Courtney looks a bit stunned at this revelation, but Gregor doesn’t let her dwell on it. Instead, he claps his hands and continues. “Now for the potion.”
Turning towards Jason, he gestures towards an empty chair, “Take a seat. We will have to talk this over. As I am sure you’ve figured out, they are important to the kingdom. In the normal swing of things, the chances of you getting one is near zero. The fact you helped with the situation around those unfortunate adventurers is in your favor. The biggest thing though is the fact my fool of a husband there is vouching for you. Now we both know why he is doing that, but his word still has pull.”
“The final little quirk to your situation is what you are. Travellers haven’t been around all that long. This potion hasn’t been tried by a traveller. In fact, a lot of potions like this have not been tried on your people. Normally stuff which affects the soul doesn’t work on travellers. Sometimes they do, though, and everyone wants to know when it does. Basically, you get to be a guinea pig for the kingdom.”
“Luckily my husband wasn’t a complete fool about offering you a potion and told me about it ahead of time, so I gathered a little more info on it. First of all, they will want you under an oath to tell them about the changes the potion caused to you. Second is you need to hand over all the mind pearls your group has. Though they will pay for any not used in your potion, so there is that. Third, they want you and everyone else in your party to swear not to reveal you have taken the potion. That one is its own oath and non-negotiable, by the way. They are a bit picky about keeping every secret they can about the potions.”
“The fourth condition is they want you to stick around under observation for a week. Finally, their fifth requirement is a bit complicated because we can’t just out and say it. To brew the potion, there are some special things we need. We can’t tell you about those things until you are sworn to secrecy in general. Then after that we need to get you under an even more comprehensive oath for this fifth bit. Now, after hearing all that, do you still want a potion?”
Jason leans back in his bean bag and stairs at the ceiling. “Hmm, since the third thing is non-negotiable, some of those others likely are. Not the fifth obviously, whatever it is you need for the potion must be a key ingredient. Luckily, only the first and fourth conditions bother me. And that fourth one? Depends, how long will we be sticking around for Courtney to learn the illusion stuff?”
Gregor shrugs, “Longer than a week if that’s what you’re asking.”
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Jason nods, “Then the only thing I want to talk about is the first condition. I don’t want to reveal everything the potion does for me. I have a core, as anyone who does even a basic assay on me will find out because of my title. This comes from some unique circumstances and while I am fine revealing any generic effects, the potion has on me, I of course have some secrets.”
Gregor sighs, “If anything, your special circumstances will make the people in charge more interested in learning everything. Especially since we need to know if the potion ends up working or not because of that. It would be annoying to claim the potion can work on travellers only for us to find out you just were different from the rest.”
Jason shrugs, “I can see why they would want that info. In fact, I would be willing to share if the system tells me one way or another. Still, my bet would be on any traveller who wants this potion being special. While we do end up as any type of being, we tend not to change our form once we’ve picked one. That means you would have to wait for a traveller who is a foxkin and can get a high enough level. There might be some out there, but for one to be of the right age and level to need the potion as well as being located here isn’t the highest.”
Gregor rolls his eyes, “I know that and you know that. Hell, even the people who make the decision know it. Now we just need someone to explain it to the military people breathing down our necks to keep the potion secret. And it isn’t like we would want any of the travellers who want to sell themselves for stuff like this. Every one of you has a very laissez-faire attitude about stuff like this. Hells, the only reason you’re bothering with this is the fact you’re going to be stuck in town for a while and heard about it. You probably aren’t even facing any actual problems with it yet.”
Jason laughs, “You aren’t wrong about that. If it wasn’t for Peter’s slip up, I wouldn’t even know about it. Beyond that I have ways to fix the problem, they just take time. After all, I got myself into this problem with my cultivation technique and I can very well get myself out of it as well. This potion just seems like a viable shortcut. I don’t advocate the use of shortcuts, but I assume this thing has had a bit of testing done on it already.”
Off to the side Peter sits up, “You can’t know that. We could have invented this potion in the last few hundred years.”
Jason gives him the side eye, “And you would be willing to risk your husband over that? I don’t know you that well, but I know you well enough. This thing has a history behind it. In fact, I would bet this nation’s founder picked here for the swarms so the potion could be reliably made. At the level of power needed to found a kingdom in the wilderness, you don’t just plop down your claim at random. This potion either is much older than the kingdom or the founder developed it and so chose this place to test it.”
Gregor slaps his knee and laughs, “He has you there! And he isn’t wrong either. While the potion is older than the kingdom, it wasn’t very popular because it needs so many swarms to sustain people using it.”