Just past midday, a drop of moisture broke on her arm as she reached out and plucked an unknown yellow flower growing from the forest floor. She lifted her forearm to her brow to wipe away the dripping sweat, but it was dry. She looked to the sky sharply and was rewarded with a crick in the neck and a raindrop to the eye.
"Oh, ow! Drats!"
Rains swept in with the grim clouds quickly blanketing the sun. The young woman promptly stashed her plant sample, collected her satchel and tools, and took off at a brisk jog toward home. She hunched over her haversack to protect the fruits of her labour. At the same time, a genuinely unhelpful arm flailed about in the air—a poor source of cover from the rapidly growing storm.
Back through the ancient forest, her jog shifted to a run. A sound between a battle cry and a growl pierced the storm, so loud it reverberated on the trees, and she somehow found the ability to pick up the pace even more. The darkened skies and deep shadows cast by the trees lured them out. Making them believe the night was approaching.
"Root rot to this whole day!"
The energy radiating off it was getting close enough to make her body feel like a live wire.
Fumbling in her pouch, she pulled out two items. One, she threw as hard as she could over her shoulder. A second later, the ground gave a tremor, followed by a boom and an ear-piercing shriek that rang through the forest.
With the beast stalled, she pushed through brush and overgrowth at full speed. Branches lashed her body as she cut a straight path through the forest toward the translucent aqua light of her home's voltage bubble. She pressed the sole button on a small rectangular device—the other item she had pulled from her bag. A doorway appeared in the blue shimmering dome that enclosed the property. It immediately sealed once she crossed the boundary, and only then did she look back at the beast barred on the other side.
A shudder rippled through her before she legged it into her laboratory. No. Home? Not quite right. Ah yes, lair! Muahahaha!
Shaking her head of the silly thoughts, she looked around the single wooden room that made up the entire building—apart from the washroom, of course— and strode to the small burner on a massive cluttered workbench square in the center of the room.
She placed a kettle on top of the burner, readied a mug and an infuser with tea leaves, and went to the desk in the back corner of the room to organize her field notes from the day.
She noted the storm and the monster attack because why not? Wrote speculations on the plant sample—some ideas on how best to cultivate it. At the bottom of the page, below a sketch of the plant, where she would usually write the name or give it a name, she just added three question marks and underlined it.
Half an hour later, she recalled the tea she was making and ambled back to the kettle (she really needed a whistling one), her notes in one hand. Splitting her attention, she dropped the infuser in the mug, added the water and wandered back to her desk with the cup in hand. After a few minutes passed, she took a sip of the hot drink and promptly spat it back out because it was not hot at all. In fact, it was freezing.
Her eyes narrowed, and she huffed through her nose like an enraged bull.
"Not again."
Standing up from her desk, tucked away in a cubby in the back corner, she scanned the disorganized shelves in front of her. But there were only dozens of empty glass bottles in various shapes and sizes and a few stacks of dusty books with loose papers between the pages.
She turned to an equally dishevelled bookshelf on the back wall. The bottles on this one were filled with liquids of varying colours, one sparkling and pink with a dropper cap; another sort of bottle with an atomizer and bladder, like a vintage perfume bottle; other vessels too dirty to view the contents at all.
After pushing a few potions aside to peek behind and wiping some dust off labels, she turned and set upon the workbench in the centre of the room. She was moving with a bit more haste now as her search kept coming up empty.
Wait a minute… into the washroom, she ran. She threw open the door of the tiny wall cabinet. This was her "emergency cupboard," put together for this very reason.
She unstoppered a glass flask. The contents resembled a sponge but as a fluid. The potion moved like a thick liquid when the container was tilted, but it had holes and wee bubbles that refused to burst no matter how the flask was jostled. And it worked just as it appeared.
She drank the bottle's contents, and the pain radiating from her stomach faded. After a moment, she threw up something that looked like kinetic sand. It absorbed all the toxins from the tea leaves and purged the poison from her body. The Blightroot in the tea mix was harmful before steeping.
