Theo, Tresk, and Alex stood among gods. In the realm of Tero’gal, Uz’Xulven, Drogramath, Benton, and Khahar had gathered for tea the moment the Tara’hek entered. The expanded cottage was perfect for fitting more people, allowing everyone to sit around a large table, enjoying sweet treats and sipping on delicious tea. This wasn’t the alchemist’s intentions when he asked his companion to join, but it was nice to take a moment before poking various bears.

“So…” Theo took a long pause, watching as the head of four gods turned to him. “We have a plan for Fenian. Just wanted to see if anyone has a problem with it.”

“We put a lot of thought into it,” Tresk added, nodding.

“If the lizard came up with the plan, my champion is doomed,” Uz’Xulven said.

Tresk glowered, but somehow managed to keep her temper in check. She took the lead, explaining the plan. The marshling took care to express how the plan had several parts. If one part wasn’t viable, they could move on to another plan with the other parts. The most important thing to note was their ability to send an item into Balkor’s realm. Everything else could float around.

“Your plan is to kill my champion,” Uz’Xulven said, crossing her arms and leaning back in her chair. “That’s hardly a plan.”

“The plan before was for him to off himself, then magically reincarnate.” Theo shot a look at the shadowy god. She could be so spiky.

“It should work,” Khahar said. “You’ve figured out the meaning of heavenly authority on your own, so I can tell you that. Fenian has to agree to become a lich, though.”

“What other options do they have?” Drogramath stared into his cup, not wanting to meet the gaze of the others.

“He could ascend,” Benton shrugged. “Right?”

“He cannot,” Khahar said. “Holding the throne prevents him from ascension.”

“We could attack Balkor’s realm.” Drogramath shrugged, clearly not interested in his suggestion. “Or blow it up.”

“Killing my champion!” Uz’Xulven protested. “Let me bring Parantheir into your realm, Theo. See what he has to say about you murdering our champion.”

Moments after giving the suggestion, Theo felt the familiar tickle in his mind. Parantheir had requested entrance to Tero’gal. He knocked on the bubble of the realm politely, and the alchemist didn’t know if he should accept. After only a breath of hesitation, he accepted.

“Greetings!” a boisterous voice called from the threshold of the room.

In stepped Parantheir. Flowing strands of raven black hair followed behind the elven god. Piercing amethyst eyes scanned the room. The god’s smile lit up the room, beaming for all to see. He was clad in silver armor, ornate in every place it could be. Resting on his hips were two rapiers, each adorned with more gems than Theo could count. Without missing a beat, he strode across the room and took a seat at the table.

“So this is the Mortal Dreamrealm I’ve heard so much about. Is it to be our new place of meeting? Our new sanctuary?” Parantheir didn’t drop his smile as he looked around the table. There was something infectiously bubbly about him.

“Welcome. We’re just talking about…” Theo paused. There was no good way of saying it.

“Turning your champion into a lich,” Tresk finished.

“Oh? Now that sounds interesting,” Parantheir nodded, leaning in over the table. “Who tasked the mortals with the rescue? Send me, Khahar. I’ll have the boy back before you can scratch your furry ass.”

“Watch it,” Khahar growled. “Unless you want to declare war, Hoi’ch is off-limits.”

“Pah!”

“You don’t care. Of course you don’t care.” Uz’Xulven sighed, smacking her forehead into the table. She groaned, refusing to pick her head up.

Tresk explained the plan to Parantheir, who nodded along politely as she talked. That smile never dropped from his face.

“Well, I’ve seen stupider plans work,” the elven god of dueling scratched his chin. “You said his current plan was to die, reincarnating on the mortal plane? I doubt it would work.”

“It won’t work,” Khahar said. “His soul would remain trapped in Hoi’ch. Which is the problem.”

The arguments went back and forth for a while. Theo wasn’t surprised with how everyone felt heated about the problem. There was no simple solution, unless Khahar wanted to tear down all he had worked toward for sixty-thousand years. Turning Fenian into a lich was the best plan, and that rubbed the alchemist the wrong way. Unless they discovered way to remove the elf’s soul from his body without him becoming a lich, this was the best method. And the gods agreed.

“It might be nice to have an undead on the team. What with the—”

Parantheir’s words were cut short. Khahar’s hand clapped over his mouth in an instant. “You’ve read the rules, elf.”

Parantheir nodded his agreement. Khahar removed his hand, narrowing his eyes as though predicting another outburst.

