Lynette had just barely finished breakfast—and a somewhat-unwilling discussion with Nana as she tried to avoid mentioning her past—when Regind came up to her.
“There’s one place I didn’t show you last night!” she said with a wide smile. “I can show it to you now, if you want! Would you want to help me, too? I promise it won’t involve setting anything on fire. Probably. Actually, I can’t promise that, but I can promise it’ll be fun!”
Lynette gave a wary glance at Nana. Even in her short time here, she was hesitant to trust whatever Regind might’ve considered “fun”—off-handed remarks didn’t make it out to be something mundane like sewing. But Nana smiled, so Lynette turned back to Regind and said, “Sure..?”
Regind grabbed her hand and led her outside. Honestly, since Lynette hadn’t been shown it yesterday, she assumed the yard belonged to one of their neighbors. Regind, however, went over to a little shed.
She enthusiastically swung the doors open and announced, “Welcome to my workshop! Can you imagine Papa was just using this place to store old furniture? Once I moved in, they let me have it. It was better than working in the house, anyway.”
If Regind hadn’t started messing with so much of it, Lynette would’ve assumed none of it was real. There were flasks of different colors and notes scattered all over the place. Random objects were lying around, too, like a set of cheap earrings or a little charm of some sort. Books were both closed—some even used as a makeshift pedestal for one of the other items—or opened to a seemingly-random spot. She could sense some kind of order the longer she stared at it, but it seemed more like chaos.
“What is all of this?” Lynette asked, only after realizing she probably should’ve considered it first.
Apparently that was a question Regind was asked a lot, or at least was too excited to answer to care for why it was asked. “My alchemy work! You know, it’s really amazing what you can do when you put magic and a couple of weird ingredients together. I’ve been working on all kinds of stuff! I got some funding from some nearby nobles so I’ve got pretty much all the supplies I could ever hope for. I’m always trying to find the limit! And break it! Ooo, do you want to see some of the things I’ve been working on recently? They’re really cool, I promise.”
She didn’t wait for an answer. She darted to a chest and dug around until she found something she wanted to show. “Look, look!” She rushed back over to Lynette and showed it to her.
“It… looks like a hair pin…” Lynette mumbled.
“It was! But not after I was done with it!” Regind excitedly put it in her hair. After a moment, she seemed to magically grow a few pink highlights until she took the pin off. “Cosmetic Illusion magic! Sure, you can’t wear it in court, or to actively try to deceive someone, but it still looks amazing anyway! And it doesn’t just come in pink! It recognizes the wearer’s favorite color!”
She went to replace it with another. Lynette resisted the urge to leave the moment she realized it looked like a single, human finger. Regind didn’t seem to acknowledge how odd it was, however. “You know how magic prosthetics work, right? It’s like a hydraulic system fueled by a person’s magic. But there’s a problem: what happens when the person has lost their magic? Well, that’s what this is for! Theoretically speaking, it should function the same way, just by using its own little magic storage instead of relying on its owner’s. I haven’t actually met someone only missing a finger to test it out on. I… also haven’t figured out how to get anything bigger to not catch fire…”
She shook her head and returned that one as well. “So! Now that you’ve seen what the history-in-the-making of alchemy looks like, what do you say? Want to help out? What kind of magic are you good at? Or, you know, maybe you don’t have to answer that, given that look you’re giving me…”
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“I still understand none of this,” Lynette admitted, “and I don’t know magic.”
A handful of realizations must’ve dawned on Regind at once. “So, when you say you’re from the east, near the Andrea Province… you wouldn’t happen to be talking about Seothia, would you?”
Lynette cautiously nodded.
Regind’s smile grew. “That’s cool! I’ve never met a Seothian before, they usually don’t come around here! I mean, I’ve talked with a couple of merchants, but they don’t usually claim to belong to either side, you know? And that explains why you looked like you didn’t understand anything I said! You literally don’t know what it is! So, do you want me to start over? In simpler terms, obviously. I’ll be slower this time, too.”
Lynette managed a small smile and nodded. She still didn’t think she’d be able to really process any of it, but… she found she liked to see Regind that happy. There was a certain charm to it.
“So, you kind of know how magic works at least, right? People cast a spell and something happens. But it’s… kind of a lot more complicated than that. First, someone actually needs to be there to do it, and it can’t last long after a person stops casting it. Second, it isn’t something that should be done for long periods of time—even more than a couple of minutes using a hard enough spell is enough to have serious health risks. Alchemy is kind of like the workaround. It doesn’t require someone to cast a spell in order to work and even those without magic can use them. It’s got its limits too, of course, but most people have to admit it’s really amazing. I’ll show you how it works!”
She gestured Lynette over to a table and showed her a regular pin. “I bought this from a traveling merchant a few days ago. There’s nothing special about it—they had tons of others exactly like it and it was cheap. But I can turn it into something more. What do you think I should do with it?”
“What… can you do with it..?” Lynette asked after a moment of coming up with nothing.
“Well, I can only enchant it with the kind of magic that I know. I’m pretty well-rounded as far as magic goes, but I practice a bit more with Illusion and Light magic. Oh, those are basically like making people see or hear things, and making light come out of your hands. Kinda. Oversimplified. Beyond that, I’ve also got a good grasp on the fundamentals—you know, generic Water, Fire, Earth, and Air magic. It might not be the best, but this is just a quick example, so it doesn’t have to be.”
“Um… could you make something that makes the wearer’s voice louder, then..?” Of course the only thing she could think of was only practical in the context of stage performances…
Regind nodded. “Great idea! Alright, now that I have an idea, I can go over here. This is where the real alchemy happens! There’s a couple different methods you could use—usually depends on the teacher, but I was mostly self-taught, so I went with whatever felt best—but it’s better to show than to explain, so just watch, okay?” She started going through the motions of something she must’ve done hundreds of times before. She still gave some light commentary to give a vaguely clearer understanding of what she was doing. “Technically all I need to do is enchant it. But this’ll make it stronger. This helps keep the pin from breaking too easily. It’s what makes alchemy more than just enchanting!” That must’ve been where the possible spontaneous combustions came from.
In a few minutes, she must’ve been done, because she took it and handed it to Lynette. “You want to try it?”
“A-ah, I’m not sure…”
Regind shrugged. “Suit yourself. If this works, you might want to step back a little. And maybe cover your ears.” Lynette did as instructed while Regind put on the pin.
“Hello, neighbors!” It sounded like it worked, at least. “I’ve got something great to tell you! You’ve got a new neighbor, and she’s amazing! You should meet her!”
Lynette blushed at the thought and Regind just kept grinning. She took the pin off and declared, “Well, I think that was a success! So, now that you kind of know what all of this is, do you want to help me a little more?”
“I’m… still not sure how much help I could be…” Lynette mumbled.
“There’s lots you can do, even if you don’t know magic! I’ll show you. I promise, it may be a bit intimidating at first, but it’s really fun, too!”
After a moment, Lynette nodded and managed a small smile of her own. “Alright, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to try.”
“That’s the spirit!”