“De little ones be smarter den dere parents be,” Madam Kleoh told us, while tusker pups that only came up to our knees gamboled and tumbled around us, somehow managing to avoid us even as they came very close, clearly considering it a loud and happy game. Kleoh’s walking stick was enough to shoo them off and give us room when she waved it at them, and the youngsters hooted at her and us and started tossing coconuts back and forth at one another in yet another game.

  The adult tuskers, mostly females, just watched it all patiently, while the free-willed Isparians, wearing longer skirts, robes, and tunics than the Summons, seemed to be occupied with grabbing the young tuskers and inspecting them carefully before letting them go. There were also Isparian children, the first we’d seen on these islands, playing with the tuskers under the watchful gazes of their parents.

  “Schools?” Kris asked professionally. She noted the men had spears nearby, and they were all well-maintained, the long and viciously hooked heads seemingly made of tusker bones.

  “Down dat way,” the old woman pointed negligently. “De tuskahs, dey don’t ken much to de writing and de reading, but dey likes to listen and to talk, and try de workin’ wit deh hands. Dey fingahs, do, dey don’t flex so easy as ouhs do, so?” She wiggled her fingers at a rambunctious tusker who came rolling towards us. The little tusker hopped to his feet, grinning ferociously and holding up up his large fists, flailing his whole hands as the stiff fingers didn’t move like those of a true monkey. He didn’t have an opposable thumb to help grab things, making their paws more like shovels best suited for digging.

  Still, magical world. They might not be very smart, but they could Invest in their Stat line and increase their own intelligence if they so desired to. Their main problem was that they started from a point much lower than a normal human, and so raising their intellectual abilities was something restricted to the most powerful and older tuskers… who might instead want to focus on the combat abilities that helped them survive to that level.

  A couple black Assailers in silver armor guarded the doorways down to the Tusker King, parting respectfully before the aged mambo and sniffing the two of us carefully as we passed, shooing off the little ones who looked like they might be trying to get past and see the great Tusker King.

  At the end of yet another descending ramp was a set of great wooden doors, which Madam Kleoh pushed open with confidence, and we strode into the final Hall of the Tusker King.

  The first thing I noted was a sharp and acrid odor that was very out of place with the bright and cheerful lighting, and all the green of ferns and flowers growing inside. Jungle lilies and orchids cheered up the place, their perfumes warring with a familiar odor from up above outside the Dungeon here.

  “The water from above purify yet?” Kris asked as we proceeded into the room, pushing the ferns out of the way.

  “Kleoh, you’re back!”

  The speaker was another older woman, perhaps the Mick’s real age, dressed in a long white robe she’d somehow managed to keep in repair and pristine despite everything. She was an Aluvian with long blonde hair going silver, blue eyes, and a complexion somehow keeping a healthy tan hundreds of feet underground.

  “And you have guests!” the woman exclaimed, her voice warm and only slightly surprised.

  “Jilna Fullgood, dis be de Imperial Princess Kristie Rantha, ahn de Lady Magos Ryin. Dey come heah to heal de Tuskah King.”

  “Oh! How wonderful! When we realized there were others attacking the usurper’s forces above, we did not expect such generosity!” the woman responded with a bright smile. “What plans have you made?”

  “We’ve ten King’s Crowns reduced to essence and ready for preparation into Infusions. Between that and my Healing Magic, I think we should be able to repair the Tainted damage and bring the Tusker King back to health,” I replied calmly.

  “You have King’s Crowns?!” Jilna clapped her hands in delight. “That is wonderful! I do not have the equipment to refine it properly right now…”

  “That is not an issue, either.” I stepped to the side, drawing out a piece of paper and flicking it down to the floor as the other women watched closely. It swirled around and settled on the floor, promptly bursting into flame, and the Item spell broke.

  The long worktable rose out of the remnants of the spell, fully adorned with a complete if somewhat compact set of alchemist’s tools, vials and beakers, distillers and mortars, tubes and dispensers and all the raw materials that might be needed.

  “Her Highness and I will make up the infusions while you direct us. I trust you still know the process?”

  “I… of course.” She looked us at us, as if wondering how good an obvious Caster and warrior woman would be at apothecary skills. “We can begin immediately, if you wish?”

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  I reached out and bopped fists with Kris. And then in complete synchronicity, we both cracked our necks, flexed our fingers and stepped up to the table. “Begin!” we said together, and both of the older women looked at one another in shock.

  ---

  Well, we put on a bit of a show. Jilna would call out instructions and components, and Kris and I did them in sync, from twists of the mortar to shaking the distillations to stirring the mixture. I’d look at the component with Analyze Components active, she’d be using her Trembling Domain, and then we’d switch vials and do the same thing to make sure we were getting the same results.

  Madam Kleoh and Jilna Fulgood could only look on, more than a bit unnerved as we did everything in time to Jilna’s instructions, made sure the end product was usable, and then handed the milky white infusion over to her.

