The Newt and Demon

If not for the powerful jaws of the [Alchemical Grinder], the [Pozwa Horns] would have been impossible to grin into a fine powder. Theo fed the hard horns into the device, wincing as it groaned. But after a few moments, the job was done, and 100 units of powdered horn sat at the bottom of his [Drogramath Still]. The alchemist poured in enough water to get the still started, then set the temperature low and returned the lid. The clasps snapped shut, and the magical fire burned underneath. A stiff breeze came from the open window, sweeping over the lab and carrying the stuffy air out the vent.

When Theo inherited the building, he hadn’t thought to check the vents. There were a few things that remained from the early days that he should check, but the building was barely recognizable as the seed core lab he found at the start. He inspected the shop before continuing.

[Alchemy Lab] [Alchemy Shop]

[The Newt and Demon]

Owners: Belgar (Theo Spencer), Tresk

Shopkeeper: Azrug Slug

Faction: [Broken Tusk]

Level: 20 (2%)

Rent Due: 2 Days

[Alchemy Shop]

[Drogramath Distillation Specialty]

[Shrine to Drogramath]

[Alchemical Garden]

It started at level 1, and each level after that was harder to fill that experience percentage. There would likely be a restriction at level 25 and 30 based on the size of Broken Tusk, but that was a task for another day. He inspected the result of his fermentation, the mash looking ready for distillation. Theo moved the contents of the barrels, destined to be [Anti-Mage] modifier essence into his stills and set them to work. The modifier process was fairly simple. Fermentation, distillation, and refinement. Each modifier worked in unpredictable ways, but that was the fun of it for the alchemist. He intended to buckle down and make a complete list of every modifier essence and its effects on potions. But that was a daunting task.

The [Anti-Mage] modifier produced potions as the name described. It typically had the effect of draining mana from a magic using opponent, or giving them a penalty for casting spells. He could even make a firebomb designed to punish mages for casting their spells while on fire. For now, Theo left his stills to work to cross the cobbled street outside. Unlike the early part of the Season of Blooms, the sky was clear and bright. It had rained for weeks straight, something the locals saw as a good thing.

Zarali’s enchanting lab was magnificent on the outside and in. The exterior was a stone block construction, purple wooden slats on top to represent its alignment with Drogramath. Theo pushed inside without knocking, finding the woman knelt in the center of the room in front of a strange device. The alchemist saw ribbons of energy collecting from the surrounding air, sucking into a black cube that seethed with Drogramath’s energy. He shouldn’t have been surprised that she was doing this, but he still had an initial reaction of concern.

“Brother!” Zarali said, crossing the room to pull him into a hug. “How rare a visit is from you.”

“What’s that?” Theo asked, craning his neck to see around her.

“It accumulates raw mana,” she said, releasing him to pat her device.

The mana collector stood out among the decorations inside. Tools sat atop tables that crowded the walls, gems scattered everywhere. Banners bearing the mark of Drogramath were draped on the walls and each window was covered with thick strips of fabric, rendering the interior dim. Only the flickering candlelight brought brightness to the dingy interior.

“Enchanting stuff?” Theo asked, moving with caution to the side of the cube. “Is it dangerous?”

“Enchanting stuff. Yes, I need large amounts of mana to enchant stuff, and there’s no shortage of mana here. Raw, unprocessed mana,” Zarali said, letting out a wistful sight. “It’s mostly safe.”

Theo moved away from the cube, running his fingers over the tools of her trade.

“I didn’t think Drogramath was the patron of enchanters,” Theo said. “Is your core aligned with him?”

“It is,” Zarali said. “My [Drogramath Enchanter’s Core] will never be as powerful as your aligned core, but it’s still better than most. Not better than those dedicated to the Dwarven gods, but still. I won’t presume this is a social call, do you need something?”

Theo had noticed, more in recent memory than ever before, that his high [Wisdom] didn’t work well against those with an equally high score. He felt a twinge in his mind as though she was hiding something, but his intuition went no further than that. Still, he sensed it wasn’t a malicious plan she was hatching. Self-interested, maybe, but nothing harmful.

