“Alright, let’s see what we can do,” I say to River, returning to sit cross-legged next to him. He hasn’t been idle in the time I’ve been gone – I see the evidence of multiple tests, both with the venom and without. “Any luck?” I ask.
The lizard-man sends me a sense of frustrated negation.
The concoction has improved but not enough. When I test it on myself, it doesn’t even come close to what I experienced with the Herbalist’s creation.
“You know,” I say thoughtfully, “it may not just be the technique. Animals contain more Energy the further into the valley we get; perhaps the same is true of plants.” It’s something that occurred to me while I was recently stretching my hide: idly comparing the crocodile to the salamander.
That’s true, River allows pensively. Clearly he hadn’t thought about it either.
“But it’s still likely that your herbalist uses magic in the creation process, so we might as well give it a go.”
So saying, I get started. I need to try to work out if I can do it before I have a chance of teaching River. And I figure that that starts with me testing what I can actually do with the materials. Though I suspect that the herbalist affects the concoction directly, she probably has a particular Skill for that – or whatever she’d call it.
To that end, I pick up the harash and try to infuse mana into it the way I would with a carcass.
It’s not all that surprising when it doesn’t work; I’d been more than half-expecting that result. After all, my attempt to infuse the tree trunk with mana hadn’t succeeded, so why would it work with a different kind of plant?
Nonetheless, in the pursuit of being thorough, I pick up the aslebellum and do the same. With the same result.
Alright, I say to myself. How about the venom? This attempt, I give even odds. It’s an animal product, which might mean that it’s able to be affected by Flesh-Shaping. On the other hand, it’s not the whole body; only a small part, and not really flesh at all.
A flicker of hope lights inside me when my mana isn’t just automatically rejected. At the same time, it isn’t absorbed inside as easily as the crocodile skin, for example. It’s almost like my mana is reluctant to move forwards. Like it’s uncertain whether it should do this or not.
If it’s possible for mana to have an opinion, of course. Which, actually isn’t as far-fetched an idea as I might have thought at the beginning of all this; if fire is able to bargain, why wouldn’t my mana be able to have feelings?
Though I’d rather it didn’t because I’d hate to know what would happen if my mana decided it didn’t like me….
Either way, I press forwards, trying to overcome the reluctance of my mana with my will. Slowly, begrudgingly, it enters the venom and starts to spread within it.
I suddenly realise that I understand why it dissolves everything around – it’s not dissimilar to my own stomach acid, but several times stronger. If I remember correctly, stomach acid is usually hydrochloric acid, and strong enough to dissolve food as it is. Why it’s black, I put down to the other substances that are mixed in with the acid. What they’re for, I don’t know. Perhaps something to do with why the acid doesn’t dissolve the creature’s own body?
Once my mana fully saturates the venom, I sense that I have just as much control over the liquid as I do over skin or a carcass itself. I test it briefly, adding in some more mana to increase the quantity of the liquid. I’m tempted to test whether I can change the concentration, but decide that I’d better separate it out for that.
Actually, if I do separate it into two amounts, will both parts be equally saturated, or will my mana only stay in one?
To test that out, I take another of my earthenware pots – this one a bit bigger than really ideal – and separate some of the acid into it. To my pleasure, separating the liquid changes nothing: I have equal control over both quantities.
A further few tests to the liquid in the bigger earthenware pot reveal that, yes, I can increase or reduce the concentration of the acid – to a point. I suspect that I can increase the concentration about two or three times. Reducing the concentration, funnily enough, is actually harder, and I can only reduce it to perhaps half of its initial concentration, at most.
I do find something else interesting. If I increase the concentration of the acid and then rapidly reduce it, I can reduce the concentration to half of the original acid. If, however, I increase the acid’s concentration and then wait for a few minutes, the new concentration becomes the ‘base value’ by which the half concentration is calculated. I have to guess that that indicates that the mana actually changes into the physical components of the acid, but takes a little bit of time to do it, even if the effects are immediately evident.
My tests done for now, I turn back to River who is waiting patiently. It must be pretty boring for him – although I can sense all the differences I’ve made to the venom, for him it must have been like watching paint dry.
“Let’s give this another go. I haven’t been able to affect the plants at all, but the venom is a different story. Perhaps that will be enough to make a difference.”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Perhaps, River replies, equally cautious, but his eyes tell a different story, as does the excitement in his movements.
He chops the harash and aslebellum. Why he didn’t do that while I was testing the venom, I don’t know – perhaps the freshness makes a difference? Or he thinks it does, at least. Putting the harash slivers in a bowl, he reaches for the venom. This time when he pours it in, I’m immediately able to feel what happens.
