Merrick was kicking himself as he watched Mary preparing to cast her [Accelerate Growth] spell on the goodberry bush. Due to all the adrenaline during combat, he’d completely forgotten to shunt the merged bronze coin onto one of the bodies, and he didn’t think it likely that the group would elect to engage in combat again anytime soon.

  “Okay, right after I finish casting the spell you need to start applying the plant tonic elixir to the roots. It’s slightly more effective if you drip it drop by drop. [Accelerate Growth] is a channeled spell so I’ll try and hold it long enough for the berries to mature.” Mary moved her staff into her left hand and reached out to touch the bush before casting her spell.

  Merrick applied the plant tonic to roots they’d slightly exposed to the air like he was instructed. Unlike most of her combat spells, Mary’s [Accelerate Growth] was a slow-release spell. This allowed her to cast it continuously due to low magica consumption and also reduced the strain on the plants and soil. After a few minutes of dripping the potion out, Merrick’s first vial was empty so he shot a glance to the bush.

  The six berries looked almost the same as when he started but the bush itself had shot up to the fully expected size of 3 and a half feet tall and had new leaves sprouting all over its body which caused Merrick to scowl. It seemed like the plant had decided to dedicate all the nutrition it was receiving to growing rather than reproducing.

  Before uncorking his second of three plant growth tonics, Merrick removed his sword from its sheath again and chopped off several branches and severed a root. Mary opened her eyes and sent him a quizzical look before realizing what was going on and nodding. He began applying the second potion to the roots and the berries started visibly growing in size. He even saw a seventh berry start growing in on the end of one of the half-severed branches he chopped away.

  “Ah, that was clever.” Rod stated before looking at James and seeing a confused look on his face. “The reason we never see goodberry bushes this shallow in the dungeon, or most other natural treasures for that matter, is because the magica is too thin to support their growth. That’s why this bush looked so sickly and short.”

  “What does that have to do with the alchemist hacking away at the thing wildly? We did so much work to get access to those berries, why are you two letting him risk destroying it?” James scowled.

  “I’ve got it, Rod. I don’t feel like listening to another fight. First of all, we did work hard to kill those bramblekin, but that ‘we’ doesn’t include you, James. Besides that, I realized Mary and Rod were right. These bushes aren’t supposed to fruit for the first few years of their life, after which they’re supposed to be much taller. The fact that it was fruiting without being full grown was because it was dying and distressed due to lack of nutrition, magical or otherwise. When we started giving it the plant growth tonic, the bush swapped out of its death throes and started using the energy to finish growing. I had to re-distress it so it’d finish reproducing before it died,” Merrick concluded.

  “But goodberry bushes don’t reproduced. They’re dungeon spawned natural treasures.” James stated what he knew to be a fact. If goodberries were able to be grown then the wine wouldn’t be so expensive.

  “That’s not exactly true. It’s a known fact that if you find a goodberry bush deeper in the dungeon there are likely to be more nearby, but they aren’t clustered. The running theory I that there is some dungeon life cycle between the bushes and the fauna that we can’t reproduce as humans.” Rod stated.

  “Which would explain why the bramblekin were waiting near the bush for the berries to mature. They must have wanted to eat them and spread them around the floor.” Left unsaid by Merrick was that them harvesting the berries almost certainly ensured that it would be unable to reproduce on this floor. Without Mary’s spell and his growth tonic, the bush was now far too large to sustain itself and was likely to die not long after they left.

  As Merrick’s second potion was running out, the six goodberries that had adorned the branches of the bush upon their arrival finally shifted color, from their pale ashen blue to a deep and vibrant violet, indicating they were ready to harvest. The seventh berry that had started after Merrick had distressed the bush looked even less ripe than the original six had been.

  With an exhausted nod, Mary signaled that she agreed they were ready to harvest before carefully setting down her staff and pulling out six tiny wooden pots from her bag. She twisted off the tops showing an empty interior and began carefully plucking the berries off the tree with fingers that were glowing a soft green color. As she picked the berries, the stems attached still attached to them seemed to slowly seal themselves with a sap like material and even the bush itself looked like the branch they were plucked from them was healing at a rapid pace.

  Each berry received its own small pot and was screwed shut to ensure safety of transportation and sealing of efficacy. Mary left the seventh berry upon the branches as it was almost useless and she hoped the bush would at least be able to finish maturing it and have it lay roots on the floor. It’d like grow up sickly like the parent bush had before they intervened but after a few generations of that, the plant could potentially have a descendant that adapted to the inferior environment.

  “Alright, so by my count the split should be two berries to Mary, two to Rod, one to me, an done to Merrick.” James began trying to instruct the group again, somehow still under the delusion that he was in charge.

  “How do you figure?” Rod asked, much to James’ pleasure since it wasn’t an immediate rebuttal.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “Well, you killed four of the seven bramblekins and Mary’s spell is the only reason we were able to mature the goodberries for harvest. It only makes sense you two get the larger splits.” James stated knowingly.

  “You keep saying ‘we’, but Merrick already told you that you weren’t a part of this. You refused to help and contributed nothing to the harvest. It should be a three way split between myself, Merrick, and Rod. Two each.” Mary said scathingly. She’d already decided she wasn’t even going to pretend to entertain James after this trip, their Masters’ relationship be damned.

  “Works for me and you stated that a lot nicer than I would have.” Rod rolled his head as he cracked his knuckles and picked up his two pots.

