[7 Days until the Gods’ Tournament]
“Chaos and potions, huh?” I stir the pot as steam hisses up from the bubbling brew. “I guess it’s not the worst idea.”
I haven’t added any magic to the potion yet; I’m just preparing the solvent. Once it cools and I activate it with my mana, it will be another standard smoke potion, which I’ve practically memorized by now. But what happens if different components are added first? Like, say, a frost seed? Could I use this smoke bomb to freeze a roomful of people? One way to find out.
I wrap my scarf around my nose as I drop a frost seed into the brew. The potion hisses, turning white-blue, and then the steam vanishes. A moment later, the bubbles stop, and then ice starts to crackle across the surface.
“Hm,” I grunt in disappointment. I attempt to ladle out a serving of the potion before it freezes over, and I’m rewarded with a bowl full of slush. I add a couple drops of magic to it anyway, but nothing happens.
I set the failed potion aside. Maybe I should add the components of a frost seed rather than the finished product itself. According to Lisari’s books, such combinations should be possible—trial and error was how potions were discovered in the first place, after all. I just need to uncover the right conditions.
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[5 Days until the Gods’ Tournament]
[Skills: Knifework lvl 13, Poison Resistance lvl 9, Soft Step lvl 8, Throwing Knives lvl 7, Toxic Intuition lvl 4.]
The bowl of poison sits on the floor in front of me. It’s been diluted with water 10:1. If it does poison me at all, it won’t be enough to overcome my Poison Resistance. I lean forward, sitting cross-legged, and push both hands into the bowl. The water level rises to just under the brim.
[Status Effect sustained: Poisoned]
[Status Effect nullified. The rate of poisoning is negated by Poison Resistance.]
Perfect. “Alright then. Echo, can I Attune the poison that’s in here?”
[Affirmative.]
My heart flutters with excitement. Finally!
“How much mana will it take to Attune all the poison in this bowl?” I ask.
[Mana requirement: 3]
I grin. That’s not bad at all. “Time requirement?”
[2 hours.]
“Really?” I wrinkle my nose. “I have to sit here for two hours with my hands in a bowlful of water just to Attune a few drops of poison?”
[Affirmative.]
I groan. Well that’s annoying as hell. But at least it’s a one-time thing. According to Echo, once I Attune something, that little volume of Poison will be mine to control forever. Or at least until I lose it. I’ll just be careful not to lose it.
“No time like the present,” I say with a sigh, focusing on the water. I press my mind out, feeling for the Poison. Leaking mana into the water, magic bubbles up through my fingers, and I feel something in my mind click. The magic dissipates into the bowl, but I can still sense something else. Something in the water, just outside of reach. I mentally grasp at it, and it seems to move closer.
My mind turning inward, I relax, closing my eyes. The sensation is peaceful, meditative, almost. Like a mental ocean, I reach for the element and it pulls away, the tides ebbing and flowing. I fall into sync with the instinct, trying to bring my mind into lockstep with the magic, trying to become one.
Time slips away from me. I’m not asleep, but I’m not entirely conscious. My mind wanders in the way only a dreaming mind can, drawing connections, examining ideas in impossible ways. Like turning a cube over in my hands, only to find it has more than six sides. In my mind’s eyes, something connects into place.
[Attunement complete.]
I open my eyes, and it feels like waking up from the most restful nap I’ve ever had. My mind is clear. Serene. And in the bowl…
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I lift my hands from the bowl, letting the water drip back into it. But there’s something else in the bowl I can feel. Faintly, ever so faintly, yet it’s there. An extension of my magic.
I mentally swirl the sensation around, and the water ripples. I laugh, mentally condensing the sensation into something more physical, more concrete. A tiny dot of green coalesces from the water, no bigger than a grain of rice. I crook my finger in a beckoning motion, and it lifts from the water, coming to hover over my hand.
“Hah!” I laugh giddily, pointing my finger around the air in front of me. The dot of poison moves with my will, flying around the air. “I did it!”
Now this is magic. No chemistry, no instruction books or ingredient lists. Just waving your hands around and making shit fly through the air.
Too bad it’s such a pathetically tiny amount.
“What’s the potency of this thing?” I ask Echo.
[Check: Attuned Poison. If consumed, the poison would inflict 1 point of damage per 10 seconds for a duration of 5 minutes.]
I frown. “Why that duration?”
[Within 5 minutes, the quantity of poison would be processed by the body and rendered inert.]
“You’re saying it will get used up? I can’t reuse it?”
[Affirmative.]
