“Achoo!” Caleb sneezed as he stepped out of the shade of the temple.
After Sister Willah’s fiery speech and a moment of prayer with the village, the temple services continued. Sister Willah read several stories from her book - mostly cautionary tales or about heroes of the faith - followed by some singing and another session of guided prayer. All together, the service took up most of the morning, the sun high overhead when they left.
When Caleb had left the premises, the pressure on me was released as if it was never there. That didn’t mean I was looking forward to the next time, whenever that would be. It was infuriating how I was so severely lacking in the local common sense and how nobody talked about that sort of stuff because it was, you know, common sense! I knew I’d figure this stuff out in time, but it still sucked not knowing these things.
After the crowd had been released from the temple, most stayed nearby and mingled with their friends and family as the younger children played. Elder Huga approached the family at this time and, although they tried to hide it, the parents scrunched their noses briefly when she got near. The healer either didn’t notice or didn’t care, but it reminded me of her concern about the smell that alchemy apparently created. I didn’t want Caleb to be an outcast because of something as minor as smell, so I put “deodorant powers” on my mental to-do list.
After greeting the family and some minor pleasantries about the weather and whatnot, she turned to Caleb and made him an offer.
“I can make my own poultice?!” He exclaimed.
“With heavy supervision and aid,” Huga stressed, “but yes.”
This surprised me because it had only been a few days since he’d started learning about the many herbs. The book that Elder Huga had given to Caleb had hundreds of herbs and plants documented in its covers. She’d only covered a handful of them in their lessons, and as studious as Caleb was, he still only had a surface-level understanding of all of them.
I, of course, had memorized everything from the book when Caleb flipped through the pages. Just because I didn’t find alchemy that interesting, didn’t mean I would dismiss an obviously valuable resource. Experiments with alchemy would have to wait though, until I could get my hands on some proper equipment and ingredients though.
Elder Huga had shooed him off to her house saying she’d meet him there after talking to his parents. He’d excitedly taken off at that, so he didn’t hear what she’d said to his parents once he was out of earshot.
Out of his earshot, not mine.
“Are you sure he’s ready for that? I mean he only just started learning, didn’t he?” Lucille asked, mimicking my thoughts exactly.
Elder Huga nodded. “I figured, after the last couple of days, he could use a win.”
She didn’t know the half of it. My host had inherited most if not all of the original Caleb’s memories and feelings, including his traumas. On top of that were my host’s original traumas, particularly their death. Adding the insane and impossible scenario of transmigrating to a different world and getting a magical system (me), I’m surprised he hasn’t had a complete breakdown yet.
I didn’t have much experience with helping people deal with trauma and I was afraid to make it worse. I probably already was, to be honest. Popping up now and again just to tell him what to do surely wasn’t good emotional support.
I tamped down on the feelings of regret and guilt building inside me. What’s done is done and now I have to focus on growing both myself and Caleb to be able to handle whatever the world throws at us.
After a few minutes of running through the village, Caleb arrived at Elder Huga’s house. He entered and immediately went to work, grabbing tools and ingredients from drawers and cabinets. He laid all that he had gathered neatly out on the table and then set a fire under the cauldron.
Yes. An honest to gods cauldron.
I looked at the assortment of plant parts and had to remind myself of the magic I had already seen. There may not be X-Ray machines or MRIs here, but that didn’t mean they didn’t know what they were doing.
“. . .wait, did he forget to put water in the cauldron?” I thought and looked again. “Yes. Yes, he did.”
Luckily Caleb noticed it too and hastily made to put the fire out with a blanket he grabbed off one of the beds. Caleb’s attempts to put out the fire were not successful. In fact, as he slapped the blanket over the fire it sent embers scattering into the rest of the house. I couldn’t have him burning the village down so I grabbed the errant embers and shoved them in my Inventory space. I decided to do the same with the tops of the logs and the fire slowly died out.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Caleb saw the light dim under his frantically waving blanket, which had thankfully obscured his view. I wanted to maintain the illusion of an omnipotent but hands-off system. Of which, I was neither, currently.
Elder Huga chose this moment to appear, shoving the door aside and bursting into the house. She quickly zeroed in on Caleb, sitting on the floor clutching a singed blanket as smoke wafted from the fireplace. The look on her face shifted from worry to relief after seeing that he was alright. Then she put on an exasperated expression and marched over to where he was sitting.
“I saw the smoke from the chimney and just knew you were doing something stupid.” She chastised. “What part of ‘heavy supervision’ did you not understand?”
“Now, let me take a look at you” She crouched down beside Caleb and pinched his face, moving his head around to examine him. Then she moved down to the rest of his body, lifting his arms and checking his fingers until she was satisfied.
