The sun was high in the sky when they caught their first glimpse of Valbrand in the distance the next day. Fifteen minutes later, they were walking into the town through the western gate. They couldn’t find anyone around—even the barracks were completely empty of guards. Orion decided they should make their way toward Concoctions by Carl. Orion had some questions for him, and they could squeeze some information about the state of the defense out of him, too.

At a crossing only a few minutes’ walk from the gates, they ran into their first person—literally. A young woman came jogging around the corner with three crates piled atop each other in her arms, blocking her view. She barreled into Orion, who, in his shock, didn’t have enough time to get out of the way.

The crates she was carrying crashed to the ground, and Orion heard the distinct shattering of glass. He bent down to help the woman up.

“Are you alri—”

“You moron!” she yelled. “Do you know how important those vials are?” She rushed to her fallen cargo, quickly checking the contents of each.

“Vials?” Orion bent down and looked inside the broken side of one of the crates, seeing a vial the size of a cauldron that had been cracked in half, a liquid inside pouring out that he recognized instantly. “What are you using vials so large for? They’re way too big to hold a regular potion, right?”

“You’re an Alchemist, are you?” she asked.

“I am, yeah…” Orion said, seeing a path out of the cross-hairs of this irate person.

“Oh!” She blushed a furious red, visibly struggling to contain her anger. “And you haven’t been to the workshops, have you? I would know—I’m running workshop three, and I would recognize the stupid hats you four are wearing.”

Honeypot looked appalled, touching a hanging tentacle protectively.

“Don’t listen to her, Squiggles,” he said, likely giving the hat a name just to mess with the newcomer. “Your tentacles are beautiful.”

Orion’s eyebrow twitched at the woman’s aggressive tone.

“We only just got back—”

“Enough! There is literally no excuse for your selfishness. We all had to deal with our memories. You know that, right? We need every single alchemist working on the potions, and here you are, an alchemist that I’ve never even seen at the workstations. Not. Once.”

Orion had managed to piece together what was going on by now, at least what he thought was going on. He tried to set the record straight with this stranger, but Arika beat him to the punch.

“Listen, lady,” Arika tried, “I really don’t think you—”

“Listen? You listen!” She was visibly shaking, making Orion worry she might burst something. She took a deep breath, calming herself. “You know what? You can explain yourselves to the boss, I have neither the time nor energy. Follow me. Now.”

She picked up the boxes and set off in the direction she’d been traveling.

“Are we really going to follow that bitch?” Arika asked.

“Arika!” Honeypot laughed. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“What? She is being a bitch. We just defeated a quarter of the enemy forces, and she’s at Orion like that wasn’t good enough.”

“Are you coming?” the woman demanded from down the street, leveling a ferocious glare at them.

“Let’s just follow her.” Orion shrugged, setting off after her. “She’s gonna take us to see whoever is in charge.”

As they made their way to wherever she was leading them, they saw a few more people. Some were carting supplies, others were traveling empty-handed—all of them moved with purpose. They even saw someone taking measurements on the street, writing the results on a little clipboard.

There was a distinct feeling of anticipation hanging over the entire town that was cloying—it almost felt as if the Creator was once again exerting his pressure.

They followed the strange woman for fifteen minutes, eventually arriving at a large warehouse. From the outside, it seemed like a regular storage facility, but as they walked inside, an appreciative whistle escaped Orion’s mouth.

The room was fitted out with workstations, three rows running parallel across the floor. There were five people currently working at the stations, all of which were brewing something in a cauldron. The far side of the warehouse had gigantic metal vats with pipes running outside, leading somewhere unknown. There was a stairway along one wall that lead up and into a closed office.

“Yes, it is quite impressive, isn’t it? You’d know if you came when the call was put out.” She snapped her attention to the others. “And you lot—do you have spare profession slots? Did you even try to see if you were able to learn Alchemy?”

“I am a robot and therefore incapable of professions.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, little guy,” Honeypot said. “Your profession is getting the crap beat out of you, and no one does it better.”

“I do not believe that is a profession, but I am grateful for your attempt to reassure me otherwise.” Gizmo hummed. “Also, I do not defecate.”

“This isn’t a joke!” The irate woman hissed through closed teeth. “Stay here. We’ll see what the boss has to say about you lot.” She turned and marched away, disappearing up the stairs and into the office. She slammed the door shut behind her.

“She’s just a ray of sunshine, isn’t she?” Honeypot asked. “Should we ask her to join our party?”

“Don’t even joke about that.” Arika glared at Honeypot.

