“How’s it coming along?”

Eik smiled brightly as Olivia walked into the new Eik’s Excellent Elixirs. Ever since she’d recovered she’d been spoiled by all of her friends, and she was enjoying it immensely.

For the first few days after waking up from the coma she had taken it easy, brain fog making her languid and confused. At this point she had been treated thoroughly by a B-rank healer and the injuries she’d sustained from Bart’s senseless beating while unconscious. She insisted that she would be ready to get back into the thick of it very soon. Eik wasn’t so sure that was a good idea.

The grief from losing her mother had made her restless. She tried to act unaffected — the world was one were people died suddenly, after all — but to Eik she was easy to see through. Travis and Jake, who had made it back wounded but alive, as well as many others had helped keep her from the battlefield.

But they couldn’t hold her back forever. A B-ranker with unresolved frustrations wasn’t good for anybody.

“I think I’ve managed to build up a pretty decent supply by now,” Eik said and tapped a finger on one of several large, transparent glass flasks lined up on a table along the wall. Dark purple liquid swirled lazily inside.

“What’s this? Like a thousand vials’ worth?” Olivia asked, studying it up close.

“Something like that, yeah. But some of it is going to the market in Gimleh. I have to make enough back in alliance credits to buy at least enough ingredients to produce a portion equal to what I sell.”

“How are you feeling?”

Eik looked down his arms, bandages covering every inch of skin. Even after a round of treatment by the same B-ranker that saved Olivia, the wounds simply reappeared as if Profound Toxin still ravaged his body. If nothing else it served as a reminder that the new Backflow trait of Profound Toxin was a force to be reckoned with.

It had allowed him to directly take the life of a legitimate C-ranker despite being the equivalent of a D-ranker himself but had broken his body in return. He was almost certain that it was a matter of getting Resistance: Toxin to a point where it was strong enough to simply negate the destructive effects of the poison.

Unfortunately, even though he had almost been killed by it, his Resistance: Toxin hadn’t leveled up even once. Backflow combined with Noxious Invigoration might well be his strongest weapon in direct combat. Profound Toxin itself was of course strong enough to be effective against even an A-ranker, even when he had been only E-rank himself, something he found out during the Great Raid to bring down the lake serpent.

“Okay, I guess. Definitely getting better. My body still feels a little heavy but I can live with that. I finally slept through the night yesterday.”

“Good,” she said and gave him a tight hug. Eik almost felt like crying with relief at her touch.

"And what about Bart's death? How do you feel about that?"

He shrugged. "Alright, to be honest. It was a matter of time as far as I was concerned. Every time I met him, he was crazier, angrier, and stronger. I wasn't going to let him kill anybody I love," he said, voice steady. "But I'm kind of surprised that nobody's come after me for it."

"First of all, for someone like Boulder Fist Gary, I doubt even his son's death would be enough to announce in indirect defeat to everybody like that. His pride and power is priority one always. It's been like that ever since I first met him."

Eik nodded.

"And," she continued. "now that I'm awake, you're connected to this super alliance I've been told about, and your potions have shot you from relatively important to very important, they can't just come after you."

"Yeah... Thanks for waking up," he chuckled.

“What are you working on?” she asked, pouring herself a glass of water and looking over his shoulder as he went back to his project.

Eik carefully dripped a stabilizer into the mix of ingredients through a pipette. With a spoon he mashed and stirred it until it had become more or less a soup. “It’s actually a pretty simple one for me at this point. It’s supposed to make the body more resistant to damage. You know the Fortitude skill? Heath has it.”

She nodded.

“Well, kind of like that.”

“How strong is it?”

He shrugged. “Beats me. First time I’m making it. It’s ideal for E-rankers, so… whatever that means.”

“How does it work?”

"Don’t really know that either. Magic?”

She ruffled his hair. “Shouldn’t you know that kind of stuff as the creator?”

Grumbling, he pushed her hand away. “This is not an exact science, Oli. I’m just the guy who lucked into it. See this?” he said and showed her his palm, the thick, white Ak’ki gathering obediently into a crudely shaped model of a tree that swayed as if in a gentle breeze. “Controlling my ability and controlling this is essentially the same feeling.”

She failed to hold back a smile. “I still can’t believe you’re a D-ranker now when you weren’t even an Awakened when I got hit. And everything that’s happened since… The world has changed so much in such a short time — and from what I’ve heard you’ve done so much to help, even if not everybody can see that.”

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She pulled him into another hug. “I’m just so proud of you, little Eik. And I know Torbjørn would have been as well. He didn’t want to put pressure on you but when it was just the two of us he was always talking about your future. How he just knew that you would become something big. Someone who would help others.”

Tears threatened to break through and he wiped his eyes with the hand around her neck. “You trying to make me cry, idiot?” he mumbled into her hair.

She laughed. “Maybe.” He could hear the tears in her voice.

“Well, it’s not going to work.” The ingredients reacted slightly to the aura as he went back to the mix. This would not attack him, but it could break down and lose all power in an instant if he wasn’t careful.

A knock on the door almost made him put too much power into it. “Can you get the door for me, please?”

With his hand lifted to knock again, a young man stood on the step outside. “Ah, yes, hello, I’m looking for E—”

A shock seemed to run through him as his face froze in an expression that teetered between fear and disbelief. “I—, ah, uhm… You’re… You’re Olivia Valkiri…” he finally managed to get out.

“One and the same. And you are?”

“I-I thought you were d-dead. You were always my favorite Awakened!” His eyes sparkled like little stars.

Olivia chuckled. “I was just out of commission for a while after a tough fight. My brother here made sure I got better though,” she said with a gesture to Eik who lifted a hand in greeting. “I’m guessing he’s the one you’re looking for.”

“You’re Eik Magnasen?”

“Yep.”

