AMLB 05

Adriana’s Magical Library and Bookshop

05: A Community’s Salvation

Tommy, farmer of Suther’s Creek, put the smell of garlic and plant oils out of his mind as he knocked on the cottage’s bedroom door.

“Come in,” Marae, his lovely wife said.

The room had been modified temporarily into something like an art studio where his wife could work while he tended the fields. Free paint, horsehair brushes, and paper was everywhere.

His beautiful, red-haired Marae smiled tiredly. She had a streak of smeared paint on her cheek and more on her old clothes, but she looked radiant in his eyes.

“Did you get it done?” Tommy asked, looking around almost like a small boy trying to get a look at fresh pie out of the oven.

“I did. It was a lot of last second work, doing the pictures like you described, but it was nice getting back to my brushes like when I was a little girl. You going to show this off at the town meeting?” she asked.

“I’d be a lesser man if I didn’t while our neighbors suffered,” he said.

His wife put her hand on his arm. “There’s my hero, acting all up again. I was so right to ignore Papa when I married you,” she said, pulling him down for a quick kiss.

“I’m going to go rest. Little one’s been kicking up a storm. Think he might’ve wanted to finger paint,” she said, hand on the pregnant dome of her belly.

Tommy just smiled. She was convinced it was going to be a boy. He’d accept a boy or a girl. Just, now, he was sure he’d be able to feed his family through the winter.

And it was all thanks to one Adriana and her magical little bookshop…

She was no monster, like the rumors suggested. She was a savior.

He bid his wife a good rest, took up the carefully bound book she’d worked on for over a week, and made his way into Suther’s Creek proper.

~~~~

The trip into town did not take long. No one wanted to be far outside the walls in case of attack, after all, but he was admittedly farther out than most.

Located close to rocky hills, his farm had once been seen as the poorest of the town. It still was, in a sense, but where everything had been wilting with root blight, it was coming back stronger and greener than before.

It really was good he liked garlic, otherwise the cure would have been distinctly unpleasant.

Yet, the moment he exited his lands, the blight seemed to come back. Nearly every farm in town had it now, flagging just as his had back when he’d first made his way into Epheas on a desperate hope and a plea.

The town mood had gotten very dark, very quick, as of late. Everyone knew what happened when crops failed on this scale. Starvation. It was just a matter of how many starved before the remaining food could support them.

A few optimist, like his neighbor Bob who’d never left town once, were convinced the nobles and mages would save them.

Bob had a few screws loose, Tommy thought.

Moving through town, the usual vegetable and farm produce stalls in the market square were bare and untended. Which made sense, given impending famine.

A few people glanced at Tommy as he walked in, but most paid him no mind as he was a local. Instead, Tommy listened to the conversations.

“Might be able to send the kids off to Red Ridge. Heard the orchards aren’t affected,” one Woodcutter Roy said.

“Maybe, Epheas will open it’s stores? I’ve heard the granaries are huge, big enough to take the entire village and then some,” John the butcher said, chatting with the cheesemaker Eren.

“Ha, you think that will happen? Where do you think they get the food from? We’ll be lucky to get a pittance of barley and left to starve,” Eren remarked darkly. “Probably going to lose a quarter of the village, like in the great winter that took my parents thirty years ago.”

… And on it went.

There were almost no positive words to be had. Just worry. About the only way it could be worse is if the Beastkin invaded.

The Town Hall, home of the lord mayor, was hardly better when he arrived. A meeting had been set this week to discuss the town’s issues, and, well, it was the exact same topic Tommy had been expecting.

Lord Mayor Robert of Eaglethorn, who was not a lord but was a mayor, looked tired in Tommy’s eyes. It wasn’t hard to see why.

“What are you going to do, Lord Mayor? The blight is hitting all of our crops. When can we expect aid from the Mages Tower?” the coalition of farmers demanded, led by Farmer Steve. He’d always been a firebrand, that one.

“I’ve already sent the request for aid to the Noble Council to petition the Mage Tower for assistance,” Robert said with the air of someone who knew what he’d just said was pointless.

“Ha, so they’re just going to do nothing, then? I say if they are willing to let us starve, then we just stop sending our taxes. See how they like it when they get nothing from us,” Steve said, before snorting. “Not like they’d get it when we’re dead. Maybe this way some of us live.”

Robert held his face in his hand. “Steve, what do you want me to do? That’s treason and you know it. They either will or won’t respond. If you go through with that, I can’t stop you but the army might. Or if it’s bad enough, a Mage might just set the whole village on fire and we can die that way. Regardless, it’s out of my power, and the glorious mages above do as they will,” he said sardonically.

It was at this point Tommy spoke up.

“My farm is free of blight,” he said, shutting everyone up.

There was silence for a long moment as everyone digested that statement. Than pandemonium broke loose as everyone shouted questions at once.

It was only with the banging of the gavel that order was slowly restored. “Tommy, speak, how did you cure the blight? Did you get magical help in the city?” Lord Mayor Robert asked.

Tommy removed the manuscript from his jacket. “In a sense, but not from the lords. Let me tell you about Adriana and her Magical Bookshop, and how she saved my farm…” he began, launching into his tale.

~~~~

By noon the next day, farmers everywhere in Suther’s Creek were trying the garlic and oil solution to drive back the blight, planting a small amount at the roots of their crops to drip down with the rain. Fortunately, garlic was plentiful, and the plant oils easy to gather from the forest.

A week later, life returned to the crops. Manuscripts were copied and spread, the simplified pictures Tommy’s wife Marae had drawn helping the illiterate understand how to save their livelihoods.

Soon a new legend had begun, one of a friendly spider who welcomed even the common man with all her worldly knowledge…

~~~~

AN:

BookDragon: German Spider noises Hello I am the spood and not dragon, totally yes-yes. Chapter/Chapter, would chapter again.

Sonata: wait what’s going on here who are you? Did I leave the magic cloning machine on again? Better go and turn it off before the foxxo finds it.

Kitsu: Ar naaaaaar! The Foxxo has too many foxxos surrounding! How to brush them all??????????!!!!!!!!

HiddenMaster: … I am not responding to the chaos above.

Instead, had a fun bit with this chapter. A needed follow up on Tommy and a showcase of some of the effects Adriana is already having on the setting. Do keep in mind, Tommy is just one of many commoners who have been to her shop.

Sonata: Okay now seriously do expect that others will pop up every now and then so we can see how Spood affects the people in this world that need magic/knowledge fixing some stuff.

BookDragon: Impostor incinerated. But ye, chapter’s a bit short this time but it really serves its purpose, so we moved the other scenes for this one to next chapter! And now... for our links!

HiddenMaster’s Archive: https://hiddenmasterarchive.carrd.co/

Kitsu’s Foxxo Shrine: https://aikoakiyoshi.carrd.co/

BookDragon’s Den: https://dragongrimoire.carrd.co/

HiddenMaster: If you would like to check out some of our published ebooks, look at the links below!

A Kitsune’s Ascent

https://books2read.com/u/mqYYY1

And here is my solo work, Catgirl Isekai Gone Wrong:

https://books2read.com/u/mZzzGy