Well. Let’s get to it now. Time to activate this complicated as fuck glyph-ridden circle thingy.

Lighting the herb piles on fire, I sat in the middle of the circle and began to hum as the room filled with smoke from the smouldering herbs. The skill guided me, my humming rising and falling in volume and pitch.

After about five minutes of this, something happened.

All the chalk, crispy herbs, and smoke coalesced into one area and a tear in reality formed in front of my eyes. It was like someone had taken a red-hot knife to the air and just slit an opening. Beyond the ovule-shaped hole was a series of mind-bending things. I quickly averted my eyes as pressure began to build in my brain, an instant pounding headache forming.

Note to self. Don’t look in strange holes.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see some strange creature grab at the edges of the hole with tar-like tentacles. When the creature had fully exited, I turned back to get a good look at it.

It looked like something that had crawled out of hell. It floated above the ground, with its black sludge tentacles waving in an invisible breeze. The main body of the thing was bulbous and grey with an odd red glow seeping through its thin skin. It had no eyes or mouth and was about the size of a rottweiler.

It spoke with telepathy, but not in the way I expected. It didn’t form words, just images, feelings, and the number three.

So this was what a toll skill did. It would take 3 deftness from my resource pool to acquire this creature's help. Seemed a lot like a passive skill in that respect. And in return, it would help me in my alchemy by… Controlling fire? Or maybe heat? Or perhaps both, I don’t know. It was hard to decipher.

But this was my first time doing this so, fuck it! I made the deal.

The portal closed, and the creature began to shrink. From large-ish dog, to ping-pong ball. It was tiny! The thing floated over to me and tucked itself in one of my pockets.

And it might just be me, but that was pretty cute. Just a little ugly hell spawn hiding in my pocket. The thought made me smile and let out a small chuckle.

I decided to test what the little thing could do. Setting up my cauldron, I got out some herbs to attempt a simple recipe involving heat. The resulting potion should be a simple monster repellent if everything goes well.

Reacting to my intention, the little fugly thing moved over to the cauldron. It floated underneath it, and then latched on and seemed to dissolve into a sticky black tar puddle holding onto the metal with its tendrils. Then the orange glow began to seep out from under the black, and the cauldron began to heat itself.

I added some water to the cauldron and waited till it came to a boil. Now came the important parts. I needed to somehow boil salamander blood. Which is impossible with normal heat or flame. But as I added a drop to the boiling water, I saw a familiar reaction take place. The red began to mix with the water, instead of remaining in its drop form. Salamander blood coagulates very quickly into these drop-like forms when spilled, and requires mana heat to decoagulate and mix.

This was good! It meant that this little creature made up for at least one tool that took mana to operate. However, the next step proved to be not as easy. I needed some essence released from this Chicken Bane Bark, but it seemed that it wasn’t happening. The bark simply laid in the red watery mixture, inert.

After that failure, I ran a few more tests, noting down the limits this summoned creature had, which I had decided to name Citru. It seemed that Citru could do a variety of fire and heat-related things, but it was limited to only those. Also, sometimes, fire-related ingredients couldn’t be changed by it. Perhaps if I tiered the skill up it would work?

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It was fuckin weird and complicated, and my brain hurt trying to think about it too much. What I need now… Is another little creature to think about alchemy nonsense so I don’t have to!!

Settling into another fugue state, I drew another huge circle with chalk and seemingly random items. There was a bit of variation from the previous mess, perhaps because this time I had a goal in mind, to summon something to help me do general alchemy.

After I was done, I was back to the strange humming. But this time, something odd happened. My skill told me I did something wrong. I tried to continue the ritual, but nothing happened.

“For fucks sake!”

I sat up and began to walk and look at the chalk lines, waiting for my skill to tell me something. After thirty minutes, THIRTY MINUTES, of searching, I finally found the problem. A slight hitch in a chalk line.

Grumbling under my breath, I filled the line in and went back to the middle to begin humming again. Similar to last time, another reality tear formed and another strange little creature crawled out. Although, this one seemed to be a little more affected by gravity than the previous one.

It looked like a trilobite with an extra large head. And this one cost 6 deftness! That meant I wouldn’t be able to contract any more of these planar beings. But also, big head equals smart brain, soooo.

The portal closed, and my new planar creature scuttled over to me on its insectile legs. It also went into my robe pocket. Do these creatures just love pockets or something?

I will name this thing… Creap! Because it is creepy.

Now to continue testing. Not knowing how the creature would help me, I just began to make a simple potion. I went to reach for some ingredients when I stopped as I felt the creepy little creature crawling under my robe, shuddering as its creepy little legs skittered around. Creap crawled until it was on the back of my hand.

“Hrk!” My eyes flew open in surprise and pain as Creap stabbed into my hand with those insect legs of its. My other hand went to pull it off, but I stopped myself. Perhaps this was what it was meant to do?

A shiver ran down my spine as I felt Creap’s legs burrow through my flesh. It was oddly not as painful as it should have been, which just caused me to feel much more unsettled. It might have been better if it did hurt. I looked on as it deflated itself, its legs pulsing rhythmically, as if it was pushing its mass into me.

Eww. Phrasing.

When the feeling stopped, I took a look at Creap latched onto my hand. It had flattened itself to my skin, head pointed towards me. The puncture wounds on my hand were not bleeding, as the areas around where the legs entered were surrounded by a clear, quickly hardening gel. I opened and closed my hand a few times, noting how my dexterity had not been affected.

“Well. That's pretty creepy Creap.” I guessed that the name definitely fit.

I went to reach for the ingredient again, but my hand involuntarily closed. Causing me to just fistbump a pile of leaves…

Ok. Is this like a rat under the hat situation?

I swept my hand around a multitude of ingredients until my hand twitched over a drawer in my backpack. Opening the drawer, I reached inside, and my hand picked up a couple of lizard scales. Shrugging my shoulders, I went to throw the scales in the cauldron, but my hand wouldn't let go.

Squinting my eyes, I reached for the mortar and pestle with the other hand. I dropped the scales into the stone bowl, my eyebrow raised.

Well. This is going to be annoying.

…

After a night of crafting and a nap, I had a new kind of potion. It looked similar to the type that I was trying to make, a drowsy potion, with its blue colour and its somehow sleepy aroma. But there was no way I was going to test it… On myself. Some of the ingredients were the same, but some differed, leaning towards the fire aspect. I certainly didn’t like the slight orange-tinged film I could see on top of the liquid. And there was no way I was going to die because Creap may have misinterpreted what a drowsy potion was!

Although, it sure looked legit. It had that magical look to it that set it apart from a bottle of blue-dyed water.

Now it was time to find a test subject. Preferably a human, as this potion was meant for humans, not monsters, who had varying constitutions. That was one aspect of potions I didn’t like. Many of them were limited to humans or certain species of monsters. It was a pain. I guessed that it must be the reason many people just used a sword. Swords can cut through a variety of stuff.

Back on track though. I think this village had a market? Or perhaps that trade caravan I had heard about would be coming through soon. I think I might have enough money to buy someone, still had some silver left. It's not like the person needs to be at the peak of health either so, yeah.