  “It doesn’t look like Merrick agrees with the splitting of loot that way.” James pointed out that Merrick had a very troubled look on his face. ‘Finally,’ he thought, ‘someone is going to stand up for me.’

  “It’s not that I don’t agree. A clean three-way split is probably the fairest way to do this, I just really could use a third berry for personal reasons.” Merrick stated with a pained look on his face.

  “Finally, I thought you’d never ask for help with your debt.” Rod practically forced Merrick to take both of his goodberries with a massive grin on his face. He’d long since wanted to help his friend but Merrick’s proud nature made it clear that offering any amount of charity would be met with hostility rather than accepted.

  “It’s not that. I’m not trying to sell the berries, I have a use for them and I only need a third one.” Merrick pushed one back into Rod’s hands and had to decline Mary’s offering of her two own. He didn’t want charity and hadn’t accepted any that wasn’t earned through his own merits. Outside of the church, all of his sponsorships had been loans and even the church’s apprenticeship program was to be repaid with an understanding of what his Innate Ability for their records once its use was excavated.

  “If you two are so insistent on giving away your loot, I could also really use a few. For personal reasons, of course,” James snarked from where he was fuming. Logically, he understood why he was not included in the loot share but that didn’t stop him from getting even angrier when he saw Merrick and Mary practically holding hands while they pushed the little wooden pots back and forth to each other.

  “I said it’s not like that, I really do just need the three of them-” Merrick started to explain before slowing his speech and taking a deep breath. He’d already been considering it but he figured he’d just outright tell them. “I’ve finally made some headway on my innate skill. I’m still translating some of the words from my Status and I need identical dungeon spawned items to test a theory.”

  It was rather personal but telling James seemed like it’d be the only way to prevent an actual physical altercation from breaking out at this point. It wasn’t like Merrick was going to be sticking around long enough for them to take advantage of the knowledge anyways.

  “What the hell? You’ve got a blessed skill? One that you’re saying is rare enough the church couldn’t just outright tell you what it does? Do you think we’re dumb enough to believe that?” James demanded incredulously.

  Merrick had never felt the need to bring up the fact that he’d had an innate skill to anyone outside of the Exploratory Apprenticeship program or potential sponsors. He was wildly embarrassed by his inability to figure out how it worked and would rather avoid the curious badgering he usually received when someone found out. As such, he’d never told James.

  Mary knew he had something going on to have qualified for the church’s apprenticeship program only because of her father’s relationship with Rod’s father and the alchemist who taught Merrick.

  Rod, however, was very clear on a few of the specifics of Merrick’s skill. He’d seen several plants dusted when they were out on training expeditions outside of the Stronghold’s walls.

  “I thought you decided that plants didn’t work?” Rod had seen Merrick run through several iterations of experiments, from branches of different trees, to three different seeds, to random combinations like a racoon’s belt with a rose and a rock. Funny enough, he’d even seen Merrick plunk three berries off the same bush before and seen that fail with his own eyes.

  “I had my first success earlier today.” Merrick took the bronze coin out of his pocket and flicked it over to Rod. Rod inspected the coin that shouldn’t exist with wide eyes before tossing it back.

  James snatched the coin out of the air and laughed.

  “This is simultaneously the best and worst counterfeit I’ve ever seen. How is you were meticulous enough to get every visual detail right but somehow got the size and metal composition wrong? Hells, even the scaling for the face looks accurate.” James turned the coins over a few times in his hands before tossing it back to Merrick. If one were to read his mind in that moment, they’d see a plot hatching to turn Merrick into the guards for counterfeiting and get him out from between James and Mary.

  “It’s not a counterfeit; it’s my innate skill. It allows me to combine things, though to what end I’m not sure yet. Its why I was collecting the horns as well.” Merrick got defensive immediately. Counterfeiting was a serious crime and accusations, jesting or otherwise, needed to be nipped in the bud.

  “If you say so. Is there anything preventing you from combining the goodberries right here and now? Not that I’m accusing you of lying, I just think it’d put our minds at rest to know you weren’t trying to pocket yet another valuable harvest while some of us are leaving with empty packs.” James prodded Merrick.

  “You should know better, James. You’re the only one here who has an issue with Merrick taking his fair share of loot. Everyone else is understanding of his situation, but you even went as far as to exploit his debts to clear out his stock of potions at unfavorable prices. You should be thankful that we’re here even though we only tagged along to help you out of the mess you got yourself into by taking advantage of my bo- ahem – my friend.” Mary balled her fist and gripped staff, obviously ready to have a falling out. It seemed almost inevitable at this point.

  “It’s fine Mary. I don’t have a reason to be secretive about it anyways. If it’ll put his mind at rest, I’ll give it a try. Though, if you don’t mind, I’d like to pick three out of the six to use.”

  After opening each of the pots, Merrick carefully weighed each of the berries with his hands to find the three that were closest in mass. They weren’t exact clones of each other, like the horns would be, but he was willing to gamble since most dungeon spawned harvests still had remarkably similar properties, almost as if they were all grown out of a mold.

  Merrick took a deep breath to steady himself before channeling his [[Merge]] skill. A faint, cyan glowing three by three grid appeared before his eyes and his eyes only. He once again placed the first two berries in the diagonal corners before reaching forward and setting the third berry in the center, causing the other two to be pulled into it.