“Eik Magnasen’s s-sister is Olivia Valkiri?” he stammered.

Eik looked up, the corners of his lips twitching. “Pretty much, yeah. What can I help you with?”

“Huh…?”

“Or did you just come to hang out? That’s cool with me.”

“Right, no! My name is Robert Barnes. I was sent to officially request your presence at a gathering of the leaders of Forest. They’ve been trying to get in contact with you for a few days but haven’t been able to find you.”

Eik nodded. “Been running around between here and the alliance world a bunch.”

“I see…” the young man said, his jaw falling hanging slightly loose as he stared obliviously. “So, like, what’s it like over there? I can’t even imagine!”

Eik arched an eyebrow. This guy seemed to be extremely prone to conversational tangents. But then again, who was he to talk?

“It’s actually pretty Earth-like. Like, architecture and design. People have gardens, houses, and cafe’s and stuff like that. It’s not so different downtown.”

“Downtown?” the young man asked.

“Yeah, you know, because the gigantic palace as big as a major city is raised above the town like some kind of divine megalith. That’s something else.”

“A palace?” Robert exclaimed. “Did you get to go in?”

“Of course! I’m something of an important man around here, if you hadn’t noticed.” Eik noted, Olivia nearly choking on her water as she tried to suppress a snort of laughter. “What?” he asked with a glare.

“Have you met any aliens?” Robert asked.

“Yeah, all kinds. For example, I saw a guy that looked like he had evolved from an insect instead of a primate. Pretty wicked to see in real life.”

“Yo, what, that’s crazy!” the young man whooped. Eik wondered if it was possible to hire this guy to play hype man for him everywhere he went.

“I know, right? Anyway, you said something about the leadership wanting to see me?”

“Yes, at the administration building near the city center. Shall I tell them you’ll be there in, say, a couple of hours?”

“No.”

“Wai— Huh? P-Pardon?” Robert said with hesitation, his face turning into a question mark.

“That troop of sour old ghouls can drag their asses down here if they have something to say to me.”

Olivia slapped him across the shoulder. “I told you to stop talking like that, Eik. Be nice!”

He pulled a face as he realized that he had to explain a few things to justify this one. He told her about the attack on Heath during the Great Raid, how a faction within Forest had harassed him, and how any sort of fair investigation of events had been thrown straight in the garbage.

As he recounted his experience, his sister’s face went from mild annoyance directed at him to a visage of fury with an entirely different target. “They really did that to you?” she asked when he finished speaking.

“Yeah.” He kept his nose in the cauldron, trying to appear nonchalant. Robert, who was still standing in the open door, looked exceedingly uncomfortable and taken aback by what he’d just heard. But then again, with how those snakes ran things, he doubted some young sproutling like Robert was really privy to anything going on behind closed doors. He was more than likely less informed than Eik himself.

Olivia patted Robert on the shoulder, smiling apologetically. “I’m sorry to make you the bearer of bad news, but tell those stinky fart sniffers that Eik doesn’t have to answer to them and that if they have a problem with that, they can take it up with me.”

The young man’s lower lip quivered as he tried to keep a straight face at the insults. If he worked for them on the daily he had probably already thought that and more. He bowed politely, to hide his grin if Eik had to make a guess.

“Understood. I’ll relay your words to Mr. Kerman precisely… almost.”

Robert left and Eik went back to work. Olivia just watched him concentrate. Seeing her alive was a greater relief than he could ever have imagined. Her presence alone filled him with such a sense of security and calm that he felt like he could take on anything. He also wanted to soon bring her into the small circle of people in the know about his Worldbreaker ability.

After a few minutes he sat back. “I’ve been thinking.”

“Hmm?”

“Maybe I should ask Mikla to take me to my hometown.”

She answered without hesitation. “That’s a great idea, Eik. From the moment I heard about fracture travel, I wondered why you hadn’t done it already.”

“Oli, I’m scared. What if they’re not there? What if they’re dead?” Suddenly his hands were trembling uncontrollably.

She scooted her chair closer and put her arm around his shoulder. “Both you boys agonized over it for so many years. Torbjørn cried himself to sleep often, worrying about your family. I know you did too. After all these years it’s been easier, but I know you still can’t stop thinking about them.”

He buried his face in his hands. She continued.

“All these ‘what if’s’, Eik. It’s too much to carry. You owe it to yourself to get some closure, even if it’s bad news.”

She was right. He knew that. Her exact reasoning had been on repeat in his mind ever since he’d had that talk with Michael back at headquarters. He’d known since the day Atla abducted him that a fracture could be the solution to his worries but with the ability to confront his fear suddenly at his fingertips, he had found it difficult to actually do it.

“How about we go together then?” she suggested. “I only ever met your parents once and I miss them too.”

“Thanks, Oli.”

***

The Potion of the Metal Body class 1 was completed and bottled in two and a half hours. It was a much more delicate creation process that Potion of Mighty Strength class 1 so he couldn’t just burn through it by using the suppressive power of Profound Toxin. It would make it more difficult to mass produce in the same way. This product too was going to go faster than a pair of skis made of butter.

He had made enough for a medium sized flask. Olivia was helping him stuff it into his rucksack of holding — a magical item he had promised to help her get her hands on — when there was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” he called.

“Mr. Magnasen,” Robert said as he stepped carefully inside. “I’ve been asked to pass another message to you.”

“They really can’t get off their asses, huh?” the alchemist grumbled. “What is it then?”

“Ahem,” he ahem’d as he closed the door behind him. “My name is Robert Barnes and I’ve come to officially deliver a message on behalf of the leaders of Forest.”

“Go on.”

“It is with the greatest pleasure that we inform Eik Magnasen of his reappointment as liaison of Earth as it relates to the dealings with the Nidafjeld Alliance.”