The Story of Zhan and the Magical Tea Tree

'Those teas are magical! They fetch the highest prices in the market, sweet dear! And you are so nimble as to climb the Guosten Tea trees and pick the sweetest leaves from the furthest branches! My Precious Dear sweet daughter Zhan, you make mommy so proud, and help to keep our home with your glorious gift! So please, go with Mr Zhut and his friends tonight. No more talk about school for tomorrow! For now, you will help us all, not just yourself! Don't be my Foolish girl -- that's Qhan. Be a good girl and school will come! Now fill your belly with this fine venison stew! Barkeep! Two more of the stew! and 4 more ale for me!'

So Thats that. A drunken 'mom' if that's who she says she is - self centered, maudlin, two - faced, addicted, diabolical. What kind of evil was this woman, to trap her unlucky daughter into these outings. If only she saw what her daughter had to go through for a bag of the actually quite beautiful Guosen tea tree leaves and sweet flower buds.

A tamed wild tree that thrives around magic. For all intents and purposes, when physically near magic, Guosen is a weed. Oh, it will die pretty much anywhere else but around magic -dense environments, but in those environments, it is Queen. Any structure built near where Guosen trees grow will ultimately have the the trademark Guosen (GS from now) buttressing. You see, most GS varietals are of an extremely hard and dense wood, resistant to varying elements, and of course, magic. Any magic thrown at it feeds it, which makes it develop more, all based on the varietal of course. Ultimately, the GS clusters around, say, a wizard's university will create a symbiotic bond with the structure itself. As errant magic from young spellcasters, be they official Wizards in training, or hedge wizzies struggling to unlock spell art, fizzle out to the environment around them, the GS strengthens. It grows to bond with the structure. In turn of course protection is conferred to the structure, the compound, and maybe even the inhabitants. The radiant magical energy is absorbed but processed and a bit given back - in a varietal's way. So these trees may be found all over the world, and each as different as the local terroir and magic varietals around them...

While there may be thousands of GS varietals that each have a treasured form and function, those high up the jagged cliffs above their grotto are little Zhan's bane. The thought of the journey nauseates her. These bud out for blooming twice in a full cycle of seasons. In the Summer warm nights, at least the weather on approach to the GS is hospitable, but in the winter, it is pure cruelty. A sunny morning with a thick frost and razor jagged icicles is the most pleasant it gets, so mid night with the winds wild and a storm raging... you see it. At the same time, the GS itself blooms at this time because not of its usual biology as in summer, but for the intense amount of spell concentration in the Temple for climate control. Can't have the pipes freeze! So while it spells opportunity for Zhan's Mom, warm at the hearth, Zhan herself is shedding salty icicles as the wind whips across her face on a moonless night. There is no way for a thief, even as small as Zhan, to make the ascent in broad daylight. The pure phosphorescent glaring white of the cliffs not only blinds the climber in daylight, but even the whitest of hand made fabric would not disguise a climber. And the guards of the Temple know that they need to protect something there at the Temple. While their task may be to prevent solicitors, the curious, adventurer / treasure seekers, rival clans, spies from rival clans, other kinds of spies, uninvited wealthy aristocrats, the media, someone's lost relatives \ lovers \ neighbors needing a rest, and... assassins, the tiny flower bud stealer may still suffer from whatever mysterious punishment that the temple guards may offer. And the signs, in all the languages known, Scream "NO TRESPASSING!!" all along the first of many barbed walls leading up to a cliff space. Probably a bad idea to proceed, but Mr. Zhut is another story, and its not a good one. Best not keep him waiting

So at this very first spot is where Zhan's magic, (if it were not actually stunted growth) of tiny stature helps her climb through a large rat or something hole under each of the eight walls. The mud, dank with all manner of rotting matter, now semi frozen but mostly thawed by the body heat of vermin filling this vast underground tunnel network, is wriggling with life. Worms, spiders, all sort of squelching deci- centi - milli - kilo- pedes carrying on with their lives. While these bits of tunnels were connected to a vast network, she was smart enough not to try to explore. Just us the tunnel sections under each wall, then run the final 100 meters avoiding the now memorized pattern of guard torches. As she made it out from the eighth wall and ran in a young skinny child sized body with practically an adult's poise, coordination and athleticism, Zhan fantasized. The end of this season, a half a cycle of school, hopefully growing a bit (she was sure she was growing, just super slowly) , maybe one day escaping with Mom's fairy in a jar and making for the muddy tunnels to freedom of some sort... Surely there would be a way that someone so tiny could make it all the way into the Temple? Maybe take a relic, even a minor one could maybe start herself a new life, maybe a permanent growth spell? A life of thievery has seemed to have helped everyone but herself so far.

The cliff face appeared seemingly out of the blue. Reverie was almost her downfall as she tripped slightly over a root of a low bush and nearly bashed her skull on an amber rock with a burned gouge. Probably nothing but an errant fireball spell finding some mark far from intended. "Stay alert" is Zhan's mantra.

