Samantha wiggled the open vial of earth affinity concentrate into the mound of powdered beast core with the utmost caution. This addition would complete the precariously arranged set of distilled elemental affinities. Once the vial remained balanced at the exact angle she wanted, she stepped back from her handiwork with both trepidation and pride to take in the full setup.
The chair from the writing desk was leaned against the single door leading into the room such that even jiggling the doorknob may be enough force to tip it. Resting equally perilously on the chair’s seat was the jade cauldron, which would fall to the floor when the chair did. The cauldron itself contained a two inch layer of powdered beast core that held the five unstoppered affinity vials in position.
The bottles containing the distilled energies of Water, Wood, Fire, Earth, and Metal–the five basic elements from which all others are said to originate–were placed so that they almost appeared to make a star inside the cauldron. The open ends pointed towards the center of the star, giving the volatile materials a better chance of interacting and mixing together once the trap was sprung.
The final step was to seal the cauldron to ensure that none of the precious liquid was lost or spilled on the floor as it fell from the chair. Samantha had gathered from the warning labels on the bottles that even mild cross contamination of the affinities could have explosive effects, so she wanted to make sure that everything had time to mix properly in the cauldron to make the biggest boom.
“Silas, I’m about ready to leave. Do you have an estimate on when a good opening in the patrols will be?” Samantha asked, picking up the jade lid from where she set it on the workbench.
The lid had four clasps equally spaced around the edges. Once each fastener was secured around the matching pegs on the body of the cauldron, it seemed as though it would create a tight seal on the opening. She gingerly clasped each one into place as she waited for Silas’s evaluation, making sure not to jostle anything as she completed her very first alchemy project. She was actually a little excited to see how effective her little cocktail would be.
“The group you targeted before is rounding the corner now. They will pass under the window soon.”
Silas still didn’t have a very advanced understanding of concepts like time, but Samantha recalled that it took about 15 seconds for the group she tracked earlier to reach her window from the corner of the building. Samantha would grab both elixirs and wait in the tent until Silas confirmed the exact timing to her, then put points into [Swift] to try and escape the radius of anyone’s detection before they could pin her location down.
Both elixirs emitted energy on par with a low-ranked cultivator’s killing intent, which would make her stand out like a beacon to anyone nearby if she stayed within their sensory range. She guessed that she had been lucky with the spacing of the patrols earlier when she cracked the tent open, since no one had come to investigate the area afterwards.
By doing some quick calculations in her mind and visualizing where guards would have been on their routes when she interacted with the tent, she estimated that the elixirs could be felt from around 15-20 feet away when unshielded. There was not a large enough gap in any of the patrol routes where she could get away both unseen and without anyone noticing the aura, but if she put enough points into [Swift] she could possibly vanish from the scene before the guards found where the aura had come from. And if that still didn’t work? Well… that was what her ‘parting gift’ was for.
Samantha’s fingertips brushed an unusually rough spot on the outside of the cauldron as she pulled her hands away from it, and she felt like her whole hand had been jolted by a static shock. Several runes and scripts lit up on the outside of the cauldron, but she didn’t have time to contemplate their appearance or function in this situation. It wouldn’t be her concern much longer anyway, and she feared she was already pushing her luck with how long she spent investigating the room and setting everything up for her departure.
She rubbed her hand to get the numb feeling out of it, held her breath, and fetched the two elixirs from the inside of the tent. She tensed her muscles and braced herself at the flap of the tent, preparing to rush out the window the instant Silas gave her the signal that it was safe.
In that tense, silent moment before her escape, a sound emerged.
A quiet, rhythmic noise like someone furiously tapping on stone began emitting from the general direction of the door–so quiet it was barely loud enough for Samantha’s enhanced hearing to pick up on. With only a few seconds left until Silas contacted her, she opted to stay focused and ignore it. If she could hardly hear it, she doubted anyone else would be able to anyway.
That optimism lasted about half a second.
The tapping quickly evolved into a dull rattling, and was promptly followed by the clattering of a falling chair, a loud ‘ca-thunk’, and the sound of something rolling along the ground. Samantha’s concern spiked. Either someone had just triggered her trap while investigating the sound, or her trap had somehow triggered itself. Regardless, she was now trapped in a room with a bomb that would go off in an indeterminate amount of time, and she wanted to be nowhere near when that time was up.
