The four looked around, startled by the sudden absence of the shadow creatures. But while their attackers had abruptly vanished, the darkness that surrounded them didn’t seem to have altered at all.

“Where did they go?” Drak said, turning from one side to the other. “And has it gone even quieter?”

“That’s what happened to me,” Silt said. “One minute they were there, next they vanished.”

Flair made a sharp clicking noise with her fingers that sounded dampened to what you would expect and nodded. “And yes, the darkness seems to be deadening the sounds from the rest of the house,” Flair said. “Let’s keep moving and get to the lab.”

Drak tilted his head to one side and then nodded. “That’s definitely sound dampening.”

She took the lead with Jake behind her, Drak following with Silt at the back of the group.

“Flair, what do you think is going on here?” Jake asked as they walked.

“I think there are three possible options. Option one is that there’s an adult Skinlurker in the house. Option two is Phantasmal Fear Hunter. Option three is Shade Catcher,” Flair replied.

“A Skinlurker?” Jake asked. “I don’t think I’ve heard of them before.”

“They are nasty creatures that can puppet the living. They look like a black ball of wire but can move around freely and use those thin wires to infect the bodies of their targets and puppet them. There’s a connection with darkness essence as well as death and perception essences being common in them. They basically use up the creatures they puppet until they are just desiccated husks and fall apart. They use perception to perceive through the bodies and see through them. They can reach massive sizes and puppet many bodies all at once,” Flair said.

“But would one of them just appear here naturally?” Jake queried.

Flair shook her head. “No, this isn’t their natural environment, they tend to be found in tropical flooded swamps, the closest one to here being the Gloomwoods. Their cores are used as communication components and people capture them for that purpose. The body is used to transmit information. The Shade Lily Lake is one of the ways to kill them but they are pretty tough to deal with, so that’s why having the potion is important. Unless one of you has a death lightning essence in your repertoire?”

Jake shook his head. “No, the potion sounds like the best idea.”

“What about the Phantasmal Fear Hunter? I remember my dad mentioning them once but I can’t recall much about them,” Drak said.

“They are illusion-based magic specialists that use fear, mind and perception to hunt their prey. Males are usually light essence users, while females are dark essence users. So that could explain this unnatural darkness,” Flair explained. “They don’t have a set form but can use the worst thing in your mind and project that onto their own appearance. They are always grotesque and frightening. In theory, they could appear here as their phantasmal form means they can travel anywhere.”

“And the potion affects them?” Jake asked.

“In a sense,” Flair replied. “It has more of a narcotic effect on them, slowing their energies. It can drug them and reduce their essence abilities so that you can disperse them.”

“Could someone have captured it and released it here?” Silt asked.

You could, I suppose. But you would need some specialist things and people, they are constructs, so they are very hard to hold. Plus, it is very hard to disguise that you are summoning one. Dispersing them is the easier option while they are under the effect of the potion. That would be the most likely option for what we are facing, from my experience. One could have formed naturally and snuck in but this seems stronger than I’d expected. But there are easier things to go with than a Phantasmal Fear Hunter.”

“And the Shade Catcher is your least likely option?” Jake asked.

“In my opinion, yes. They are alive but not fully physical and that makes them hard to kill. They take the shades from their victims and feed on them. They live in remote corners and don’t tend to migrate around unless forced. If you do force them to migrate, they can be very destructive to the location where they settle. With each death they cause, they chain the shades of their victims,” she added. She glanced at Drak and Jake in turn. “Do you know what shades are?”

Drak shook his head.

“Some kind of monster?” Silt suggested.

“I have a vague idea, isn’t it something to do with fundamental forces?” Jake queried.

“Yes, sir alchemist, you are not wrong, but to keep things simple, a shade is a fundamental part of what makes us alive, in the very simplest form. Shades, for our purposes, can hold a reflection of what you are meant to be, including a small portion of your essence. Shade Catchers don’t just feed off the shade but use them in everything from attacks to defence as well as for food. Not only that, but they gain a small portion of the essence of each shade they consume. Shades are hard to injure for anyone, even a weak essence user. This allows them to create an almost unkillable defence alongside a force that keeps growing. They can put necromancers to shame with what they can do.”

“So one could just be moved in here?” Drak queried. “Or someone forced it to move here?”