“Why?” Honeypot’s lips tugged up in a smile he tried to hide. “I guess you guys are a bit similar. We wouldn’t want to make your position redundant…”

Honeypot’s smile grew as Arika’s scowl deepened.

The door to the upstairs room opened, and the woman came stomping down the stairs. Following behind her, looking sleep deprived and somehow older than his years, was Carl.

“This is them!” she said, reaching the bottom of the stairs. “An alchemist who hasn’t shown himself, and a party of jokers.” She stared hate at them, then turned back to Carl. “Well? Do you think we have a use for them, or are they as useless as they seem?”

Carl raised his eyes to give the girl a flat look. “Tash...”

“Yes?”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“Do you recall me telling you that the Bountiful Potion of Miraculous Healing was originally created by a student of mine?”

“Yes. Orion, correct?”

“That’s right. And do you recall why I had to teach you, not him?”

“Because he had a timed quest, his party killed the boss from the western frontier.” She started to look frustrated. “I really don’t see what that has—”

“So, my student Orion went to kill the boss on the Western Frontier,” Carl interrupted. “That was a few days ago, not counting the weird time dilation all the adventurers experienced. Are you following me?”

“I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t see—”

“A strange alchemist, who you haven’t seen before, turns up in town. He bumps into you at a crossroads, right? You don’t inspect him and learn his name or even ask for it, simply deciding to drag him back here and make him my problem.” Carl looked at her like a father would look at a petulant child. “Let me guess, he was traveling from the west? Perhaps from the west gate?”

Tash turned at the speed of a glacier, looking at Orion as if he was the antagonist of a horror movie. He felt her inspect him.

“Oh… my god. I am so sorry. I didn’t—I mean, I wouldn’t. I-I don’t—”

“That’s enough,” Carl said. “We’ve all had a long week, no one is going to crucify you for a mistake. We do not, however, have time for this. Come with me, Orion.” Carl turned, walking up the stairs.

Shrugging, Orion followed him up the stairs and into the room. He overheard Honeypot say, “Wow, that was so embarrassing for you.”

The door closed, and the sound cut off.

Carl walked over to a series of crates that were acting as a desk, letting out a weary sigh as he sat on a plush leather chair behind his makeshift domain. “You left me quite a task to perform here, lad. We’ve got three, almost four warehouses like this one up and running. I’ve managed to find a different method for the concentration of the Stim Leaf, relying on an automated process that Dave and some of the other Engineers set up. It’s less reliable, causing the refinement of the potion to fail roughly fifty percent of the time—still, an improvement in overall production, if a little wasteful.”

“How many potions do we have?” Orion asked.

“By last count last night, we had eight—meaning 160 charges of rare quality. Yesterday was really our first day of proper production. It’s been a real mess, logistically speaking, and with the uhhhh… morale of the adventurers.” Carl looked at Orion pointedly, the Master alchemist’s eyes boring into his very being. “How are you doing, lad? You seem alright, considering what I’ve heard from others.”

“I’m not.” Orion smiled at Carl, letting some of the exhaustion from the last week show on his face. “But I have people to protect, and a reason to keep moving forward. I did have something I needed to ask you, though… about how the monsters from the west came to be.” He watched Carl intently, trying to gage his reaction.

For his part, Carl didn’t move a muscle, simply looking back at Orion for a long moment before he responded. “What about them? I can tell you what I know—but that isn’t much.”

“We fought a giant mantis monster. She called herself ‘the Queen of the Forest.’ She was twice as tall as any of us at her full height, with scythes for arms, and spikes protecting her carapace that were as hard as metal.” Orion stopped talking, once again gaging Carl’s response.

Once more, Carl didn’t twitch at all.

“You know nothing about her, Carl? Perhaps how she came to be?” He raised an eyebrow, clearly hinting that he knew something.

Carl cracked. He slumped in his chair, visibly deflating. “Lad, you are playing a dangerous game here.” He wiped his forehead. “What do you know?”

Orion took out the diary he’d found in the tower, as well as the paper that they found in the underground structure. He placed them both on the table, immediately garnering a response from Carl.

“I told Dave it was a damned stupid idea to journal everything. ‘No, we need to document everything,’ he says. ‘It’s good for your mental health,’ he says.” Carl vigorously rubbed his bald pate with both hands, venting his frustration. “Look, Orion, I swear this to you: I didn’t keep this to myself for any reason other than your protection.”

“My protection?”

“I suppose there’s no reason to keep you in the dark anymore, is there? Just… give me a moment to organize my thoughts.” He leaned back, looking at the ceiling for guidance. He took a deep breath and slowly let it out before he continued.