“Well, you’re lucky to still have your eyebrows, but otherwise you’re fine.”
While her words were blunt and harsh, her tone was filled with relief and care. That didn’t stop tears from welling up in Caleb’s eyes or him burying his face in his hands to hide the fact.
Elder Huga’s eyes softened as she began to coo to him and gently rub his back.
“I’m sorry,” Caleb said between sniffles, “I just. . . I thought I could do it and I got excited and-”
“Shuuush, little one. I understand. But excitement must be tempered with patience. Alchemy is not just throwing ingredients in a pot and stirring it up. We’re not cooks after all.”
Caleb chuckled at her joke as he dried his eyes.
“Now, do you still want to make that poultice?” She asked.
Caleb nodded and she pulled him to his feet.
For the next couple of hours, they were hunched over the table cutting, scraping, and grinding the ingredients as they needed. For all that Elder Huga had said that they weren’t cooks, they could have fooled me as she literally sauteed some chopped up roots.
I wished I had the bridge of a nose to pinch as they scraped everything into the - now full - cauldron. I was about ready to give up on alchemy when Elder Huga retrieved something from one of her drawers. A stone the size of a golf ball with strange runes etched across it that were filled with silver metal.
“This is a sigil stone.” She explained to Caleb. “For those without magic, it is a crucial item for performing alchemy. It channels the ambient mana into our creations and gives them their incredible properties.”
Mana gathered and swirled around the stone like it was the center of a small whirlpool before cycling back out into the surroundings. The stone itself was just a stone, but the metal filled etchings seemed to be the true source of the stone’s effects. I was already imagining ways to experiment with the runes in my spare time.
“But Elder, I thought you could use magic.”
Elder Huga smiled mischievously and leaned over as if to whisper him a secret.
“It’s also way easier to just let it do all the hard work for us.” I thought back to when she healed Caleb and how exhausted she looked afterward. I guess just because she can doesn’t mean she always does.
She took the stone and lowered it into the cauldron with a ladle. The mana surrounding the stone began to diffuse through the mixture, being absorbed by the ingredients through the water.
When the mana reached the edge of the water, markings and engravings on the cauldron - that I had foolishly dismissed as decorative activated. The mana flowed through the channels of the cauldron and left with the new purpose of improving the effects of the ingredients.
Visibly, nothing had changed in the bubbling water. The mana leaving no trace of its effects except for the stone at the bottom of the pot, now softly glowing. Elder Huga stirred the pot every few minutes, but otherwise left it alone as she explained why the exact ratios they had used were so important. Namely, for the most potency with the least unwanted effects.
After about fifteen minutes, they put out the fire and let the mixture cool before straining it. I was surprised when Elder Huga just pushed the bucket of mana-infused water to the side and focused on the ingredients instead. Caleb apparently shared my curiosity and questioned her about it.
“Some of the essence of the ingredients was diffused into the water, along with the mana. But making a poultice from the ingredients is still much more effective than making a potion from the water. Only powerful alchemists can make true potions like Dragon’s Breath or a Stone Skin potion.” She explained.
She grabbed some pouches made from what looked like cheesecloth from another drawer and showed Caleb to stuff them with the poultice.
“Oh, that reminds me!”
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You’ve completed the Quest: Little Alchemist!
You’ve been rewarded 10 XP
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You have earned an Achievement!
Achievement: Alchemist (I)
Description: You have created your first alchemical product!
Reward: 10 XP
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XP to next level (99/100)
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Caleb was obviously getting used to having my glowing blue boxes pop up as he managed to maintain a neutral expression this time. He read over the notifications quickly before his eyes went wide at how close he was to the next level.
I almost gave him an extra 5 XP just to get him the rest of the way there, but it didn’t seem the time or the place for the big reveal.
Caleb’s face was split by his massive grin as he finished stuffing the last of the poultice into a pouch. Elder Huga smiled fondly at him as she showed him where they would store the pouches. She hung them on a rack to dry, explaining she would rehydrate them when they needed to be used.
They cleaned up after themselves, storing ingredients they didn’t use for later and wiping down tools. Caleb remembered something and told Elder Huga how the village chief had agreed to teach him how to fight. She said she would sort out a schedule with the chief to share Caleb’s time and then shooed him off back to his home for the evening.
Caleb made his way home cautiously but remained unaccosted. I hadn’t seen the bully trio among the crowd at the temple, perhaps they were under house arrest of some kind?
Anyway, Caleb’s good mood was for all to see as he ate dinner with his family, a smile plastered on his face.
“Is making wet grass really that fun?” his sister, Alice, questioned. Caleb looked at her with a twinkle of excitement in his eye.
“Oh, I’m just looking forward to tomorrow and all it brings.”