Chapter 17_Oblivion Online (complete)

I woke up grumpy after a night of odd dreams. Something about fish and giant dogs chasing me. I stumbled into the kitchen and ordered a pot of coffee. Logically I knew that digital coffee wouldn’t do anything to help me wake up, but damn if it didn’t do it anyway. I didn’t want to bother with breakfast, I had a long day ahead of me in the game. I wasn’t going to be any closer to killing those rock hounds, but I was going to fully exploit all the help Derrick gave me last night. I headed towards the door, and entered Oblivion Online.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

I walked downstairs and saw an extremely happy Alnoss fluttering around and cleaning tables that already gleamed. “Hey Alnoss, what’s got you in such a great mood?”

“ANGUS!” She was across the room so fast I swore there had to be a movement skill involved. “Those mushrooms were a huge hit! Keep coming up with those hit recipes, we’re going to be rich!” She said while hugging the life out of me.

“I plan on it, but could you please loosen up a bit? I’m suffocating over here.”

“Oh, sorry about that. By the way, here’s your pay for last night.” As she pulled away from the hug, she dropped 5 gold coins into my hand. “We sold out insanely fast. Once the first table tried them, the rest had to see what they got that was inhaled so fast.”

“Well, I’m glad for that. I won’t have anything new for a few days though. I’m going to be doing some alchemy experiments today and tomorrow Djarleen is going to be officially training me. After that I’ll be heading out to settle the score with some rock hounds.”

“Rock hounds? Oh, you have to be careful with them but they make great steaks. Try and get me some, will you? I’ll even show you how I prepare them.”

New quest alert!

Alnoss has requested you collect rock hound steaks for her.

Conditions

Rewards

Failure

Collect at least 20 pieces of rock hound meat

New recipe, increased relationship with Alnoss

Decreased relationship with Alnoss

“Sure Alnoss, a new recipe sounds great. I’ll make sure to bring back plenty.”

“Thanks Angus, you’re great.”

“I know!” I replied in a smug manner, taking a fake superhero pose. “Just kidding. Hey, before I go can I get some breakfast?”

“Sure, I’ll go grab a bowl of porridge for you.”

I sat down at the counter as she ran back into the kitchen and quickly returned with a steaming bowl. I hurriedly ate it, and headed down through the oddly empty streets to Djarleen’s shop. I must be up earlier than most kobolds, but that was fine with me. Luckily Djarleen was up as well, as I walked right into her shop. Although, up might be a strong word for what she was. Standing behind the counter, she was staring off into space with glassy eyes. I’m sure she was a few seconds from completely passing out.

“Morning Djarleen, sleep well?”

*Snort* “Gahg, Huh? Whazza? Angus? What are you doing here?”

“I’m going to try some experiments in the back room if you don’t mind?”

“Sure, sure, just don’t blow yourself up. And thanks for cleaning up after yourself properly, I’m glad I didn’t have to beat that into you. There’s nothing worse than using glassware you thought was clean and having an expensive potion ruined because some stupid apprentice ‘forgot’ to clean things properly. If you do hat, I’ll make you pay for it.”

“No worries, where adventurers come from I’m a cook, and I know all the dangers of cross contamination. Oh, before I go, do you have any alcohol solution and can I possibly use a bit of it today?”

“It’s what time in the morning and you want to drink already?” She glared at me.

“No, no it’s nothing. . .” I stammered out.

“Hah, your face! Sorry, but I needed a laugh for a bit. Yes, we have it, look for the container labeled Aqua Forte. There’s a few things you need to know first. It’s expensive, so use it sparingly. Start out with ten mL aliquots for your potions. It’s also very flammable so watch your heat.”

“Will do, don’t worry. I’ll let you know how much I end up using. Hopefully I’ll have a couple new potions by the end of the day.”

“Hah, good luck with that! Tell you what, you get me the information on two perfected potions by the end of the day, and I’ll pay for your admission to the alchemist’s guild, potion registration, and a field lab setup for you.”

New quest alert!

Your boasting about making two new potions has intrigued Djarleen. She has offered you a quest to back up your boast.

