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Alchemy is considered one of the newest branches of science despite its origins from preindustrial society as a tool of charlatans and hoodwinks. Lead cannot be transmuted into gold. Neither is there a law of equivalent exchange as some have suggested. A professional alchemist knows how to change powdered cockatrice scales into a flowable fluid. But do we understand the why of how this occurs? Without knowledge of the manner in which we are able to affect the natural order of matter, how can this branch of so-called science be properly regulated and tested to ensure safety for the consumer?
Yes application of SP in a controlled environment is required, but why not kinetic, chemical, or electrical energies? If SP can be converted to other forms of energy, why is the opposite also not true? What is it about SP that makes it so different?
These are the questions my esteemed colleagues have failed to evaluate and in my humble opinion, will lead to the downfall of all we hold dear unless we fully understand the ramifications of utilizing the energy of our very souls to affect the world around us.
-Testimony of Sir Macon in the third Tribunal hearing on the recognition of alchemy at the University of Eshix, Pre-cataclysm, date unknown.
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“Hahaha! Clement, you hearing this?” Guildmaster Crelk slapped his thigh as I told him about my encounter with the Caerbanning.
“Kid, you don’t give up any part of your kill for nothing. A celebration? You must be green as they come. You have any idea how much that meat could have sold for in the market?” The elderly skill trainer shook his head in disappointment.
“I have a feeling I’m about to find out.” I cringed while waiting for a response.
“At least another 50 gilder kid. Those villagers were pleased because you probably gave them the most expensive meal of their lives” Crelk handed me a small pouch, “and here’s the 85 from the quest reward. I’ll give you twelve for the pelt. It’d actually be worth something if you hadn’t mangled it up so badly.”
Quest: “Urgent Slayer Request” COMPLETED: 60 XP awarded
I pulled the raw hide from my pack and tossed it onto the counter in front of Crelk, taking the additional money and adding it to my own. Hopefully, this would be enough to afford the new tubing for Colette’s alchemy equipment.
“You have failed to die this day. How utterly disappointing.”
I’d recognize that tone of voice anywhere and turned around to see the helpful dark elf walk in through the front door. As it was the first time I saw him, he was covered in the remains of his foes. This time however, it didn’t look like the blood and guts I expected. It almost appeared greasy.
“Manage to take out those rogue bots then Zirval?” Crelk asked the elf who was slowly creating an oil slick under his feet.
A small black box appeared from beneath his cloak and was gently placed on the table. I wasn’t sure just how much was in the bag but when it hit the table it did so with a decidedly heavy thunk.
There’s a need for processor cores? Yes! There must be someone trying to work with the tech. Now if I could just get in contact with them...
“Say, what’s the chance that-”
“Sorry kid, client confidentiality. Besides, it was just a courier from the capital that dropped off a personal request asking for Zirval here.” Crelk chuckled. “You’re not quite ready to take on that level of request yet anyway.”
“As you gain in strength, more will seek to stab you from behind,” Zirval jovially bragged.
“With great strength comes great politics. That’s true anywhere,” I acknowledged.
“Get to second rank like my friend here and maybe you’ll start seeing requests for yourself as well!” The old orc clasped a hand to the lithe elf’s back, heedless of the viscous oil still clinging to it.
“Second leaves one in front to take the first blow,” Zirval replied.
“You can just admit that you’re getting too old for this shit and retire like me bud, though that’ll be the day. So kid, taking any more quests today? Think I saw a few new ones show up while you were out.”
“Don’t think I will. Need to see the alchemist about getting some Cephylx to enchant my gear.”
“I bet you do, I bet you do! Nod’s as good as a wink. Say no more!” Crelk said while nudging Zirval knowingly.
Zirval slapped the guildmaster’s hand away, shook his head in distain, and went over to idly look over the request board. Seeing an opportunity to extricate myself from the situation I did so and waved my goodbyes to the guild.
