A Ini Weed

A ini weed is a plant that grows high on the eastern slopes of the Abyssal Mountains in the Re a tari Rendari Range, Rakan. Most prominent around the Chelatacha Falls area, it is used in master-level alchemical spellcasting.

In this document:

All artwork by Shanda Nelson unless otherwise stated

plantpool images, Pexels

The Weed

A ini weed is not a weed. The moniker was given by Jonna Empire siojhetioxh who sniffed at the likelihood such a sad-looking plant could hold remarkable magickal capabilities. It translates to "dull weed"; the aki n'di ori shadowartists kept the name as a reminder the all-powerful, light-wielding siojhetioxh were not, in fact, all-knowing.
By appearance, this perennial plant is most unremarkable. The stems are dry, stick-like, the small, hard flowers crumbly to the touch. Animals brushing by them will trigger a plumb of dusty particles that take a while to disperse. This dust is so irritating to nose and mouth, it prevents most creatures from consuming it.
The buds bloom during the Strong Heat Greater Season and remain until the end of the Cold Rains Greater Season. Pollination occurs by way of dusty bees. Once the first snows fall, the flowers shrivel and fall off the plant.

Collection

The plant is not easy to reach. Not only does it grow in the hard-to-reach region above the Chelatacha Falls, it is found high on rocky slopes prone to slides. The dangerous task falls to shadowartist collectors called a ini ani ("dull ones"). Using shields, they safely navigate the perils and harvest the flowers just before they fall from the stems.
Rockslides are not the only dangers in collecting a ini weed. Many a ini ani lose consciousness while collecting, and awaken to find themselves at the bottom of the mountainside, sometimes with egregious injuries, and their satchel empty of flowers.

Because of the dangers, a ini ani charge high prices to sell the flowers to herbalist shops. Herbalist shops, in turn, sell the flowers at prices far out of the reach of normal mystery artists.
Despite the price, many shadowarts and healing academies want their students to use a ini weed in their alchemical final project for mystery arts mastery. This can cause great hardship for poorer students, and some spend their schooling years saving up enough money to purchase a few flowers in case they are assigned an a ini spell.
This is especially true in Rakan, Teral and Baq, where a ini weed played a vital role in Okune's myth.

Dusty bees, when making honey from a ini weed, produce over-sweet honey that healers use in tinctures and brews to increase the efficacy of, and drown the bitterness of, stronger healing plants.
Farmers have tried to grow a ini weed for their bees, but the crops always fail. A small town of mainly beekeepers has formed at the base of the mountains where the weed grows, making honey from the wild plant.

When magickal scholars have attempted to study the unconscious phenomenon, they, distressingly, do not have similar experiences.
The hypothesis is that too much dust from the weeds has a hallucinogenic effect, explaining the lack of memory of what happened.

Okune

Okune was an Iojaodi Dragonpriest who, through circumstance, helped his queenly lover Aikukitaka escape her vicious husband. Needless to say, the king was furious about the flight and sent an army detachment to deal with the three.
Okune, with his fellow Iojaodi, Ledge, concocted an alchemical spell using a ini weed. They applied it to poles that ringed the Cheletacha Falls. Okune and Ledge knew, through their dragonpriest study, that the weed, when cured in a mixture, would form a link to the other a ini particles. No matter the distance spanned, when the concoction was placed on objects and the spell triggered, the link would form and remain unbreakable.
The two infused the link with a shield, successfully protecting them and the queen from the enemy. Okune named the spell the Gi’din dro vakdi, or Savior of the Queen.

A rare component used by houses of healing until Okune's myth became popular, it became a 'must have' ingredient in any powerful mystery artist's herbal cabinet.
The popularity led wielders to develop many preservation techniques to keep the flowers potent, even after long storage (they were expensive enough, no one wanted to purchase one, only lose its efficacy). These techniques transitioned to other herbs, allowing even remote houses of healing to store ingredients without worry of potency failure.

Usage

A ini weed:

• must be ground to a very fine powder using a wooden mortar and pestle
• must use spring flower water as the base liquid
• will nullify explosive ingredients; most useful in herbal solutions
• will take fourteen days to mature in a mixture
• must simmer for those fourteen days inside a bistal glass using Imcrom's Middling Heat Wielding. If the mixture cools or overheats, it will become impotent
• if exposed to air before it matures, it will become impotent

• will strengthen any healing tincture or brew
• will make planted shields impenetrable by typical offensive wieldings for up to fourteen days
• is used to make communication glasses
• is used to link heirlooms to family members, so they cannot be lost or stolen
• is used to keep important criminals confined
• is used to create unbreakable weapons (rare, because of the expense. These weapons are created for royalty and high, wealthy nobles)