Conditions

Rewards

Create two new potions by the end of the day

Djarleen will pay your entrance fee to the alchemist guild, registration for both potions, and a field alchemy set.

“I’ll definitely take that quest Djarleen, thanks for the offer. I’m sure that stuff would be rather expensive otherwise.”

“Sure thing, now go ahead and get going. You only have a little bit of time.”

Smiling, I quickly walked to the back room. Remembering something, I poked my head back to ask Djarleen, “Hey, do we have anything to take notes on?”

“There’s notebooks in the back cabinet. Take one for yourself, every good alchemist needs notes.”

“Thanks again!” I waved and headed to the back cabinet to grab a notebook and pen to write with. I started out at my normal station, and grabbed two extra bowls. I started out with a quarter of my supply of stamina mushrooms, and got to prepping. Stems went into one bowl, gills went into the second bowl, and caps into the third one. Halfway through this prep, I had another idea. The caps were multicolored, what if whatever boosted stamina was concentrated in the colored areas? I pulled the caps back out, and got another bowl. The colored areas ended up being a conic shape, which was rather easy to cut out of the caps. One bowl got the removed colored cones, the other got the rest of the cap. Once I had everything separated, I started mincing up the reagents, making sure to clean my knife between ingredients. The gills were the only thing I didn’t need to further reduce in size.

That done, I started with what I assumed was going to be a failure. I measured out ten grams of the minced stems, and went through the heating process in water. Not surprisingly I got no color change. The resulting potion after straining and reducing was clearly disappointing, but a good way to grind a bit of experience for [Essence of potions].

Failed potion

This potion is a failure and will provide no benefits if consumed, other than to ease your thirst.

Not unexpected, as the stems were the least likely place to have whatever stamina poisons were in the mushroom. I cleaned the glassware properly after everything was done, not wanting to do it while things were running so I wouldn’t be distracted. I could have saved a little bit of time by cleaning as I went, but the chances of an unknown potion accident would have increased to unacceptable levels. Before I started the next experiment, I needed to do some thinking. The gills were a much smaller portion of the mushroom by weight, and if they contained enough poison to neutralize what was in the caps, then it had to be much more concentrated. I decided to start out with three grams of gills, and slowly heated that. As the solution started to steam a bit, I noticed it was starting to turn a burnt orange color. Excellent, this was evidence Derrick was right with his guess last night. I finished the procedure, and had three vials of a new potion. I labeled them TB1G, for Test Batch 1 Gills, marked in my book what initial ingredients went into it, and identified it.

Minor stamina poison

Depending on how it is introduced, this potion will deplete an enemy’s stamina.

If consumed orally: Drains 30 stamina, prevents stamina regeneration for 10 minutes

If injected: Drains 60 stamina, prevents stamina regeneration for 5 minutes

Oh, this was amazing! It wouldn’t do much immediate damage to stamina, but preventing stamina regen for even a minute in a close fight would be devastating. I assumed injection would include if you coated your weapon in it and managed to break the skin. I was ecstatic with even these results, but I had told Djarleen that the potion would be perfected and the chances of that on the first try were next to nil. For my next test, I stayed with the gills, but changed the solute. Measuring out three grams of gills, and added it to ten milliliters of Aqua Forte. Before I even started heating it, the solution rapidly changed to the burnt orange color. Hmm, this was interesting. I swirled it without heating for five minutes, and strained it into a vial. Labelling it TB2G, I noted my changes to procedure in the notebook and looked over the changes.

Stamina poison

Depending on how it is introduced, this poison will rapidly drain an opponent’s stamina.

If consumed orally: Drains 90 stamina, prevents stamina regeneration for 30 minutes

If injected: Drains 180 stamina, prevents stamina regeneration for 15 minutes

Good God! This stamina poison is brutal and obviously prefers to be in alcohol. OK, time for experimenting. My next run was with three grams in alcohol, but I heated it this time and got no change in potency, which was great. Heating an alcohol solution was nerve wracking, and was going to be a step I enjoyed skipping. I made a table in my notebook, and did several runs at varying starting amounts for the gills, to see if I could hit the maximum the alcohol could hold.