The acid in the venom starts reacting with the harash, breaking the outer layers apart. Even as it does that, parts of the venom itself are transformed. Some of that is the acid itself – being neutralised, I suppose – but the other components of the venom, the elements I wasn’t able to identify the function of, are also being affected.
So, there goes the idea that it’s the pure acidity which makes a difference to this potion.
Clearly the acid is important, and I guess the plants themselves are a large part of the function of the potion. That is evident from the fact that boiling them did work. However, I have to now theorise that the venom is important in some way to enhance the healing aspects of the plants.
Or perhaps the reactions which are going on here, besides the immediate dissolution of the hydrocholoric acid, are actually detrimental. Could they be the reason why the potion is almost as harmful as it is helpful? But then, that’s clearly not a feature of the original potion, so the herbalist must have some way of getting around it.
I just observe while the reactions continue. I even swirl the bowl a little when the speed starts to die down, making sure that the venom which has not yet had a chance to come in contact with the plant pieces is able to do so.
Finally, it seems like the mixture has stabilised; even when I swirl it around, no further reactions take place.
“OK, add the aslebellum, please,” I tell River. The lizard-man jumps a little, perhaps startled by me suddenly speaking after having been silent for a rather long time.
He wordlessly obeys, not asking any questions even though his curiosity and impatience coming across the Bond. All I can say is that he’s far more patient than me. There’s no way I’d have been able to keep silent all this time. Even so, I don’t say anything right now – I don’t feel like I’ve learned enough yet.
When the minced aslebellum enters the liquid, a new explosion of frantic reactions takes place. Once more the acid itself dissolves the new pieces of plant, but also the substance which was already changed by the harash is now interacting too.
I suspect that changing the order of plants would make an impact on the potion produced, I think to myself. After all, venom which has reacted first with aslebellum wouldn’t necessarily react in the same way with harash and that might have unknown effects.
As before, once the reaction speed starts dying down, I swirl the bowl to speed it up again.
By the end, I’m left with a liquid that is quite different from what it started as. Interestingly, I maintain control over the liquid as a whole, even though it’s fully encompassed the plants which I was previously unable to affect. I suddenly wonder whether it’s because my mana has been present since the start.
Curious, I turn to one of River’s previous attempts with the venom, trying to sink my mana into it. I fail, just as I did with the plants. My magic clearly doesn’t recognise this as a space it can affect in any sort of way.
Well, that answers that question. Now only…hmm, a myriad more?
The concoction done, I quickly cast my combined Inspect. Once more gibberish comes up, but I’m familiar enough with it now to verify that nothing has changed just from me adding my mana: it still offers twenty-four damage for twenty-five healing. That verified, I pick it up and take a mouthful.
Master, don’t- River exclaims, reaching out for me. Too late.
The potion is nasty and I grimace as I swallow it. Although it doesn’t taste like stomach acid, it’s certainly got that same burn to it. The taste isn’t particularly nice either, earthy and bitter at the same time.
I immediately close my eyes and focus on being able to see what it’s doing to my body. As expected, the acid remaining in the liquid burns the lining of my mouth, throat, and then hits my stomach like a punch. Since my stomach is already designed to deal with strong acid, it’s not as impactful there as in the other places, but I have a feeling that if I ingested too many of these potions without being able to heal myself, I’d find I’d develop a stomach ulcer before too long.
At the same time, though, I sense the other aspects of the mixture getting to work on the damage the potion caused. Once that damage has been healed, a little of it is absorbed into my body and heads towards my aching shoulders.
When the small amount of substance – healing mana? – reaches my over-used muscles, it goes to work on healing them, used up in a second and making no noticeable difference to my muscles.
That’s the point of healing above the damage, I say to myself in amusement. Opening my eyes, I see River looking at me anxiously.
“I’m fine,” I reassure him. “I’m pretty sure you’ve tested worse concoctions on me before. This one even healed its own damage.”
You should have given it to me, he chides me grumpily. It’s the most critical I’ve seen him and it makes me feel exasperated that it’s over me hurting myself.
“One, I made it – I should test it. Two, I wanted to see its effects and of the two of us, I know my own body best,” I say with a shrug.
Did you learn anything? River asks, losing his grumpy demeanour in favour of excitement.
“I learnt lots of interesting things,” I tell him obligingly, “But whether they will be useful to improving the potion’s success, I don’t know.”
He looks a little depressed, perhaps assuming that that means we’re not going to go any further. That, of course, is far from the truth.
“Let me just go and stretch my hide some more, and then I’ll come back and do some experiments. I’m sure now that I can affect the potion; it remains to be seen if those changes are improvements, of course. And then, if they are improvements, if you can do them.”