A shattering snap rang over the bay outside of Broken Tusk. Theo nodded with approval as his Drogramathi Iron shot drilled through the air, slamming into a distant mountain. A field of anti-magical Dragon’s Dance sprung up, shredding the stone into fine chunks. Those pieces tumbled into the bay below, settling under the calm waves.

The alchemist had learned little from his newest experiment. The rail guns still had an absurd range. They still hurtled projectiles at impossible speeds. And nothing he could do changed the way his wards worked. He had a line of reasoning with the Deflect Magic ward, but hadn’t been able to pursue it. Drumming his fingers on the side of the stone tower, he turned to his connection with his companions.

“I’m headed to Tero’gal,” Theo said, transmitting his thoughts to the other members of the Tara’hek.

“Bring me back some cookies.”

Falling through the realms had become a mundane thing. Theo slipped through the veil between the mortal realm and the void, gliding weightlessly over the Bridge until he felt the familiar tug of the mortal dreamrealm. In a blink, he appeared on the soft grasses of the small village. Belgar had sensed his approach and was jogging across the wide lawns, a smile hanging on his face. The dronon spirit had gained much of his corporeal form. Small streams of purple energy came from his eyes, but his body was otherwise whole.

“Hey,” Belgar said, waving awkwardly. “There are some souls for you to review. More dronon.”

Theo clapped a hand on Belgar’s shoulder, nodding. “Which brood?”

“A scatter between the allied demons.” Belgar gestured, beckoning Theo to follow.

A group of decaying souls was gathered near what had become the village’s square. Twenty souls gathered, emitting faint ribbons of multicolored light. The longer they stayed without invitation, the more their bodies were given back to the void. Theo examined them one-by-one, happy enough with them to allow them in. There was even a single soul from a Zagmoni Dronon. That one had been lost in the void since the defeat of its master. Each soul signed a basic contract that bound them to the realm. The moment they did, their ethereal bodies gained a sense of purpose, drifting off to join their kin in the village.

“We didn’t get a level for that,” Theo said, inspecting the realm’s status screen.

[Tero’Gal]

Mortal Dreamrealm

Owners: Theo Spencer, Tresk

Faction: Unaffiliated

Level: 30

Souls: 145

Expansions:

[Harvesting Array]

[Defensive Towers]

[Landscape Manipulation]

[Guardians of Faith]

[Bubble]

[Simulated Reality]

Pending Requests: 0

That made sense, though. People had told Theo from the start that things got harder after Level 30. That idea must have translated to the realms as much as it did the mortal realm. The amount of souls he had collected seemed like a pittance, compared to the people in Broken Tusk. But this was a slow crawl to power, placing Tero’gal firmly in the lower realms for a long time. The alchemist was content with this, and moved off from the square.

“Benton and Drogramath are already here,” Belgar said, pointing at the cottage. The small stone building had increased in size since the last time Theo was here.

Theo shook his head, allowing his mind to wrap itself around the scenario. “How does it feel? Seeing your former master in person?”

Belgar chuckled nervously. “Disappointment comes to mind.”

“He isn’t what you expected, is he?”

“No, he is not. He used to speak to us on the mortal plane. He was always so commanding. Here, he’s just another dronon.”

“Never meet your heroes.”

While Theo was happy to spend hours of his trip to Tero’gal chatting with the spirits, he had a purpose for coming today. He headed to the expanded cottage, finding there to be plenty of room. Drogramath and Benton were both sipping tea, and snacking on cookies. The alchemist sat with them, getting his own cup and soaking in the ambiance. A fire crackled in the corner, the scent of the burning wood mingling with the steeping tea. Under all those powerful smells was the sweetness of the cookies.

“Working on something?” Drogramath asked.

Theo had withdrawn a length of parchment and was writing out some plans. It was, of course, a plan to get the Demon God of Alchemy to help him out. “I’m looking for the best way to bring Qavell down without killing everyone inside.”

Benton sighed heavily. “Finally. Khahar had us all mute on the topic until you figured it out.”

“He refused to let us tell you Hanan had raised the city until you figured it out on your own. Part of the new rules.”

Theo explained his problem. The delivery system they made was perfect, but the thing they delivered wasn’t. Drogramath scratched his chin as he listened, nodding along as the alchemist spoke. He then shrugged. “You won’t make progress unless you figure it out on your own.”

“Well, I know the solution. Constructs,” Theo said, circling that section on his page. “Once I figure out how to bind two essences, I can make a powerful anti-magic field with potions alone.”

Drogramath nodded, a smile creeping across his face. Constructs were the answer for an important reason. Wards were great if he knew he would use it in the next few days. But the process to imbue shots with Toru’aun’s magic was time consuming and tiresome. If he could take the best parts of the Deflect Magic ward, combining them with a general anti-magical field, he would be set. But the demon god offered nothing more than his coy smile.