Starting amount

Potion results (oral only)

1 gram

Drains 30 stamina, no regen 10 minutes

3 grams

Drains 90 stamina, no regen 30 minutes

5 grams

Drains 150 stamina, no regen 50 minutes

7 grams

Drains 180 stamina, no regen 1 hour

10 grams

Drains 180 stamina, no regen 1 hour

Looking at my results, I was happy. I was confident that I had a fully optimized potion. Everything scaled linearly, up until 6 grams. After that it plateaued, showing that anything above 6 grams would be leaving some poison in the gills. Just to prove that point, I took the strained gills from the ten-gram potion, and made another one that drained 120 stamina and stopped regeneration for 40 minutes. Exactly what I would be expecting. The system must have agreed with me, because I got a new description from my last run of six grams.

Elixir of stamina poison

This poison was brewed for maximum effectiveness of ingredients, and will have different effects based on how it is introduced.

Oral consumption: Drains 180 stamina, prevents stamina regeneration for one hour

If injected: Drains 360 stamina, prevents stamina regeneration for 30 minutes.

Elixirs were incredible. If you got one, you knew that it was the absolute top of the line for what could be produced using the ingredients involved. For common ingredients like the mushrooms I was using, it wouldn’t be too bad but when you got into expensive ingredients like Phoenix Breath or Unicorn Hair, making an elixir out of the ingredients was priority number one. Recipe’s for top tier elixirs were either jealously guarded, or sold for exorbitant sums. Think small country GDP type sums, and you would be in the low end. Distracted from my musings, I noticed a flashing icon.

Due to a special action, you have unlocked an achievement

Achievement

Action

Bonus

Next level

New Frontiers I

Create a new potion or poison

+1% increased loot quality

Create 5 new potions or poisons

Perfectionist I

Create an elixir

+1% potion effectiveness, -1% poison effectiveness

Create 5 unique elixirs

Seeker of Knowledge I

Be the first to create a unique elixir recipe

+10% chance to find hidden objects

Create 3 unique elixir recipes

Three new achievements? Wow, this could be a great way to get some great bonuses. If nobody bothered to optimize some of the lower level alchemy potions, I could grind out some great bonuses for Seeker of Knowledge. Plus, anything that triggered Seeker of Knowledge would also fall under Perfectionist. With renewed energy, I set out to do my next set of experiments. I started with water and ten grams of the minced mushroom cap, and got the disappointing result of not having a true potion. Oh well, that just meant that the colored parts of the mushrooms would be what contained the properties I needed. Taking ten grams of the colored cones, I minced them up and added them to 50 mL of water. Heating it to just under boiling, I stirred and watched with growing excitement as the solution gradually grew more colorful, taking on a yellow tinge. After five minutes, I transferred and reduced it, excitedly checking with the [Essence of potion] skill.

Minor stamina potion

This potion will invigorate whoever drinks it, restoring a portion of their stamina.

Recover 50 stamina

Success! I knew that there had to be a way for low level characters to recover stamina, and it felt great to be proven right. Next was the repetitive task of optimizing the potion, but knowing that I could get some bonuses from it helped keep me focused. Before going on a series run using different amounts of mushroom, I made one using ten grams of the mushroom cap in ten mL of alcohol, but the resulting potion only recovered 35 stamina. That ruled out using alcohol as the base, since it wasn’t as efficient as water was. Once again I filled a page in the notebook with a table.

Initial amount

Potion amounts

10 g

50 stamina

12 g

60 stamina

14 g

70 stamina

16 g

75 stamina

18 g

75 stamina

Well, it looked like the perfect amount would be 15 grams of mushroom per potion. Hoping I was correct, I prepared the last test batch and created my final stamina potion.

Elixir of minor stamina

This potion has been fully optimized to give the best results for the ingredients used.

Recovers 75 stamina

Now that I had definitively completed Djarleen’s test, I wanted to see just how much I could squeeze out of these low level elixirs. I was willing to bet that nobody had gone through the process to optimize the minor elixirs for mana and health, so I set out to do that as well. After another two hours of testing, I had finished. All three of the elixirs topped out at 15 grams of the colored portions of the mushrooms and recovered 75 of each attribute. I was more excited about the upgrade to the Seeker of Knowledge achievement.