Poisoning herself was not unusual, and forgetting to boil the water for her tea was all too common. So she always kept a plentiful supply of the Super Soaker Upper Elixir for just this occasion.
Safe from imminent death—for now—she cleaned up her mess and stepped out into her, let's be honest, workshop. She wasn't nearly nefarious enough to have a lair. Yet.
"I have really got to tidy up."
She looked left. On the front wall was the door, and next to that, a massive digi glass mural of leaves from various plants, designed to look like pressed clippings between panes of glass. However, these ones changed, the image rotating through multiple types of plants. Pinnate leaves, something fern-like. Big orbicular ones resembling lily pads and long dangling vines. The picture kept changing.
A long, narrow counter ran the length of the captivating window.
She looked up through the skylights set into the roof and saw the storm had passed, but so had the remainder of the day.
The Super Soaker always left her weary. So she ignored the urge to cross the room to the bookshelves lining the room's left wall. Instead, she went right outside the water closet door and returned to her study cubby.
She settled into her bed, a cot set up next to the desk, and then slapped the side of her desk. A small button depressed, and the energy orb went dark. The lights were suspended in the air through magnetic levitation. Magnetic force cancels out gravitational force, and the ball floats, or something like that. Energy Engineering wasn't exactly her thing, or anyone else's, especially nowadays.
She lay awake staring up at the dark ceiling, debating if she needed to face the demands of the greedy citizen to whom she sold tonics in her city shop.
Eventually, she resolved to suck it up and sell things because that is how you stayed in business, she supposed. And her apprentice was crazy enough to travel outside the city walls just to scold her. With that thought, she slept, dreaming of mysterious yellow plants.
———
Breakfast was quick: some cooked vegetables scrambled with a brown rice-like grain and a spicy sauce. It's what she knew how to cook, so it's what she usually ate. She finished and promised to deal with the dirty dishes when she returned.
Using the same small device to open the door in the voltage barrier (a.k.a. bubble), she set a casual pace for Last Stand, humming as she went.
She headed east towards the forest's dwindling tree line, which marked the outskirts of the city's walls. She lived just five minutes from the city, barely a few steps into the woods.
Few went past the walls these days. Fewer lived outside them—the land beyond long since inhospitable to those of merely flesh and blood. Nature had reclaimed much of Triahkel, the land on which she lived.
It was visible as she walked, passing the crumbling remains of a statue, moss obscuring most of it. She couldn't tell you what or who it was, just another piece of history lost to the Corruption.
Only people with specialized skills of one type or another could survive beyond the city's boundaries. Apart from them, only some animals, primarily the bots, remain—bots are the slang term for the intelligent biomechanical monsters that roamed the land.
When scientists and doctors took their experiments with artificial intelligence and biomechanical altering of the body too far, they created a sentient species that ran wild, culling hundreds of thousands and claiming Triahkel. The Corruption destroyed most cities. A small few were fortified in time, and now all that is left of society lives within the five remaining hubs of civilization.
In most ways, it really sucked for the future of humanity. On the plus side, there was little trust in anyone claiming to be a doctor or scientist, which meant business was booming for her. She was a successful alchemist, the best in the city, and people knew her tonics worked.
On the downside, her salesmanship could be better, so she only opened the shop for a few days a week. She would be out of inventory anyway if she stayed open the same hours as most shops in the city. As said, business was booming.
Her potions were better than most because she had the guts and stupidity to collect ingredients from outside the walls. Not only was the flora usually more potent than the strains grown within the city, but many plants had mutated over centuries, carrying unique and powerful properties. And none of these plants could or would grow within the confines of the city.
These plants fed off the charge in the air just as much as the soil's nutrients and were the backbone to her most splendid elixirs. And she enjoyed a monopoly on these plants simply due to public fear of the Wilds. Of course, fear of the Wilds was not unfounded; it was perilous, and few could survive even a single night.
It was a quick walk to the city. She saw the guards lining the tops of the wall, standing behind their rippling opaque barriers—think taser meets basic tower shield and WAM voltage shield.