“More of an academic thing,” Theo said.

“Ah, an area in which I am very educated,” Zarali said.

Theo led her out of the enchanting lab and up to his own lab. The stills were bubbling away, but there was nothing of their scent in the lab. It smelled clean, like the fresh breeze was depositing every corner of the lab with a pleasant scent. It was a drastic change that would take getting used to.

“I have a feeling about the [Pozwa Horns],” he said, gesturing to his [Drogramath Still]. “The essence won’t make a bomb, a potion, or a detergent. I can’t figure out what it’ll produce.”

“I would guess the property is something close to sight,” Zarali said.

“[Reveal],” Theo said.

“That makes sense,” Zarali said. She raked her eyes across the lab, as though each slight mistake was an offense to her god. She napped out of it. “The Fallen Kingdom was famous for their Pozwa. If the stories are true, the crown held each beast in secluded pens. Guarded, if you can believe it.”

“Why?” Theo asked. “What makes them so great?”

“That depends on which historian you ask,” Zarali said. “The problem with getting hit with a necromancer’s curse is, it becomes impossible to find records. Anyway, I would say they saw them as sacred creatures.”

Theo lowered the temperature on the [Drogramath Still], sensing that the [Pozwa Horn] mash would burn otherwise. He struggled to think of this world’s history. He knew little about Broken Tusk, let alone the rest of the world.

“What happened to Gardreth?” Theo asked.

“The era we’re in—Balkor’s Betrayal—is named because a Demonic God jumped pantheons,” Zarali said. “A war broke out in the other realms and bled out here in time. 500 years after the war started, Balkor was vanquished. The Prime Pantheon defeated him so completely that pieces of him ripped through reality. Unfortunately, Gardreth was in the direct path. He left his stain on that land and only Glanthier had mercy, separating it from the mainland in an act of defiance in the face of the other gods. While the main continent was healed, Gardreth remained tainted.”

Theo knew Glanthier was the Elven god of healing, but that’s where his knowledge on the events at Gardreth stopped. It was surprising to hear the Pozwa survived for such a long time, if the land was as uninhabitable as Zarali said.

“That makes me wonder why Fenian went through the trouble,” Theo said.

“Some men enjoy spitting in the face of what’s possible,” Zarali said, a thin smile spreading across her face. “To your question about the [Reveal] property, I can’t say.”

The history that Zarali revealed showed just how much influence the gods had, but there was a clear line. They wouldn’t act overtly unless absolutely necessary, but Theo couldn’t understand that. If they had the power to change the world, why didn’t they? But that didn’t matter.

“I saw some strange alchemy in Xol’sa’s tower,” Theo said. “He was infusing gems with alchemy. Do you think that could be the way forward with this essence?”

“No, not likely,” Zarali said. “You might pick up that skill later, but not now. Not this low. He’s faking the effects with magic, perhaps an experiment of his.”

Zarali went silent for enough breaths for Theo to realize she was falling back into her memories. If she had something for the wizard, he didn’t want anything to do with it. Relationship drama often ended poorly, and he couldn’t imagine how it would end when the participants were superhuman. The [Pozwa Horn] mash bubbled away, and the priestess went on to lecture him on his stills and how inadequate they were.

“Your thought might be that you need more stills,” Zarali said, gesturing widely to the lab. There was only room for three stills, but he understood her meaning. More equipment meant more essence. “But that’s not the key to good Drogramathi alchemy. Quality is where you need to go.”

“Volume has been working pretty well so far,” Theo said, shrugging the comments off.

“It has, and getting more stills is fine,” Zarali said, letting out a breath. Theo could tell his attitude toward quality distillation bothered her. She was too kind to mention it. “Would you argue that higher quality potions sell for more? Would you agree that the higher tier potion, the harder it is to increase that quality?”

“I don’t disagree,” Theo said with a solemn nod. “My preference is a balanced approach between volume and quality.”

“We can work with that,” Zarali said. “Think of how your still functions. It heats reagents with water, extracting the desired property and then condenses it into a liquid. Heat, condensation, essence.”

Theo repeated the three parts of the process, it had been his life since he arrived and he was quite familiar with it.