Achievement upgraded!

Achievement

Bonus

Requirements for next level

Seeker of Knowledge II

+15% chance to find hidden objects

Create 5 unique elixir recipes

Potions and elixirs in hand, I headed in to the main area of the shop to talk with Djarleen. “Giving up already? It’s barely been five hours, I thought you were tough enough to at least give it a full day.”

“I would have if I needed to, but I managed to complete your quest. I might have gone a bit above and beyond to be honest.”

“You finished two recipes? Impossible, I know what reagents you have access to. There’s no possible potion you could have made with any of those combinations.”

I slapped myself in the forehead. “Damn, I forgot to try if I could get any combination potions! Let me go back.”

“Wait, wait, stop! What are you blabbering about? If you didn’t get it by mixing potion ingredients, what did you do?”

“Perfected a stamina poison, stamina potion, and figured out the elixir recipes for the health and mana potions while I was at it. Here, take a look if you don’t believe me.” I handed her the tray that contained all my elixirs and watched as she put her hands on them to check them.

“I don’t believe it, you actually figured it out. What was the secret for the stamina potion? I know people who have been pondering that for years.”

“The gills of the mushroom contain a poison that was interfering with the recovery compounds in the colored part of the caps.”

“Was it seriously that simple? Damn, we just figured it was part of nature not following logic. Ok, now you said something about not making a compound potion? Before we go back there, explain to me what you want to do.”

“Well, all these potions are fine by themselves, but what would happen if we used all three types of mushrooms when we made the potions?”

“That’s been tried before. You can get a decent return, but everything drops by a little bit. Although, nobody has a stamina component to theirs, let’s go ahead and try it. Show me what you got, little alchemist!” Smiling, Djarleen shooed me into the back, and locked her door to indicate she was closed for a while.

Heading back into my prep area, I pulled out my notebook, and a handful of each mushroom. I started slicing into each mushroom, removing the colored portions. I also took the time to collect the gills from the stamina mushrooms, and put them in their own separate vial in my inventory to keep them for a new date. Mincing up each color in its own bowl, I started once again with the experiments. I intentionally started low, and increased it each time.

Amount of each mushroom used

Recovery from potion

5 grams

23 health, mana, and stamina

10 grams

45 health, mana, and stamina

12 grams

54 health, mana, and stamina

15 grams

68 health, mana, and stamina

17 grams

70 health, mana, and stamina

19 grams

70 health, mana, and stamina

Looking at the results, it seems that a mixture type potion could only recover a maximum of 70 for each attribute. I really wanted that elixir recipe, so I made a two potions at 16 grams each, one using water and one using alcohol. The alcohol one failed miserably, most likely because that amount of mushroom absorbed the alcohol instead of the alcohol leeching out the compounds in the mushrooms. The water potion was a smashing success.

Elixir of minor recovery

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

This elixir has been brewed to perfection, resulting in the greatest return on the components involved.

Recovers 70 health, 70 mana, and 70 stamina

Achievements have increased

Achievement

Bonus

Next level

Perfectionist II

+2% to potion effectiveness,

-2% to poison effectiveness

Create 10 unique elixirs

Seeker of Knowledge III

+20% chance to find hidden objects

Create 10 unique elixir recipes

“Bravo. You are going to make a great alchemist if you keep up that work ethic. Now, you ready to make it official?”

“Make what official?”

“Becoming an alchemist. You’ve passed my test, spectacularly I might add. So let’s go to the guild and get you registered.” Waving at me to follow, she headed to a door in the back. Holding her necklace up to it, there was a flash of magic and the door opened. Inside was an empty room with an incredibly intricate design etched onto the floor. At five points on the edge of the circular design were indentations in the floor. “Come in and stand in the middle of the array. We will be going in a minute.”

“Going where though?”

