Defi operated the levers that controlled the feeding mechanism over the slime pens, watched as the mixed feed was conveyed into multiple pens at the same time.

He turned the crank of the mixing bin, readying the feed of the next batch.

He only needed to pour it into the feeding bin and it would be dropped into the pens of the slimes that needed that particular feed mix.

The amount of food needed to feed his collection of slimes was truly enormous this time. Defi blew out a long breath as he thought this.

If he expanded again, he wouldn't be able to mix and portion out the feed easily without the feeding mechanism.

He was grateful that Karles had suggested it, or something like it – the design had changed over time as Karles understood how he wanted to raise the slimes.

Defi hadn't told the man he wanted to milk the slimes like other farmers would milk the average cow, but even this much already made things tremendously simpler.

With that, the feeding was finished. He ran water over the feeding mechanism to clean it. The mixing bins were not empty, but the preservation Emblems would ensure the feed they contained wouldn't rot.

He jogged down the steps from the feeding and preservation platform, to take up the six containers with the evening's extract to the warehouse storage area.

Carefully, he poured each into the designated barrels.

The smile curved his lips unbidden.

Rather than five barrels per type of vinegar, he was averaging nine to ten barrels a month, sending seven to Bluzand. Two barrels a month, he was keeping for insurance and his own use.

The extract from the Jasper-Jarvon-Jarto group, the heavy vinegar, had become more fragrant and viscous since the addition of the sable crab shell. He had added two slimes to this group, whose vinegar was slightly inferior but was quickly catching up the longer they were fed with the same things.

The medium vinegar, a lighter version of the above, was from all new slimes. He fed them with mixture made of common crab shells and fruit, increasing the proportion of shells to zaziphos and adding some starcherry into the mix.

It was a very satisfactory vinegar, with the aroma becoming less delicate, the taste sourer. Vesia wrote to say she had negotiated a slight increase in retail price for it, which was good news to Defi as the profit from his percentage of sales would also rise.

Hm.

He'd been calling the heavy vinegar 'Jasper vinegar' in his letters to Vesia and the light vinegar 'Malachite vinegar' to differentiate them. The medium vinegar should have its own name too, right?

Garnet?

No. Three of the slimes on the medium vinegar group had dappled light and dark green patterns. Agate, then?

Agate vinegar.

He mulled it over silently, then nodded. It sounded good, let it be that then.

Moving on, the light vinegar from the Malachite-Malvon-Malto group hadn't changed, either in feed or extract quality. The two slimes added to the group were doing very well.

The last three containers were the Larimar-Larvon-Larto group's lotion balm, Zavanas' savras extract, and the Moldavite-Fluorspar team's zaziphos-and-herb extract.

For the guild officer Erel, he had especially added more savras into the feed for Zav tonight. Tomorrow, he would mix the enhanced savras extract and some of the Larimar balm, then test the resulting mix in his apothecary's tracetable before bringing it to the fishers' guild.

The barrels for the Jasper group and the medium vinegar group were topped off to fullness. He placed the wooden caps on the barrels, tapping them firmly into place with a mallet. Taking two Emblem strips from the cupboards, he placed them on the barrel tops and touched them with a hint of Current.

Instead of inscribing a design on the barrel wood like a preservation emblem, the glyph paper lengthened and firmed, sticking firmly to part of the barrel's lid and body.

He watched as the ink on the glyph paper formed itself into a leaf design.

The Emblem was his personal creation. The preservation and protection Emblem on Bluzand barrels were good. The one he just affixed was not powerful. It only added some more protection and ensured that if the barrel was opened during transit, those at the receiving end would know.

It was not too useful, but it was still one of his very first Emblem creations and he was a little proud of it. The twisty simple-looking design was made to fool the eyes of the beholder, rendering it difficult to copy. Despite the simplicity, most of the design flourishes on the glyph paper were feints.

Defi would describe it as an Emblem within and Emblem within a puzzle within a pretty leaf pattern.

The puzzle and leaf flourishes were just him having fun.

Mostly, he made it just to see if he could hide one Emblem inside another.

He was concerned that he, a beginner, had taken less than a month to deconstruct the preservation and protection Emblem that Bluzand placed on their barrels. So he bought his own barrels and inscribed his own Emblems based on the Bluzand version. It still looked like the company's Emblem design, with only slight differences on the surface.

Vesia hadn't sent him a letter questioning him about it, so he assumed it was fine.

He scooped up some of the Larimar balm, then some of the already existing savras extract. He mixed them into several fist-sized condiment pots, in different proportions for each extract, then placed them on the shelf to rest. He'd test them later, before he went to sleep.