***
This second time through the bustling market was no less wondrous in view, but it was starting to become ever so slightly familiar. The kin milling about started to look like people to me. Facial expressions and mannerisms were strikingly familiar between the different species and the humans I was used to.
Being the only one of my kind was a bit lonely, though I was less overwhelmed than I might have been if I’d been without a former native sharing my mind.
The vendors continued to sell their wares, a couple recognized my face and tried to wave me in even though I’d not purchased anything from them. Looked sure, but not with the intent to purchase.
Pressing through the crowd, I made it to my destination and opened the door. Curiously, no cheerful voice greeted me, aside from the bell, there was no notice of my entry to the store. Jars of ingredients say where they did the last time I was here. In truth, not much had moved at all that I could tell.
“Colette?” I called, “Colette, it’s Fabius. I’ve brought back the Caerbanning skull intact like you requested. Are you in here?”
A sign written with ’Be Back Soon’ was sitting in the corner next to the front door but not on it. Silence was my companion as I made my way toward the back of the shop. Reaching the door at the back, I saw that it was cracked open. I rapped my knuckles on the heavy wooden barrier. “Hey Colette? Are you in there, is everything alright?”
Waiting a moment without an answer, I poked my head inside the cracked door and looked the laboratory. Shockingly, I saw that the old corroded steel tubing had been recently replaced by new copper. A few loose pieces still lay scattered on the counter not yet attached.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
I heard a soft snoring sound from the other side of the table, when I looked around it I saw the curled up body of Collete, her chest rising and falling peacefully with half of her body under the table itself. I wasn’t sure how she could have fallen asleep there, but she managed.
Turning around to leave quietly, I bumped into one of the loose pieces of tubing. A quick snatch to catch it missed, and it clattered to the floor with a ringing chime.
“Huh...uh? Roww! Oh no!” The pointy eared cat girl jumped up in a frenzy of motion at the disturbance. “Oh its you!”
“Hi there, sorry about disturbing your nap. I honestly didn’t mean to. The shop was open but I didn’t see you,” I said.
A slight blush crept across Colette’s cheeks before she responded.
“I decided to go ahead and get the pieces made like you said. I might have stayed up all night replacing the old tubing so it would be a surprise when you got here. And so I could get to work on it as soon as it came in,” She admitted the last part with an impish smile.
“Well yes, I am surprised. I thought you didn’t have enough to pay for all this work yet?”
“I umm...didn’t. Don’t. But it’s okay! The smith said he’d wait for the other half once my investor got back in town,” The grin on her face made it clear who her so called ’investor’ was.
“And what by perchance would this investor owe?” I asked.
“Like 240...ish? But I’ll be sure to create better work now! I can feel it. I wanted to have it ready so I could show you right away!”
My palm raised itself to my face and cradled my forehead as I tried to stave off a headache.
“I agreed to help you look for ways to improve your alchemy, but this is more than I agreed to,” Her lab was taking on the looks of a decent setup, but for her to go into debt and try to tie me into it-
“But wait! Don’t get mad. I had a theory! Just hear me out okay?”
“I’m listening,” I groaned through gritted teeth, my jaw clenched tight as I waited for the excuse.
“The neural materials I’ve used as a base have been out for extended periods of time, sometimes nearly rotten! Everyone knows ingredients lose potency as they age. If I waited until you got back to buy this like we discussed, it would be another two or three days before the smith was done.”
“And in that case, the Caerbanning head would have further deteriorated.” I summarized. Monsters didn’t decay quite as quickly as typical animals, but what I had in my pack was starting to get a bit ripe. A proper refrigeration rune would be needed to keep something like that fresh for the long haul.
“YES! I never get to work with fresh material! By the time adventurers get to me or a merchant does, it might have been sitting out for a week or more. Even the merchants with refrigeration might keep it on hand for several months!”
