Things proceeded as normal for the next couple of days. Physical Fitness in the morning, weapons drill then hand to hand combat. Our skills improved a bit but nothing startling.

The third day we were to do independent study after lunch. I got called to meet with Drill Sergeant instead.

“Okay Resnick, you’re going to have your first session in the lab to work on your alchemy.” Bidlack stated. “That means you’ll be working with Doctor Mingelt directly. You WILL be respectful to him at all times. Got it?”

“Yes, Drill Sergeant.” I affirmed.

“You will not ask him any annoying questions and will keep it solely on the topic of alchemy. Got it?” He told me, looming overhead. His smokey the bear hat put me in shadow so looking up at him all I saw was silhouette.

“Yes, Drill Sergeant.” I again said in a loud and thunderous voice.

He looked me up and down with that gimlet eye, then finally nodded. “Okay, follow me.” Bidlack turned and strode to the stairs. I had to jog to keep up with his long, human legs.

We ventured up the stairs. The stairwell was in a tower attached to the main keep, where all of us stayed. There were narrow windows on each floor, more arrow slits than proper windows, I suppose. I could just see through the bottom and treasured those glimpses of the outside.

The castle seemed to be located squarely in a pass from one valley to another, nearly filling the gap between snow and spruce covered peaks. Workers were all over the walls and machinery, like the gears that dropped the portcullis. I got the feeling this place hadn’t been well maintained in a while, but that was getting turned around now.

The village in the valley was small but appeared industrious. The houses were mostly round with thatched roofs. Each with a little yard and garden in the back. I could see chickens scratching the dirt around many of them and a few dogs sleeping in the sun. A very fat pig made his way slowly up the road, weaving between laden wagons pulled by horses or mules.

Then we were in the hallway with the Doctor’s office. Bidlack raised a hand to knock on the door, but before he did, he pointed directly at my nose. “Best behavior. You will not enjoy the consequences if I get a negative report.” Then he knocked.

“Come in!” called the doctor.

Drill Sergeant pushed the door open. “Trainee Rushnick reporting, sir. Hoping to learn alchemy.”

Mingelt stood beside one of the low platforms with a monstrous bipedal skeleton of some sort on it. He was manipulating the spine with a complicated looking brass tool. Looking up, his right eye was made huge by the monocle that covered it. “Well, come in.”

I walked past Drill Sergeant Bidlack, feeling his blistering glare on the back of my head. “Good Afternoon Doctor.” I said, standing at Parade Rest, feet roughly shoulder width apart, with hands clasped behind my back.

The doctor looked me up and down, which looked ridiculous with his one huge eye, then let the monocle fall onto its chain. “Alchemy is it? What do you know of the Nature Science? Hmm?” the doctor asked, rapid fire.

“I know the basics. It’s weird, the knowledge is just there. Like it was downloaded into my head without studying or anything.” I confessed.

“Yes. That is something particular to you world walkers. Quite fascinating.” The doctor stroked his chin for a moment. “But on to the lesson. Let us go to this table. I’ve prepared simple ingredients and a notebook.”

On the table was a big glass jug of a clear liquid, a mortar and pestle and several piles of variously colored dust. There were also four small branches with leaves attached. One had red leaves fading to orange. Another had brown leaves fading to black. One had white leaves fading to blue. The fourth’s leaves were almost completely translucent with occlusions of white.

“Before you are ingredients containing strong humors of the various elements. You can combine them to form reagents. Using your alchemical recipes, you may then make elixirs.” He gestured to the stuff laid out on the table.

“Uh, humors? Sir?” I asked, momentarily confused.

“I thought you had the basics? Hmm?” The little man cocked his head at me. I got the impression he was a bird studying a worm. “Ah well, the humors are formally known as The Elemental Humors. They are Air, Earth, Fire and Water. These are the basic building blocks of all life on this world.”

As he spoke the knowledge bloomed in my mind. It was like he was saying things I’d always known but had never heard before. An odd sensation, to be sure.

“Let’s take you, for instance. You’re a dwarf. All living things have all four basic humors within them, well…” He paused for a moment, mouth quirked. “Most living things. Elementals are pure and some extraplanar entities have odd elemental balances, but all native life on this world outside of the elementals has the basic four humors.”

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Doctor Mingelt started pacing. He gestured as he spoke. “You, a dwarf, have a humor imbalance common to your people. Your fire and earth humors are far stronger than your air and water humors. It’s why you are so dense and your body temperature is so high. You can stand heat exceptionally well but wither in the cold. Elves are the opposite, mostly air and water, so they can handle extreme cold but wither in the heat. Humans are a precise balance of the four.”

I nodded. That made sense. I’d used my weight as a weapon and had noticed Hera doing the same without really thinking about the cause of it.

“If you don’t mind me asking, sir. What about the other races? Gnomes, ogres, felinoids and sauroids?” I asked.

“We are all descended from humans, so our humors are balanced. Created during the Arcanist Wars long ago.” He told me.

That was interesting. “Are there races descended from elves and dwarves?”

