The café was an oddly modern affair, not all that different from an independent coffee shop on Earth. The slightly heightened humidity felt good to Baz. The customers were a mixture of adventurers and townsfolk, and the place served what looked like tea, as well as sweets and sandwiches.

  Once they got through the line at the counter, a brusque middle-aged woman looked up at Alara. “What can I get you?”

  Alara glanced down at Baz. “Er… I need a little money, and Nerissa said to ask if you needed help with the lunch rush?”

  She looked Alara up and down, then looked at the line. “You know how to brew velice?”

  “Y-Yeah?”

  She lifted part of the counter to let Alara through and handed her an apron. “Go get started. I’m Nadine by the way.”

  “Alara.”

  Alara put Baz down next to several jars of brown leaves—that must’ve been the “velice” stuff—and got to work. Nadine had to tell her how many spoons of velice leaves to put in and to use the sand timers, but Alara persisted. Keeping all the pots of velice going and watching for when the timers ran out was hard for Alara, and Baz wished he could help. A coffee pod machine or just some cheap kitchen timers would do wonders here.

  Another employee took over taking orders after a while, and Nadine switched to making sandwiches. Each sandwich got some combination of leaves (spinach or something like it), cured meat, cheese, some kind of pale yellow spread, and occasionally what looked like capers. Baz didn’t find it very interesting, but he didn’t seem to be able to switch his sight off. Eyelids were another thing he was going to miss.

  When there was a lull, Nadine turned to look at Baz. She leaned over—giving him an ample view of her cleavage, which he was not in a state to appreciate—and sniffed. She then plucked a few leaves off of Baz. It stung a little, but wasn’t painful per se. He wasn’t sure how many he could afford to lose, but he didn’t want to find out. Except there wasn’t anything he could do about it.

  She tasted one of the leaves and smiled. “Oh, this is good.”

  She was reaching to pluck some more leaves when Alara cried “Stop!”

  Everyone in the café turned out look at her. She turned red and fidgeted.

  Alara gathered herself up. “Sorry. That plant is… It was a gift from Begana.”

  Nadine stopped short, eyes wide. “You need to say that sooner,” she growled. She tried to put the leaves back, which of course didn’t work.

  “Sorry, you’re right.”

  She shook her head and looked upward. “How much money do you need?”

  “Uh, just… five rings.”

  She opened a drawer, counted out five gold rings, and thrust them at Alara. “Mercy on us all. Just take it and go.”

  Alara collected Baz and apologized some more on her way out. She probably could’ve gotten more money, but apparently she wasn’t the type to take advantage of people.

  When they got back to the guild, Alara turned in the 30 gold rings—evidently that was the currency here—and started filling out a form.

  “That was fast,” said Nerissa. Seeing Alara hesitate, she leaned closer. “Something wrong? If you want to change your mind…”

  Alara took a deep breath and looked up. “Okay, this is going to sound insane, but Begana sent us a person from another world in the form of this plant, and I was hoping getting a card would let us figure something out and maybe give them some skills.”

  Nerissa stared blankly, then said, “Yeah, that does sound insane.”

  Alara glumly looked down at the form. Baz could see that it had a lot of blanks for things Alara couldn’t know about him.

  “But things have been boring around here, so let’s see what happens. I’ll even refund you if it doesn’t work.”

  They went over to a little clockwork machine that had a glowing yellow orb on it. Nerissa inserted a metal plate and tapped a crystal against the sphere. It took a few tries to get it to respond to Baz, but it did. Alara had to touch a few of his leaves to the sphere without touching it herself.

  The machine spat out the metal plate, now with writing on it.

  “Kind: Basil,” she read aloud. “What’s a basil?”

  If Baz had still had a face and a palm, he would’ve facepalmed. Had that goddess turned him into a basil plant because his name was Basil?

  Stolen story; please report.

  Baz didn’t hear what Nerissa was saying because of what happened next.

  HELLO.

  Aah! Who’s there?! It wasn’t a voice exactly, more like words pushing their way into his mind. Something about the words reminded him of an old dot matrix printer.

  I AM OMNIVAC.

  That doesn’t tell me anything.

  I WAS ONCE A PROPHET OF VALRUNE, NOW I MONITOR THIS WORLD. YOU ARE NOT FROM THIS WORLD, SO I THOUGHT I’D CHECK ON YOU JUST IN CASE.

  There were too many things in there he didn’t understand; who or what was “Valrune”? Well, a crappy goddess sent me here to be her “Apostle,” and now I’m a houseplant. So now what?

  ...

  Hello?

  SORRY, I AM TRYING TO PROCESS THIS. I’M FROM EARTH AND I APPEARED HERE IN THE FORM OF A MAINFRAME COMPUTER. THERE HAVE BEEN SOME OTHER... ODDITIES, BUT A HOUSEPLANT IS A NEW ONE ON ME.

  Yeah, it’s… a lot. So what can I even do? Do I just sit here and grow more leaves?

  TELL YOU WHAT, I’LL GIVE YOU A FEW EXTRA SKILLS TO HELP YOU GET STARTED.

  Uh, thanks. So who is Val—

  SORRY, BUT I ONLY HAVE SO MUCH RUNTIME TO WORK WITH. GOOD LUCK.