“What happens if you run an essence through the still again?”

Theo shrugged. “Depends on the essence. I’ve only done it once, but it should increase the purity of the resulting essence.”

“The problem being, you lose some essence in the process,” Zarali said, a grin spreading across her face. She gestured to the top of the [Drogramath Still], where a pipe connected to the lid. “What if we redistilled everything in-place?”

“Are you going to suggest we put another still on top of my stills, cause that sounds stupid,” Theo said.

“Only because you said it,” Zarali said. She waved his suggestion away with a dismissive hand. “We can create attachments for the equipment that replicate the effects of distillation on a smaller scale, and we can do it in sequence. I want to work with Throk to create a [Bubble Plate Artifice] that takes essence, in vapor form, through the bottom, redistills it in place, then sends it along.”

But that gave Theo another thought. His eyes went for the funnels that sat on the table. They led over to small, 1,000 unit storage tanks near the wall where he could flush them out to the large 10,000 unit storage tanks outside. Redistilling essences to create better quality essence was nice, especially coming up against the third tier of essences in the distant future, but why was that a separate process? With a genius artificer in town, and enough money to fund the project, why shouldn’t he expand his equipment further?

“That’s interesting,” Theo said, cupping his chin in his hand. “I know I can run the pressure vessel on processed essence, but what about vaporized essence?”

“Lord Drogramath,” Zarali said, clasping her hands together and letting out a heavy sigh. She crossed the room, wrapping her arms around him and laughing. “He’s learning! I’ll never doubt your wisdom again, my patron.”

She pulled away, tears forming in the corners of his eyes. Theo thought for a moment that she must have thought he was an idiot. He started with nothing here. The knowledge he gained on alchemy was through arduous experimentation and he’d only been at it for the current season.

“So, it’s possible?” Theo asked.

“Possible, and the correct way to do things,” Zarali said. “Vaporized essence should be easier to send under pressure.”

Theo narrowed his eyes. His intuition said that Belgar hadn’t ever made it that far. He knew their equipment had to be rough, since they refused to join society at large. The alchemist shrugged the comments off, not wanting to spit in the face of good advice. They went over the redesign together, and it was a fairly simple design that relied on Throk’s uncanny skills. The still would remain as it was, a simple pot-bellied heating device, but everything after that would change. Zarali wanted a stack of bubble plates over the output on the top. It would mix with enchanted water, and force the vapor through another refinement process. A treated copper tube would force the vapor in a loop, entering the top of a small pressure vessel next to the still.

“After that, it just needs to be cooled to condense. I see a few problems with my design, but only because I’m so used to looking at it from a normal perspective,” Zarali said, a wide smile hanging on her face. “With an artificer in your pocket, we can ensure the vapor stays at the right temperature as it’s pressurized.”

The plan was solid. It was two-fold, of course. The first part with the bubble plates would get Theo to level 30, his intuition said that much. It would overcome the difficulty of refining reagents above level 20. Then, they’d apply the required pressure to turn a regular essence into the second tier of essences. What he had to do to send them into the third tier was beyond him, but the design was adaptive. They could add as many things as they wanted in sequence before the condenser coils. By the time they finished working out the fine details, namely the requirements from Throk, the [Pozwa Horns] were done distilling. Theo inspected a sample with the priestess.

[Reveal Essence]

[Essence]

Common

Created by: Belgar

Grade: Excellent Quality

Alignment:

Drogramath (Middling Bond)

Alignment Effects:

1:1 refinement in pressure vessels

Increased purity from refinement

1 units (liquid)

Concentrated essence of reveal.

“I get a strange sense from this essence,” Zarali said, casting her gaze over the shrine as though it would help.

“That’s what I felt,” Theo said, setting up a 2 unit glass vial on the table. “Let’s try a standard reaction.”

The standard reaction was what made consumable potions. It was 1 unit of essence, 1 unit of [Purified Water], and any catalyst. Theo had been using his [Iron Shavings] lately, but defaulted to [Copper Shavings] since this was a first tier reaction. The vial bubbled immediately, sending both him and Zarali scattering to find cover behind nearby furniture. The vial exploded, sending shards of glass zipping through the lab and peppering the wooden walls. They waited for some time before emerging to find a scorch mark on the table.