Slowing as she approached the gate, she nodded to the entrance guards on duty.
"Keeper Zsig. Protector B.E.E.P. Atncore"
Zsig returned the nod. B.E.E.P. Atncore did not.
"I request again Miss Silke, call me Atncore."
"Sorry, Atn, keeps slipping my mind."
"Antcore. Not, Atn."
She shot some finger guns at him.
"Right, I will try to remember that."
With a final nod, she walked through the gate a concealed Protector had opened during her brief exchange with Atn. Really, she knew to call him Atncore, but she liked nettling him, and she had a thing for amusing names. B.E.E.P. stood for bio-electronic eternal protector.
Monsters and beasts were not the only creations scientists brought about. Before the Corruption, AI bots were introduced into law enforcement and public service jobs and integrated into society over decades. The Corruption was just a result of further efforts to advance this technology. Luckily for the survival of the natural human species, scientists began with testing on animals, and early trials were successful.
It wasn't until animal testing was deemed complete and the first human trials took place that researchers noticed the increasing intelligence of the animals they had initially been experimenting on. This resulted in deadly mutated species of organic matter combined with artificial intelligence. The ultimate goal of creating advanced engineered life was achieved. But no one stopped to consider what that might mean beyond satisfying their own selfish wants.
The creatures born of the tests learned, grew, and changed. With their increasing sentience came growing anger at the humans who hunted their kind, stole their territory, decorated their homes with trophies of their brethren, and experimented on them until their very nature was altered entirely.
B.E.E.P. "models" only survived because they were an early edition from the human trials phase that did not seem to grow hostile. They were considered flawed—they did not become volatile like all other subjects, yet they were not entirely as enhanced either—but valuable.
Still, no one quite trusted them, so natural humans took precautions. Enter Protector Keeper Zsig. He was responsible for monitoring Atncore, letting the B.E.E.P. do any dangerous work, and eliminating Atncore should he become hostile—corrupted.
Humans were lazy and had gladly adjusted to letting B.E.E.P.s do the dirty, undesirable work before the Corruption. And B.E.E.P.s were considered stupid and viewed as more of a tool than a sentient being.
She knew the truth, though, and she thought Keeper Zsiggy (she came up with the nickname herself) did too. Atn, and all the B.E.E.P.s, were thinking, feeling, and growing beyond what they were considered capable of. Evolving. Just as any species does.
That's why she was so chummy with Zsiggy and Atn. Well, as chummy as she got, which, if we are honest, is not at all, but they were buddies. And it sounded like a good idea to be friends with members of the beings that may rise up and take over the land someday. Probably. She gave a mental shrug. It doesn't hurt to try. Her potions work just as well on B.E.E.P.s as anyone else.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
"I'd still be helpful in the new world order."
The person walking the street beside her gave her an odd look and sped away.
The Biomech situation was a puzzle she had been working on for a while. Usually, a minimal variety of potions worked for B.E.E.P's, but for some reason, all of hers worked on them. She had yet to create something that didn't, and no matter how she approached the conundrum, she could not figure out why. It was also sort of a secret, known only to the alchemist, her apprentice, the Biomech community and one other.
The Protectorate would not be happy if they learned of this.
Still, the question drove her mad, and she found herself falling into the metaphorical rabbit hole of ideas and questions related to the situation as she mechanically walked down the street toward her shop, muttering under her breath.
"I wonder if Atn would let me run some experiments. Or is that a sore subject? Maybe if I—"
"Alchemist Silke, do you have a moment?"
A woman approaching with the oncoming traffic flow stopped abruptly as she spotted the alchemist.
The greedy citizens are already striking, and she hadn't even made it to the shop. The alchemist's speed increased as the shrill voice began its pursuit.
“Alchemist? Miss Silke!”
She was practically jogging through the streets now. She refused to talk business when she was not at work or attending a specially arranged private meeting, and this woman definitely meant business.
"THE—SILKE! "
The growing crowd blotted out the intrusive voice.