Seeing the passion in her eyes reminded me a bit of myself when I got on a roll. With the loss of her mentor, it was likely that nobody else in town could help talk shop with her. While I was no alchemist myself, my overall understanding of what was possible placed me firmly in the fellow scientist colleague category.
“Alright then, what do we need to do to get this finished up?” I asked.
“You’re not still mad at me?”
“I’ll reserve judgement for after we get this together. You wanted to have fresh material right? It’s not getting any fresher while we wait.”
“Oh, right! So let’s see...umm... here!” Colette pushed a half dozen random lengths of tubing my way. They ranged in size from smaller than my pinky, to a coil of tubing no thicker than a reed but wrapped in circles big enough to place a closed fist through. “Just take these pieces and replace their counterparts on the machine over there.”
“Is this a column?” I idly asked. The construction was crude, but it did bear a striking resemblance to some of the chemistry pieces I’d encountered in my past.
“What did you call it? That’s what I use to detect the purity of my reagents. I’ve called it plenty of things in the past, most not so good. Don’t recall ever hearing it called that.”
“Oh never mind, it just reminded me of something I’d seen in the past. Just a passing resemblance really,” This was a rudimentary gas chromatograph! My heart swelled in my chest as I struggled to contain the excitement of finally seeing something more advanced than a lighter. Sure it was likely to be horribly inaccurate and contaminated by a lack of proper cleaning, but the concept still existed!
A few hours later, the two of us sat down together as we finished removal of the corroded steel and anchored the last piece of copper.
“Are you ready?” Colette was vibrating with excitement, ears and tail twitching spastically.
“Here you go. Just be sure to stay awake,” I handed her the head of the late Caerbanning, teeth protruding from beneath shriveled lips on a furry skull the size of my two fists together.
With a surgeon’s precision, I watched as Colette meticulously disassembled the beast. Razor sharp blade led to the scalp peeling away, then hide and muscle until only a bare white skull was left.
Making a series of small holes with an awl and hammer, she traced a line from ear to eyes and back to the other ear. A small saw was employed to delicately etch a line across the back of the skull and connect the series of tiny holes. Once she was satisfied with the work, Colette picked up a hammer and gave it a solid *THWACK*
I shielded my eyes with an arm fearing the splatter but to my surprise, there was none to be found. The skull itself still lay intact. Or at least I thought it was until a claw from Colette’s pinky reached under the eye socket and gently lifted it off like a lid from a pot.
Sitting snugly in its cradle, I was shocked to see that the creature’s brain was not grey, but a metallic silver complete with the texturing I’d expected.
“What a beautiful sample.” Colette crooned as she began prying the mass loose using a small flattened piece of metal.
A flash of rainbow colors ran across the surface of it at the moment she separated the brain from the rest of the skull, startling me as I nearly fell to the floor in shock and reflexively reached for my sword.
Colette reassured me with a laugh, “I take it you’ve never seen this before then? It’s harmless, just a bit of residual energy left over. Typically a bit more subdued but this specimen is surprisingly reactive.”
“After seeing it launch itself for my throat, I’m sure you’d feel a bit jumpy too if you saw it leaping about!” I motioned making faux fangs with both index fingers at my mouth.
“Oh alright, that’s fair.” Colette chuckled. “There’s a reason I’m not out hunting them down on my own and that’s near the top of the list.”
“Can’t blame you on that. So, what’s the next step?” I asked, enthralled by the process.
“Now we have to liberate the Cephylx from the base neural tissue. Watch, this is the good part!” She said, voice taking a manic tone.
From another end of the laboratory, Colette picked up a glass container mostly filled with a clear liquid. Colorful labels showing pictorial representations of terrible things happening on contact were plastered across it. Putting on gloves and eye ware, Colette poured out a small amount of the liquid into a narrow necked flask.
“If she’s doing what I think she’s doing, get ready to run,” Samara quietly warned me.
