and then returned with a number of different bits and pieces from the plants. So leaves, so bark, a few petals. An entire flower in one case. Kat didn’t really recognise them, though Lily paired a few with plants Appoline had nad earlier.
The elf got to work swiftly, the old potion was dumped in first and then water was added directly after that. It was already bubbling and shifting violently the cauldron was rocking from side to side as Appoline hurled ingredients into the mix. Appoline dashed away more than once as so sort of backlash occurred. A plu of fire reaching towards the ceiling, a bubble that popped and turned out to be acidic, burning away at the grass and moss on the ground but Appoline simply kept working until the entire thing beca an odd almost leafy sludge.
Appoline swiftly poured it into the open flower of the Trapdoor Blossom and Kat was amazed to see that the liquid was swiftly siphoned away. Despite the amount Appoline had created, the plant drank it all, gulping down the slurry without pause until it all vanished. Then the flower shivered a bit, almost like it was dancing, before it started to peel backwards. The petals and stem lifted themselves up and away to reveal an opening. Pieces of a ladder were stuck into the rock with frayed bits of rope that had long since decayed. It was a long way down.
"Kat would you mind carrying as you jump down there?" asked Appoline.
"Of course not... just... I’ll try to make sure you don’t hit anything. It’s a tight fit..." grumbled Kat as she picked Appoline up. Not her normal princess carry, or her secondary preference of carrying soone on her back. No she had to hold Appoline under her arms and close against her body. Kat didn’t have any space for her wings to be used here and her tail was wrapped around the pair of them tightly.
Kat jumped, and for a mont, she was weightless... then she was plumting downwards. Kat grit her teeth as various bits of rock and wood shattered against her arms. She had NO idea how the heck anyone was ant to get down here. Even with the ladder there just wasn’t any space. The rocks scraped and broke against her skin, the vines gave way, and when Kat landed heavily it wasn’t her legs that were damaged by the fall. It was still jarring though, and it took a bit of effort to eat the impact with her legs and arms to ensure Appoline didn’t take damage from the fall.
Letting the elf go, Kat could finally see what was hidden away down here... "A Montary Lily!" announced Appoline. Kat had to step off to the side a bit to see more of what Appoline ant.
The ground was mostly gone. Cracks ran through it everywhere and the centre of the room was a raised hill... sort of. Those cracks instead far enough that the hill itself was basically floating. Each small island had a small flower on it that was silvery in colour with a deep brown stem. Roots that had to belong to that small flower protectively curled around each of the floating platforms.
In the centre of it all though... right on top of the ’hill’? There was a small pond with almost no dirt around it, and floating not on the water but slightly above it was a water lily... but not one that was anything like Kat had seen before. The petals on it weren’t white so much as they were gashes in the world pretending to be organic matter. Flad beautifully by a touch of purple that connected back to the stem. A deep, black set of petals rested on top with the faintest bit of silver spinning inside, giving it sothing of a space the.
Whatever roots it had that should connect to the flower were invisible to Kat... and yet as it drifted slowly around the pond it was on you could see slight ripples left by its passing, even if there was nothing that should be connecting the two together. Kat found herself... amazed at the sight, and wished her Lily was here to see it in person. Perhaps later.
Once Kat recovered from the sheer awe of the view, she noticed a few other plants, hanging from the ceiling or hiding amongst the grass... but first Kat had to ask. "Why is it called that anyway? Montary Lily?"
"Well it’s a water lily... assuming that’s an accurate term for sothing that never actually touches the water. Its petals are ant to be spatial gateways and they were once thought to capture still images of scenes from elsewhere. That’s not quite what’s happening but that people assud when it was nad. It’s a very rare ingredient... and I’m not sure I can make use of it..." Appoline admitted.
"Wait... why?" asked Kat. "I’m not saying to go ahead and wreck everything... but why can’t you use it?"
Appoline gently lifted a leaf from one of her pockets and flicked it forward. Before it got anywhere near the plants it was shredded to pieces by invisible pockets of sharpened space. "Oh."
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