  Alara started and held up Baz’s card. It glowed for a moment. “I guess you have skills now. Including Mind Speech. So maybe you can talk to me now?”

  Baz tried using Mind Speech. Hello?

  “Mercy,” said Alara. “Hello! I’m Alara.”

  He wasn’t sure he liked the pitying way she was looking at him, but his situation was pretty pitiful. I heard you when you were talking to me before, which I do appreciate. Hi, I’m Baz, and apparently I’m a houseplant now.

  Nerissa patted Alara’s shoulder. “I did not think that would work, but hopefully it’ll help. Anyway, I need to get back to work now.”

  On the way back to the temple Alara ignored the stares and talked to him. He was still missing a lot of human faculties, but he was no longer trapped in silence.

  I’m from a city called Austin, he explained. The weather’s hot, but it’s nice overall.

  “I grew up here in Ofanopolis, the capital city,” said Alara. She didn’t sound like she was a fan.

  Do I have to stay as a houseplant? I really miss, you know, having limbs. Among other appendages.

  “Usually when Begana…” She looked around and shook her head. “Usually she does things… quickly.”

  The more he heard about the goddess, the more he wondered how the people here functioned, living under that kind of terror. It was like if the President, with the nuclear codes and everything, was a petulant, impulsive teenager. With superpowers.

  “There is magic that can permanently change a creature’s form, but it’s very difficult and expensive. And you can imagine the hazards for transmuters who do a bad job.”

  It was easy to imagine a wizard accidentally turning someone into a pig or something and having a mob come after them. Being an animal would be a bit of an upgrade from being a houseplant though.

  She told him a bit more about the world. They were on the eastern side of the continent of Galania, which in antiquity had been dominated by the Galanian Empire. Ofana was a tiny, isolated country, and Beganism’s ethos essentially boiled down to, “Let’s be decent to each other, because the goddess causes more than enough problems.”

  They eventually tracked the High Priest down in his study, a cozy room lined with bookshelves, where he was relaxing in a plush chair and smoking a pipe.

  Alara made a gesture where she momentarily covered her mouth with her hand. “Father, may I speak with you, about the Apostle?”

  He blinked and looked around. “The what now?”

  She held Baz up. “The Apostle, that Begana sent us, and you told me to be Companion to?”

  He blinked a couple times, then realization dawned. “Oh! Right! I was… so busy with planning for the Southern Temple that I forgot.”

  “He’s now able to communicate via the Mind Speech skill; his name is Baz.”

  Hey.

  “Baz? The basil plant is named Baz?”

  My theory is that’s why she did this to me.

  The High Priest sighed. “Sorry about that.” He glanced around warily and spoke in a low voice. “She’s done a lot worse to be honest.”

  Why do you put up with her then?

  “She’s a goddess. Saying no isn’t an option.”

  “A-Anyway,” said Alara, “we were wondering if there might be a way to make him human again?”

  “Nope.”

  What the hell? Alara was saying you guys have magic for that?

  Taywyn sighed. “Oh, you might be able to find a transmuter who could do it, but we’re not going to risk having Begana blow up another city on your account.”

  As much as it sucked for him personally, Baz couldn’t blame the guy for that. If becoming human again would really get thousands of people killed, he’d rather stay as he was.

  “I see,” said Alara. “Thank you, Father.”

  After that, they went back to Alara’s room to rest and think. She again put him on the windowsill, and though it was getting into the late afternoon, the sunlight still felt good on Baz’s leaves. There were so many things that sucked about being a plant, but if he ever got to be human again, he might actually miss the joys of photosynthesis. Maybe he could ask about becoming a dryad instead.

  “Anyway,” said Alara, “It looks like you have some more skills. There’s… Simple Tekelin… Telelikin…”

  Telekinesis? Yes! Then I can move objects around! He wondered if there was some way he could thank OMNIVAC for his (its?) help.

  Alara smiled, and it was the first time he’d seen one from her. He had no idea what he was doing with women, but he’d noticed that there were some women who had smiles that just lit up their faces, and Alara was one of those. “Why don’t you try it out?”

  Baz wasn’t sure how to do that exactly, so he mentally said, Simple Telekinesis and tried to visualize a hand picking up his card. It worked, sort of. The card jumped out of Alara’s hand and fell on the floor. They both looked at the card.

  Sorry, lemme try again.

  It took a few tries before he could hold the card up without dropping it. Manipulating objects purely with thought, without any tactile feedback, was incredibly weird. When he was able to look at the card, he saw some more skills: Enhanced Photosynthesis (Passive), Rapid Growth, and Fade Into Background.

  He put in a little more practice and Alara got herself some food before they decided to call it a night. Fade Into Background turned out to make Baz harder to notice. Even when he was still on the windowsill in plain sight, the skill made Alara think she’d misplaced him. Rapid Growth made him grow and sprout leaves fast enough that Alara could see them moving before her eyes, but it made Baz feel fatigued.

  Once Alara had eaten and given Baz some water, she hesitated before taking off her robe and climbing into bed. She had a decently nice figure, but somehow it didn’t do anything for Baz. Without male human hormones it was more like finding a car attractive. He eventually achieved something like unconsciousness.