The 100 meter cliff face is ironically the easiest part of the climb, were it not for the wind... but thanks to the wind. There are small holes likely formed by water and wind and maybe target practice over the years that would be useless for the average adult sized adventurer to use to scale the relatively sheer side of the cliff. But Zhan's small but strong hands allow her to make good time up the sheer sides, even as her scarves are whipping around her head, her hands numb for some time already.

Clawed fingers working like simple hooks against the merciless pocked cold stone. Zhan spots some of the Guosen roots and their miraculous glow as she crests the familiar edge of the cliff and rolls, panting, onto her back. She drinks from her hip flask, the water pleasantly warmed from her exertion against the whipping daggers of frost all around. Glowing warmly and so beautiful from afar, the GS tea trees offer a warm invitation to the weary traveler. But this is where Zhan always finds her bane. The GS trees here have many narrow sturdy trunks that twist around each other in a complex network perfect for climbing - at least for Mom's superstar Zhan. At least within the branches there's protection from the elements. Always. but is it respite?The magical radiance looks like a purifying cleaner, a font for recharging health or mana. Maybe true magic -people or spell casters can bathe in the aura of the GS branches. In reality, the glow is the processing of the absorbed magic. The tree is at work, and while its own biology prevents the magic essence it feeds on from diffusing away, its not good for other entities to be within the glow of its branches for too long. Zhan is smart and cunning but unschooled. All she knows is that from the moment that she enters the branches to climb up and up into their sturdy extended networks, there are the moans. Voices, tens, hundreds, thousands. Moaning. Crying. Laughing. Screaming. Now defrosted fingers are reflexively put into ears to block the sounds, but seconds later removed. These sounds are not coming in through the ears. "Do the Temple People hear this? Do they know how to control it? is the tree hating me for climbing it?" Zhan has puzzled over these questions, yearning with looks through the crying branches and out onto the campus, dimly lit with probably something better than fairies in jars, but lit at night without fire. The wonder of the magic did amaze her, if she had to be honest...

Whatever torment, or memories of spells cast, or who knows what make the moans - they actually recedes bit by bit, as the trees branches get thinner and thinner, where the leaves and buds are accessible. Zhan climbs with some relief, joined with new anxiety as she now must avoid detection. At the level of the leaves, at least for this temple, there is access for the Temple folk to harvest. And over the years, as the temple campus was extended even closer to the trees, windows were placed in new buildings to make harvesting of the youngest leaves year round convenient. The drinking of the GS tea was a ritual for this temple. Zhan knows not of the story behind its start, and she doesn't know what its leaves have done for the temple folk who drink it. Reverie returns up in the whispering yet sturdy branch tips. This actually is Zhan's part of least misery to her whole thieving evening. She would never call it her favorite. In the whispering warm branch tips, with the rustle of innocent leaves and miraculous glowing flower buds all around her, Zhan could get lost in thought. Was it the tree itself, stimulating, provoking her gently up here? Or just the comfort, away from the screaming and terror all the way down below? What kind of life on this campus can be had? What if she could learn here? For all accounts, for having the tea leaves at ready disposal, the campus was always quiet at night. When the grotto folk below used the tea from the leaves, they would not sleep the night, or for days after. The sips of the expensive tea that her mom dried was a panacea to the non magic folk. They could dance and sing and enjoy the night, even if ill or lame before. A blessed 2 nights and 2 days of manic relief from the cares of the world, with the crash sometimes a week's worth of misery and depression... sometimes worse. Was it worth it? Mom's regulars thought so.

So Zhan plucked away for hours at leaves, in a manner careful not to raise alarm as to the thinning of the GS trees. Too many stories were spreading about the magic grotto tea, so Zhan worried about becoming noticed, even as small as she was. even more so since she started pilfering the flower buds of the mystical GS tea tree. The buds glowed and would shine in multicolored shifting rainbows even through the burlap tea sack. And she would be beaten if she didn't bring at least ten of the hand sized buds back.

Whereas the leaves offered a pleasant start to a creative spellcasting day at the temple, the flower buds were never ingested by the wizards. It is forbidden, for its true properties are too varied and concentrated to even subject it to all but the most powerful magic wielders - and even they fear its potential. Zhan has no idea about this, ignorant to the words and meanings of magic. While her ignorance has thus far shielded her from the acute dangers of the buds, being lost in reverie out on the branch of a GS tree is not a good idea... as dawn approaches.

What an odd site to behold, when the weary eyes of some nameless old cleric, mage, wizard - -who knows? - widen with the morning sunlight. No, not widening on the dramatic, beautiful but now mundane view from the Temple Housing out across the cliff edge and walls and town down to the jewel blue-green grotto, the mountains around it, and the sea beyond. This morning, there is a little girl - no- a tiny weathered young woman - sitting in a branch holding a glowing, frightened, screaming flowerbud just abducted from the Guosen tree!!! IMPROPRIETY! INCONCEIVABLE! ABUSIVE!! Within the span of a breath, a reflexive incantation and complex finger gesture occur. A bright yellow beam greedily reaches out for Zhan. For a moment the flash brightens to engulf her, the bud in her hand glowing bright blue against the yellow all around her. Then everything

• black.

Entered by: 0xd8F9…773C