The smile never left Colette’s face as she set the beaker down in the middle of an empty table. Taking a fingernail sized slice of the brain matter, she let it gently slide into the solution.
At the moment of first contact, vigorous bubbling erupted from the small tissue sample. Bubbles were forming faster and faster as it rolled and shifted across the inside of the beaker. A small fleck of liquid silver streamed off the reducing mass and drifted toward the bottom. Then suddenly, a cone of fire a meter high flared up before coming back down to a more manageable flame only a few centimeters above the container.
“Sorry about that, but not really. I wanted to see the look on your face. Trust me, it was so worth it.”
I nearly started chewing Colette out for her lax safety, but then realized I’d done similar things in my time teaching. She even set it up on a place where nothing around was a fire hazard.
“Alright you got me, is there any way we can do this so it doesn’t burn down the town?”
“If you insist. Spoilsport,” She commented with a wink.
Taking smaller pieces of the raw material, Colette slowly fed them into the mixture. The low fire continued to burn as she carefully added enough to keep it from going out completely.
In all, it took nearly a half hour for the Caerbanning’s brain to be processed, leaving almost 150 mL of glossy silver fluid beneath the still clear layer of whatever it had been dissolved into.
“Now to decant it over here...” Colette picked up the container using heavy gloves. Even sitting a couple meters away I could feel the heat coming off it in waves. It was surprising that the glass itself hadn’t melted.
A waste container captured the free flowing liquid while the silver precipitate took on an almost grainy texture. I watched as small crystals like sugar formed as more of the liquid drained away.
“Need to get this neutralized real quick.” A chalky green power was added to the crystals, coating them in a sickly looking paste.
The mass was taking on a more solid form as it cooled down when Colette tossed it into another container and snapped the lid down on it. I think Samara had called it a calcinator? Either way, Colette took her hands and placed them on either side of the apparatus.
I was about to ask what was happening when a low glow began emanating from the points where her hands contacted it. “Hey, instead of watching why don’t you open up the tap?” She called.
“Got it.” I twisted the metal stopper and heard a gurgling noise from the end of the attached tubing. At the end lay a retort setting over a low burner.
Ever so slowly, viscous drops of a dirty orange fluid filtered toward the container. At Colette’s direction, I adjusted the heating rune to its maximum output while she continued contact with the first device.
I recognized the relative ease of operating this as compared to first attempt with the lighter even as my SP began to drain away at an alarming rate.
The first burnt orange drop hit heated glass and fizzed a moment before turning the same shade of silver I’d first seen. Another drop joined it, then another as the flow picked up in pace. The swirling silver and orange mixture spun about in the retort, a war between the two colors with the latter slowly consumed.
As the last vestiges of orange faded, a notification popped into my view.
Your team has created Cephylx (Normal Quality) 75 XP Awarded
With a sudden burst of motion, I found Colette’s arms around me as her lips landed a kiss on my forehead.
“I did it! We did it! I’m soo sooo happy right now!” The girl was purring as she fist bumped the air.
“It looks good?” I replied.
“Oh thank you so much for your help! I had a hunch about the extra heating but couldn’t have kept both of the pieces running at once! Just look at it.”
I looked into the glass at the pool of Cephylx. It was hardly as good of quality as what remained in her old mentor’s vials but it was a marked improvement from her original work. More importantly, there was easily enough to do the runework I’d been wanting and some extra for Colette to use in her potion making.
“How soon until this is stable enough to work with?” I asked. The last thing I wanted to see was all this hard work be for nothing because I rushed.
“Probably an hour or so, but it’ll still be too hot to handle. Maybe try in the morning? I’d really like to see your rune work if you’ll let me. It’d be fair you know, I showed you mine, won’t you show me yours?” Colette added the last part with a touch of the flirtatious shopkeeper charm she’d originally turned on me a few days ago. This time though, it felt a little bit different.
“I’ll think about it,” I said, and turned to leave before the smile in my eyes made it to the rest of my face.