“The guild headquarters of course. Each of the main guilds maintains a branch in the territories of the dark races to keep access to hard to obtain materials. Those of us that run the branches often get special orders, you saw me rushing on one yesterday. We also have these teleportation arrays hidden in our shops. Now, I just need to put these mana stones in the slots, and they will power the array and send us both to headquarters.”

“Isn’t the headquarters in the major human city though? Won’t we be arrested immediately and probably executed?”

“No, that would be idiotic. That is just a front, the real headquarters are hidden on a remote island. That way if there is an accident it is already isolated and can be contained. Now, no more questions, this is going to feel weird. Don’t throw up on the other side, and let me do most of the talking, got it?”

“Yes ma’am.” Feel weird? Feel weird was a damn understatement. It felt like my organs were rising in my chest as my body was sent through a ringer. I immediately stumbled to my knees as we finished our transition, chest heaving so I could get enough air.

“Back again Djarleen? And with a new traveler to boot?”

“Hello Markus. Yes, I’m back and I’ll need a few things. This is my new apprentice, I need him evaluated by at least three masters, I’m paying his registration fee, we have several recipes to register, and I need the platinum level field alchemy kit.”

“Hmm, we can do the kit and registration easily, but I’m not sure about the masters. Faraldo went out to see what he could harvest from the dragon plains, and Hersch will want to fail your apprentice merely on the grounds that he is a kobold. That leaves Bruno and Octavian for sure.”

As they were talking, I used the opportunity to look around. The guy, Markus, was sitting behind a reception desk with several stacks of papers on it. Behind him were aisles of glassware of all shapes and sizes. Behind us were several different arrays, each slightly different. I couldn’t tell exactly what was going on, as not only did certain parts start blurring the more I looked at them but a headache was also forming right between my eyes the longer I looked. I turned to the side, not wanting to exacerbate it, and was stunned. Three levels of a massive library, with books crammed in and secured from falling. Several pedestals at the end of the aisles even had a few books chained down and secured with glowing wards. It was a rather impressive setup. The high security continued behind me. The walls were brick, and had four doors along its length. Each of these doors was magically reinforced, and had several reinforcing bands going across the width of the door. Beside each door was a colored placard. Three of them were green and one was red.

“That’s to let you know if someone is in the middle of a delicate experiment in the room. If you see the red placard, under no circumstances are you to enter or even knock on the door. With some of these experiments, a moments distraction could result in disaster.” Djarleen informed me, obviously noticing the direction of my gaze. “We will have you in one of them shortly, you will have to demonstrate your new recipes with guild supplied reagents.”

“Oh? Why guild supplied?”

“To ensure that you haven’t spiked your reagents with anything in order to pass off a fake recipe. I know you would never do it, but if you get caught trying something that stupid just know that you will be permanently barred from all guilds, and a ban on buying any potion brewed by you.”

“That’s a very good reason not to try and cheat. So, what happens when my recipes are verified?”

“They get registered by the guild, and you have a choice. Keep the recipes to yourself, for your or your clans exclusive use, let the guild sell the recipe as training among its members for a portion of the profits, you can lease the recipe to certain clans under binding agreements, or lease it to the guild itself. If you do the last one, all alchemists will be trained in the recipes for free, and you will receive a small portion of all the proceeds from selling any potions derived from them.”

“What do you mean, derived from my recipes?”

“Well, take your elixir of stamina poison. You have a recipe that is easier to follow, but produces a slightly inferior potion, right? Many of the younger alchemists will be producing this version so they can boost their skills, and most of these will be sold in shops. You would get a percentage of those proceeds.”

“Ah, that makes sense then. I’ll go with that option then, for all of them. They are low level potions anyway, and will probably sell a lot with the low level players.”

“Glad to hear it young man, but we need to verify your abilities first.” I turned to see who was speaking, and met the only elf I had ever seen that appeared old. Tall and almost impossibly thin, his skin was a light tan color. His head had wrinkles that gave him a look almost like bark, and he was completely bald.

“Angus, this is Guildmaster Willow. If elves ever forgot anything, you could easily say he forgot more about alchemy than most masters that are in this place.” Djarleen said in introduction.