“Highly unlikely that it would just move here due to the wards around the city, those would pick up if there was one within the city. Someone would have to use a massive amount of resources to conceal it from the wards. Plus, the nature of these creatures means that they would cause destruction on a massive scale. So using one would horrifically backfire on the person.”

“I’ve heard of them before but I thought they were just stories to frighten children,” Silt commented.

“And would the potion have any effect on it?” Jake asked.

“Not really, but then there isn’t much that does. It acts a little like a large dose of alcohol would to a human. But because they are so devastating, I’m fairly confident that it won’t be a Shade Catcher we are dealing with. But if it is one, send prayers to whatever god you follow because no one will make it out of here and the place will be treated as a plague,” Flair told them flatly.

Silt called out to take the second door on their left. Flair tried the door but it was locked.

Impatiently, Silt moved past them and kicked the door, flinging it open with a resounding crunch.

“Was that a good idea?” Jake asked, staring at the slightly battered-looking door.

She shrugged. “Do you want to stay out here and hang around to get eaten by whatever weird monsters are roaming around the place?”

Jake gave a shrug and followed her into the lab. Inside the room, Drak’s light seemed to have more of an effect, making the room easier to view. Yet Jake glanced back to the doorway, and the darkness was almost a physical barrier. It almost looked like it was seeping into the room, so he gestured to Drak to take a step back towards the hallway. When he did, the darkness retreated a little.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“Might be best for you to stay here,” Jake suggested.

Silt moved to a seat just inside the door. “Yep, you keep the darkness out. I’m just going to keep an eye on things from here.”

“The books are over here,” Flair said. “Let’s find the information we need.”

Jake joined her and started searching through the books to find the Shade Lily Lake potion.

“There’s no real organisation in all of this,” Jake observed.

“I’ve noticed,” Flair replied without looking up from the book.

Jake returned two books to the shelf and lifted down another large book. “Wow, this is a very expensive book.”

“Does it have what we need?” Flair asked.

Skimming the index, Jake shook his head.

“Then forget it and keep looking,” she replied flatly.

A few minutes later, Jake paused to read. Flair looked up to see what he had found. “Is that it?” she asked.

“No, but this is a really good potion for…” Jake began to answer.

“Forget it!” Flair snapped. “Monsters, remember?”

Jake gave a slightly sheepish smile and continued to scan through the pages. “Is it me, or are some of these potions a little evil?”

Flair shrugged. “This is a lab belonging to the nobility. Plus, if you weren’t working with me, making this potion might get you arrested. But don’t worry about it. Just keep looking.”

As he reached another section, Jake came across a page that contained what they needed. “This is it,” he said, pointing to the information.

“Okay, here’s what we need,” Jake said, turning to Drak.

Then he noticed that the entire wall with the hallway door in it was coated in ice. “What the hell?” he asked.

Drak shrugged. “Well, I was getting a bit tired, so Silt and I came up with this idea. The logic is that the darkness couldn’t come through the door because it can’t pass through solid objects…”

“So I put a chunk of ice in front of the door,” Silt interrupted.

“You froze the whole wall,” Jake said.

Silt shrugged. “It stops the darkness from getting in.”

“That might cause a problem but let me check first,” Jake said, looking around the room. “Drak, can you see if there is any Silver Lake water or dark willow sap while I look for the night sky lily. But I don’t have much hope.”

Drak moved away to start searching.

“Silt, does the house have a storage area for alchemical ingredients?” Jaked asked.

Silt frowned. “Maybe, why?”

“Because the night sky lily definitely isn’t in here.”

“You haven’t even looked yet,” Silt observed.

“I don’t need to. Unless your father hired a very incompetent alchemist, it would never be stored in here,” Jake replied.

“And why is that?” Flair asked, walking over to where Jake was standing.

“Because it is a pain to store. It has a load of negative reactions with other ingredients and needs to have the right conditions. I’m sure your father has the right place to store it but I’m also sure it isn’t in here,” Jake replied.

Drak held up a vial. “Is this the Silver Lake water?”

Jake gave a quick glance in his direction. “No, that’s not it.”

“How do you know?” Drak asked, frowning.

“I’m a water caster, I know that’s not the right water. Try the one to the left,” he replied.

Drak put the vial back and lifted out the one Jake mentioned. He then moved over to a set of drawers and opened one, holding up a vial. It was sap but a different one. He moved further back in the drawer and found one marked dark willow sap. “Got it,” he confirmed.

“I think I know where it will be,” Silt said. “But you guys might not like the answer.”

