Gingerly I touched the spiky remains of my eyebrows. I was sure now that they would never grow in the way they had once been ever again. I coughed as the acrid smoke from my failed attempt at a potion stung my throat and filled my eyes with unwelcome dampness. From across the clearing, the chime of laughter filled my ears.
“It’s not funny,” I blurted when the coughing fit finally eased.
“Oh, but it is,” Cassie said. “Only a fool tries to combine two dominant ingredients without a stabilizer.”
My throat itched uncomfortably but I resisted the urge to cough all over again. “What are you talking about?"
Cassie sighed and tapped her long-handled spoon on the edge of her cauldron before laying it across the top and walking away toward her cabin. I cursed under my breath and turned back to my crafting implements, picking up the few that had scattered in the explosion. If the witch didn’t want to explain her strange rambling then so be it. I would figure this out on my own.
I returned to my crafting window and eyed the enormous list of ingredients I had at hand. Most of them were unknown to me as they were heavily localized to this swamp and nowhere else that I had traveled.
Ingredient
Quantity
Property 1
Property 2
Property 3
Swamp Lillies
23
Unrest
?
?
Water Lettuce
21
Weakness to Poison
?
?
Trumpet Vine
34
Invigorate
?
?
Aeger Fern
11
Lingering Sickness
?
?
Milkweed
35
Enhance Strength
?
?
Biting Fly Wings
13
Nacrotic Poisoning
?
?
Soft Rush Seed(s)
24
Restore Health
?
?
Water Hemlock
29
Resist Bleeding
?
?
Giant Hogweed Root
30
Weakness to Burning
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?
?
Sweetflag Root
27
Invigorate
?
?
There was more in my inventory but those were the few that drew my eye. When Boopzy returned I would have more of the Unctuous Leech as well. Nothing in the crafting tables mentioned anything about ‘stabilizers’ or ‘dominant’.
The bang of Cassie’s door made me jump and reach for my sword only to settle when I realized it was simply the witch returning. A smart-ass comment balanced on the tip of my tongue, held back by a voice deep in the back of my mind. I was tempted to ignore my own warning but an uncomfortable pressure filled my brain, a little like a headache, as the voice grew louder, demanding silence. I shook my head, trying to dispel the odd feeling to no avail.
Cassie marched right up to me while I sat on the ground, battling myself. Her purple eyes blazed with a fire that had me swallowing past a sudden tightness in my throat. My fingers tingled, desperate for the supple leather of my sword's grip. The witch held out her hand to me. I frowned as I reached up, hesitating for just a moment before I took the small and tattered book she offered.
“What is this?” I asked.
Cassie didn’t answer immediately but she didn’t need to, the glowing golden words did it for her.
New Item Received: Beginners Guide to Alchemical Skill Building
Description: A handy guide for those who lack a certain amount of intuition. A guide best combined with Botany: An Introduction by Professor Clint Elway. Be warned, combining the two will require a bottle of Jack and a box of tissues to soak up the flood of tears.
I blinked as the description slowly faded away, not sure what I should say.
“This will help you understand a bit more about the ingredients you've been playing with. Perhaps one day I can give you a proper education on potions and the craft itself. There is no time for that now though. The time for Melumek’s rise draws near. His followers have located another seal and are trying to break it as we speak.”
Her eyes grew dim for a moment as her focus shifted elsewhere. Then, with an almost audible snap, she returned and said, “You’ll only have a short time to find the Sentinel after my brew is complete. I suggest you wait to use it until you activate his quest. It is the only way to delay the inevitable.”
“If it is inevitable then why bother trying to delay it?” I growled, my fear bubbling up in a burst of anger I hadn’t expected. “Why bother continuing to fight if they’re just going to win anyway?”
A small smile graced the witch's face. “Have you ever heard the saying ‘live to fight another day’?”
“Of course. It’s extremely common.”
“Well, that might be all you can hope for in this situation. Maybe if a few more seals were still intact the outcome would be different, but I don’t believe they can be reformed,” Cassie said.
“So, what should I do then? Tell me what to do.”
I didn’t remember climbing to my feet but suddenly there I was standing eye-to-eye with the witch. My feet were spread wide in a defensive pose and Stella, abruptly on edge, stood beside me, a low growl escaping from deep inside her throat. Cassie eyed me warily, paying no mind to the warrior dog standing at my side. She folded her arms herself as she eyed me from my head to the toes of my boots. I felt stripped naked under her gaze but stood firm.
“I can’t. It is an answer I’m still searching for myself. Perhaps you’ll find it when I couldn’t.” A pained expression crossed her face, darkening the blazing force of her spirit for only a moment. “I hope you do.”
Then she sauntered away, swinging her hips as she hummed a sad tune I did not recognize, and returned to her bubbling cauldron.
I stood there for longer than I cared to admit. Longer than Stella who, when Cassie turned away, padded her feet in little circles before dropping with a huff to return to her nap. I couldn’t calm down like the cattle dog could. Energy pulsed through my veins with every beat of my heart. My body trembled with it, begging me to release it in the most violent of manners, and yet I remained frozen; my feet glued in place.