“Honored to meet you, Guildmaster.” I said with a bow. There was no way in any of the religious hells that I was going to be anything but exceedingly polite with someone at the guildmaster level.

“Pleasure to meet you as well, adventurer Angus. Djarleen peaked my interest when she mentioned that you had solved our little stamina potion issue? Masters Bruno and Octavian are on their way, so let’s head into the far left room over there and you can get familiar with the setup.”

“Sounds like a plan, Guildmaster. While we are waiting for the other masters to arrive, would you like to see my notes on the procedure? That way you can verify the notes as well as the procedure.”

“I was hoping you would ask that, Djarleen I approve of your apprentice already. Now, let’s get this underway, shall we?” With that, we all headed into the assigned room. I was rather shocked at the intricacy of the setup. There was a massive table island in the center of the room, with enough room for a work station on each side of the rectangular table. Each of the three walls without a door contained a distillation apparatus, and the wall on the far side even had what looked to be a fume hood complete with exterior vent system. They spared no expense for merely this room, and to think they had three more was mind boggling.

“Here apprentice, you dropped your jaw on the floor.” Djarleen joked as she saw my reaction. “I know, there’s a lot of very expensive glassware here. I’m glad you don’t have to use it, because it would be incredibly expensive if you went ahead and broke it.”

“No doubt about that.” I replied, heading to the far side of the table so that I could see who entered. I familiarized myself with the layout and tried my best to get things set up how Djarleen’s shop was. Five bowls to my left for ingredients, small cutting and material prep area right in front of me, beaker heating apparatus behind that. I took a minute to get acquainted with the control knob for beaker height, it seemed to have about twice the gradations that I was used to. To the right of that was the Erlenmeyer flask with a funnel, but I couldn’t find any strainer baskets like Djarleen had. “Hey guys, sorry to bother you but where’s the strainer?”

Djarleen looked down a little sheepishly and replied, “They have actual filter paper here, I just don’t stock it because it is quite expensive. Look in the second drawer from the top.”

I looked and found several round filter papers that were a bit bigger around than the provided filter. Without thinking about it, I used a trick from my college chemistry class and folded the paper into fourths. I pushed the point of the paper into the funnel from the top, and pulled the first flap of the folds. This opened up the filter so that it sat snugly in the funnel, and wetting it just a little ensured it stayed put.

“Interesting technique young one. Would you care to explain why you did it like that?”

Oh god, I did something weird and now the Guildmaster is paying attention to me again. “Um, sure sir. If you just take a flat piece of paper and try and get it to sit in the funnel properly, you will have some wrinkling no matter how well it is set up. Those wrinkles are places where bits you are trying to strain out can fall through, ruining your work. If you set it up like this, then you can completely filter out everything.”

“I see, now where did you learn such a technique? I’ve not seen it in any of our recruits, though I’ll admit I don’t see many of them nowadays.”

“Well, it’s from the other world inhabited by adventurers. In my schooling there, I had to take a basic course very similar to alchemy. In fact, it is also where I got the procedure to rapidly find the elixir recipes.”

“A procedure to rapidly find an elixir recipe? Preposterous. Trial and error is the only way!” Huffed an older human as he entered. His beard was bound into a tight tail, and disappeared into the thick leather apron he wore. There was a gnome behind him, roughly half his height and sporting some rather eccentric glasses. Five different colored lenses were on hinges for each eye, and her face was covered in small pock marks from some tragedy in her past.

“Sure, trial and error will eventually work, but it might take you a long time to get there, and you probably don’t want to do that with expensive reagents.”

“Bah, reagent costs don’t matter! Only results.”

“Now Octavian, I’m sure people from rich families such as yourself don’t care about reagent costs, but most of our alchemists are very stingy. Anyway, how is your method performed then Angus?”

“Well, first you have to understand that a certain amount of liquid acts like a bucket when you are trying to extract compounds from reagents. It can only hold so much, and depending on the reagent a different solvent might be better bucket for the same amount of liquid.”

“Explain further please” the gnome asked.