I groan. “Well what’s the point of that? I just spent two hours attuning a speck of poison that will only do… Echo, how much damage would that do?”
[30 points of Poison damage.]
I groan even louder. “That’s stupid. I might as well just use some orchid sap and be ten times as lethal.”
Echo does not respond.
I sigh, wiggling my finger and causing the poison to do a happy dance. I smile faintly. “Ah well. I guess I better do something with it. What’s the efficacy?”
[Efficacy: 100%]
Oh, now that is interesting. “So the potency won’t decrease over time?”
[Negative,] Echo confirms.
Well, at least there’s that. Infinite shelf life. I might find some use for this thing yet. I grab a finger-sized vial from my stash and direct the speck of poison inside of it, stuffing the cork back on. The tiny drop of poison at the bottom of the vial looks fairly pathetic. But at least I won’t lose it this way. And over time, I should at least be able to build up the volume, Attuning more poison little by little.
Assuming I don’t die next week and actually have time to work on that.
I set the vial of Attuned poison down on the counter and turn to my potion and alchemy books.
“Okay,” I say to the table of toxins. “What’s next?”
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[3 Days until the Gods’ Tournament]
The smoke potion is coming along. It’s my fourth try at the combination experiment. Last time it nearly worked. I mean, it exploded in a ball of sticky black smoke that left a residue on every surface, but I can feel it almost worked. This time, I’ll get it.
I sprinkle some ground up redwood bark in first. It looks like cinnamon, floating on top of the bubbling pot. Once it finally vanishes into the brew, I add the crushed rootwart next. I don’t touch the pot as it boils, I just wait. Eventually, the water takes on a blue tinge. That’s when I know it’s ready for the last ingredient: the mushroom caps. Carefully prepared, I add the bowl of diced brownskulls in as well. The potion hisses as the mushrooms hit, and I lean back as it belches forth a cloud of green. I hold my breath—both due to the noxious gas, and because this is the pivotal moment. Will it take?
The potion continues to boil. Nothing explodes. I grin, ladling out a sample bowl of the brew to activate with my magic. I hold my finger over the bowl and summon a single, 1 mana drop of magic into the potion. It strikes with a hiss, turning the draught green.
[Modified smoke potion complete.]
“Yes!” I pump a hand in the air, causing the bowl to rock. As a few drops of the potion spill on the floor, they immediately evaporate into a cloud of dense green-black smoke. I scramble back, pressing my scarf against my face as I take care not to breathe any of the smoke in. As eager as I am to increase my Poison Resistance, I need to be careful I don’t brew anything potent enough to accidentally kill myself. I’ve got a small set of health potions and poison antidotes on me for emergencies now, but even with my Poison Resistance they won’t save me from a toxin with a long-duration status effect.
I carefully transfer the sample potion to a vial and stop it shut, then return to the pot boiling on the hearth. Before I activate it with my mana, I’ve one last ingredient.
Reverently, I take the Potion Augment from a box on my workbench. This bottle is worth more than all the money I’d make at the Starlight in a decade.
“Echo, proportionally, how much Potion Augment would I need to add to this cauldron to double its potency?”
[1.4 scruples.]
“Yeah, can you, um, convert that to, like spoonfuls?”
[Approximately 1/8th of a standardized spoon.]
“Thanks,” I say. “Stick with spoons from now on.”
[Scruples are more precise.]
I raise an eyebrow. “Are you arguing with me?”
Echo doesn’t respond.
“An eighth of a spoonful,” I say to myself. Hot damn, that’s not much at all! Then again, the bottle isn’t that big, and it did cost a fortune. I’ll need to ration it.
Except… I need something potent enough to down a demigod. If an eighth of a spoonful would double the potency of my potion, what would a whole spoonful do?
I grin. “I guess we’ll find out.”
Carefully, I unclasp the Augment, and a pleasant citrus smell, like lemons and summer, wafts from the cap. Not daring to waste a drop, I pour out a spoonful over the cauldron, then carefully, carefully, drip the Augment in. The potion doesn’t seem to react to the new addition—which is great, because if this thing is powerful enough to take down a demigod, it’s definitely powerful enough to kill me. I pull my scarf up again, carefully tapping the last drip of Augment off the spoon, then stop the bottle back up once more. Once it’s safely tucked away, I hold my hands over the potion.
“Not sure I really buy into this praying crap,” I say to the room. “But if there is a god out there who hates Widengra as much as I do, now’s your time to pull through.”
My mana pools in my hand like liquid emeralds, and I pour it into the draught.