After he popped that potion, every point that Lucas made was repeated at least once over the next few hours as Heisenburgle peppered him with questions. What was her expression? What was her tone? How long was the pause? The gnome seemed to be obsessed with every detail.
Lucas had been in the box with detectives who were less thorough than Heisenburgle, but he didn’t complain. Truthfully, he was still a little freaked out by the whole situation, and he was glad for any insight the gnome might be able to offer him. Heisenburgle had clearly been dealing with this for a lot longer than Lucas had. That was evident merely from the size of the tome he was taking his notes in.
During all of this, the alchemist remained fairly calm. The only time he really freaked out was when Lucas mentioned the word Lwynthenll. That sent Heisenburgle into a flurry of activity.
“Lwynthenll,” he repeated. “You’re sure she said that. That word exactly.”
“Yeah, but I don’t know what it is,” Lucas said. “She just said it's a lot like some elvish potion and—”
“Not some Elvish potion,” the gnome yelled out. “The elvish potion. The waters of life. Aqua Vitalis. It's supposed to be capable of doing all manner of miracles. It can heal the sick and even turn lead into gold.”
“Well, Skylara said it was some kind of party drug, so I’m not sure you two are talking about the same thing,”
Lucas said. He was only halfway serious, though, and he mostly set it because he knew that such a comment would get under the alchemist's skin in the state the gnome was in. Lucas had no idea how right he was, though as Heisenburgle jumped out of his chair and scampered across the room, he could see his barb had struck deep. The tiny alchemist was so irritated he muttered- to himself as he made his way to the ladder for his bookshelf and moved it to retrieve a large red tome.
Once he’d retried it, he brought it back to the desk and then slammed it down, flipping through the pages until he found the appropriate page. The book was obviously old, and the handwriting was crabbed and difficult to read, but there was no mistaking the illustration in the center of the page. There, illuminated quite fancifully in blue inks and silver foil as a picture of his Blue. It was an uncanny resemblance. It looked a little lighter and glowed a bit more, but otherwise, it was the same thing.
“Could be,” he said noncommittal before he asked the next question, which was sure to send the gnome through the roof. “But can’t we just compare the formulas and know for sure?”
“Compare the formulas? Compare the Formulas?!” Heisenburgle yelled, briefly going apoplectic. “No one has this formula, and if the elves thought you did, they would stop at nothing to end you before you could spread that knowledge. Why would you even… Gahhh… just read the damn book!”
Lucas did with a shrug, suppressing his smile as best he could. He was enjoying this far too much.
The book itself was interesting, too, once he got past the handwriting. It claimed some crazy shit, like the ability to bring the dead to life and grant superhuman powers. That seemed like a bit of a stretch for the potion of mana intoxication he’d been pedaling, but he wasn’t exactly an expert, and his old master had mentioned more than once about using what the elves used because ‘they know what’s right. It's their forest. You just see what they pick, and you do the same, and it will turn out okay.’
Lucas had ignored that advice as soon as he’d figured out that not everyone could see the same pop-up windows he could, but now, well, now maybe the old man was on to something. Of course, it couldn’t be that easy, could it? It couldn’t just be a matter of finding some elvish herb he’d overlooked and adding it to the mix, could it?
Well, actually, he thought, zoning out as he pretended to read the book. We already have these four ingredients. What if we don’t need another ingredient? What if we just need a different catalyst?
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
After all, he realized, the other three plants were all native to the region. They were practically common; Heisenburgle said so himself, on a regular basis, comparing them to ditch weeds. Sour dwarf berries, though, were imported. The odds that the elves would use three completely local ingredients and then one completely unrelated ingredient… seemed far-fetched.
For now, he decided not to say anything to Heisenburgle about this theory. Instead, he just said, “So the dragon wants this elf potion, and we might have it. So what’s the big deal?”
Heisenburgle put his face in his hands and shook his head. “I will just assume that you are too tired to see the significance… yes, yes,” he muttered to himself. “Otherwise, I’d have to have you tied to a post a beaten with this book until its knowledge managed to make its way into your thick skull!”
