Present Day - 2020 A.D. (0 A.R.) - February - New Miami - 10 Days left
I was looking forward to meeting the Mad Alchemist. Supposedly it’s a title, but one that’s rare enough that you could just use it in place of a name. Kraken told me a bit about them but understood my initial resilience enough due to my encounter with Flamel. That’s where he got his start.
Mad Alchemy.
Aside from that crazy wingnut, they’re considered an overall force for good in the wide Multiverse. New cures, new technologies, new branches of technology that revolutionized the lives of uncountable masses of sentient creatures, most of it started with some Mad Alchemist living his life on the edge. Without a doubt, they were considered an almost untouchable force spreading knowledge and good works throughout the Multiverse. It’s like the exact opposite of the Spanish Inquisition. The sheer amount of power they wielded made their small group respected in every circle.
It took less time than expected for the Merchants to gather the requested materials but one trip out with the list of shit and two trips back through the portal got us what we needed. Returning ship one had our boxes and boxes of crap while ship number two was an incredibly well armored yet sleek naval boat that would’ve turned the United States Navy green with envy.
Leaving the organization to Maevana’s guards, I turned my attention back to where it belonged, practicing wizardry over and over again. While sitting on a lonely outcropping of rock that afforded a fantastic view of the beaches and the docks, I reviewed what Kraken had told me about a bunch of mana-regeneration theories and techniques. Problem was, according to a memory packet of notes, that didn’t matter as much to me due to the incredible levels of regeneration that my Sorceries afforded me. Which left me with the basic exercises that supposedly all Aelven children worked on: mana-affectation.
In the palm of my hand sat a small orb just a hint smaller than a softball. Lo’ordaen gave one to me earlier that same morning with a pitying smile when Kraken joked about my lack of formal training and made some joke about ‘training wheels’. I vowed to return it after easily mastering the lessons within but he just laughed at me and juggled a few more before mysteriously returning them to whatever compartment he magicked them out of.
Three hours later and I was still sweating over the damn thing.
“It’s not that hard!” One of Kraken’s tentacles lay on top of the glass orb and the mist within readily changed colors and shapes to form incredibly complex scenes and shapes. “It’s just plain mana in there, purified of all influence and the skin of the orb amplifies or inhibits mental focus so this tool is perfect for you.”
“YOU TURNED UP THE DIFFICULTY!”
“You’re a mother fucking Sorcerer. Sack up and work.”
Growling at the orb didn’t make a difference but it did help me feel just a bit better. Supposedly, controlling purified mana should be easier to work with than your own mana due to how ‘loud’ one’s own body could be and environmental mana didn’t carry echoes of your heart pulsing blood or the electrified nature of your nerves zapping information up and down your body. For those without exceptional meditation skills or long years of practice, purified mana was easier to touch and move around and manipulate at every level.
Except for Sorcerers. Our mana, our personal stores of endogenous power, were tuned in. Every hint of power within our bodies was aspected, perfectly calibrated so that it vibrated at the exact frequency of our souls. Purified mana was ownerless. Which meant my soul, my very touch kept trying to aspect the mana to match my own before changing it but the STUPID little orb kept the aspect part out!
It taunted me, the mist. I could almost make out annoying shapes within it similar to how kids gaze at the clouds above and claim to see all sorts of fantastical things. I no longer discounted their imagination because I could in fact see my own face in the mist sticking its tongue out at me.
I shot up clutching the orb in both hands. “I DID IT! I DID IT.”
Kraken landed on the orb. “Put it away. It’s time.”
“Oh come on! Just when I figured it out? Relaxing was the key!” Kraken only glared harder. Grumbling not at all like a petulant child, I shoved the orb into Gungnir and stretched. “Can’t let me have a moment of joy, can you? Fuckin slave driver.”
“You tell me. What will bring you more joy, manipulating pure mana in a child’s training toy or constructing your Grimoire?”
I didn’t even get to answer before Kraken vanished within Gungnir. The late morning sun truly illuminated the beautiful view. The peaceful green waters of the Atlantic only served to accentuate the high tech designs of the myriad boats floating on the water. Two big flagships covered with mana cannons and sails made out of pure energy threads woven together patrolled the waters and the overly armored Centauri soldiers aboard them held their vigilance. More than once, some beam of concentrated light would lance out to dissuade a big shark or a flurry hooked tentacles grasping for anything that could be a meal. It wasn’t uncommon to see those same soldiers make a game of blasting anything extra toothy if the opportunity arose.