Sanctuary was in sight in the form of her alchemy shop, Rubedo. It was in a row with all the other specialty shops run by masters of their trade. But hers was the best because of the digi-glass windows adorning the shopfront. Digi-glass was rare, expensive, and not found in retail structures.
The gorgeous windows came from her mother. The windows of her lair were programmed and created by her mother, as well, back when they all lived in the home together. The shop windows were a gift for when she bought the space five years ago. To the annoyance of her neighbouring shopkeepers, they were a top attraction in the city.
"THE—"
She reached the door, hit the button on a small handheld device and dramatically dove through the entrance, narrowly escaping the chase. The shop door automatically shut, and she activated the lock for good measure. She wasn't open yet, but that woman seemed tenacious.
With that handled, she readied her shop, which was quick work. The store was much more organized than her lair, thanks to her apprentice, who came in on the off days to clean, organize and mix elixir bases. The apprentice also did one-on-one advanced alchemical training twice a week with her, and she was damn near the second-best alchemist in the city for all that she was still in training.
The Alchemist's knowledge of nature and her trade was much more advanced than that of her competitors; thus, she provided a much lengthier but far more comprehensive apprenticeship program.
She had one apprentice that she took on the year after establishing her shop. Only a specific type of person could handle learning from her, though. She could be quite prickly but brilliant at what she did, and though she was a terrible teacher, the apprentice learned much from her.
Outside the alchemy shop was a lineup of customers. There was a quiet whirl noise, and then the digi-glass windows changed.
Gone was the moon and dim, sleepy forest; instead, the scene changed to a sun replacing the moon's soft glow, the flowers open and soaking in the rays of light that broke through the delicate trees of the forest canopy. At the same time, the moss and shade-loving plants glistened with dew in shadows cast by the ancient trees of the peaceful woods.
The forest awoke, and with it, the alchemy shop opened for the day. It was a far fancier open sign than any other shop, but all citizens of Last Stand and most traders that visited the city knew of it. The digi-glass drew that much attention.
The alchemist had a lovely shop and fancy windows, and she was great at making potions, but for all her awesomeness, she was lousy at naming things.
The Organical Regeneration Tonic she made in bulk to repair her flooring, which she frequently melted or otherwise destroyed, was an excellent example of her questionable naming abilities. Get it? It's a mix of organic and magical because it's like magic how quickly it regenerates organic materials. That was one of her better names.
The first customers entered the door. A middle-aged couple approached the counter and browsed a little menu lying there.
"What'll it be for you folks?"
"We'd like to purchase a potion to make our son super fast. It's a present for his birthday."
"Ah, you want the Zoomies?"
"Huh?"
She pointed to one of the lines on the menu.
Zoomies – Makes you as fast as the wind 208c
The alchemist turned to pluck a sachet from a bin. It was round with a little wind symbol stitched into the front.
"That's all? For 208 chronocoin!"
The husband's mouth fell open in surprise.
"First, don't knock it till you try it. Second, it is good for up to 6 uses, so really, you are only paying—"
She did some quick math.
"—34.67c per speedy experience."
She scolded the couple but finally took in their appearance as she did so. They were wearing plain clothes, with small rips and holes carefully repaired in a way to make them less noticeable. The woman held a slip of paper close to her sternum, a form of payment primarily used by the lower class in Last Stand.
The slip verified that funds were available. The total of the purchase would be written on the paper, and the shop would submit it for payment processing if they accepted that form of payment. Artisans usually did not.
"Erm, we'd like one of the… Zoomies, but that's a little expensive. Do you have something a bit cheaper? Even if it's not as fast."
The alchemist modulated her tone.
"Hows about I sell you a half packet. Let's say 90 for 3 doses."
Would she lose money on that? Most likely.
"Oh. Well, that sounds more reasonable."
The man muttered in his wife's ear.
"Yes, we will take a half order, Miss Silke. Thank you."
"Let me just go grab one."
She slid the full-size sachet into her pocket and went to the back. She didn't actually sell it in halves, so she had to find a smaller pouch to transfer some of the powder into.