Luckily, Silas came through with the confirmation she had been waiting for just as she put qi points into [Translucence] and [Swift] and exited the tent.
“Now, Sam!”
“Run, Silas!” their messages overlapped.
Samantha burst from the tent and quickly scanned the room for signs of an enemy. She noted with some curiosity that though her trap had indeed been ‘activated’, she was the only person present. The door didn’t even show any signs of having been opened.
She watched with both mild horror and fascination as the fallen cauldron finished rolling and ended up directly beneath the shelving which held all of the fragile instruments and spare ingredients. However, though its forward momentum had been halted, it did not stop moving entirely. The sealed pot vibrated in place as the lit scripts on the outside flashed erratically, the racket it made steadily increasing in volume as it shook and jerked more and more violently.
Samantha finished shoving her body through the window with a fearsome efficiency fueled by terror, then kicked off the wall to launch herself into a nearby alley. The group below her had stalled once they felt her pass overhead, but she didn’t dare pause to watch what would happen next. She ran for all she was worth as she reconvened with her bond, scooping him up and carrying him as her Agility presently exceeded his own.
“What happened?” Silas questioned, feeling Samantha’s own panic.
“Flee now, talk later!” Samantha responded, putting on even more speed as she sought to outrun the imminent fruits of her labor.
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…I wonder if Keisha will be working at the tavern tonight. I should really just ask her out. She seemed interested last we spoke–I mean, I’m a cultivator. I’m handsome. What’s not to like? Honestly, I’d be doing her a favor… grubby drunk men probably grope her every shift. If I was her lover? Heh. I’d like to see them try to pull that…
His daydreaming was interrupted as he thought he felt a cultivator’s killing intent behind him–perhaps Low or Mid Copper–and held up his closed fist to signal to his mortal associates to halt. As quickly as it appeared however, it vanished from his senses. He turned in a full circle, looking over his surroundings for anything disturbed or out of place, but nothing caught his eyes in the darkness.
“What is it Owen?” one mortal asked.
“Quiet. I think I felt something…” he ordered.
Hmm… did the Low Bronze finally slip up with his aura? It felt too weak to be his killing intent, but considering he’s been blasting it out non-stop for days while also precisely controlling its shape it wouldn’t be too surprising. No one is attacking us, and there’s no one hiding nearby either… so that must be it. Heh–nice to know that those high rankers are still human too…
Owen was about to relax again when he caught a sort of clanking, rattling sound on the edge of his hearing. He couldn’t pinpoint exactly where it was coming from though.
“Do you two hear that?” he asked, activating his sphere of perception to get a better sense of his surroundings and becoming more alert.
“I don’t hear anything.” The other mortal in his group said.
Even with his sphere active, he couldn’t find anything unusual in his immediate vicinity.
He lowered his fist. Other than the clattering sound which seemed to be getting a bit louder, there was nothing nearby. He wondered if he was just on edge after being put on high alert for so many days without anything actually happening.
“It seems like a false ala–”
*BOOM*
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Harold was unceremoniously thrown from the comfort of his bed as a fiery blast of putrid, multicolored smoke poured through the newly gaping hole in his bedroom wall. Dirt and debris painfully rained down on him from above as he felt his hair begin to singe from his body at the unfortunate combination of heat and caustic fumes.
Fortunately, he always kept an emergency alchemist’s mask on his person which would protect him from most gasses. He crushed the small capsule sewn into the mask which contained the neutralizing solution, then quickly placed the soaked fabric over his nose and mouth. He crawled along the floor–where the gas was less concentrated–towards the only door that would allow him to safely exit the room.
Before he managed to reach it, however, a gruff hand grabbed him by the back of his sleep robes and he was hefted over a shoulder. Then, quite jarringly, Harold was whipped around in all directions as the man who carried him jumped between walls, shelving, and debris to exit the building. The swift movements were so abrupt that Harold nearly fell unconscious from the forces each jump and turn exerted, but thankfully he did not need to endure this hellish form of transportation for longer than a few seconds.
