Sieva squints down at the too small cauldron bubbling in front of him and tries his best to not let any sweat from his forehead drip into it. From behind, Gibet hands him a vial the size of his pinky.

‘Ok, now add five drops. Do it over two second intervals.’

He’s on the third drop when a mushroom gets shoved into his face.

‘Rhythm’s changing. Skip the last two and add the Bindleshroom.’

‘What the fuck? Why?’

‘Just do it!’

Sieva stares at the mushroom being dangled in front of him for a few more moments before Gibet all but pushes it into his face.

‘Hurry up! It’s boiling over!’

‘Wh-... Shit! Ok, uhhhh…’

The next minute is a flurry of activity as Sieva tries to grind the mushroom into paste. Just as he’s about to toss it into the pot, the liquid suddenly starts violently frothing and changes color from light green to white. The whole room suddenly smells overwhelming like pine needles and honey.

‘...Too late. You should have added it when I told you instead of wasting precious seconds staring at the mushroom.’

‘How in the fuck did you even decide to skip three steps and go directly to adding Bindleshroom?’

‘Were you going to add everything according to the recipe?’

‘...Yes?’

‘Why? The next three steps all add things meant to stabilize the potion in prep for the Bindleshroom. We’re not in season right now, so any Bindleshrooms you’d have would be way less potent and you wouldn’t need it. Why would you waste stabilizers if you don’t need them? All it's going to do is water down the efficiency of the potion when it’s already weak because of us being out of season.’

Sieva throws his hands up in frustration and tries his best not to upturn the pot in frustration.

‘How the hell would I know that?!’

‘How the hell wouldn’t you? Stop looking at the recipe and think about the individual ingredients and what they add to the recipe!’

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‘No you idiot! I’m talking about the Bindleshroom! I’m not a Kepian native god dammit! I don’t know things like when certain ingredients are in season or not, and the fact that nobody keeps a general catalog of plants is fucking ridiculous! You obviously have books, so why the hell don’t you have a detailed encyclopedia?!’

‘There’s literally one that comes as part of your textbook list?’

‘That thing only tells me what each plant does! When is stuff in season? How much does potency get affected by being out of season? There’s nothing like that in the books!’

‘Didn’t the professors brew out examples? Just try to emulate the mana.’

‘I can’t! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you! I don’t sense mana! Everybody here talks about copying the magical essence, but I can’t sense shit!’

‘...Why the hell did you come to a school dedicated to potion crafting if you can’t sense magic?’

‘Gods… really? I swear some of you alchemist types wouldn’t know your own backyard with how sheltered you are. This place doesn’t just specialize in alchemy, you know? I’m trying to become a L-A-W-Y-E-R! No magic use needed!’

Gibet along with a sizable portion of the alchemists here live, breath, and eat alchemy. It’s especially annoying because some of them (like the idiot in front of him right now) don’t realize that there’s an entire other continent out there with no access to magic. Sieva wants to punch something in frustration, but refrains because the entire room is actually just Lily, and slamming a wall would be the equivalent of slapping her.

Prefects were held to very high standards both in terms of academics and behavior. He was plenty confident in his grades and had no problems with other students, but the practical alchemy class proved to be a rather large hurdle given that he couldn’t sense jack shit when brewing. Studying law in Kepia still required some basic alchemy competency, which he still seemed to lack despite multiple late nights with Gibet.

‘Look, why don’t you just wait until the Remembrance Festival and just do a joint project for credit instead of taking the class? Your knowledge on ingredients and potion theory is actually pretty decent, so why not just join some other students and submit a potion during the brewing competition?

A growl of frustration bubbles up from his throat. The joint project could definitely give him enough credit to pass the class, and was in fact probably designed specifically for cases like his, but it would mean taking on yet another time-consuming venture in his already packed schedule.

Finding teammates, deciding on and researching an appropriately challenging potion to brew, experimenting and refining the recipes, communicating and working to maintain team dynamics, and a hundred other things taking away time he would otherwise be using for more important tasks.

He sighs and leans back, staring up at the ceiling. Gibet cocks his head at him with an unusually intense look, and he begrudgingly admits to himself that his hermit friend does have a rather uncanny ability to read others.

‘You can’t find anyone willing to partner with you?’

‘...Yes.’

There's a minute of silence, during which Gibet smirks at a wall. The room rumbles softly, in a way almost reminiscent of laughter.

‘Lily and I are forming a group. I’ve been working on ideas for a simplified Tempest recipe. I could use your help with it.’

‘Tempest? Isn’t that a class 1 potion?’

‘Doesn’t matter. I’m using low level ingredients and the recipes are completely different. Nobody’s going to know until we actually show it off, and at that point it’ll look bad for the academy’s public image if they disqualify us for it.’

‘You realize that I’m a prefect right? It’s literally in the job description for me to report you for this.’

The threat is half-hearted at best. Orcs were still relatively rare on this side of the world, and his lack of ability to do magic has drawn some rather unflattering opinions from his more magical peers. He’d almost call Gibet selfless for taking him into the group and dealing with the hit to his family reputation, but he also knows Gibet enough to recognize the upcoming trade offer.

‘So what’s the catch?’

‘I’d… like some help on something else. You said you were studying law?’

‘Yeah, why?’

‘There’s some political scheming going on in my family that I’d like some help navigating. I don’t want them knowing that I went to a professional.’

‘Of course you do. Should have expected it considering the family you come from. What are you aiming to do specifically?’

Gibet leans in towards him, and for a brief second he almost looks like a child, looking around in paranoia for listeners before whispering to him.

‘I’m trying to depose and arrest my mother.’