The ride back to Blackgate was as dull as the ride to it, and Lucas spent much of the time staring out the window and wishing someone would attack him with a bomb for a second time. He didn’t actually want to get blown up, of course, though it might have been preferable to Heisenburgle’s preening.
The gnome went on at length about how grateful the Prince was for their service and how well things were proceeding. Lucas largely tuned all of that out, answering with nonanswers now and then as appropriate. It wasn’t until Heisenburgle complimented Lucas on his tact and the way he handled the situation with Lady Skylara that he had to fake a cough to cover his snort of derision.
“I mean it,” the gnome insisted. “Three meetings, and she hasn’t grown bored with you or murdered you for some slight. That’s longer than her last two pets.”
While Heisenburgle was the very last person to compliment him on tact or diplomacy, those words still sent a chill down Lucas’ spine.
“What, seriously?” Lucas asked. “I feel like maybe I haven’t been getting the whole picture here.”
“Well, if you knew the whole picture at the beginning, you would have been too timid and bored her, I think,” the gnome answered, stroking his beard. “As things are now, though, I thought a sprinkle of danger and a dash or two of caution might well keep you breathing. It's one thing to catch her attention, but another thing to keep it.”
Lucas had been ready to explain that it wasn’t even him she wanted and that she only wanted him for his drugs, like half the women he’d banged on Earth. However, suddenly he was overcome by Heisenburgle’s shitty attitude instead.
“A sprinkle? A dash?” Lucas shot back, growing more annoyed. “This is my life here, not another potion recipe, man.”
“All things in life are alchemy when it comes down to it,” Heisenburgle said with a self-assured nod. “Social interaction behaves as regularly and reliably as any potion recipe. They also happen to be nearly as volatile. I find the metaphor to be quite apt, and hope to write a chapter about it in my memoirs.”
Lucas rolled his eyes at that. “Well, if that’s the case, then why can’t the Prince keep scaly britches happy? Why are people dying to try to keep her entertained?”
“Who says those deaths are just the sort of reagent that’s required in a potion that’s been simmering this long,” the gnome answered with a creepy smile. “Why, many potions, and most healing potions, have the vital fluids of at least one creature in them…”
Not the way I make them, Lucas thought with a sigh. He could see Heisenburgle’s point. On some level, he might have even agreed with it if he wasn’t the one with skin in the game.
“A sprinkle and a dash aren’t even precise measurements!” Lucas complained finally. “Would it kill you to use drams or grams or whatever?”
“Imprecise?” the gnome answered. “Excuse me? A sprinkle is exactly half a dash, and a dash is one-third of a pinch. These are very precise measurements. If you don't understand that, then I may well have discovered the problem with your alchemy.”
The man seemed entirely resistant to the idea of using ingredients by weight, though Lucas could hardly blame him on some level. In a world without precision instruments, a weight was barely a step or two above a guess. Still, he argued with the alchemist enough to get him riled up about it.
Then, after that, Lucas let Heisenburgle rant about the sanctity of the current measuring system and rhapsodize philosophically about healing potions and how they were a metaphor for all life or some shit. However, his mind was elsewhere for the rest of the ride.
Mostly, he still felt dirty for kissing Skylara, and that weighed on him even though he’d done everything in his power to avoid finding out what dragon pussy was like. Everyone else seemed to assume he’d fucked her. Hell, she’d probably hinted as much just to feast on the gossip she so enjoyed, but even so, Lucas felt like he’d gone too far, even if he did what he had to do.
He tried not to dwell on it, but the thought nipped at his heels the rest of the day, and no amount of studying the system or trying to read one of the books Heisenburgle had recommended to deepen his knowledge. None of that was really helpful. So, instead, he eventually sat down and wrote Danaria a letter. There was nothing in it that mattered.
He didn’t mention his near-death experience or the fact that Prince had given him permission to marry her eventually. He certainly didn’t confess that he’d been unfaithful in even the smallest way.
He didn’t talk about anything negative. Instead, he just told her that he missed her and how nice their visit had been. He even drew up a little sketch of the garden he’d been planning for the home he’d suggested on his last visit.
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
They were little things, and after he’d finished it, sealed it, and dropped it off to Heisenburgle, he felt much more grounded. He knew what he had to do. He had to do whatever it took to make her happy and healthy.
That almost certainly meant that the Potion of Greater Communion was at the top of his list if it wasn’t already. He had a Goddess and a Dragon of incredible power waiting on him to make breakthroughs there, which meant he had a gnome and a prince looking over his shoulder until he did, and there was no way that Danaria would ever be truly happy until he was out of the Blue business.
And that ain’t happening until I get the product they want and teach Heisenburgle how to make it, he thought wearily.
