The job of a butcher was, essentially, to prepare dead bodies for a number of purposes — for food, for alchemy, for crafting items, to just arranging trophies.
It was an important link in the production chain, forming a connection between the delvers, farmers, and rangers and the consumers and crafters.
The trade was an opportunity for Victor to prove his own meager value to the empire, and perhaps one day it would allow him to help someone else climb even higher up the ladder.
But as he peered into the half dozen steel buckets that were to provide his materials for the day’s lesson, his heart sunk. Harold hadn’t lied — they really were nothing more than the scraps of other apprentices.
And it seemed like his peers hadn’t even had the good grace to be even slightly wasteful. Not that Victor could truly blame them.
Only a single bucket was even moderately interesting — the one with the slimy black ooze and shredded bits of Ichor Dripper — clearly identifiable solely by the intensely acrid stench.
With a cough, Victor leaned back and glanced at the open tome beside it. The book was spread open to the very middle, brilliant white, completely blank pages staring back at him.
Victor sighed. As he recalled from the night prior, the tome had promise mastery over the manipulation of life and death — and what lies between, he remembered with a roll of his eyes. Well, here he was, instructed to do something with nothing more than the leftovers of some fairly common monster corpses — what better way to begin experimenting?
Eyeing the book skeptically, he licked his lips. “Think you can give me a little help here?”
To his moderate surprise, the book responded immediately, as line after line of the alien, flowing script etched itself across the first page and the top half of the second, followed by what appeared to be a simple illustration manifesting at the bottom.
Picking up the tome, Victor read the bolded title.
Elixir of Induced Vomiting: Rank 1 Recipe
That… didn’t sound particularly pleasant. Nevertheless, Victor couldn’t help but become increasingly excited. How much information did his Focus contain?
Continuing down the page, Victor carefully read through the entire text. It was simple enough — he doubted the elixir would take him any longer than a quarter of an hour to finish. In fact, he already had all of the ingredients right here in his personal laboratory, so he wouldn’t have to make a trip to the stockroom…
Victor frowned. Eyeing the book suspiciously, he set it back down on the table and rubbed his chin. How did you know that?
Shaking his head, Victor decided that it was a conversation that could wait for a later time. For now, he would see how following the book’s instructions turned out for him.
It took only a couple of minutes to collect the materials — the distilled water, the various salts, the talc, and the assorted tools.
His workshop wasn’t really equipped for alchemy, of course, but Victor could easily make do.
Unfortunately, right when Victor thought it was finally time for the fun part, the burner refused to start. Cursing, he looked around for a match. No dice.
Well, it looked like he would be taking a trip to the stockroom after all.
Just as he was about to dismiss the book back to… well, wherever it was that it went when he wasn’t using it — a gentle gust of wind flipped the open pages over to a new blank section.
Victor blinked. Wind. Inside. With no open windows.
Looking around nervously, he approached the book cautiously. As he did so, midnight black lines etched themselves all across both pages. Approaching with great curiosity, Victor watched in fascination as a highly intricate geometric design expanded to cover nearly the whole paper.
There was clearly a pattern to the design, though it never fully repeated, and it also felt a bit confusing to look at — as it suddenly reminded Victor of an illustrated book of so called ‘optical illusions’ that a merchant had once shown him.
It was just abstract lines, but it somehow suggested a staggering degree of depth, as well as multiple possible interpretations of perspective.
As the drawing completed, Victor realized there were words entangled within the design. It took him a bit of effort to decipher them — though once he got the hang of it, the meaning was perfectly clear.
Conjure Fiendfire: Rank 1 Spell
At the very instant Victor finished reading, a new sensation etched itself into his mind. Frowning, Victor concentrated on the sensation. It felt as if he had gained a new limb. It didn’t feel weird at all, strangely, and it felt like he could easily ignore it if he wished.
But it was there, and he could flex it.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Taking a deep breath and running both hands through his hair, Victor considered what to do next.
What the hell. Time to fuck around and find out.
Picking up the heavy tome, Victor brought it over to the other, completely clear lab table. He didn’t want to risk breaking any of the equipment, or ruining his already meager scraps.
Raising his hands out in front of him, Victor centered himself, took a deep breath, and then pulled.
The effect was immediately apparent, as he could feel a raging energy circulating throughout his body before flowing up through his arms and into his hands. Even though he was half expecting something like it, Victor nearly yelped when shadowy crimson flames bloomed between his outstretched hands.
Wide eyed, Victor stared at the blossoming ball of fire in total awe. It was magic. He was performing magic.
The feeling of feeding the ethereal flames was exhilarating, and Victor began to pull ever harder and harder, fueling the fire with all of his might.
The flames brightened briefly, painting the entire laboratory in eerie shades of red, before suddenly spluttering out completely.
Victor staggered. A wave of total exhaustion washed over him, and it took the entirety of his willpower to stumble onto the nearest stool instead of just collapsing straight to the floor.