"Here you are."
The alchemist grabbed a small card with usage instructions on her way back to the couple and handed over the items.
The Fund Verification Slip was set on the counter as the pair read over the instructions to ensure they had no questions.
She filled in the form, adding the shop name and purchase total.
"Just a thumb signature, please."
The alchemist added her print and dropped it into the depositing system as the couple walked out of the shop, talking excitedly about the present they bought their kid.
———
As the day wore on, she received an exciting customer, a trader. He was either very brave or had a retinue of guards waiting to escort him through the Wilds to the next city.
"Alchemist Silke? I am Heric, a travelling merchant from Eltanu. I was told by your fellow artisans that you may have an interest in my wares."
"Watcha got for me, Heric?"
Merchants were rare and usually had ingredients and supplies that were nearly impossible to get on this side of Triahkel.
Heric pulled off a large, stiff, rectangular backpack. A durable canvas stretched over a flexible metal frame. It was well-worn and dirty from travel, but she knew it held many wonders because it was a compression box.
He slung the pack onto the shop's front counter, the rigid bottom keeping it upright. After some tinkering on the back, probably entering a code, the entire front of the pack folded down. Tiny compartments were revealed, each filled with miniature versions of an object.
The pack worked by compressing the items so you could carry around far more than expected. You had to unzip (or open) the container and extract it to get the full version out. They came in different shapes, styles, and storage sizes—her satchel was also a compression box.
"Eltanu is a long way."
She flipped through the menu Heric handed her. Any respectable merchant had a menu. No one wanted to squint to see the micro-sized goods.
"Such is the life of a traveller."
"A traveller, not a merchant?"
"Eh, I sell stuff, Miss Silke, but travelin's what defines me. Selling stuff just lets me afford it."
"I see."
The alchemist handed an order request sheet to Heric. The form disappeared into the back of the pack, and there were mechanical sounds. A robotic arm extended from the top of the bag, and a holographic image beamed onto the countertop. At first, it was small, the compressed form of the ingredients she requested. Then, the hologram began to grow; it quickly reached its regular size, and then it was corporeal, just like that.
This process was repeated multiple times until her order was fulfilled.
"Alright, we have: One blood ruby — 243c, three shadow root — 150c, five hairy morel — 11c, three watercap — 26c, and… fifteen boom pepper — 136c. That's a lot of fire power, Miss."
"Boom pepper is hard to come by. Chef's like to buy it all up in Last Stand."
She shrugged, keeping her tone casual.
"Right."
The merchant gave her a skeptical look but let it go when, instead of 566 chronocoin, she paid an even 600.
"Enjoy travelling, Heric."
"Pleasure doing business with you, Miss Silke."
———
The rest of her time in the front shop was nothing of note.
"Do you have anything to help with itching?"
"Here, try Ditch the Itch."
The customer practically tossed the chrono at her and ran off red in the face.
Numerous clients came in to solve embarrassing problems of all sorts. Itching was just one of many.
———
"I have a rodent infestation. They may even be touched with the Corruption! I need poison!"
An out-of-breath and slightly hysterical woman started talking before even reaching the counter.
The orders came in all day. Some, the alchemist or apprentice, had pre-made. Others were more specialized versions of something, so she had them come back later to pick up the altered tonic or what have you.
She also sold a wide selection of poultices and crystals imbued with the effects of certain potions. Her apprentice finished cleaning and organizing the backroom and took over the front counter as the alchemist went to the back to mix up the special orders.
———
The windows went to sleep, and the shop was closed for the day as the final customers trickled out. Her apprentice reset the shop as the alchemist went back to experiment with her new plant sample.
After yesterday's debacle, it was still in her satchel, and she didn't want to wait to play with it.
The flower, stem, and roots all emitted a slight yellow luminescence as she pulled it out of her bag. The glow seemed to intensify as she handled it and lessen once it was placed on the workbench before her.
"A reactive glow is quite unusual."