“Ok, sure. Take salt as an example. Salt rapidly dissolves in water. However, if you switch from water to alcohol, the same amount of alcohol will dissolve a much smaller amount of salt. Water makes a better bucket than alcohol, for salt.”

“Hmm, that does make some sort of sense from what I’ve seen, thank you for clarifying.” The gnome said.

“You’re welcome. So, the first thing I do is see what is the better bucket, water or alcohol. I’ll take the same amount of reagent, and heat it in a solution for the same amount of time. Whichever potion comes out stronger is the better one to use in further testing. I then test a range of different weights of reagent with the same amount of water, looking for the point where the final potion strength levels off.”

“I think I see!” The gnome was getting excited and I could see the Guildmaster smiling. “At some point, the amount of liquid reaches its maximum capacity, so adding more reagent won’t produce any stronger of a potion!”

“Exactly. Then you just look back through your work and find where that point is. It might take a few extra runs to get it exact, depending on how big your steps were in the initial runs.”

“Guildmaster, I think we should be teaching this to all our students.”

“Bah, ridiculous. How great could it be? I’m not convinced.” It seems that Octavian would never budge on the procedural aspects of alchemy.

“I like the idea of it, but I’m not one hundred percent. Tell me Angus, can you give us an idea of how this might help us?”

“Well, more complex procedures would obviously have much more steps to optimize, but if you did it one step at a time you could quickly eliminate a lot of possible paths that would be dead ends. As for lesser potions, I optimized all five of my potion recipes earlier today.”

“FIVE?” All three masters exclaimed at the same time. Octavian continued, “Bullshit. Nobody can make five elixir recipes in a day.”

“Take a seat and watch as I make them all for you then. I’ll have fun proving you wrong. For reagents, I’ll need ten each of the health, mana, and stamina mushrooms.” Master Bruno went and got the reagents, and placed them on my table for me. Picking up one of the stamina mushrooms, I pulled two bowls over. “First, I’m taking the gills off the stamina mushrooms. They contain a stamina poison that was ruining the batches when you used the entire mushroom.” Not wanting to distract myself with inane conversation, I decided that I would only briefly describe what I was doing then focus on that task. “I’m sure you all realize it, but make sure your knife is thoroughly cleaned after scraping off the gills so you don’t contaminate your potions. For all of these mushrooms, the most important part is the colored portions of the caps. They make a nice cone shape, so you can stick a thin knife in and swirl it around to pop out what you need. The finer you dice the mushroom pars, the quicker your solution will be able to extract things.” Once I had everything diced how I needed it, I measured out the required amount of water and added 15 grams of stamina mushroom. “Guildmaster Willow has my notes and can confirm that 15 grams will produce the elixir quality potion. As you are heating it, keep a slow stir so that the pieces don’t settle on the bottom and start to burn. You are looking to maintain a steaming mixture without boiling for at least five minutes. After that, strain and transfer the potion to your Erlenmeyer flask, and reduce it by half. And last, bottle it and you have three Elixirs of minor stamina, one for each of you to examine.”

I handed each of the masters their own potion, and went about cleaning my glassware in preparation for the next run.

“I’ll be damned, it actually is an elixir quality potion.” Octavian begrudgingly admitted. “Am I to assume the health and mana elixirs are prepared in the same manner?”

“Yes sir, 15 grams mushroom in each elixir. There is also an elixir of recovery, that takes 16 grams of each of the three types of mushroom and only restores 70 of each attribute.”

“You got a trifecta recovery potion? That’s going to be very popular among the adventurers, they’re always griping about how to save space in their inventories.” Bruno said.

I went ahead and prepared each of the other recovery potions per instructions, and tried to keep from gloating as Octavian got more and more annoyed. “OK, the last one is a poison instead of a recovery potion. It is prepared in 10 mL of Aqua Forte instead of water. It also doesn’t require heating, which is good so there are no accidental fires.” I started walking them through the preparation, making sure to stir the solution a few times to speed up the process. As I was working, the guildmaster asked a question.

“Angus, why did you make potion runs with the stems and the leftover caps of the mushrooms?”

