The next shop we visit is two hundred yards further down Rue Brea. They call it Les Ecailles D’or, meaning the Golden Scales, and it’s clear from the big jars in the window on their wooden shelves that the place deals with chemicals. In fact, it is like the Alchemy Shop I frequented in Glastonbury where I learned to make the Red Powder.

Sally is smiling at me; I guess my delight at finding the shop is obvious on my face. ‘I’m glad you like it,’ she says as she pushes open the door.

I step inside. Once again, like the occult bookshop, the atmosphere inside is two degrees cooler than outside, but instead of the smells of old leather and musty pages from the bookshop, this shop has the acrid odour of sulphur, underlain by a metallic tang.

The owner comes out. He wears a leather apron over a while shirt, rolled up at the sleeves. Curious tattoos of alchemical symbols line both inner forearms. He is bald at the crown and his shiny pate is rimmed by woolly like grey hair. He blinks at us through thick spectacles like an owl then says something.

Sally smiles and leads the talking, chattering rapidly in French until the man regards me with interest. Finally, when she finishes, he says, ‘I am De La Croix. Your charming companion tells me you are an alchemist, and that despite the priest’s collar, ReverendCadmon.’

I give a slight bow. ‘Not much of an alchemist — a dabbler.’

‘But you can make the Red Powder? That is something of an achievement…’

I blush. Im not interested in anyone’s flattery. ‘I am wondering if you have ingredients and a laboratory, I can borrow. I have some ingredients, but I fear not enough.’

Lavishly, he gestures around. ‘Oui, oui, as you can see. This is a very well stocked store.’

‘I visited a similar alchemists’ store in London…’

De La Croix interrupts me, a deep crease forming between his eyes. ‘Similar but not the same. Not the same quality. I have the best selection in Europe!’ His voice tails off as if he is having a long familiar argument with himself or persons unseen. ‘There is that fool in Heidelberg, and that other idiot in Segesvar…’

I wait until he turns back with a benign smile, ‘But you wanted to use my laboratory.’

I nod, and he shows me through to the back of the shop. There is a functional laboratory with a white ceramic sink and tall brass taps. Wooden benches sit around the room laden with retorts and alembics and blown glass vessels in a wide variety of shapes, with swan necks, thick necks, and square necks.

Shelves heavy with chemical jars line the walls and the chemicals themselves glisten and glitter and shine within their jars, as if hungry to be used. As I listen, I could almost swear I hear the ingredients murmuring to themselves, some singing, some muttering like crazed old women.

‘Will this do?’ De La Croix beams, looking from me to Sally, pleased with his set-up.

‘Very impressive,’ I say.

‘Good, good.’ He prods his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his forefinger. ‘Better than the London man?’

I judge it politic to agree, and that makes him even happier.

He rubs his hands together with a rasp of dry skin. I imagine the palms of his hand roughened by years of exposure to harsh chemicals. Miskatonic’s attention to detail once again worth commenting on. ‘So what do you want to make?’ he asks.

‘I thought health potions.’ I can make blue potions of Health 100 with fifty sips each. ‘Maybe ten in total? Do you have the ingredients?’

He looks almost offended. ‘Bien sur. I have more ingredients than anyone else!’

‘Of course. So ten.’

‘Oui, oui. Any more?’

‘Yes. Mana. Just two I think.’

He gives a Gallic shrug. ‘If only two…’

‘Two’s what I need.’

‘And anything else?’

‘Do you the recipe for an invisibility potion?’

‘Of course.’

‘You would teach me that.’

‘I could do this for twenty skill points.’

For the first time it occurs to me that learning skills might be something I could barter over. Perhaps, instead of being fixed prices set by the game, individual NPC merchants could offer discounts? That is an interesting thought.

‘Any other potions?’ De La Croix seems eager.

I shrug and am about to say no, when Dr Sally puts her hand on the crook of my elbow, comes in close and whispers, ‘Don’t forget the Soma.’

Soma, that delicious liquid gold that removes madness but makes you an addict for life. Filthy stuff, LeCozh has called it.

I remember the withdrawals and shudder. She knows I don’t want to make it so she gives me a luscious smile. ‘Just for me?’ she says, and I smell violets and roses from her skin.

De La Croix isn’t judgemental about me making dope. ‘I have the ingredients for Soma,’ he offers.

So I nod. ‘Five soma then.’

‘Ten,’ Sally says.

De La Croix blinks slowly, reminding me even more of an owl. ‘So you learn invisibility first? Or potions first?’

‘Potions.’