Almost as unceremoniously as he was blasted from his bed, Harold was roughly tossed to the ground by the Low Bronze who had carried him. Still disoriented from the rapid change of position and scenery, Harold took a few seconds to collect himself before picking himself up.
“What happened? Are we under attack?” he questioned the man, panic causing Harold to forget to address the cultivator with the appropriate amount of deference.
The cultivator snarled in response, “You tell me, alchemist. It was your lab that blew up.”
“What?! Impossible!” Harold practically shrieked. He knew for a fact that he had been meticulous in cleaning and storing everything properly. He even specially commissioned a maturing tent to further enhance the stability of the elixirs. His visions of a lavish future crumbled in his mind, but before he could be too sad at its loss a new, more horrible vision came to him. “NO! My tools!”
Completely ignoring the state of the flaming building, Harold sprinted around the warehouse to where his makeshift alchemy lab was located. As he rounded the corner to the eastern wall, he fell to his knees in shock and despair. A third, perhaps even close to half of the warehouse, was completely destroyed or collapsed. There was clearly a large explosion that was centered on the spot where his lab used to be, but he couldn’t imagine what had gone so wrong as to cause this. He would swear upon his ancestral grave that everything went perfectly this time!
All the guards in the area were converging at the site of the explosion. Screams of pain and shouted orders flew through the air like arrows. Harold could see several guards already digging through debris to rescue the injured, some of which had been blasted into other warehouses that were damaged by the explosion.
As he watched on dumbly, a guard contingent ran past him and Harold instinctively jerked his body out of the way to avoid being run over. He cursed and winced as something sharp cut into his leg at the movement, but he could tell that the cut was shallow and the damage would be superficial. He picked up the offending object and stopped dead when he recognized it. He would’ve recognized it anywhere.
Harold thought that this had to be some sort of horrible nightmare. This couldn’t be his reality–just hours ago he was on the path to living out his wildest fantasies!
“As you can see, your little experiment failed spectacularly.” The Low Bronze accused scathingly, “What a waste.”
“I… this…” Harold stuttered, lost for words.
“Save your excuses for the City Lord.” the cultivator said, yanking the sharp fragment of the jade cauldron from Harold’s grasp. The Low Bronze made a show of crushing the piece of Harold’s familial treasure in his palm before letting the jade dust blow away in the wind. “If you so much as sneeze while I carry you, I will crush you to dust as easily as that rock–understand?”
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Harold whimpered at the threat, but nodded.
The Low Bronze threw Harold over his shoulder again, and Harold obediently laid limp and still as he endured traveling at sickening speeds towards the City Lord’s Palace.
This was worse than just failing to complete the elixir. This was a total and utter disaster. What was he going to say? How could he prove that he wasn’t responsible? Would he even come out of this alive?
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The shockwave from the blast nearly knocked Samantha off of her feet even though she had already managed to travel several street blocks away from the warehouse district. The thunderclap of sound echoed around her, and she couldn’t help but look back in astonishment as a large plume of dust and smoke arose from the area she had just fled.
All homes in the vicinity came to life as mortals and cultivators alike were rudely awoken from their slumber. Lights shining through opening windows began pushing back the darkness of early morning, and she knew it wouldn’t be long until armed citizens began filling the streets. Most peoples’ first thought would be that a spirit beast attack had breached Yivesh’s walls and they would be eager to defend their homes and family. Once that happened, the chances of her being seen went up exponentially even if she tried to stay to the roofline. Samantha had practically emptied her qi pool getting away from the warehouses, so she wouldn’t be able to rely on [Translucence]. With both elixirs emitting energy around her, it was really only a matter of time until someone noticed her.
A nearby drainage port in the street gave her another idea though.
The small, circular drain in the middle of the street had a grated metal cover over it to prevent children or small animals from falling into the waterways below. Once Samantha pulled off the grate, she could see that the hole was about a foot in diameter. It was too small for her, but a perfect size for Silas.
She stashed both elixirs in open pockets on Silas’s vest, gave him specific instructions on what to do with them, and then spent a moment convincing him to take the 10 foot drop into the tunnels below. When he finally acquiesced to her plan she grabbed hold of the back of his vest and lowered him down the hole as far as she could before letting go.