Benton shifted the subject after that, detailing the way his realm was changing to bake better confections. The Realm of Death and Winter was almost always frozen over. That made baking difficult, resulting in the construction of large domed cities. As the bear god rambled on, Theo turned his attention inward.

Karatan Cheese contained a valuable property. While he had found the underground mushrooms with the same property, the cheese was his first experience with the Suffuse property. But the second property on the cheese was Bind. The first use of that property was to create a bomb that would bind people and monsters on the spot. But Theo had a feeling that he could do something more with that essence, rendering it as a literal binding agent for other essences.

Before moving on, he considered how constructs worked. Alchemy Constructs was a skill he took early on. At first, it allowed him to bind essences to mundane objects. His first experiment with that was a sphere that revealed all targets inside. The next step was the creation of Mana Constructs, which were the first power source of the golems. Theo found himself at the next phase of that skill. He thought about which two essences would produce the correct result.

The Anti-Mage property came from the Mage’s Bane flower. They were plentiful in Broken Tusk, growing far larger than the uncultivated version in the wild. The problem came with the second property. Theo dismissed all properties that came from the spirit fruits within his realm. The souls here had been eating most of those, and he wouldn’t tell them to stop. The alchemist wrote a list of his available reagents, and the associated properties. He pressed his finger into each one, thinking about how useful it would be for the task. When he touched the list item for the River Clam Pearl, Drogramath coughed. And Khahar appeared with a snap.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“I see and hear everything,” the Arbiter said.

“Just have something caught in my throat,” Drogramath said, slamming his fist against his chest and coughing some more. “These cookies are drier than normal.”

“Hey…” Benton pouted.

Khahar scowled for a few moments, then took a seat at the table. Before long, he had a pile of cookies and pastries before him along with a cup of steaming tea. Theo returned to his work.

River Clam Pearls were easy enough to get. Drogramath must have wanted him to use the Infuse property, which was interesting. Theo had the sense that combining those two things would force the property into an object. So when a Drogramathi Iron shot hit the city, it would soak into the foundation like a poison, stopping the flow of mana within.

“Easy enough,” Theo said, heading out from the cottage. The group waved as he left, but offered nothing else. The alchemist made his way to the stills he kept in the realm.

While he wasn’t eager to turn his realm into a factory world, he saw no harm in using a few stills for his work. His inventory was always cluttered with junk. There were enough flasks of old Refined Anti-Mage Essence to last him a while, but only a scatter of River Clam Pearls. The cheese empire was doing well though, crowding more than their fair share of slots in his inventory.

Theo got to work, clearing out two stills with a vial of Cleansing Scrub. He mashed the cheese by hand, crumbling it into the first still with ease. Turning to the River Clam Pearls, he scratched his head. Ziz normally crushed these for him, resulting in several awkward moments. The alchemist smacked the pearls with a hammer, but could not turn them to powder. A wayward soul, one of the first that had arrived after Belgar, offered to give him a hand. Together, they ground a handful of pearls into powder.

“Thanks,” Theo said, waving as the soul headed off.

The alchemist topped each still off to the correct level, relying on his Drogramath Distillery Specialty to measure the amount exactly. Setting the heat for the cheese was easy. He had done it too many times before, even if the heating elements on the stills in his realm weren’t as advanced as those in his lab. The pearls were another matter, though. Theo guessed the right heat on those, relying on the idea that most hard things required a higher temperature while distilling to extract the most effect. He took mental notes as the stills worked, considering how he would approach the next leg of the task.

A single Drogramathi Iron shot sat on Theo’s worktable. The object was technically alchemically neutral. There was a single case where it was. Drogramathi Iron Shavings would react alchemically, but only when introduced as a catalyst during brewing. His experience said the metal should absorb essences to become a construct just fine. As long as the two essences bound, there shouldn’t be a problem. Of course, this opened a can of worms Theo wasn’t eager to face.

Suffuse was a property that bound potions together, but it did not bind essences. Theo viewed it as the difference between welding metals together compared to creating them as an alloy. Using the Bind property would create the alloy, while the Suffuse property welded two properties together. This was a new form of alchemy, meaning it was dangerous and required much experimentation.

Time slipped by as Theo considered his approach. It almost left his grasp, sliding away from him several times as the potions brewed. When they were done, he set out three flasks containing his experimental essences. Anti-Mage, Infuse, and Bind. The order that he introduced these things together mattered. Adding Anti-Mage to Infuse would cause an explosion. The alchemist grabbed his flasks, then transported himself far away from the village. He sent his mind to the far edges of his expanding world, settling in a conifer forest somewhere west of the ocean he had created.

Creatures scurried somewhere in the distance, rustling through the underbrush. Theo tried and failed to get a look at them, but turned his attention back to his work quickly. He placed an empty flask on the ground, returning every other flask but the one containing Refined Bind Essence. Using a pipette, he pulled the smallest sample he could from the flask. He dripped it into the empty flask, then waited for anything weird to happen. Once he was satisfied, he drew from the Anti-Mage flask. The moment the essences touched, they sizzled. After a tense moment, they settled.

