Published at 22nd of October 2023 9:41 am

Book 2: Chapter 19

This chapter is updated by NovelFree.ml

The scuffle with the necromancer took almost a week to resolve, and even after Chief Fellix had come by and interviewed everyone involved, the aftereffects continued to resonate. Strangely, the Klein Family was the least affected by the event, as the dream flowers worked to keep the citizens under the Family’s influence calm. Garrett hadn’t even noticed it until Chief Fellix had mentioned something. Despite the exorcist’s best efforts to keep a lid on the whole situation, the whole city seemed to be talking about it and a vague sense of unrest started to bubble up.

Garrett tried to keep the inn and everyone associated with it on a normal routine, but enough was changing that it took more attention, preventing him from chasing after the necromancer as he wanted to. Forced to be satisfied with sending his flower ghouls north in the catacombs that ran under the city, he focused on the upcoming meeting with the representatives from Port Reverie and getting the tunnel under the city wall secure. During the night, he continued to work with the awakened dreamers to secure the area around Heifer street and the meat processing plant, establishing a miniature garden of dream flowers to ensure that he would be able to hold it.

They still hadn’t breached the meat packing plant itself, as Garrett could sense a dangerous presence lurking inside, and he wanted to make sure that the team was going to be strong enough. His plan was to wait and see if the Grave Walker gang had a response to his move before he completely cleared it, and the day after Chief Fellix stopped bothering them, his patience was rewarded. That evening, two figures in the black and gray Grave Walker uniform were spotted watching the meat plant from the roof of a nearby building.

Each wore a pair of heavy boots, black pants and shirt, a gray sash belt, and a gray cowl that hid most of their head. Both were also armed with the hatchet and short sword that were the typical weapons of the Grave Walker gang. Since they were just watching, Garrett pretended that he didn’t care about their presence, hoping to encourage them to take whatever action they were going to take. As long as he knew an attack was coming, he was confident that the Family could handle it, but guarding against a hidden arrow was an entirely different matter.

The rest of the gang wasn’t so patient, and Garrett was forced to order them to stand down before they agreed to let the two Grave Walkers go. By this time, Garrett was focused on the upcoming meeting, so he put the Grave Walkers out of his mind and tried to make sure that he had covered every contingency. This would be his first time interacting with merchants from outside the city, and since Ryn had grown up in Port Reverie, he sat her down and grilled her for almost four hours until she flopped over the side of her chair and refused to answer any more questions.

She was much more interested in the upcoming training that they were planning, and had started to get a clear sense of what she wanted her soul spark to be. She had settled on an animal soul spark, specifically on a black raven. At first, Garrett had been concerned about this choice, but the more they talked about it, the more he understood it.

“Like I said, I want freedom,” Ryn said, sitting up and leaning forward when Garrett asked her why she had chosen a raven. “Birds have the ability to pick up and fly away, and that is really attractive to me. As for the black raven specifically, I have the greatest familiarity with it, and you said that the more accurately we can visualize something, the better our soul shape will be in the shaping stage. Also, as much as I want to distance myself from my childhood and training, there isn’t any point in denying the influence it has had on me. It seems fitting that I would use it to achieve the strength that will allow me to destroy the Black Raven group.”

Watching how she got excited while she talked about it, Garrett couldn’t help but think it was a perfect fit for her, both in temperament and goals. More than once, she had showcased just how proficient she was at bypassing locks, and he was quite looking forward to what she would be able to do with a soul spark.

“You know, I’ve been meaning to ask you about something,” Garrett said as Ryn leaned back in her chair.

“Oh yeah? What do you want to know?”

“When we first met, you said that you were out of money. You said that you only had a single silver in reserve. After you reluctantly gave it to Henrick, you were completely broke. How did you end up like that? You’re an accomplished thief, and I’m sure your pickpocketing skills aren’t bad either, so how did you end up without a coin to your name?”

An embarrassed blush rose on Ryn’s cheeks, but it was gone after only a moment. Coughing lightly, she looked away from Garrett, not wanting to meet his gaze as she mumbled something under her breath.

“Sorry, what was that?” Garrett asked, not sure he heard correctly.

“I said, I wasn’t telling you the truth,” Ryn mumbled again, only marginally louder. “Well, I wasn’t really lying to you either. All my money was, uh, stored. In other people’s safes. You might say that I wasn’t worried about getting it. Why keep money on me when I can store it safely in other people’s pockets? I’m not an idiot. But awakened people have really good hearing and I wasn’t about to go blabbing about my skills where Henrick could hear me. I really did spend my last coins on you, but as you can see, I’m pretty good at finding more.”

Giving Ryn a quizzical look, Garrett tried to judge if she was telling the truth, as he had the distinct feeling that she was leaving out a major part of the story. Still, she was clearly embarrassed about it, so he didn’t push the issue, changing the subject to discuss their first attempt to awaken her soul spark. Though Ryn clearly understood that Garrett had a connection to her dreams, she had not yet made the connection between Geller and Garrett, so he spoke as if they were not the same person, but shared a relationship much like Garrett and Viper did.

“Tonight, after you go to bed, you’ll find an invitation to a simple cultivating room. It’s a pretty stark place, so don’t freak out. Once there, you’re going to be learning to meditate. Are you familiar with visualization?”

“Yes,” Ryn nodded, her expression showing some of the trepidation she felt. “We had to do a bunch of it when we were in training.”

“Good. That should make this easier. Your goal is to visualize this black raven you want to use. Lock it in your mind, and then, without breaking your concentration, start communicating with the dream flower, asking it to release its energy to you. Chances are good that it will take a few times, but once you do it once, it will start becoming easier and easier to do.”