“AHHHH— oh… that wasn’t as bad as I thought.” Silas said after landing softly in a small puddle below.
“I’ll see you back at the Braxands soon! Stay safe, and don’t let anyone come near you.” Samantha said.
Silas activated [Translucence] and Samantha felt the power from the elixirs diminish in her senses as his skill muted his presence. As he traveled down the tunnel she could not even feel the power of the potions at all anymore, which encouraged her greatly. Samantha replaced the metal grate over the hole and removed the headwear that masked her face. She slid the fabric mask into an open space on the inside of her robes just as the fastest of the alarmed citizens began exiting their homes ready to battle an unknown foe. It was time for her to blend in.
Samantha drew her long dagger and held it at the ready, putting on a hardened expression that she hoped conveyed ‘resolve’. She also started blasting out her High Copper killing intent in a small radius, as many cultivators about to enter into a battle typically did. She started making her way towards the Braxand home and away from the explosion, using the excuse that she was ‘searching for any rampaging spirit beasts’ whenever anyone asked her where she was going or what she was doing. Everyone she lied to nodded understandingly and went on their way, some even thanking her for performing her duty as a cultivator and protecting those around her. She felt slightly guilty whenever someone thanked her, but also felt a small degree of excitement at her success at hiding in plain sight.
As she got further and further from the warehouse district, she retracted her aura and sheathed her weapon to blend into the crowds of people who were more curious about the sound than worried about the attack. Soon she had reached a part of town that was completely unaffected and unaware of the explosion at all, and Samantha resumed her completely stealthy methods of travel.
Once she had neared the estate, Samantha found another drainage port and waited there for Silas. After about 30 minutes she felt him stop directly below the opening and she removed the grate so she could fetch him. Silas used his speed and strength to launch himself upwards towards Samantha’s outstretched arm and she attempted to grab hold of his vest to lift him up out of the waterways. It took a few tries to get the angle and timing just right, but before long Samantha was replacing the covering and making her way back to her room in the manor.
Lord Braxand was waiting for her in the room as soon as she pulled herself and Silas up over the balcony.
“You’ve caused quite the scene, I’ve heard.” Ol’ Man Whisper lightly chided.
Samantha was about to retort in irritation since he was the one who sent her on a near impossible mission in the first place, but before she had the chance he continued speaking.
“Don’t misunderstand–I know the task I gave you was difficult. Still, you accomplished much with minimal casualties.”
Her heart sank at these words. She had been purposefully avoiding thinking about how much damage her alchemical experiment had really caused. She had only intended to make a distraction for pursuing cultivators, not take out half a city block.
“How many?” she asked quietly, afraid of the answer.
Seeing her shift in emotion, his expression softened slightly, “One cultivator and two mortals died, with at least a dozen or so others injured.”
Guilt, sorrow, and regret tugged at Samantha’s heart at this news. For once, it seemed that everything had gone well for her. She now knew for a fact that her success had come at the expense of others, but she shoved the feelings down for later. She needed to stay strong in front of her current and most formidable enemy.
Ol’ Man Whisper placed a hand over her shoulder in a comforting gesture, though it made Samantha’s hair stand on end for him to touch her, “I understand better than anyone how it feels for innocent people to suffer from your plans. Everything we do, no matter how well thought out or inconsequential at the time, always has unintended consequences. I recommend not dwelling on it overly much. The bottom line is that you acted decisively and have reaped the rewards–I can feel the power of the elixir with you even now. Use the lessons learned to plan even more meticulously in the future.”
Samantha decided not to comment on his words and nodded in response instead.
“Now then,” he said, withdrawing his hand from her shoulder, “Let me take a look at the potion that has caused so much trouble.”
Samantha nodded again, grabbed the elixir from Silas’s vest, and handed it to the High Bronze.
“Hmm. Odd.” he said, turning the vial with the Bronze Colored liquid over in his hands as he inspected it.
“What is?” Samantha asked, schooling her expression to remain innocently curious.