“Nope,” Theo said. “That’s going to be the same reaction for my other methods.”

Theo’s [Drogramath Alchemy Core] whispered, but the meaning was faint. A shudder ran through Zarali and she turned to him with concern.

“Close your eyes,” she instructed. “If you removed your mark and that necklace this would be easier.”

But Theo wouldn’t trust doing that. Not now with the breath of Drogramath down his neck. A whisper was more than enough for him and he closed his eyes. Images flashed through his mind. Treated copper. Imbued glass. That was it. The whispers gave him nothing more, but they left understanding. With an increasingly high [Intelligence] score and formidable [Wisdom], Theo put the pieces together. He’d made a potion that he placed in the detergent class before, because of the way it reacted. The [Potion of Infusion] imbued materials with an alchemically neutral property. This was a different kind of essence, but adjacent. The purpose of the essence wasn’t to brew it into a potion, but to infuse an object with the property.

There were problems with this application, though. The object needed to be inert, so he couldn’t use anything made of base metals. Living objects wouldn’t work either, they would cause a reaction. Magical items would reject it entirely. Theo had an idea, darting from the lab and scooping a rock that fit comfortably in the palm of his hand and rushed back into the lab. The alchemist generated an open-topped flask, filled it with the essence, scrubbed the rock of all dirt and dropped it in.

“What are you doing?” Zarali asked.

“Watch,” Theo said, pointing at the rock. It bubbled. “I’m infusing the rock with the [Reveal] property. If it works, the stone will hold the property.”

“To what end?” Zarali asked, crossing her arms.

“There’s no end,” Theo said. “This is just an experiment. If the rock takes the essence, then I have a direction to move in.”

The pair watched as the rock bubbled away, clinking against the side of the flask but the reaction grew no more vigorous than that. It settled after a moment and Theo retrieved a pair of tongs, removing the rock and setting it on the table. The excess essence seemed to have spent itself, becoming inert. Theo inspected the strange rock.

[Reveal Construct]

[Alchemy Construct]

Common

Created by: Belgar

Grade: Poor Quality

Emits a constant field of [Reveal] as long as the construct is powered.

Material:

Stone (Poor Quality)

Effect:

Creates a 1 halm bubble around the construct that removes stealth from any target.

“What in the realms is that?” Zarali asked, stooping low to inspect the construct.

“What the hell is a halm?” Theo asked, laughing.

“A unit of measure. About this big,” Zarali said, gesturing with her hands. Seemed like half a foot to his eyes. “How do you not know measures of distance?”

Theo shrugged. People in Broken Tusk often used relative height measurements in the way they spoke, never referring to how tall they actually were.

“It’s not active,” Theo said, stooping close to inspect the rock further. Seams of light ran through the rock now, as though it were imbued with the essence directly. The alchemist understood this was a mostly useless item, but it was a step in an interesting direction. He’d never heard of alchemy constructs, and he doubted anyone else had either. Too many hands laid themselves on this one, pushing Theo to create the construct. Between Drogramath giving him the answer and Fenian delivering the Pozwa, the alchemist had to wonder how long someone would take to figure this out on their own.

“Feed it mana,” Theo said after a moment. He didn’t trust himself to do so in the real world. The description said it required power to operate.

Zarali shrugged, holding her palm above the thing to allow a trickle of purple flame to pour over the rock. A bubble sprung up around the rock, flickering for only a moment before the construct shattered.

“This is amazing,” Zarali said, her brows knitted tightly. “A complete failure, but amazing.”

Theo stood back, looking at the shattered stone on his table. This was entirely unexpected, leading him to question what else he’d missed with the base essences. He made a mental note before moving on for the day. The essence soaked into the rock, imbuing it with its property. Mana activated the rock, which was like a catalyst. In the alchemist’s mind, it was storing the power of the reagent in a medium, and activating it at a later date. It was the fourth method of performing Drogramathi Alchemy. Constructs.

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