Shutting his eyes and taking deep breaths, Victor realized he was positively starving. To be fair, he had skipped breakfast entirely, but he hadn’t felt this hungry since his time living on the street. After several more cycles of inhaling and exhaling, Victor opened his eyes and stared down at his hands.
This was… well, it was all a bit much. He had just performed a spell, and now it felt as if he had spent the entire day running back and forth between the academy and his apartment with not a bite to eat.
It was time to admit he was in over his head.
Looking up, Victor stared at the book. His Focus.
No, this was all far beyond him. He still didn’t actually know what the consequences of the failed mission had been, and the others were expecting him this evening anyway.
He would tell Lord Harvey everything.
----------------------------------------
In the end, Victor had gone ahead and completed the elixir. While he had been tempted to try using the so called fiendfire spell to ignite the burner, he had decided better of it and made a weary trip to the supply room.
The remainder of the process had been fairly straightforward, resulting in a small vial of syrupy, foul smelling dark liquid. Harold had eyed it rather skeptically when Victor had first presented it, but did grudgingly send it over to the official alchemy lab once Victor explained his association with the renowned alchemist Lord Harvey.
Now, two hours and a deliciously crappy sandwich later — the latter of which he had scored off a first year student whose eyes were bigger than his stomach — Victor left the academy behind.
The mists had grown extra thick since the morning, choking out the ambient light and making it look like it was mid evening and not early afternoon. The wind picked up, and Victor frowned as the guard opened the gate for him. Perhaps a storm was coming.
Victor had mixed feelings about storms. On one hand, he was a bit strange in that he actually loved them. He had fond memories from his early childhood of sitting by the fireplace while rain lashed against the windows, and even now, the buildup to an incoming storm practically galvanized him, setting his hair on end.
It was a good feeling.
On the other hand, even a light rain was pretty miserable when you had nowhere warm and dry — or even enclosed — to stay.
The two opposing feelings warred inside Victor as he entered the uptown residential district through the grand, tree shaded public park directly opposite of Lord Harvey’s mansion. For the past year, this park had been one of Victor’s favorite places to be, especially now that his association with the wealthy philanthropist made him feel more welcome there.
Granted, he never remained too long, and definitely not after dark.
Not because he was worried about crime. In this particular part of the capital, that would be absurd.
Rather, he didn’t want to be tossed out by the city guard. The park was nominally open to the public, but loitering was still a crime — just one among many that was enforced unequally.
As he strolled between the trunks, Victor forced himself to think about what he would say to Lord Harvey. He doubted it would be an easy conversation, and he definitely didn’t want to end up rambling incoherently.
Let’s see… should he go purely chronologically or should he present the very most important things to know up front?
Well, Lord Harvey would probably make that particular decision for him. Victor doubted that the crime boss wouldn’t immediately begin demanding questions.
As Victor exited the park, he paused just across the wide avenue from Lord Harvey’s grand residence. He only now realized that his boss might not even know that the mission had gone sour, and might still be expecting Victor to arrive with Lord Grantly’s record book.
Victor sighed. Just another thing to make the subject more difficult. Well in any case, there was nothing to do other than get it over with.
Victor looked both ways up and down the avenue out of habit, but the street was quietly deserted. Crossing the street, he swiped his identification certificate across the enchanted panel, and the gate swung open.
The fence around Lord Harvey’s property was nothing like the one around the imperial academy. It was purely mundane, and wouldn’t be hard for a moderately athletic person to leap over if they had a running start.
No, the real security was inside, and that was also the real purpose of Victor using his identification — it let both the networked system of enchanted constructs as well as the human guards know that Victor was to be allowed easy access.
Taken altogether, the mostly invisible security ensured that it would probably be easier to get someone with a powerful combat Class to destroy the entire building than to sneak in.
As far as Victor was concerned, the mansion was the safest place he would ever step foot in — even safer for someone like him than the imperial academy.
Unlatching the front door, Victor stepped into the dimly lit entrance hall and realized something was terribly wrong.
It was between one and two o’clock, and that meant Lord Harvey should be reading in his personal study with his beloved pet cat, Sapphire, dozing in his lap.
But as soon as Victor had opened the door, the snow white feline ran up to him with a soft meow, pawing and scratching at his trouser leg. Shutting the door as softly as he could, Victor gently scooped up the friendly animal and shuffled slowly down the hall.
Perhaps it was nothing. While Lord Harvey had his habits, it’s not like the man would refuse to accommodate unforeseen circumstances on account of his personal schedule. Perhaps he had to leave on short notice.
But Victor couldn’t help but worry.
As Victor passed entered the kitchen, movement in the corner of his eye made him freeze. Shifting his gaze to the right, Victor peered into the dimly lit sitting room.
Lord Harvey hung from the unlit chandelier by a coarse rope coiled around his neck.
As his corpse slowly rotated into view, Victor realized it was missing every finger.
A door slammed shut, and Sapphire leapt out of Victor’s arms. “Hey boss!” A booming voice called out, “Looks like we found the kid.”