“This elixir is clearly powerful, but not nearly as much as I would’ve expected.” Lord Braxand explained, “The chasm between Peak Bronze and Silver is said to be incomprehensibly vast. Even if a person were to spend a lifetime working to bridge that gap themselves and then were to consume this, that chasm would still not be crossed. This could perhaps bring someone from Peak Copper into Bronze, but this alchemist was a fool if he were going to present this to the City Lord as a solution to his decades long stagnation. I suppose I should’ve expected as much from a mortal. It’s a pity, but perhaps it will still be useful to a promising member of my house.”
Samantha remained quiet, not wanting to risk giving anything away about the more powerful version of the elixir she had Silas securely hide somewhere in the waterways. It was a risk to give Ol’ Man Whisper the lesser of the two potions, but it was her small way of rebelling against the iron-clad grip he currently had over her life. After she and her family were in a safer situation, she would retrieve and consume the stronger potion herself to gain even more power before ascending.
“I won’t hold a fool’s incompetence against you. You have done what I asked of you, and I have promised you a reward. Let no one say that I am not a man of my word.” he said, pulling out a clinking pouch of coins, a bottle of amber liquid, and a well-worn tome. “You will learn this technique tonight and leave the manual here in the room when you depart my home with your family tomorrow. With this, our business is concluded for now… It was nice working with you, Miss Cray.”
Ol’ Man Whisper left her alone in her room, and Samantha let out a breath that she didn’t know she had even been holding until now. She picked up the book and began reading the first page. She would have a very long night ahead of her.
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“...and that’s why I believe it was sabotage, my Lord! Everything was in its rightful place and meticulously cleaned. I swear, the elixir I had made was perfect this time… someone had to have interfered!”
Valena, the City Lord’s most highly ranked Court Alchemist, scoffed at the despicable mortal who dared to try and worm its way into the most sacred space in the Lord’s Palace–the royal alchemy lab. Not only that, but the vile creature had the audacity to try and usurp her own position in the alchemist hierarchy with this farce of a ‘miracle potion’? This was the best outcome she could have hoped for.
“What say you, Valena? This is your field of expertise. Do you agree that Harold’s work was tampered with?” The Ruler asked her.
She considered how to answer. Valena had been responsible for gathering all the needed ingredients for Harold’s recipe, and knew from experience that very few combinations could result in such a powerful blast. Granted, she had given Harold only the most potent version of every material in hopes that even the smallest error would have similarly explosive results, but this was excessive even for a major mistake. Reports coming in from the warehouse district estimated the damage radius to be nearly 200 feet. The only ingredients that could cause something like that would be ones that even the most incompetent alchemists would know to keep far apart from each other. Even if Harold’s minor success with his lesser elixir was a fluke and he was truly an idiot, he couldn’t possibly be that stupid.
It was highly likely that someone had indeed interfered with his lab, but unless someone saw something, there was no way to prove it and no way she’d willingly admit it. In fact, she should thank whoever had done it. She had sent a few of her own agents in to try and ruin Harold’s work at varying points, but the security was too tight for them to get in and she resigned herself to simply praying for Harold’s failure.
Her prayers had been answered.
This was the perfect opportunity to stomp the upstart like a bug while simultaneously solidifying her position as the top alchemist around. Not to mention that saying someone tampered with Harold’s lab would cause an investigation, and that investigation could potentially come back to bite her despite her agents’ lack of success. She knew exactly what to say, but she had to control her expression and body language carefully so as not to reveal how pleased she actually was with everything.
Valena shook her head slowly and put on a slight frown, “I don’t agree, Lord.”
Harold’s face contorted in rage, but Archon–the Low Bronze who brought Harold in–placed an imposing hand over the mortal’s shoulder in warning to prevent him from acting out further.
Valena continued, “I told you that I had misgivings after the mortal showed us the lesser elixir, and I’m afraid that those concerns have manifested. I was doubtful that such a legendary potion could be crafted by multiple skilled cultivator alchemists, let alone a single mortal without proper access to qi. The lesser elixir, I can admit, was impressive… but I think it was perhaps a rare, lucky success amongst many, many failures. He said himself it took him many tries to get right. Unfortunately, when working with ingredients and affinities of higher quality and rank, failures become much more… impactful. Frankly, it’s amazing that we only lost that one group closest to the blast origin.”
Harold spluttered, his mouth opening and closing like a gaping fish out of water.