I go to the nearest free bench and select the Health Potion tab from my HUD. Then I sit back and watch my hands go through the motions, mixing and turning, setting the bunsen burner on fire with a taper, heating the retort, watching it bubble and distil as I put in the various ingredients placed on the bench by De La Croix.

The liquid steams and gathers: first, a murky brown a sapphire blue distillate condenses in the condenser and then drips into the collector until the potion is mixed and I get the message.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Then I do it again. After that, I make mana potions but instead of being blue these are pink in hue, like mulberries. Once I have my two vials of pink Mana potion, I pause.

‘Don’t forget the Soma,’ Sally says with a smile, but I hear the edge underneath — the sound of an addict who wants their fix.

I wonder whether she has a secret stash on her and whenever she needed it, she can slip away to shoot up in some stairwell.

I mix ten vials of the liquid gold that curls and eddies in its glass prison, then I stop each with a blue rubber bung.

The ingredients cost me a lot, but Guy Philby has filled up my account, so I fold two hundred franc notes and give them to De La Croix while my HUD registers the debit from my bank account.

Sally is looking at me. I extend her a soma potion, and she takes it. She is trying to hide her eagerness, but I see the hunger in her eyes. She has one potion, but she still stares at me, so I give her another, and finally all ten of the glass bottles. ‘Thank you,’ she says

‘And now for the teaching?’ De La Croix enquires.

I nod. ‘And now for the teaching.’ I look around. ‘Here?’

‘It is as good as any place, no?’

I look at the hard wooden stools and shrug. It is as good as anywhere. So I sit, and he sits opposite. Sally disappears, and I guess why.

In front of me, De La Croix took down a big volume. It’s in Latin and has diagrams of alchemical processes, with all the arcane symbols for the elements and metals. But the book is just a prop.

I hit yes, and we begin.

He intones, ‘The Golden Lion is the Sun, and the Sun is the centre of things. You find him in your heart, but the true gold, which corresponds to the Sun, is not the gold of the vulgar. The alchemical secret of earth is salt, sulphur and mercury. Do not trust Mercury, the trickster for he will deceive…’

He speaks in a rhythmic drone, his words echo in a pitter-patter that runs around my head with tiny feet. A hypnotic trance drowns me and I swim in a stream of gold, silver and lead symbols.

I drift very far away, swimming in a golden void until De La Croix’s voice draws me back to the room. ‘... and that concludes this lesson in Alchemy.’

I get the message:

I check my stats to see I have eighty skill points remaining. I am thinking of putting some of them into French.

And then the door blows in.

Black smoke roils and eddies into the room, sending us choking. The smoke is so thick I can see nothing, but someone has entered because a strange and commanding voice yells, ‘Everybody be cool, this is a robbery!’

Not so original.

We can’t see him through the smoke, but I pull out my guns. The Browning and the Walther feel heavy and deadly in my hands. I lift them shoulder high and sight them through the fog. I might hit something.

Behind us, De La Croix turns and goes for a shotgun, that he keeps behind the alchemy bench. As he moves a spear of solid lead hurtles through the air and strikes him in the back, knocking him down. He struggles to get up with the spike sticking out of his back, but he is coughing and dying on the floor.

It seems our robber can see through the smoke even if we can’t. I wonder whether this is a scripted thing. Is this a quest? In fact, what in the actual hell is going on?

I decide I’ll blast into the black fog anyway and I squeeze off a round from each pistol. The racket ricochets around the room; the pistols kicking up, the Browning higher than the Walther, but the next thing a fistful of rock salt hits me the face, peppering me with stinging grains.

It pings my health down every second for 5 damage over time effect. I could see a counter on my HUD showing it will last for twelve seconds.

My world goes black. Jeepers, this caustic salt is evil stuff. I stumble around in a panic, hitting a desk. The blindness will last twenty seconds according to my display. No way I can fight back blind though.

Near me I smell and hear an energy bolt. The crackle of lightning and the stink of ozone. That must be Sally fighting back, but then she screams and goes silent.

I can see nothing and now can’t hear her. My heart thumps. What if she is killed like Miranda and is now one of the Cold Ones locked in a wall in the Nameless City?

The voice speaks again. ‘Okay, people, hand over any potions. I know you’ve got them.’

Angrily, I roar, ‘I can’t see shit. Take this blindness off me. What have you done to Sally?’

He laughs. ‘So many questions. But sure.’ Then I can see again.

He removes my blindness as easily as he’s caused it. I am down to 780 health, nothing serious.