“Go on,” Jake prompted.

“That would be towards the basement. My father has a few storage areas down there that could work for this. Or we could go back to the main lobby and ask him. But I doubt he’ll have a clue,” she said.

“Guess we have to go back out then,” Jake said.

“Hang on, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, we don’t need to do this right now, do we?” Drak said, holding up his hands. “I’m low on energy here.”

Jake studied his friend for a moment and realised his friend was more nervous than tired. “Do you think your father would mind if we used some of the ingredients here to make the potion a different way?” Jake asked Silt.

“You mean all this expensive stuff? Sure, go ahead and use whatever you need. I’m sure he won’t mind,” she said with a malicious smile.

Jake headed back to the bookshelves. “Give me a minute to do a little extra research.”

A short while later, several areas of ingredients were assembled around the room. “You are sure this is okay?” Jake asked, gesturing to it all.

The malicious grin reappeared on Silt’s face. “Oh, I’m sure he would want to spare no expense to make sure this undertaking is successful.”

Jake made up one after another of the potions.

“Jake, you know you mentioned some of these recipes seem to be a little questionable?” Silt called, watching him. “You know that one is technically illegal and that one is just flat-out illegal?”

Jake shrugged. “If I mass produced the Sundrop potion, then sure, it would be illegal. But the size and dose I’m making here aren’t technically illegal. Just a little bit of a grey area. And sure, in most circumstances, the Radiant Ray potion is illegal but there are scenarios where it can be made legally.”

“And those are?” Silt asked.

“Well, two main ones come to mind. Both of them are happening to us right now. One is that a lord and an official of significant rank tell you to make it. The other is to destroy a creature that uses a darker aligned essence such as darkness or death. And that’s definitely happening here,” he replied.

“How do you know this?” Drak asked Jake frowning.

“Because I read the laws that apply to alchemy. You know, the list that we are shown about what potions are illegal?”

Drak nodded.

“So I read on a bit further, I was curious. You’d be surprised how many exceptions there are to those laws. And every alchemist fantasies about making something interesting…” Jake said with a shrug.

“So you fantasize about making illegal potions?” Flair asked. “And remembered enough so that if you had the chance to make them, you’d know how you could legally?”

Jake looked a little embarrassed and turned his attention to the potions. “I think we should start making a move, is everyone ready?” He looked at Drak.

Drak pulled a bit of a face. “I’m still a bit tired.”

“Don’t worry, that’s why I made some light potions to help,” Jake assured him.

“Okay, let’s go then,” Drak replied, although his grimace told a different story.

----------------------------------------

Tales of the Myphler

The Myphler had been enjoying a tasty meal after the Dragonkin had brought it into the house. It was enjoying some delicious stone in an easy-to-eat shape. In the corner of its vision, it noticed movement but there didn’t seem to be any reason to be concerned.

It used the density talking crystal it had left in the Dragonkin’s jacket pocket and located him a short distance away. So it continued to snack.

Then abruptly, it sensed a new threat in the vicinity. It abandoned the stone and headed towards the Dragonkin. Before it reached him, everything turned dark.

It stopped and sniffed the air, trying to understand what was happening. The Myphler wanted to get to the Dragonkin and the Earth-shifter as it could get out of this place. It sensed they were in two different places, a distance apart.

The darkness reduced its vision but the Myphler was pleased that whatever had created it hadn’t the sense to stop the talking crystal. It was glad whatever had done it was stupid! So it continued towards the Dragonkin.

As the Myphler moved towards the crystal, it noticed that sound, as well as sight, was being reduced. There was something familiar about all of this. It felt like the time that the colony had been attacked, the enemy that had caused so many deaths.

This time, the Myphler was going to get as far away from this enemy as possible.

Abruptly, one of the enemy’s shadow creatures appeared in front of it. Ready for battle, the Myphler launched itself at it but it didn’t make any contact. It turned for another attack but before it could attempt it, the shadow attacked. The Myphler raised a small density shield that rebuffed the attack.

Realising that this worked, it created a density crystal block and propelled it at the shadow. It impacted and the shadow vanished!

Happy with its success, the Myphler set about continuing its journey, only to realise that the Dragonkin and the Earth-shifter were straight in front of it. It quickly ran up the leg of the Dragonkin to return to its rightful spot and allow them to take it to safety. It had survived an encounter with the enemy for the second time!