“I see. I feared as much.” The Lord said, disappointment and frustration causing his eyebrows to crease.
His bonded beast–a Diamond-Jaw Snapping Tortoise–let out a low rumble at feeling its master’s displeasure. It’s mace-like tail whipped irritatedly from side to side, stirring up the air behind the Ruler’s Throne with an audible whooshing.
“Well, obviously you will need to repay your debt to the palace for the materials you’ve wasted, the damage to the warehouse district, and a blood price for those who have been injured or killed by your actions. Given that you sought to raise yourself out of the slums, I presume you are not currently in possession of… what is the cost estimate?” The Ruler asked no one in particular, fully expecting at least one official present in the room to have the answer for him.
“1341 gold, 7 silver, and 12 copper, at present. That number goes up the more we search the rubble, however.” the head of the Treasury answered.
Harold lost all the color in his face at hearing this. Even if he somehow earned one gold every month for the rest of his mortal life–a generous estimate–it would take him over 110 years to repay that amount.
“I declare your debt be repaid by servitude, either until the full amount has been accumulated or your death.” the City Lord declared, and a scribe wrote the judgment down onto an official form for the city archives.
Seeing an opportunity, Valena took a small risk and spoke up, “If you have nothing distinct in mind, my Lord, I believe I may have some use for the mortal.”
“Oh? I had a few ideas, but could be swayed.” the Ruler replied.
“Thank you, my Lord.” Valena said, bowing low to the Peak Bronze, “While his skills were insufficient for the task, or perhaps his recipe was flawed, I believed more experienced hands and minds may be able to take something useful away from his attempts. Perhaps, with time, we can even perfect the recipe he aimed to give you–though such a feat could take years. I propose he be placed under my authority, where what little knowledge he has may be put to the best use. And, when he has nothing more to offer from an intellectual standpoint, there will always be something that needs preparation or cleaning.”
Valena hoped the promise of a working elixir would be enticing enough for the Lord to consider her suggestion. If what the mortal said was true and he had actually perfected the potion, it would be her that would reap the glory of success when presenting it to the Lord. If she had such an incredible achievement on her record, no one would ever be able to challenge her position again.
The City Lord took a moment to think it over, then agreed to her request, “Very well. I don’t see why not. Do ensure that he is not left alone to tinker with materials, and reeducate him on how to handle dangerous ingredients. I do not want a repeat of what happened in the warehouse district in my palace.”
“You are most gracious.” Valena said, rising up from her bowed position.
She looked over to the stunned mortal, a hint of avarice impossible to hide from her face. She would squeeze every last drop of useful knowledge from this man until he was nothing more than a husk. Only then would she be satisfied that he had properly learned his place.
The Ruler proceeded to dismiss everyone in the room and all his officials filed out in an orderly fashion. Although most of his court were cultivators and did not require much sleep, it was still unusual for them to work at this time of night. He was happy to see the promptness at which they all arrived when he heard news of the explosion and summoned them. It showed either their respect, fear, or loyalty towards him–any of which he would gladly accept in his position.
Once the room emptied of everyone except for the Ruler, Valena, Harold, and Archon, Archon brought Harold up to stand next to Valena. He then departed shortly after paying his respects to the City Lord.
Addressing Harold directly for the first time, the Ruler looked at the disheartened man and said, “I know that this isn’t exactly how you imagined this venture concluding, but there are some unexpected positives if you view it in the right light. After all, you have technically achieved your goal of leaving the slums and working in the alchemy lab of the Lord’s Palace! I will also consider knocking off some of your debt if you assist Valena well and help her to craft the elixir you promised me.”
He was pleased when he saw his words had their intended effect and a spark of hope reignited within Harold. Just as his father had taught him to, the Lord bestowed the curse of hope to anyone who would likely be forced to serve him until death. If slaves had no expectations or ambitions for the future at all, their productivity suffered greatly. Some would even succumb to despair and take their own lives. If Valena believed Harold would still be useful in helping him break through to Low Silver, he would see to it that he found discrete ways to keep the mortal’s spirits up.
This habit was something Valena had picked up on as well after so many years of working alongside him. She gave him a knowing smile as she bowed one last time to him in gratitude, “Wisely stated, my Lord.”