“Oh yes, but mainly monstrous ones. The mist reavers that menace the coast are elven derived, as are frost giants. Stone Giants are just really big dwarves with elevated earth humors. Magmen are dwarves with elevated fire humor. Something about modifying races that are already unbalanced creates monsters. But we’re veering off topic!” He pointed a finger up into the air. “You’re here to learn alchemy, not monstrology.”

I nodded again. “So,” he said. “the simplest of recipes are elixirs. We shall create those first.” The doctor looked me up and down again. “What do you think would help you the most? Hardened Skin, Diffraction, Dodge or Heat Shimmer? All are available as relatively simple elixirs and I have the ingredients for them here.”

“Well…” I thought for a while, “I don’t know anything more about them than their names, but dodging attacks seems better than being hit by them. So dodge?”

“Good enough. Get the mortar and pestle and crush up the sky tree leaves, not the branch.” The doctor told me.

I looked helplessly at the ingredients, having no idea which one was sky tree leaves. “Ah, the translucent leaves with white.” He said once he saw the look on my face.

I got the leaves and crushed them, using the mortar and pestle to grind them up. While I was doing this, I asked, “Doctor, what’s a sky tree?” They let out a refreshing scent as I made them into paste sort of like the breeze right before a storm.

Doctor Mingelt had a few comments on my pestle technique. While he was commenting on that, he said, “They are the flying trees that come from the west pole. Sky elves live in them.” He then directing me to bear down and really crush up the leaves. That left more questions than it answered. West pole, like as opposed to the north pole? Sky elves? I shook my head and got back to grinding. Before too long, they were a light gray paste.

“Very good. Now put the paste into that glass bowl.” He pointed. I scraped the grayish goo into the bowl. It was a thick glass, not clear like modern plastic but wavy. There were also threads around the top, like for a screw. I saw another bowl about the same size right beside where I got this one. It looked like it could be the top.

“Now, how many doses of this elixir do you want to make?” The doctor asked.

“Four I guess.” I shrugged.

“Four it is. Take the liquid in that carafe.” Mingelt told me. I grabbed the jug of clear liquid. Accidentally getting a whiff of it, this was definitely not water. Vinegar maybe?”

“Take the glass bulb and fill it to the fourth mark.” I was directed. I found the glass bulb. It was about the size of a softball and had a single hole with threads at the top. There were thin black markings on the side of the bulb. I poured the vinegar into the clear sphere to the fourth marking.

“Very good.” The doctor nodded. “Now, screw the brass fitting on that hose into the top of the bulb. Make sure it is fitted tight.”

There was a vertical glass tube that had a leather hose coming out of the top. That hose had the brass fitting he was talking about. It fitted perfectly into the hole in the bulb, obviously made for it. I screwed it in tight.

Doctor Mingelt moved the bowl with the past under the tube connected to the hose. I noticed at the bottom was a very narrow fitting, almost like a dropper. He picked up a flat spoon and handed it to me. “That measuring spoon accurately gets you 1 part. So when a recipe calls for 1 part vinegar and one part air essence, this is the part. Each line in that bulb is a part of vinegar. Precisely as a part of vinegar hits the bowl you use this spoon to add a part of air essence. Do you understand?”

“Yes sir. Using the spoon to measure a part of air essence, that’s the white powder, I add the spoon full of essence just as a part of vinegar hits the bowl.” I said, repeating it to be sure I had it right.

“Okay, drain the bulb into the tube.” The doctor told me. I held it up so that all the vinegar drained into the cylinder.

“Now, once you turn the key at the bottom, the vinegar will begin to drip out at a controlled rate. Don’t forget, precisely as a part of vinegar is added to the bowl, you add a part of air essence.” He told me. I nodded and fill the spoon with air essence powder.

“Are you ready?” The doctor asked.

“Yes, sir.” I said, getting tense.

“Turn the key.” He told me.

I reached down and turned the brass key at the bottom of the glass cylinder. The vinegar began to drip out at a steady pace. It was quick but not so fast that it would cause problems. As the contents of the cylinder slowly drained from the fourth mark towards the third, I poured the spoonful of essence into the recipe.

“NO!” cried the doctor. “Precisely!” He shook his little head. “Let it all drain out and begin again.” He had me go over to a sink with a big tank of water in the air beside it. I could pull a lanyard and water would rush down into the sink. I used it to wash all the hoses, bulbs, cylinders, bowls and everything else until they met the doctor’s exacting standards.

He had me start again. Then again, and again and again. He was getting frustrated and ran his hand through his thinning hair when I finally got it something like right.

Alchemy check successful. Dodge elixir successfully created.

YES! I started to dance around the room before realizing the doctor was watching me cavort. He smiled, “Yes, celebrate. You may place these in vials, be sure to cork them. Then get out of my laboratory. I’ve wasted entirely too much time on you today.” The gnome turned away and continued mumbling over the monstrous skeleton.

I put the four elixirs into four clay jars with thick wooden stoppers. Looking over at the doctor, he was paying me no attention. I grabbed a few extra jars and skipped out of the lab.