“Ah. More forgiving than normal,” Theo said, getting on his hands and knees to measure the contents by eye. The extra Anti-Mage essence that wouldn’t play well with Bind had sizzled off, turning into vapor. The alchemist committed the ratio to memory. He added the exact amount of Refined Infuse Essence, then watched the mixture swirl in the flask. After the cloud of blue-white smoke had cleared, he inspected the result.

[Anti-Magical Infusion Essence]

[Bound Essence]

Rare

Created by: Theo Spencer

Grade: Poor Quality

An essence bound by the Anti-Mage and Infuse properties.

There it was. Theo’s alloy. He mixed the rest of the essence he had on hand, creating only a few units of the essence. Back on the mortal realm, his lab had enough of the reagents in stock to make hundreds of units. But River Clam Pearls weren’t something he collected regularly, leaving a gap in his production. The alchemist sent his mind back to the village, finding the Drogramathi Iron shot waiting for him on the table. With no desire to wait, he infused the shot with his new essence, then inspected the resulting construct.

[Anti-Magical Infusion Construct]

[Alchemy Construct] [Projectile]

Rare

Created by: Theo Spencer

Grade: Good Quality

Infuse an object with anti-magical properties. Anything this Drogramathi Iron round hits will be drained of magical potential.

Material:

Drogramathi Iron (Excellent Quality)

Effect:

When struck by this shot, objects and all magically operating devices will be drained of their mana. Drains 500 mana, or 1,000 power depending on the distance of the device from the point of impact.

The round shimmered with white-blue energy. A smile spread across Theo’s face as he looked at the shot. It was perfection. There were several advantages of this method over using his wards for the task. The magic would never fade from the iron. It would maintain the effect for a long time, although the alchemist couldn’t say how long. He could also create the rounds industrially. When a construct was created, it soaked an amount of the essence up. He could make a big tub and drop the shots in. Easy as that.

“Quite a weapon you have there,” Drogramath said, coming from behind to place a hand on Theo’s shoulder. “I got in trouble for telling you.”

“How much trouble?”

“A slap on the wrist. You should understand how much Khahar wants you to survive this.”

Theo paused before responding. Drogramath didn’t need to say anything, he knew what that meant. Whatever was driving First Prince Hanan to attack Broken Tusk wasn’t normal. The alchemist’s money was on another rogue ascendant, but it was hard to say.

“Do you see a scenario where we save Hanan and his people?” Theo asked.

“So long as you have the right weapon when the time comes, you’ll be fine.”

“Is the thing controlling him mortal?”

A loud snap issued from behind them. Khahar stood there, arms crossed with a scowl on his face. “The rules exist for a reason, Theo. You can figure it out from the information you have.”

“Yeah, but… this is your plan, right?” Theo asked. “Just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”

“I can’t.”

“Is it an ascendant?”

“No.”

For gods to be worried about something, it had to be an ascendant or another god. Theo put it together moments after that. A god was acting on the mortal plane somehow. It wouldn’t be a champion. They wouldn’t be strong enough to manipulate a kingdom. Meaning it was a god acting in some obfuscated way. Assuming this being was too powerful to be defeated by normal means, there was only one other way.

“So, I can use the authority of my realm to get rid of this thing?” Theo asked.

Khahar simply nodded.

“See? He already knows,” Drogramath grumbled. “Just tell him who it is.”

“I’d rather not.”

“I bet I could teleport to the thing. If only for a second.”

Khahar shook his head. “You don’t have enough of a connection with this person to do so.”

Theo mimed checking items off a list in the air. He knew exactly who it was, and it opened a frightening realization about the events that had transpired with the undead. Balkor might have had a more intimate level of involvement with the movement of the undead than he thought. That brought questions that no one could answer for him. For now, he was content with the idea that he could banish whoever was forcing First Prince Hanan into this position.

“I guess he’s King Hanan now, isn’t he?” Theo asked, tapping his chin.

“Yes,” Khahar said. “It’s important that he lives.”

“Easy to say, hard to do,” Theo said. An annoying buzzing filled his mind, as though his thoughts scattered away to solve this problem on their own.

Khahar’s eyes widened as he flinched back. A look of surprise washed over his face as he tilted his head to the side. “Theo. You should answer that.”

“Answer what?” Theo asked.

Thinking about it for a moment, Theo realized how familiar that sensation was. He hadn’t felt it since Qavell stopped calling him, but it was the buzz of a communication crystal in his mind. They weren’t supposed to work in the heavens. He knew that because Fenian had trouble calling from the Bridge. The alchemist withdrew the crystal from his inventory and squeezed it. His mind rushed as his willpower stretched to make the connection. His thoughts were flung through the realms, until a familiar voice entered his mind.

“My dear alchemist! Oh, thank the gods. Well, not this one. He’s an asshole.”

Theo blinked away his surprise. “Fenian.”