“Okay, so I’ll meditate, ask the flower for its energy— that sounds so weird to say, and then shape that energy into a black raven?”

“No, the energy will look like a ball at first. That’s the lighting stage. Your goal is just getting your soul spark lit. In order to do that, you need to fill it with energy, which we are going to borrow from the dream flower.”

“Ah, right, and then, after that, I shape it into a black raven.”

“Correct.”

“And, I need to make sure that I don’t absorb the whole dream flower, but just its petals. Right?”

“Exactly. It’s a simple process, but the question is, will it work?”

“If it does, you’re going to have everyone in the city beating down your door to become a member of the Klein Family syndicate,” Ryn said with a grin.

“We have a long way to go until that becomes a viable reality,” Garrett said, chuckling. “In the meantime, if this works, we’ll focus on those who have been able to grow the dream flowers.”

Later that night, Garrett watched over Ryn as she took a seat in one of the prison cells. It took considerable effort for him to reshape his personal dream, and since the inn was taking up most of the space in his dream, he had decided to just use the prison without adjusting it. Ryn was so excited, of course, that she hardly cared, and apart from asking for a small cushion, she sat down without even looking around, quickly beginning to meditate. At this point, there was nothing for Garrett to do but watch, so that’s what he did, carefully observing her as she began feeling out the process.

He didn’t even know if it was possible for her to communicate with the dream flower she hosted, but he was curious, which is why he had told her to give it a try instead of just commanding the dream flower on her behalf. Minutes ticked by, eventually turning into hours as she sat quietly, absorbed in the process. Suddenly, just as Garrett was thinking about going and seeing what was happening in Dreamer’s Rest, he felt the air shift and the triple bloom dream flower above her head began to sway and tremble. It was almost imperceptible, but a tiny thread of energy from the tip of one of the petals began to unravel, spiraling down as it fell into her head.

Though it was such a small amount of energy that Garrett nearly missed it, Ryn’s response was entirely different. Her body jerked violently as the energy entered her and she flopped over, gasping for breath. Above her, the dream flower went back to normal, as if it had never done a thing. Concerned, Garrett reached out to grab her shoulder, but Ryn pushed him aside, her eyes hazy and lost, as if she was moving without being conscious of it. A small box appeared in front of her and she touched it lightly, causing a familiar tune to fill the room as she sank back into her meditation.

This time, when the flower released another strand of energy, her body shook but the process didn’t stop. One after another, tiny threads of energy sank into her, flowing through her body and naturally gathering where her soul spark should be. It was at that point that Garrett knew that they were going to be successful. It was only a matter of time. He had been worried that Ryn’s body wouldn’t be strong enough to handle it, but she had overcome that challenge using her dream item.

For a full night, they sat there and the dream flower emptied petal after petal into her, until an entire flower had been absorbed into her body. Dawn was only a few minutes away, and Garrett was beginning to think that they would have to work on it again the following night, but the flower abruptly stopped sending energy into Ryn and her body trembled before going still, so still she might as well have been carved from stone.

One of the mortal dreamers under your authority has awoken using the power of your dream flowers. You have gained 10 EXP.

EXP: 127/160

Garrett didn’t even have the chance to dismiss the window before he was sent out of the dream and woke up in his room. Excited, he wanted to see how Ryn was feeling, and he didn’t have to wait long because she bounded down the steps and sprinted down the hall, nearly running over Francis, the cook, in the process. Shouting an apology, she threw open the door and stared at Garrett, who was looking at her calmly.

“I did it!” she hissed. “I did it!”

“You did. And in one single go as well. Congratulations, Ryn. You have done very well.”

“And I feel… I feel… well, I feel like I did before. Huh, that’s strange, I would have thought that I would be filled with power.”

“Over time, you will be. Your soul spark will give off energy, and that energy will permeate your body, increasing your strength, toughness, and flexibility. But for now, just take it easy. What are you planning on doing today?”

“I’m headed over to talk to Carraway. He has a couple new soap fragrances that we are going to test out. I never thought about using a smell for men, but he says that whiskey smell is really popular, so we are going to try to make a tobacco one too.”

“Okay. Try to be back by dinner. I’d like to have a meeting right after dinner to talk about some new things coming up, and it would be helpful to have you there.”

“Alright, I’ll make sure I’m back in good time.”

Watching her bound down the hall, Garrett had a hard time keeping the smile from his lips. He often found himself cold and detached, even from the people and things right around him, but Ryn was one person that seemed able to melt the ice that coated his heart. It wasn’t yet to the point that Garrett thought of her as family, but if there was one person in this strange world that he felt some connection with, it was her.

The rest of the day passed in a blur as he finalized his plans for the tunnel and began to work on how he was going to present it to the gang. The trickiest thing would be the hand off between the human members of the gang, and the flower ghouls who would do the majority of the transport. Garrett didn’t intend to ever show the flower ghouls to anyone who didn’t need to see them, and apart from the core members of the Family, that meant keeping them from the regular members.

When he heard the light ringing of the bell up in the corner, he realized that it was already dinner time. Putting his quill down, he stretched and mentally reviewed everything he wanted to talk about. Sometimes, even he found his need to check and double check his plans tedious, but that tedium had saved him more than once, so he wasn’t about to stop doing it. Gathering up his papers, he wheeled himself out into the hallway and out into the great room where he found a large group gathered and waiting for him. Greeting everyone with a smile, he noticed that Ryn was missing and habitually checked his connection with her, only to freeze when he came up empty.

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