“I’m going to take a real vacation after this mess is finally over.” I muttered darkly, trying to put the beautiful sun and the gorgeous beach out of my mind. “A week in my smoothie jungle getting to know Meliad a bit more after figuring out how to shrink her down to normal size.” My musings quieted with silent guilt before turning away. Reluctant steps took me down the wide sideways plinth of dark beachrock and over the dunes that smoothed out at my approach. My Earth Sorcery allowed me to treat the shifting surface of the sand as if it were stable bedrock. “Maybe a month on the beach to get some sun and then maybe explore some floating islands while I’m at it.”
Getting back into the city was a breeze as Lo’ordaen was waiting just outside the gates. Instead of being dressed up like a bodyguard, he was decked out in classy robes that a fat rich guy would wear. I wanted to cringe at the gaudiness but found it hard to look away. Fashion was definitely not my forte’. The sash was crimson and gold and those boots looked like they belonged to a modern cowboy who didn’t know the meaning of the word ‘dirt’. Around his neck sat a scaly scarf that glimmered, catching the light with its gold and green hues. I instantly caught the fact that it was loaded up with defensive magics that glimmered to my senses. So much so that I didn’t even want to use the ‘Monocle’ spell to tease out the details.
The Aelf played it cool though, lightly waving me over and then pivoting to walk beside me as the Centauri guards let us through. “Our destination is on the far side of the city so I have arranged transport.”
Two gorgeous stallions with coats of deepest black confidently trotted out from around the corner and stopped in front of us. Their riders, two armored Centuari soldiers with their helmets off, slid off like practiced cowboys and handed Lo’ordaen the reins. He nodded his head in thanks before passing one set of reins to me.
Both futuristic lookin’ cowboys gave Lo’ordaen the scathing up-down before nodding in approval and then they both stood right in front of me way too close. I bore their judgemental glares with all the ease of someone who faced down a dragon. I could see the confusion barely hidden in their eyes. Mr. Tall Dark and Muscles to my left crossed his arms and went with the nightclub bouncer look while his buddy Senor Mustache squared up just a hint closer and leaned over so his damn Centauri height would come across as even more intimidating. Both of them dropped a real heavy hand on my shoulder, exerting enough force that a normal human would’ve crumpled. SAW’s armored pauldron absorbed the impact and my lovely disposition was only held back by my stubbornness.
Or pure disbelief.
“You take real good care of my boys . . . . understood?” I held the Hispanic Centauri’s gaze without flinching. His concern for his horse came across as contempt or a genuine confidence that I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. Even the dappled stallion glared at me as if I were a mouse daring to ride a hungry dragon.
“You think I’m riding on a fucking horse?” Laughing so hard that I bent over, I used Earth Sorcery to push the dirt underneath my boots up a foot so I could clap him on the shoulder. “Dude! I have no fucking clue how to a ride a goddamn horse!”
They both looked at me like I had a few screws loose and to be fair, maybe I did. Even Lo’ordaen gave me a funny look. Then, they looked back at Lo’ordaen and back at me. The muscular Centauri arched one eyebrow. “Are you fucking with us? Your buddy paid for two horses.”
I fake-wiped a tear from my eye. “Relax man. I’m just gonna jog next to the damn horse. Lo’ordaen was probably being nice arranging transport but I don’t trust animals I don’t know. Besides, you don’t want me magicking the beautiful creature into complete submission just so I can ride him once. That’s just cruel.”
“What the fuck kind of midget wizard are you?”
The earth beneath my feet churned up three feet underneath my boots so I could be the one looking down on them. “Midget?” I gasped incredulously, making a big sarcastic show. I waved my arms so theatrically that I almost smacked his buddy in the face. “Me? Aren’t you from here? I’m NORMAL height you trumped up steroid muscle monkey! This is normal human height!”
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Their faces got red so I kept right on going. “Why give me a hard time, asshole?” I went to poke my finger in his chest but the look in his eye told me that violence was the barest hint of contact away. “I know they grow’em big in Texas but that Centauri genetic upgrade BS did you dirty!”
Blondie held his hombre back. “Hold up, you’re uh, uh, human? Real live, from the USA kind of human? Not one of those Conglomerate doppels or a Centauri true-stock?”
I snapped, yanking Gungnir off my belt and letting it transform from a knife into a mystical spear that glowed ominously even in the morning sun. “What gave it away you filthy Clinton look-alike? Do I look like Monica Lewinsky begging for a raise or do you just not recognize an American asshole off rip?”