My own question echoed endlessly in my head. What should I do? I had no answers to give myself and for whatever reason it seemed the ones who knew more about what was happening, and perhaps what had happened elsewhere, refused to explain it to me. Kendrick, Cassie, Jitta. All of them hid things from me that I was sure would help me decide my next move. It was infuriating being left in the dark with little more than cryptic questlines to follow. Where was the quest that told me to protect the seals? Where was the book that told me what the fuck they even were? I’d take anything at this stage. Anything was better than nothing.
Still fuming and with the book clutched hard in my hand I returned to my spot on the ground between my mess of alchemy equipment. I desperately wanted to return to my hammock and live out the rest of my sparse days staring up at the stars and dreaming about what could have been. My equipment was already out though so I resisted the urge.
I opened the small book, cringing as the aged and worn pages made ripping sounds. It remained mostly intact though and so I read, hoping to learn more about the skill I’d thought I was pretty damn good at. The fact the very first passage made zero sense to me only served to tear my tenuous confidence to shreds.
To seek is to brew and to brew is to unleash the true essence of the world.
I sighed and scrubbed at the hairless patch atop my head as I tried to force my eyes to focus in the dimly lit clearing. The darkness of true night was beginning to fade to darkened grey, hinting at the approaching dawn. I squinted at the neat but fancy text until my head ached. The firelight was not enough, especially from this distance, yet I refused to move closer.
Part of me hoped that Nora and Gabby would return with the burgeoning light if only to give me a reprieve from Cassie’s confusing interactions. My free hand reached out until I could bury my fingers in Stella’s warm fur. A terrible ache formed behind my eyes, reminding me of the hour and the fact I hadn’t slept all night.
Sleep would not come easy though. I knew that without even trying. There were too many ghosts waiting to haunt my rest. Some from my past and others from the future I knew was heading my way.
I opened my crafting menu and eyed the ingredients again, paying careful attention to the properties I could see, trying to visualize how they would combine rather than just slapping shit together. Soft Rush Seeds and Water Hemlock seemed like a safe bet. I wasn’t as skilled at restorative potions as I was at poisons. An oversight I planned to rectify with a little practice.
I took the seeds and dumped them in the mortar, crushing them under the weight of the pestle. Crushing them released a sweet scent that filled my nose and eased the thumping inside my head. Water Hemlock was different. It came in the form of many tiny white flowers. I turned them over in my hand, wondering if it would be worth grinding them as well before ultimately deciding to stew them in my travel-sized alembic.
When I’d finished manipulating the ingredients I returned to my crafting menu and combined them there, bracing for an explosion. It did not come.
New Item Received: Simple Potion of Restore Health
I sighed at the poor level of the potion. I had hoped that altering the ingredients would have increased the potency. That’s how it worked for my poisons. For a brief moment, I considered asking Cassie how to craft stronger-level potions, ultimately I decided against it though. She’d be just as likely to tell me to read her book or spout some cryptic nonsense rather than helping me.
I made more of them until only a few of those particular ingredients remained, replenishing the number I’d once had in my inventory. Not once did the potions blow up in my face but every so often I got one that was labeled basic rather than simple. That was the only difference though, no matter how I tried to focus on using my tools.
The slap of a wet tentacle against my arm drew a shrill cry from my lips. Hoping Cassie hadn’t heard it I smiled down at the little Tentarat and the bulging basket he carried. Leeches squirmed and writhed inside it, drawing bile up my throat. I hated that these things were worth the price of touching them. With a grateful scritch under Boopzy’s furry chin, I dumped the leeches into my bum bag, plucking the few that missed from the ground and shoving them in behind the others.
Soon my inventory was weighed down with Simple Axe Balm’s. After the first ten, the label changed from simple to good, and the duration of effect rose from one hundred strikes to one hundred and fifty. That was what I’d expected the health potions to do but they never had. I had to be doing something wrong and I was determined to find out what. After crafting twenty of the balms the golden glowing words I’d been dying to see sprung up in front of my face. My cheeks ached from the force of my grin.
Skill Upgraded: Alchemy (XI)
80% potion crafting success rate.
With the increase I attempted one last health potion to see if it made any difference. Sadly, it didn’t. The health potions stubbornly ignored my ability and remained weak.
Cursing under my breath I decided to try something I was good at. I could use the boost as my ego had taken quite the hit despite the level-up. In my miniature cauldron, I combined Aeger Fern, Biting Fly Wings, and Water Lettuce. The potion bubbled and turned a brilliant shade of purple as the ingredients blended. When the smell of it was beginning to turn my stomach I took out my flask and bottled the concoction.
New Item Received: Potent Ruin Elixer
Description: One touch of this deadly potion and your target, be it friend or foe, will succumb to the sweet release of death. Pain will be their only sensation until the reaper comes.
Effect: 1,000 points of poison damage on strike. Immune to natural resistance protection.
I clutched my creation to my chest, reveling in the strength of it and all it could do. I would need to be careful with this one though. There was danger bubbling within its strength; perhaps even to me, its creator.