I glance at my assailant, dressed in a black Victorian jacket and pants, all made of satin. He has a white shirt with a high collar and long cuffs, both embroidered with small white roses and his face is gunmetal grey, glistening like new poured lead, with a blue lightning flash emblazoned from his forehead down to his chin, from which peer silver eyes.

He is a player; I have no doubt about that. And after I take in his weirdness, I look left to see what he’s done to Sally.

Sally stands there encased in grey stone, like a flash dried mud casing. She can’t move, but there are holes for her eyes, which blink and for her mouth.

I hear breath rasping through the stony opening. At least she is alive, whatever he’s done to her.

‘Who are you? What the hell are you doing this for?’

‘Just give me your potions. You must have made some here. That’s what people do.’

‘What if I don’t?’

‘Then I’ll turn your friend Cold so the Old Dark Ones can gobble up her brains. Or maybe I’ll do that to you and she can cough up the potions.’

I glance at Sally. I hardly know her, but I like her and I don’t want that fate for anyone. And anyway, I can always make more potions. I shrug and put my ten health potions on the bench.

‘In the bag, brother. In the bag.’ The lightning faced man holds out a tiny cloth bag. I think there is no way all the potions will fit in. He must guess what I am thinking because he says, ‘It’s a Bag of Holding, slowcoach. Just chuck them in.’

With a sigh, I drop potion after potion into the apparently bottomless bag.

‘Nice, fine. Good boy. Any more health pots?’

I shake my head.

He tilts his head. ‘You aren’t shitting me are you, good boy?’

‘No. Why would I?’

‘You’d be surprised. Some people lie. Mana potions?’

‘Okay.’ I give him both of the pink potions.

He licks his lips. ‘Now soma. I don’t use it myself, but I know plenty who do and who will pay.’

I’ve given them all to Sally. I don‘t speak.

He frowns. ‘Don‘t make me ask again.’

I say, ‘I don‘t have any.’

He stares at me like he is trying to read me. ‘I don‘t believe you,’ he says. ‘Everyone makes Soma here.’

‘I don‘t have any.’

His voice is cold. ‘I mean it. I will off you both, then it‘s off to the Nameless City to get eaten by monsters from the code.’

Sally needs to give him the potions. But she is turned to stone. I don‘t know what to do.

Then he must have worked out my dilemma. ‘She has them?’ he asks.

I shrug and he laughs.

I look at her turned to stone and say, ‘You’ll need to free her to get them.’

He shrugs. ‘No problemo.’ He reaches into a little leather pouch. I see he has an array of them tied to a leather belt around his black velvet coat. With a flick of dust, the stone casing falls from Sally and she staggers forward.

‘Potions, princess,’ he says.

She sneers at him. ‘You killed De La Croix!’

‘Yeah, so what? He’ll re-spawn. Potions. Now. All of them.’

She pulls out a blue health potion.

‘Yeah, yeah, good, but no cigar. I’ll take it, but I want the good stuff.’

Sally puts the blue potion into the Bag of Holding he holds out.

He raises his grey eyebrows. ‘You’re making me mad. Soma.’

Sally groans and brings out two glistering vials of golden soma. The robber smiles and beckons with his free hand while she drops the two bottles into the bag.

Then she stops. He gives a low laugh. ‘You can’t kid a kidder. I see it in your eyes. You got more. Cough them up.’

She brings out another two more glowing bottles.

‘Yeah, and more. Make it easy on yourself.’

‘That’s all I’ve got.’

‘Like shit.’ With a movement quick as a striking serpent, his lithe fingers dip into a little leather bag and flick granules of salt at her.

I know how that feels.

She shouts in pain and falls back, rubbing at her blinded eyes.

He laughs, even his voice sounding metallic now, ‘Blindness is cool. I love salt for that.’ His eyes dart to me. ‘Don’t move, or I will stick a spear through you. I don’t enjoy killing players, but I’ll do it.’ His voice is a snarl. I don’t doubt he can kill me. He is some kind of high level alchemist class and this is only over a few potions. A simple robbery. Give him what he wants and let him leave. Sally is blinded. ‘Make me see again,’ she says.

‘Soma, soma, soma. Give it up, c’mon.’ Lightning face snarls more while Sally, realising he’s beaten her, produces the bottles.

When he’s got them all, Lightning Face ties up his Bag of Holding, gives a mock salute. ‘Nice doing business with you.’

Then as if as an afterthought, he cures her blindness and disappears in a puff of smoke.

‘Who the hell was that?’ I ask when he’s gone.

Sally looks grim.

‘What’s up?’ I ask.

She shakes her head. ‘I have no more soma. In a few hours, I’m going to rattle really bad.’

I remember what that is like.