HP: Spirit Talker

It took a few minutes to start the circle, and another five minutes for Lizzie to get the feel and basic flow control. But just in case, we ran the checks for another ten minutes, deliberately changing the mode of the construct. Not to say we did it for nothing, but the girl was confident right from the start. Then we got down to business.

Picking up one of the scalpels, I made the first cut... and realized that this particular knife was not suitable — it does not make deep cuts. It took me a while to find the right one, and I almost cut some veins. In case you didn't know, old mandrakes are very wiry, and they also form clearly visible sap channels.

It took a lot of nerve and effort to make the thirty plus centimeter long longitudinal cut, as I was learning as I went. Then I had to fiddle with the reamers, deepen the cut again, and staple the edges together so it wouldn't burst or split more than necessary.

Lizzie was extremely tense and never took her eyes off her work. It took me over an hour to get to the core, and Afiri's help wasn't needed yet — it wasn't something unexpected, so I decided to gain experience. Next came the more difficult work that could be done with four hands.

The structure of a mandrake is similar to a simple carrot: a hard core with softer flesh around it. It's the same here, only there are more veins and channels for the juice, and they are clearly visible. The dark-haired girl and I spent the next hour rearranging the channels to make room for the cavity, the heart sac.

It was not easy, and we could not hurry too much so as not to spoil anything. When they were done, they started cutting out the excess. Even though I'd turned off the plant's consciousness, it tried to redirect the channels and return them to their original form, making Elizabeth's job very difficult.

The girl's face was covered with drops of sweat, and she stood with her eyes closed for better concentration, fixing the result. We didn't waste any time. After cutting out the cavity, we immediately took titanium strips from Kiriko's hands, two centimeters wide and one and a half millimeters thick, covered with hieroglyphics.

Until the hardening was activated, the strips bent perfectly, obeying the commands of my wands. In twenty minutes we had all the strips in place, fastened them together, then I activated the chains and the titanium transformed into an indestructible cage. In addition, part of the cage circuit connected to the plant, and the mandrake relaxed its instinctive pressure, as if getting used to the new sensation.

Lizzie exhaled loudly with relief. Now, thanks to this cage, the cavity would not overgrow: the contours would prevent the plant from changing, suggesting that it was its natural part. After a short breather, they continued.

From the nearest flask, they took some of the "material" and began to splice together, in the upper part of the cavity, the flesh of the plant and a special mixture of animal origin with small inclusions of iron, silver and titanium dust. It was extremely slow, energy consuming and difficult, if it wasn't for the prepared bracelets with storage, everyone would have run out of energy in the middle of the process.

Afiri showed some interesting solutions from her experience, so she made part of the process much easier. After that part was done, they began the same process of splicing animal and plant flesh at the core. Gradually, they formed a plexus from the original channels, then a branch, which they shaped and fused with animal cells, finally forming complete arteries of the desired diameter. Then they spent a long time on smaller vessels to feed the heart itself, but after a few hours they were done. It was time for the dragon heart.

The heart had maintained its high temperature under stasis, so it was almost scalding, and the dragon magic was present. It was a good thing I'd been smart enough to specify that I needed the heart of the calmest animal. Otherwise, I'm afraid the mandrake would have burned. It was not difficult to transplant the heart, as Afiri did it, and I only studied in silence, as the experience of the girl's actions felt very serious.

Together we implanted four golden bands covered with hieroglyphics into the heart: Afiri advised and showed me, and I learned. On these same strips we closed the control of the organ's vital activity, creating a kind of filter-gateway through which the mandrake dragon's heart would perceive a part of itself. Furthermore, from the already prepared outgrowths, a full-fledged heart bag grew again in four hands on top of the titanium cage.

Having finished all this, they brought the main aorta to the place of the incision and connected it to the hollow liana parasite, but as it is in nature, here it turned into a living tube vein. After checking and inspecting everything, we closed the window of the heart cell and closed the incision, additionally applying staples.

The heart is not yet beating, but it will not die, because the heart sac has begun to fill with mandrake juice, and the organ itself is nourished through thin vessels.

Next step. Dragon eggs are fixed in three bone holders, and the top and bottom of the eggs are clamped with wide titanium discs with holes covered with hieroglyphics. I twisted my brain to compose the command correctly: beginning, process, and a rigidly fixed result. To be sure, I added magic sample drives to the structure.

It was quite easy and quick to graft tubes onto the eggs and place them in flasks of solutions. When they were done and double-checked, they gave Elizabeth the go-ahead and immediately extinguished the control structure. At the same moment, the dragon's heart began to beat.

Symbols on several containers lit up, controlling the supply of nutrients from the vials and magic from the storage tanks. The softly glowing storages in the three hieroglyphic titanium disks beneath the egg containers began to flicker slowly in time with the heartbeat.

— That's it, the process has begun! — I smile broadly and contentedly, tired but satisfied like an elephant.

— Well, what have we done? — Lizzie asks tiredly, taking me under her arm and almost hanging on to me.

— Look. — I began my explanation, pointing to the mandrake in the visibly cloudy liquid. — The control runes monitor the entire process. We have implanted a dragon heart into the mandrake, fresh and alive, and now the plant considers it a part of itself. Next, the mandrake will begin to compensate for the loss by drawing nutrients from the environment, though the system will adjust the result slightly so that the plant's sap will change drastically.

The sap will flow to the core, from which the dragon heart will pump the sap through tubes to the eggs, nourishing their changes with special magic and almost an elixir of life. The process would be guided by runic discs and rings in holders. In the end, if I'm not mistaken somewhere, or there's a surprise, we'll have three small but fully-grown by summer... — The spectacular pause aroused far less interest than I had expected. — ... Basilisk.

The break dragged on and I still didn't hear the enthusiastic shouts and applause for my genius.

— Why? — my blonde asked lazily.

— Why what?

— Why was it necessary to create all this, — the girl circled the result of our joint work. — when you can buy basilisks in India?

— Oh, I see what you mean. The thing is, you can't just do it — you need a special license for literally every bar of the cage in which the basilisk will be kept. Stacks of endless permits from all sides and so on. Also, Britain has a law, passed seventy years ago, prohibiting the importation of basilisks to the islands. But, as always, there is a loophole: it does not say anything about eggs, from which they can later be bred, even if not by any expert.

— I don't believe this. — Lizzie muttered.

— As it is. — I shrugged. — Dragons are protected from all sides, and even the possession of dragon eggs for breeding purposes is forbidden because of competition. But there's no one in the country who can deal with basilisks. None at all.

— And the Lord has decided to fill that niche? — Even in Afiri's voice, you could hear the weariness, however slight.

— I haven't decided yet, to be honest. Maybe the snakes will be the guardians of our lands, or maybe I'll start a farm, we'll see. And now, my dears, thank you for a job well done! Hurrah! Well done, everyone! — I stroked Kiriko's head and smiled at the smiling Kiriko and the dark-haired girl. — I'll give each of you a reward of your choice, a gift or a wish, within reason, of course. Now, rest!