Lucas finally broke and started laughing. The image was simply too ridiculous for him to resist any further. “You think this is funny?” the gnome countered, pointing an accusing finger at Lucas. “We’re damned if we do now and damned if we don’t. Either we fail to make an impossible potion and incur the wrath of Skylara, or we succeed and incur the wrath of the elves. This is a catastrophe!”
“One,” Lucas said, enumerating each point by extending a finger as he counted them off one at a time. This was both to be dramatic and because even with Heisenburgle’s boost potion, his head was still more than a little fuzzy. “Will you please calm the FUCK down? Everything is going to be okay. Two, I really think you’re overreacting. The dragon lady just wants to get high. You should have seen her. We could give her the shit we got for a long time to come, and she would be fine. As long as we make a little progress now and then and give her stronger shit, she’ll be just fine. She just—”
“You really think that—” Heisenburgle tried to interrupt, but Lucas kept talking.
“Three…” Lucas continued loudly, “How in the hell are the elves going to find out. We could make fifty gallons of the stuff. We could ship it to the Dragoness’s mansion or cave or wherever the hell she lives, and they would never know.”
“Did you even read this?” Heisenburgle asked, gesturing violently at the book with both hands before he whirled it around to his side of the desk and started reading it out loud. “The waters of life, when consumed, link the mind of the imbiber directly with the Goddess Lwyn to grant the heart's desire of the mortal. On the rare occasions that a human has managed to complete such an act in the past, it has rippled through the entirety of the elven collective unconscious and has almost always led to war.”
“I didn’t know that the elves had a collective unconscious,” Lucas mused, wondering how he missed that. He definitely needed to sleep.
“What you don’t know could fill my library were it not already filled with that which you lack most: knowledge,” Heisenburgle answered with a shake of his head. “So, you see, the shape of the problem now? We are undone!”
“But like… How is that our problem?” Lucas asked. “Let’s say that Skylara gets this potion, and it does exactly what it says on the bottle… Why would the elves be pissed off at you or me or Lordanin? It’s not like the Goddess is going to say, ‘Oh, this is the fault of Lucas Parin and Heisenburgle the black. Go kill them.’ They’re going to get pissed off at a certain menace to society, and maybe, just maybe, they’ll do something about her instead, right?”
Heisenburgle opened his mouth with an expression that said he was about to explain how stupid Lucas was in some new and clever way. Only, he never got that far. Instead, he froze with his mouth open and then, after reconsidering it, said, “Yes… that might indeed be an outcome that could work in our favor…”
The gnome quickly moved back to his journal and began to scribble away. Lucas thought about asking what the plan was but decided that he didn’t care. Instead, he said, “So, if that’s everything, I think I’m going to crash out now if that’s cool with you.”
“Yes, yes… we shall get back to work in a day or two,” the gnome answered, not bothering to look up as he gestured peevishly toward the door. “Do consider taking the time to do a bit more reading once you are fully recovered.”
Lucas didn’t even dignify that comment with a response. Instead, he left the office and walked the short distance to his room, where he took off his boots and then lay down in bed, fully dressed.
He’d thought that when he finally made it here, he’d be out like a light. That isn’t what happened, though, because the potion that Heisenburgle had given him wasn’t quite through with him, and his stomach was cramping slightly as he struggled with Nausea. So, instead of being frustrated, he turned his thoughts over in his head.
Thank goodness we killed those fucking slants at least, Lucas thought with a sigh as he stared at the slowly brightening ceiling. Dealing with the whisperers was bad enough. If those assholes had walked out and told all of their friends instead of going berserk, everything would have gone to shit ten times worse.
Lucas felt pretty lucky about that, and he had time to consider what else a better catalyst might be, but somewhere between his plan to dig through Heisenburgle’s stash for a likely candidate and plan to search the woods one plant at a time in the spring if it came to it, he passed out into a deep and dreamless sleep that his body desperately needed.