When he dropped off the letter with the gnome, he gave him a few more books to read and told Lucas, “We’ll start again tomorrow night. Too many of my other projects are behind. So, I must attend to them, and you are not yet on a proper sleep schedule.”
The gnome offered him another potion of wakefulness, but Lucas hastily declined. He wasn’t getting hooked on uppers or downers in this life. Just the contact high he’d gotten from smelling too much secondhand Blue was enough to smell weird. He wasn’t going down that road. Certainly not after the fate he’d inflicted on Adin.
Lucas made some attempts to get back on the night schedule that the gnome preferred. Lucas even watched him from the windows on the second story as the gnome trudged between a few of the outbuildings that were mostly blacksmiths and glassblowers and other messy endeavors that weren’t fit to be connected to the main building.
He still had no idea what Heisenburgle was working on out there, but no matter how often he tried to hint only to follow up with the fact that he really couldn’t talk about it, Lucas didn’t take the bait. There were apparently some advanced armor projects and the hyperquadsomething-or-other. Lucas didn’t really care. If they weren’t going to help him make his blue any faster and get him back home where he belonged, he wasn’t interested.
Lucas woke up a little before noon the following day. He spent the time between then and when Heisenburgle would expect him in his air laboratory racking his brain for what could be, almost like a Moon Blossom that wasn’t a Moon Blossom. He read books looking for plants with similar properties and elemental balances, and he examined the reagents on the shelf, looking for catalysts that looked similar. He even asked Heisenbugle about it while the man was setting up his own apparatus.
“Other catalysts native to the Greenwood?” the gnome repeated the question as he rubbed his chin. “Yes, I suppose I could think of a few, but first, I’ve got to get this set up. Moon set is in thirty minutes, you see.”
Lucas set up his own workstation to make some Blue. Then, when that was done, he pretended to wait patiently, but eventually, after he got tired of watching the gnome fuck it up, he started to help him. His rig to capture starlight was growing ever more elaborate but ultimately boiled down to ever more curved mirrors, all pointing to a specific point in the nearly clear liquid at its focal point.
As they did so, the fluid began to glow noticeably, but just like before, Lucas knew that when it was covered or the sun rose, the reaction would cease. There was a criticality involved that the gnome simply wasn’t reaching.
Lucas’s eyes drifted down to the man’s tome and saw the ingredients for the Distilled Starlight he was working on. Then he looked a bit further down and looked at the recipe for distilled sunlight.
“Wouldn’t capturing sunlight be easier?” he asked, idly turning the page. “There’s a lot more of it, you know. Just get a magnifying glass and—”
“Gah!” the gnome said, throwing up his hands. “You can be so aggravating, young man! Not only is sunlight completely antithetical to the research I'm doing, but there are heat problems to consider in such a brew. These things are not interchangeable!”
As he spoke, Lucas wasn’t really listening. On the next page was a brief discussion about Distilled Moonlight, and one specific word caught his attention. Catalyst. Starlight was an enhancer, and sunlight was a purifier, but moonlight, apparently, was a catalyst, which just so happened to be what he was looking for.
Suddenly, everything clicked into place. That one word was enough to make him realize what it was the Goddess had been hinting at.
“You’re so close,” she whispered in his memory. “One ingredient is just a bit off…”
Lucas looked from Heisenburgle’s starlight apparatus to his blue setup and back again as he finally put it all together, only distantly aware that the gnome was still talking. The man hadn’t managed to manage to distill starlight in any permanent way, but on moonless nights, he’d succeeded for a time. He just hadn’t managed to quite achieve critical mass.
Distilled Starlight (minor): Poison -5, amplifies the effect of most potions when added in moderation.
Distilled Moonlight, he decided finally. That’s what I fucking need.
The gnome apparently agreed, if for entirely different reasons. When Lucas started paying attention to his long-winded speech about how it was the easiest of the three celestial solvents to create. “That’s only by comparison to the others, though. Making the tinctures necessary for the initial stages would be a challenge to even an experienced alchemist. And you, my friend,” he chuckled. “Are no serious—”
“Okay, fine,” Lucas said, using the taunt to pivot to what he wanted. “You wanna see me make your moon juice. No problem.”
“Oh?” the gnome answered, his eyes flashing with mischief. “How interesting. Well, I will do you the favor of getting you a manual with an easier formulation and placing the relevant workshops at your disposal. Perhaps Hobskin’s treatise would suffice, but I warn you, I’ll offer you no assistance beyond that. Not until you admit defeat.”
The gnome looked at him evilly then, and Lucas wondered what exactly it was he’d gotten himself into. Still, he wasn’t about to show any weakness in front of the egomaniac. “No problem, one batch of lunar catalyst coming right up!” he boasted.