Their expressions were worth every bit of showboating.
“PRIVATE! CORPORAL!” An ogreishly deep feminine voice rang out, shaking the dust off the walls of the nearby buildings. I didn’t mind the conversation getting cut off at this point but the implied threat from the sheer volume turned my attention to more important matters. I could tell that it should have been shrill but the burgeoning size of the immensely muscular woman made that thought completely irrelevant. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s roided up Samoan sister stomped down the road with her own weapon, a deadly combination of a cattle prod and a night stick but upsized so that it could pass for a wicked mace from a dark science fiction movie. The lightning crackling up and down its hefty weight was so bright that the shadows were all wrong.
“WE DON’T MESS WITH THE AELVES! WE DON’T FUCK WITH THE AELVES. JUST DROP OFF THE MOTHER FUCKING HORSES AND LET THEM ON THEIR MERRY JINGLE BELL WAY!”
I muttered in pure disbelief. “And I thought my last girlfriend’s family was racist. Fucking hell dude.”
Both men snapped to attention and yelled in unison. “YES MAM!”
I didn’t have to stick around to watch the dressing down but I heard enough as I slowly walked away barely keeping my smirk to myself. Lo’ordaen’s words went unheard as the giant Centauri hulk-lady screamed her lungs out at her soldiers.
“DO YOU WANT TO FIGHT MORE BEACH SQUIDDIES DURING THE NEXT FULL MOON INVASION? BECAUSE THAT CAN BE ARRANGED! IF YOU DON’T HURL YOUR EVER LIVING GUTS OUT DURING TONIGHT’S TRAINING THEN YOU’LL BE ON THE FRONT LINE WITH ONLY A SHITTY LANCE TO KEEP YOUR SHRIMP COCKS COVERED OR MY NAME ISN’T MASTER SERGEANT CRANK!”
“Please tell me that’s not how humans normally interact with each other?” Lo’ordaen asked once we got a bit of distance between us and the Centauri soldiers. His face was a bit pale. “Certainly, strange. No one in New Richmond comported themselves in such a manner.”
My own memories of Army basic training came flooding back but the smile on my face didn’t make it to my eyes. “The military is a different world but it seems that it’s a more common theme than we’d ever realize.”
An angry snort and a nip on my shoulder brought me out of my reverie. Lo’ordaen’s horse chomped on my armored shoulder again and Lo’ordaen lightly tugged at the reins. “If you’re not going to ride then we’ll at least enjoy the weather.”
*********
“You’re late.”
Even though it was the Aelven princess who was complaining at me, she wasn’t the one whose opinion I really cared about. Lo’ordaen stood next to me cool as an alien cucumber but Maevana almost seemed ready to vibrate out of her skin. She kept trying to scoot closer to me but seeing as how I was closest to the newcomer, her guards just wouldn’t let her.
Soft red and green light emanated from the corners of the ceiling and behind a large desk stood a medium sized humanoid with six arms. Each arm was segmented, similar to an insect leg but the end of each limb sported a dextrous hand with long fingertips. Many jeweled rings adorned the hands but that’s not what grabbed my attention. The being calmly stared at me with large black eyes that seemed to hold a miniature nebulae in the center where a pupil should be.
“Greetings and peace, honored sorcerer.” While it didn’t look young to me, the Mad Alchemist’s voice smoothly wheezed and whirled the consonants adding too many ‘S’s to its words. From its appearance, I couldn’t discern a gender but its voice was oddly masculine. The slender shoulders were throwing me off as well as the very delicate hands.
Keeping it classy, I stuck my hand out like a proud southern gentleman to shake his closest limb. “Howdy!” Even though I gave a big smile, the Mad Alchemist looked at my hand like I had just dragged it through my butt cheeks before offering it to him.
The hem of his golden sleeve lengthened until his hand was covered in a glove. “While you know of my title, I prefer to be called Saltheen.” Contorting his face into a passable imitation of a smile, the Mad Alchemist, err, Saltheen gave my hand a hearty shake.
“With what I’ve been told about your expertise, I’ll call you whatever the hell you want, good sir!”
Maevana’s glare did little to deter my enthusiasm. We all knew why we were here. It was time to get my mother fucking Grimoire.
Saltheen led the way down a corridor covered in a glistening silver gloss. I could feel the pressure of the magical atmosphere intensify the further we walked. I turned around a few times in awe but kept moving.
“Hold on,” I said, puzzling out the strangeness around me. “Didn’t you get in last night? Who built all this?”