  Then we ran through the process twice more each, giving her six of them total to administer, again simultaneously and checking one another’s work repeatedly during the process.

  Then, it was time to meet Bobo.

  ---

  The massive Tusker King wasn’t far away, basically on the other side of a wall of ferns, spread out on a bed of moss, looking wasted and jaundiced. Whole sections of his bright reddish-orange fur had fallen off, revealing weeping sores treated with ointments and poultices. Great muscles had decayed and withered, and his famous stone ball of a paw had fallen off, discarded and sitting to the side.

  So was his great big bright green swami hat, waiting for him to put it back on, resting atop a stand to the side and doubtless dusted every day.

  There was a pond nearby, not very large, but big enough to wash him, or maybe to play around with a mate.

  The water in it was still murky and unclear, and that was likely after being filtered many times. Whatever Mudmouth had cooked up for his target, it was plainly extremely effective against him.

  Bobo’s eyes were rheumy and bleary, but just from the shifting in the manafield around him, it was plain he still had magical power and was fully aware. His body was just being preyed upon.

  “I can see you are conscious, Your Majesty. There is no need to address us,” Kris spoke up before I or Jilna could speak. “First, we’re going to clean out your pool there.”

  I tossed three braziers with Vivic Eternal Lights on them into the waters, and then blasted the thing with Vivic Darts repeatedly, blowing purity through the pool. Within less than a minute, it was sparkling and utterly clear, white sands covering the bottom of it.

  “Jilna, give him two doses to help clear up his mind,” Kris said, keeping her Null tight so as not to alarm the big fellow as she walked up next to him. A little surprised to be ordered around, the woman still complied, walking up quietly to the head of the massive Tusker King, kneeling down in a worn spot there, stroking his head and murmuring quietly to him. He managed to open his jaws slightly, perhaps prodded by the smell hitting his nostrils, cutting through the smell of his own decay. He sucked the King’s Crown Infusion, energized with life energy from a Deru Tree, down noisily.

  His eyes blinked twice, the veins in them visibly decreasing in size. A shudder shook his great frame.

  “Don’t try to move yet, Your Majesty. We’re going to get you into the pool and cleaned off with vivus, then you can drink some actual good water before you get another dose.”

  And without further ado, Kris picked up both of his legs as if he were a tusker pup, and rather unceremoniously, yet still quite carefully, dragged him down into the pool.

  His fur lit up with vivus the instant he touched the waters, and we all watched the shudder go through him as the misty energy hissed and swirled on his fur, skin, and the weeping wounds upon him.

  I made a ramp for him in the water, keeping his head above the surface, but allowing his long arms to dangle in it, bubbling and misting.

  “What do you see when you look at him, girlie?” Madam Kleoh demanded of me, staring at my eyes.

  “He’s got Taint running all through him, but the vivus is taking care of a lot of it. As soon as it stops actively bubbling and clearing up, Jilna can start giving him water slowly, and more of the Infusions. That’ll send the vivus into his system and start clearing it out of him. Don’t worry if he craps or pisses into the water, the active vivus will take care of it. Just splash water onto the mess and it will wash away.”

  There was an immediate grunt and groan from the Tusker King, and something energetic began boiling around a darkness released from his buttocks. There was a whiff of something bad that didn’t get the chance to materialize before the vivus was on it, and a long groan escaped the mouth of the Tusker King as he seemed to relax.

  I Shaped up what was basically a watering can with a narrow tip, sending it floating over to the eager Jilna, who dipped it and began to pour little sips of water into the tusked jaws of the recumbent Bobo.

  “Time?” I asked Kris, who just nodded.

  “Time for what?” Kleoh asked suspiciously, watching as I stepped to a clear area. The stone began to run under me, rapidly turning into a complex diagram of magic.

  “Peace, Your Majesty. We’re bringing in your little brothers to assist you in getting better.”

  There was a grunt from the massive tusker who, supported by the water, was able to move slightly to watch me as I pumped up the Diagram below me. “Little brothers?” the great tusker repeated in a deep wheeze, his voice probably seldom used.

  The Focus Seal flared to life, reached out to the far end, and a great power there locked onto it instantly, prying open time and space into an open Portal with a swirl of sparkling purple energies.

  Two, no, three sets of energies.

  The hole in space opened up, and the three beings with glowing eyes, all in different hues, slowly and carefully stepped through, their postures very neutral.

  Candeth Martine, mask on, his eyes faintly blue behind his ornately carved mask, his ravaged skin still visible around the edges of his hood and hands. Hea Rheaga, an otherwise normal-seeming Hea tumerok with eyes glowing deeply green. Harraag, the Prodigal Banderling, had arrived at Candeth Keep not long ago, his dark gray fur and black stripes a stark contrast to the bright red glow of his eyes.

  There on the mound in the water, the Prodigal Tusker’s eyes began to glow a hot, bright yellow as he met the eyes of the Prodigal Human, Tumerok, and Banderling.

  ============================

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