She noted this in her journal and then got to work, turning the stove on to heat, placing the glass alembic on its stand over the stove, then attaching the small glass bottle to which the vapour would distill through a curly glass tube from the alembic into the bottle.
She scrutinized the specimen, testing small pieces and referencing notes on comparable plants. When she thought she had a general idea of the type of flora she was working with, she started her experiments with a base that worked well with similar plants. However, she altered it slightly to account for the charge this plant clearly contained—the glowing gave it away.
With everything set, she added the mystery plant and a touch of a base compound, let it distill, added the refined matter to the rest of the potion base, and heated the entire mixture.
She watched closely for the first signs of boiling.
"Just a teensy bit longer."
The alchemist quickly removed the flask from heat and poured the condensed liquid into a glass jar containing a different substance. She popped a stopper in, gave it a little swish, and then set it aside to cool.
Besides sampling the potion and recording her notes, she had finished her day in the shop. While waiting, she updated the field book with observations she had made during the distilling process of the plant's essence.
First, it was remarkably slow to boil. Second, the plant was yellow; the steam it produced had an olive tone, but its essence was yellow again as it condensed in a separate jar.
When she finished, the alchemist packed away all the ingredients she had prepared to take home, including the ones she bought from the merchant. She also stowed a couple of potion bases and her field book out of habit. Slinging her satchel over her shoulder, she picked up the mystery potion and uncorked it, taking a waft of the contents' fumes, then waiting for a few ticks.
When she didn't pass out, throw up or get a blinding headache, she deemed it safe enough to taste. How she was still alive was anyone's guess. She had a durability most natural humans lacked. But armed with her faith in dumb luck and without consideration that luck may have limits, she took a sip.
She quickly set the glass bottle down and looked around for her field book. Remembering it was in her bag, she reached for the flap. Before her hand made it, the alchemist was gone.
———
Zsig and Atn were on their way back to clock out, walking through the artisan's district, when they saw a bright yellow flash of light. Not a soft yellow, like an old light bulb or a candle. This was a violent yellow, like liquid gold turned luminescent. It was so bright that the multicoloured digi-glass of the storefront did nothing to obscure the intense colour. So saturated it was nearly tangible for the briefest of moments before it was gone, with Zsig and Atn the only witnesses to the event.
Since they had yet to clock out, they were obligated to investigate. Atn sent in a brief communication that they would be delayed due to the investigation of a strange, exceedingly bright yellow flash emitted from Rubedo after closing hours.
Zsig and Atn knocked at the door, but they entered when there was no reply.
All residents and shop owners were required to accept the protectorate authorities' key code into their barrier securities programming.
The shop's front room, where business was conducted, looked empty and undisturbed.
Atn called out.
"Miss Silke, are you present? It is Keeper Zsig and Protector Atncore."
"Miss Theodora Silke, are you in the building?"
When there was no response, the two started to look around.
Atncore noticed a note was left on the counter addressed to Theo. It was a list of ingredients needed for the shop.
"Look, Zsig. Miss Silke surely wouldn't have left her list if she went home, right?"
"Indeed. Let's check the back."
The most apparent thing upon entering the exceptionally organized backroom was the lone potion, uncorked, sitting on the worktable. Not only did it stand out because it was the only thing not put away, but the slight yellow glow it emitted was also attention grabbing. Glowing potions were a rare thing to see, not impossible, but rare.
Atncore, being the durable bio-mech he is, marched over to the bottle, dapped the tiniest drop on his finger, quickly tasted it, and considered it for a second.
"I don't recognize thi—"
Zsig watched as Atncore vanished in a second blinding flash of yellow light.
Being the high ranking Protector Keeper he was, and having just lost his charge, he walked over to the potion and copied Atncore. Moments later, he disappeared, too.
———
When an hour passed, and Keeper Zsig and Protector Atncore did not return from their shift, officials sent protectors to Rubedo to inquire. Still, they found only an empty store, a shopping list, and a lone potion. The protectors had the sense not to sample the brew, now glowing a bit brighter than before.