Thickening

Lisetya was surprised when Errit and Luimei returned to the pocket dimension. When he blindly handed one of the dimensional keys over to her, she blushed, if you could call it that. Her entire body flashed with a shine.

Lisetya grabbed the other Ink Demon before its damage was completely discovered and vanished into the new pocket dimension for a moment. She came back, and jumped around a lot. Pulling Errit inside, he found an old ruin. There was a pool of Elemental Essence but it wasn't darkness, it was elemental water. Lisetya jumped around and grabbed the new ink demon, he was fiddling and writing obscene things on every surface.

Errit left the space with the pair and then went to check the other spaces, one had a graveyard, the other, a vast mountain filled with small crystalline birds. Errit returned and gave it some thought, he released the ink demon into the birds mountain dimension instead of the graveyard. He saw what the new ink demon was doing inside the Elemental Water dimension and he had only just arrived.

Lisetya was given the key, Errit told her to send the newer ink demons there and to keep the key safe. He watched as she tucked the key into a small panel on the ship, no one would be able to access it besides her. 'That's wow, she's really smart' "I have those books, When you have time, please consolidate them and give me an total of the depository's purchases that didn't make it to the auction house, I need a full total accounting of the losses."

He picked up a book on appraisals and started going over the copies of the writs. There was a lot of information, information he would have to learn after it was consolidated would be different than his own interpretations. Lisetya was good, but her insights were her own.

Luimei was standing around in confusion again, he didn't know what to do. Errit handed him a handful of spacial rings and had him collect water. He passed the dimensional key over and then went to explore the graveyard.

All of them were busy with their own tasks.

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Kinky Company was going through massive amounts of currency, Jay had to use his own CP to purchase herbs. Koesr was busy moving herbs around and up into the upper floors, it was a long walk up the stairs. When he reached the ninth floor, for the eighth time that afternoon he was sick of stairs. He was grumpy, his feet were sweaty and there was a pool of clean water. Koesr kicked off his clothes and went for a dip.

Inside of the water were many water plants, mostly medicinal herbs. The water itself, while clean, was highly beneficial to Koesr in that moment. It broke down the toxins in his body, his whole body became grimy and then the water would pull it away. The plants in the water absorbed the toxins and purified them.

'I wonder if Kink knows about this?' Koesr saw CP in his future, got dressed and finished planting the rest of the floor with roots. He planted Spirit Grains and Cobuterus root, Metser tubers, gingers and large roots from elemental ginkgos and Trugerre. Koesr most like the pool, the water plants and their detoxifying effect had left him feeling very energetic and renewed.

On the walk back down, he noticed a creeping vine. It had come out of the second floor, when he opened the door, it lurched at him then grew upward to the roof at a frightening pace. Sharp thorns cut through the stairwell, deforming it as it traveled unabated. The doorway had been pried open by the vine, it was trying to escape and it was growing out of control.

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It was morning, Errit finally came out of the pocket dimension, he had been studying the graveyard and the elemental water pool in between the articles in the books. Lisetya had been powering through the records non-stop since she was given the pocket dimension, maybe it was out a sense of indebtedness but she worked hard none-the-less.

When he came out of his office with Luimei for breakfast, Jay was waiting there, a bit angry, a bit irate. He yelled "The vine, its trying to break through the shield."

Kink couldn't believe it and followed to investigate. The Stairwell was blocked, the door was jammed. Kink used the chains to bore a hole through the vine, when he was done, it already started to close behind him. 'Fuck, that's fast growing.'

They climbed up the stairwell as fast as they could, Kink used the chains to crawl like a spider to the roof while the others watched him from a distance. "I'm not climbing this shit, it almost cut my fucking head off earlier." Koesr looked at Luimei. "What sort of vine is that?"

"I don't know, its almost primordial." Luimei slashed at the vine and made his way inside, he climbed a few floors and found its root. He cleaved it off and more sprouted from the trunk.

Luimei tried to store the huge vine away, but the withering husk just split into two and grew from both ends. "This is going to be a problem, stop Cutting it, we have to find a way to stop it from growing or a way to get it out of here. Look, its crushing so many herbs."

There was a panic.

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Errit was on the roof, the vine stopped growing when it ran out of space, then suddenly it stopped moving all together and started to wither for a moment. And then, it got serious about taking up the space inside the tower. Errit grabbed the root and the graveyard dimensional key, he pulled the vine inside and released it. A massive limb crushed the surroundings, grave markers and bones that were scattered everywhere were pulverized and turned to dust.

The Vine twisted and turned, unfurling and spreading out as far as it could. Errit saw a glimmer, it was a gemstone. He stored it and left the graveyard dimension.

Koesr yelled out from the cleared stairwell. "HURRY UP, THERE IS ANOTHER ONE!"

Errit jumped down the stairwell and trusted the chains to stop him before the bottom, reaching the broken doorway, he could see the root, Luimei was holding it back with a barrier but the barrier was not doing a good job and looked like it was about to break. "Release it" Kink yelled.

The vine flew toward the door at breakneck speeds. Errit grabbed onto the side, he traveled with it, crashing through the doorway and back up the stairwell. As they were ascending, he pulled the graveyard key out again and sent the second vine inside.

Panting, Kink asked Koesr, "Are there any more of these things?" 'che' Errit clicked his tongue as he thought about how the graves had been pulverized.

'Man, I hope not' Luimei heard the question, he had one of his own. "What sort of Vine was that?"

"Giant Raskovnik, I didn't want to plant many of them. Don't worry, they will grow to their full size and die off.. eventually. I wasn't sure If they would be useful, given the description, but I bought a few dozen seeds. I think these plants would make great distractions against an enemy force.." Errit played with some seeds in his hand then stored them away.

"We need to collect revenue from the Auction House in the future, but today we're going to harvest." Kink gave Invega a set of instructions, she was to take a room and lay out herbs for display.

Kinky Company was going to expand. A sign was erected on the side of the building, "Kinky Company, Auctions and Appraisals. NOW OPEN"

Luimei wondered how Kink was going to sell the herbs and get a return, the Auction House was owned by the Empire and its accumulated CP from auctions was sent back to them directly. 'This isn't going to turn out good' He had Kink take him back to the ship to read the ledgers.