The Mad Alchemist carefully constructed what passed for a smile. The way the light glinted off his thin, smooth lips caught me off guard. The bastard’s face was actually constructed of a million little scales. Holding back a shiver of revulsion, I did pay attention as he spoke.
“I did, of course. Sleep has not been a daily or weekly requirement for me at least for the past few centuries.” One of Saltheen’s hands trailed along the left side of the corridor, brilliant blues and greens lit up at his touch and then faded like a lightshow. “So much time is wasted by mortals in their restorative unconscious routines. How can I expect myself to rise above the rest if I am bound by the same restrictions?”
I gaped. Sleep was just too precious to me to even think about giving it up completely. Cheating the way I did by abusing Flesh Sorcery to compact ten hours of sleep into four was hard enough, but skipping the closest approximation we have to peaceful death for no reason? WHY?
I kept the rest of my exclamations to myself until we passed through yet another magically intricate door. Whorls of interlocking enchantments tuned to resonating frequencies that rotated off of multi-cyclical helices were more than enough to give me an instant headache. “At least tell me that you don’t have the blueprints for these,” I said, slapping the latest door- “memorized or something. Nobody could’ve whipped this up on the fly.”
Saltheen let out a genuine chuckle. Every hair on the back of my neck perked up.
“Of course not,” he said, pulling out a slender metal tube twice the size of a sharpie. With a quick twist, a small shard of black crystal slipped out and fell into his hand. “I have several of these Dwarven memory crystals and they contain my compendiums of knowledge.”
At my greedy stare, Saltheen put it away. “While I have not been able to reverse engineer their methods for creating one from base ingredients, I have been able to force the original blank one to grow using Alchemy which then allows me to slowly but infinitely generate more. Which I sell for a hefty price.”
After a few moments, the hallway opened up into a small amphitheater that was set at least two stories down into the earth.
Every natural feature was modeled after a cave but that’s not what was eye-catching. The stalagmites and stalactites had been completely reworked into various platforms. In some places, the rock formations were so close together that they formed enclosed rooms.
At Saltheen’s direction, the materials for my Grimoire were placed in the semi-closed off room and the rest of the Aelves sort of ambled around as they felt more comfortable here than I did. My Earth Sorcery was letting me know that while I was in the bowels of Mother Earth right now, I was basically cut off by the mysterious metallic coating that was painted over everything.
Maevana squealed, escaping the encircling cluster of guards watching her and running up the man ritual platform in the center of the cavern. At least she had the brains to not touch it. “Is this where it happens? Real magic?”
Saltheen’s large eyes squinted in disapproval but his voice was steady. “Alchemy. This is where celestial possibility touches the earth to mold that which is not normally possible.”
He didn’t have to talk loud at all as his voice carried the furthest reaches of the chamber. Not only had the alien bastard set up this magnificent area in the span of one night, but he made it a freaking amphitheater too. He could leave and sell it as a freaking movie theater or orchestra spot.
“I want to make this really worth your while,” I whispered, standing next to Saltheen with my arms crossed.
He waved one hand while murmuring. “No need, the princess had already footed the bill.”
I cut him off. “I get it, but I want to ensure that nothing less than your best effort is put into this creation. And I do believe I might have some . . . motivation for you.” Thinking quickly, I remembered that he’d mentioned memory stones. “Can you accept memories as I prefer not to say aloud?”
Saltheen produced a tiny memory stone the color of burnt copper. Reaching forward, I touched it with one finger and mentally flailed for a moment before tightly wrapping up and depositing one copy of a memory. Not even wasting a minute on distrusting me, he put the crystal to his own head.
A tremble ran through his body as the crystal dissolved into dust.
“Is this true?” Cold nebulae pupils tried to pierce through my own to see the veracity of my own memory, as if he could pull the details from my mind.
I grinned. “Yessir, and you can have most of it.” I looked around to see who was paying attention to our conversation and luckily, nobody was. “Just uh, don’t tell the little lady and make sure you do your best on her grimoire as well. I want us walking away with the best damn product you can make.”
I’ve played this game long enough to know that the carrot must be shown along with the stick. Gungnir flared from a belt-knife in its sheath into a full on war spear that I leaned upon. I loved the curving tri-blade glowing with a golden purple hue that sang of Chaotic destruction just a hint of a will away.
“You create two mind-bendingly awesome grimoires for me and the princess and you can have the rest of a beautifully preserved, fully grown, fire dragon.”