“I don’t know their name, but an organization contacted my brother and I when we were much younger and just starting to get our names out there. We had already made it up to the second floor when someone came in to our shop and offered us more money than we could turn down.”

“Wait, you’ve been to the second floor?” Orion let the shock show on his face, not caring to hide it.

“Yes, but that’s not important. This group told us nothing about the experiments until they brought us back down to the first floor and we arrived at that laboratory. At first, it seemed so… innocuous. We were just seeing what sort of effects different compounds and potions would have on different life forms. We assumed that they were picking small creatures because they were easy to gather in large quantity…”

“But it wasn’t for quantity…” Orion surmised, thinking about all the creatures they’d seen. “It was for utility and combat ability, wasn’t it?”

“Precisely. All the creatures selected were vicious killers, relative to their scale. What if scale wasn’t an issue, however, and you could alter their genetic makeup so they’d never stop growing?”

“Wait… what about the slime?” Orion asked. “Is that a naturally spawning creature in this world?”

Carl shivered.

“No. That thing was something else entirely. They brought that in from a different lab, but it was much the same as the other creatures, all things considered. They also brought in sentient plant-life from another lab. We were constantly sending creatures to and from the separate locations, including more of those mantis creatures that we sent away.”

“Other labs… is that what lies at the other frontiers? The other labs created by this mysterious organization?” Orion shivered too, imagining more of the mantis creatures attacking all at once.

Carl grimaced. “Aye lad, that’s what we assume.”

Orion had suspected as much, but hearing that Carl—who had been part of the original lab—believed the same… he fought to keep down a looming feeling of dread.

“So, you realized the experiments were for something far more nefarious, and your diary mentions enacting a plan? I assume you wouldn’t have just been able to leave?”

“Just so, lad. There were people that voiced their concerns, but those people tended to have a habit of, well, disappearing. Another worker, Gary—he, Dave, and I had a plan to destroy everything, kill the monsters, and torch the records. But, well, you can guess how that went.”

Carl took a drink from a flask on his hip.

“Originally, we only planned on fleeing. The structure was already aged by the time we arrived there, looking like it stood unused for decades. When they found out that Dave was an engineer, they quickly upgraded him from assisting in the lab to checking on the structure’s integrity. He found out about that tower you came across when he was looking at some of the old schematics. We fled there to hide, betting on the fact that no one would know of its existence. After some time hiding there, waiting for our departure to blow over, we became wracked with guilt. None of us wanted to leave things as they were, knowing that we’d contributed to something so… evil.

“So you enacted a plan to destroy it?”

Carl nodded..

“The plan was to poison all the living subjects, then destroy all the notes. In retrospect, even that would have been an empty gesture. We wouldn’t kill the other staff even if we had the ability to, and they would have just started up their schemes again with the data we recorded. Regardless, we wanted to remove our contribution. On the night we chose to enact our plan, we snuck back in, using a poison of my own design to kill the creatures humanely. We poisoned every single one of them, just as we had planned, even going overkill and using much more poison than needed to ensure a swift, painless death. That mantis, however… the Queen of the Forest, you said.”

He paused for a moment, looking off into the distance with a thousand-yard stare.

“That thing shattered the glass the moment it knew something was wrong. Within seconds of the poison touching the liquid in its tank, it was out, cracking open the other tanks and freeing a handful of live monsters. We tried to run. Dave and I were already at the door when shit started hitting the fan, but Gary… he was the one pouring the poison in, so he was behind the tank the mantis had been in. It killed him first—fast, thankfully. Dave and I only got away because all the freed monsters started attacking each other.”

Carl was still staring off into the distance, unseeing.

“We left his body there. We got him killed, and we left him there. Sure, he was part of the experiments, and it’s not like Dave and I could have done anything to stop that thing, but we still feel partially responsible for that—and everything else about to befall this town. That’s why we’re still here, down on the first floor after all these years. We thought it was our duty to either help the town prevail, down to the last man, or die in the attempt.”

Carl was finished his story, and both the men sat there, mulling over what had been said.

Orion broke the silence.

“I’m sorry for bringing it up, Carl. I had to know if you were involved. Thank you for telling me.”

Carl let out a snort.

“I’ve seen and done too much to be comforted by a pup like you, but I’m glad you believe me… and thank you for putting that monster down. Any other concerns you want to air?”

Orion shook his head.

Carl nodded to himself, then reached under his desk and pulled out a small sack.

“Now that the drama is out of the way, let’s discuss business.”