His ordinary slime-related farm work done and cleared away, he made for the washroom. Since it was already too cold for the hybrid Herbs, he only had to continue invigorating the land using the Current.

The sansu trees were all fruiting, and two hundred zaziphos trees had already been planted on the western side of the homestead.

If Defi slacked off with restoring the vitality of the land, all those trees would be stunted in growth or wither without reaching maturity at worst.

An hour or so of meditation in his usual spot under the sansu trees, protected from the pouring rain by the sunshades he had put up over the outdoor tables, and he would return to the neighboring farm where Sarel and Allise were working to save a life.

He was useless there, with Barham strong enough to do whatever the two women wanted and the baby crying harder when Defi came close.

Because of this, Little Dari, who once looked on him like an older brother, now narrowed his eyes when he saw him and placed himself between Defi and the baby.

It was adorable, and also made Defi feel slightly depressed.

The adults only laughed at him.

In any case, because he couldn't do anything there, he returned to his farm to work off the tension of worry rather than being underfoot.

He'd just mull some wine and carry a jar of it with him when he went later.

It was something he learned very recently: in Ascharon, when in doubt, bring meat or wine.

He'd bring Turq to the northern farm too, he decided.?Children couldn't resist Turq.

*

The transport bay of Bluzand's main headquarters was a hectic place at all hours, with caravans loading and unloading, merchandise being exchanged and stored and readied for transport.

There were three shifts of workers in the transport bay, ensuring it was open day and night.

Into this pit of organized chaos, Conar, leader of one of the caravan teams, sauntered in with two of his associates.

The floor supervisor for that shift eyed them questioningly, but didn't stop from monitoring the influx and outflux of various barrels, crates, and packages. "Weren't you scheduled to be on rest this week?"

Conar laughed. "We are, we are. We're doing a short leisurely run, just three or four days. Very restful."

The supervisor just nodded.

Caravan teams got paid per trip, so it was not surprising that they preferred to use their free time to do lighter work rather than take all their resting time for themselves. Sometimes, they took family members with them on these 'short leisurely runs'. It was a known unofficial practice, and Bluzand turned a blind eye on them using company resources to vacation as long as the custom wasn't abused.

Then he frowned. "Are you here for provisions?"

There was an office just for that, his face told them unequivocally, that doesn't require you bothering me.

"Danel, my friend, why are you so cold?" Conar patted him on the back jovially.

Danel was not moved. Conar laughed sheepishly when faced with the supervisor's expressionless stare and leaned casually against the wall. "We just wanted to see; the vinegar delivery, has it come yet?"

That..was not information Danel should be giving out. Nor did he expect that a man who had been with the company for ten years, a trusted veteran, would not know better than to ask so openly about a merchant company's logistics.

The supervisor's shocked face brought Danel to his senses. He straightened and brought his hands up, waving them quickly. "Oh. No, no, I'm not..ah, I've been misunderstood."

"Then speak plainly." It was a cold demand.

One of the men with him sighed and came forward. "Sorry, supervisor. You know this idiot is just like this. What leader means is that the barrels, the ones with the leaf tags? Since they're to be recycled to the transport section anyway, we want them."

Danel nodded quickly.

Once again the supervisor Danel was silent. It was a curious request, but not something he couldn't do.

"I will check," he said at last. "Then get back to you."

The three thanked him, and the other two pulled Conar away even as the man yelled over his shoulder. "Before Thunders, yes?"

Danel snorted, shaking his head. He returned to ticking off his inspection of merchandise and organizing the transport bay.

The curious incident, however, stayed at the back of his mind for the whole shift. The moment he turned over the work to the supervisor of the next shift, he wandered into the transport office and made enquiries.

There were indeed fifteen quartel-size vinegar barrels with 'leaf tags'.

There was nothing remarkable about them, but for the alluring scent coming from the insides that hadn't been washed yet. He knew Bluzand's vinegars, his wife preferred them. These were not the same. He pulled out a letter from his coat lining and penned a reminder to make an advanced order for when Bluzand came out with its newest vinegar.

He put the scrawled on letter back into his coat and studied the barrels again, as well as the leaf tags.

Just pretty designs stuck onto the barrels. Bluzand used something similar, with the Bluzand company sigil, to prevent tampering.

"That must have wasted a lot of ink," he inspected the 'tags' which seemed to have been soaked in black ink and inscribed with green and white designs.

"Oh no, sir, they weren't like that initially. It's an Emblem, I think. The paper used to be white, and the design was red-gold ink."

Danel lifted his brows. "It became this solid black after the barrel was opened?"

"Yessir. You couldn't open the barrel without tearing the design."