“Just in case. I had them there and they were going to be thrown out anyway, it wouldn’t hurt to do a quick run on them just to make sure they didn’t have any surprises hiding inside like the stamina mushroom gills. Oh, here we go, elixir of minor stamina poison is finished.” I handed over the vials to the three masters and waited for their comments.

“Hmm, this is quite the unique poison. Rather potent too.” Willow said.

“Yes, and it should dry on a weapon fairly swiftly too. Have you tested its longevity?” Bruno asked.

“No ma’am. I just finished the elixir today. I know poisons in the adventurer world often have delicate structures, I would suggest doing several tests. Make several doses, and put half in clear bottles and half in dark bottles to block sunlight. Leave some outside, keep some inside but in a warm area such as the kitchen, and some in a temperature controlled area like a wine cellar and check them all periodically. That should tell you if it is stable in the three easiest to control variables: sunlight, temperature, and time.”

“Perhaps we made a mistake in not taking a closer look at some of these adventurers, eh Octavian?” Bruno asked while elbowing him in the, well with their height difference it was his thigh instead of his ribs. Octavian surprisingly didn’t go on a tirade, merely grunting at the gnome.

“We will that under advisement, thank you Angus. Now, masters. I vote that all these recipes be accepted and registered under Angus’ name. Objections?”

“No.”

“None.”

“Excellent. Now, Djarleen, he has been registered, yes?”

“I finished it before you came down Guildmaster.”

“Perfect. Angus, as you have contributed to five elixir recipes in your time as an official alchemist, you are eligible for promotion. Unfortunately, we have a slight problem. You don’t have the seniority to be promoted to what your accomplishments demand. Normally anyone with multiple elixir contributions is a senior alchemist at a minimum, often they are promoted to masters. We can’t do that to someone who has been an alchemist for a day, but I have an offer instead. Logia, Goddess of Puzzles, is our patron. She has a test that may be administered to our best and brightest, and depending on your results you may be rewarded. Would you like to take this test?”

New quest alert!

You are being offered to take the test of Logia, Goddess of Puzzles.

Conditions

Rewards

Failure

You will be given a puzzle to solve by logic only. Guessing wrong will be heavily penalized. The rules of the test will be explained after acceptance

Increased status in the Alchemist Guild, boost to alchemy skill, possible boost to stats.

Decreased status in the Alchemist Guild, all alchemy skills will increase at half speed.

This was tough. Accept a test that I had no idea what to expect other than it was a logic puzzle for a boost in the alchemist guild? Normally I would immediately hit yes, but the failure conditions were brutal. Alchemy skill would only increase at half normal speed? That could cripple the character build I was trying to start. “Is there a time limit on the test?”

“No, but the faster you do it the better the rewards will be.”

“Then I’ll take it. I just hope I’m up for the challenge.”

“I am too. First we need to go to a privacy room.” Leading the way, we headed through the reception area and up to the third floor of the library. Walking down the aisle, I reveled in the smell of old books. Technology had advanced in the real world to the point where bookmaking was almost extinct, but they somehow managed to capture that delightful aroma in this game. Willow lead us to a secluded section, and opened a door into a barren room. Only a candle, table and chair was in there, and no windows. “Here’s where you will take your test. I wish you the best of luck.” With that, Willow shut the door and I heard it lock. Once the lock clicked shut, the entire room lit up in privacy wards, obviously to ensure that I didn’t cheat. I walked up to the table and sat down. A blue screen popped up into my vision.

Welcome to the trial of Logia.

Let logic be your guide on this trial. The test you will soon see before you can be solved entirely with logic, there is no need for guesses. Your results will be based on your speed and how many mistakes you make. Be warned, in this trial a simple mistake can cascade downwards and ruin your results!

Rules:

This test is a variation of Sudoku. Each 9 x 9 grid has been color coded for your convenience. The 3 x 3 purple boxes belong to BOTH the red 9 x 9 squares and the blue 9 x 9 squares.

Each 9 x 9 square will have the numbers 1 – 9 used once in each row, column, and 3 x 3 square. Your task is to fill out the missing portions of the board. Several grid locations have been filled in to get you started.

Good luck adventurer!

Chapter 17

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