"What a frivolous use of glyph paper and ink. From one of our business partners then?" He hoped whoever was wasting glyph paper and glypher's ink on something like this wasn't an employee of Bluzand.

At the clerk's nod, he studied the leaf design again.

The eagerness in Conar and his team's eyes surely wasn't just because of this? "Detail these barrels to be allocated to Caravan 11 under Conar. Send one from this batch to Mestre Lassolus. Tell him I said the Emblem is strange."

"Yessir."

"Oh, before Thunders' Day, if you would."

He didn't see what made the barrels so desirable to a veteran caravan team, but they mentioned the leaf design especially. So he sent one of the barrels to someone who might know.

The company's head glyphmaker could at least eliminate his suspicions.

Three days later, Lassolus the glyphmaker rushed into the Bluzand cafeteria, eyes wild and long sea-green beard flying behind him, nearly upending several of the dining tables when he spotted Danel and barged toward him.

He lunged across a table, ignored the cup of water that he knocked over, grasped Danel's shoulders, and stuck his face inches from the bewildered supervisor's face.

His long normally-neat beard plopped into Danel's fishbone soup.

"Where," he snarled in frustration, "did you get those Emblems?"

Danel made a confused and pained noise. The other's thin stick-like fingers were digging into the meat of his shoulders.

"The barrel, man! The Emblems on the barrel!"

Danel made a face of realization. "The leaf Emblem?"

The grasp of the glyphmaker tightened to near unbearability and his face contorted in fury before the man reordered them into an artificial near-calm.

"Yes," said Lassolus, quietly intense eyes on Danel's now worried expression. "The 'leaf Emblem'."

His fingers tightened again, the words that dropped out of his mouth dripping in disdainful ire.

"It was one of the barrels we send to supply partnerships, wasn't it?" Danel tried to pry the glypher's hands from his shoulders.

Barrels were easy to make, but not everyone could afford Emblems. To the people who signed supply and production contracts with the company, Bluzand commonly sent out barrels that already have Emblems on the lid, ready to activate.

"No," Lassolus said unexpectedly. "It isn't."

"What's wrong with it then?" Danel retrieved his cup and poured water from a pitcher. He pressed it into Lassolus' hand, giving the other something else to grasp, and hoping a drink would calm his friend down.

It didn't.

The other emptied the cup in long swallows, all the while glaring sullenly at Danel like the supervisor was forcing him to drink.

"If it's not a good design, we can just get the account manager to send a letter advising the person to stop overestimating their glyphmaking talents. This happens all the time, and we've dealt with it before. No need to get excited."

"Oh, excited. Yes, I am very excited." Lassolus laughed manically, murderously.

Danel lifted his brows. "So it's very good?"

That sort of thing had happened before too. There were a few glyphers in Bluzand's employ that used to be supply partners.

"Good? Chelua, it's useless! That's the point!"

Danel reached over, despite his poor sore shoulders, and patted the other's head who suddenly looked like he was close to crying.

"I wasted an entire day, and it was useless!" He leaned over the table, nostrils flaring, and said emphatically. "It was No.2 ink. Who in their right mind would believe it?!"

"An entire day on a useless Emblem?" Danel couldn't conceive of his friend spending that much time on something he described as useless.

Lassolus looked murderous again.

"I would like to meet that person, the person with that twistedly diabolical mind, that layered Emblems in such a manner and put..." His arms waved about in speechless fury. "Children's games, Danel! Children's games!"

Danel contemplated for a moment. "So, not dangerous?"

They both knew that unless they were needed for something by the company, the chance of them meeting with the supply partners was nonexistent even if Lassolus was the best of the Bluzand glyphers.

So unless the Emblems were harmful to the company, it was best to leave things alone.

Lassolus glared, stood, turned on his heel and stalked away, robes fluttering.

Danel watched as his old friend exited the room, and then gave a small laugh. "Still looks like he should be on an opera stage, the ass."

Unknowingly, this single barrel sent over by a semi-suspicious floor supervisor would create a great flurry involving Bluzand in the middle of winter.

Defi, who at that time was ensconced in the Lowpool, snowed in, would not learn of it until spring.

**

**

Notes:

Defi's Emblem isn't anything revolutionary, just ingenious and very very annoying to unravel, hahaha!

Also, Lassy is very serious about his profession, whoa. He doesn't like Defi putting mazes in an Emblem. What he doesn't realize is that he's a genius. The 'children's game' that Defi put in the design would have caused many people to pull their hair out.

Lassy was also pulling his hair out and took an entire day to analyse the two Emblems on the barrel, but that was because he was overthinking things. When he realized he overestimated the 'useless' Emblem, he blew his top. Heh.