“We’ll get to that part later, I guess,” Parantheir said. “By the way. Who made the cookies?”

Benton raised his hand, a nervous smile on his face.

“Excellent work, sir. I’m eager to try more of your creations.”

The party spent some of their time at the table discussing plans to help Fenian. But folks broke off into conversation about other things, rendering the strange scene even stranger. Theo mostly watched, especially when Tresk joined in to throw her non-existent weight against the gods. The alchemist had expected gods to treat mortals like children, but that was almost never the case. While the gods interacted in the godly realms, they weren’t able to meddle on the mortal plane.

Theo, Tresk, and Alex broke off from the group, sending themselves to the far-flung reaches of the realm. Standing on a mountainside, they looked over a slice of their world. The alchemist withdrew the crystal given to him by Fenian, squeezing it tightly in his hand. He felt the familiar buzz in his mind as the two crystals connected. A linking threat wormed its way through the realms.

“My alchemist!” Fenian said, his voice dripping with dramatic flair. “Tell me you’ve made progress. I cannot stand being taunted by Balkor for another year.”

“Pretty sure we can get you back…” Theo let his thoughts trail off as he thought about the only option they had. “How do you feel about becoming a lich?”

“Well, I don’t like the idea at all!”

Theo scratched his head before responding. It was the best idea they had so far, but he realized his lack of knowledge on lichdom. “That’s the only way we could find to get your soul out. Can’t you strike a deal with Balkor?”

“That’s the problem. He wants me to become an undead to join some empire he’s forming.”

Theo sighed and shook his head. “Is Balkor there? Can you tell him to come to my realm?”

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“I suggested as much to him. He hurled a series of insults so damaging I may never recover.”

There was no progress to be made with Fenian. He was being too stubborn, and Theo found his patience waning by the moment. “We’ll look for another way. Just hold tight.”

“Not like I have anywhere to go. Not like I’m dying or anything. Take your time.”

Theo grumbled, returning the crystal to his inventory.

“At least he’s in a good mood,” Tresk said, giving Theo the thumbs-up.

The time-dilation provided by Tero’gal gave Theo time to think, though. He had noticed how closely Khahar was observing the problem, meaning there was a solution at hand. He went over all that was available to them with Tresk. Neither minded the icy wind whipping across the mountain, although the howling wind made conversation difficult. They communicated with their connection, expressing their thoughts as ideas rather than words.

They decided that Drogramath’s behavior was the key to figuring it out. He had been averting his gaze, trying not to lock eyes with Theo. There was an alchemical means to sort Fenian out. The trio teleported to the ocean, sitting at the edge of the dunes to watch the waves lap against the shore. A few minutes of silent conversation later, and the demon god of potions himself was coming to take a seat nearby.

“I miss the ocean,” Drogramath said, polishing a pink apple on his coat. He took a bite. “Never cared for spirit fruit, though.”

Theo narrowed his eyes. “What do you prefer?”

“Roc Berries.”

Returning to the town square, Theo loaded his inventory with Fairy Plums. The Tara’hek returned to the mortal plane, finding themselves at the spot where they left. Sarisa and Rowan were somewhere in the building, leveling their servant cores.

“The rules the gods have to follow are silly,” Theo said. Tresk joined him as he headed for the lab.

“He can suggest what we should do, but can’t tell us? Khahar needs to get his house in order.”

“Agreed. He wants me to combine the Fairy’s Blessing property with the Retreat property. Still doesn’t fix one problem.”

“Finding a bone,” Tresk said with a nod. “We might have to stretch the intent with that one.”

Salire was working in the lab when they arrived. She chuckled nervously, waving away a cloud of smoke. One of the most important things about starting with alchemy was to blow a few things up. With the extractor fan on, Theo ground his Fairy Plums up, taking one still in the rows of stills. Next, he prepared the still for his Roc Berries, finding them equally simple to grind. Those berries were common enough, and the lab always had a large stock of them. Although the Fairy Plums had been growing for a while, the two-hundred units in the still represented everything he had.

“So, what are we doing?” Salire asked.

“Long story,” Theo said, leaving the temperature low on both stills. “Pretty sure Drogramath just told me how to make a potion that should bring Fenian back without turning him into a lich.”

“Uh-huh.”

“We just need a bone from Balkor. One of those skeletal minion bones might work, though.”

Any bone they used to send the potion to Fenian would need to come from outside of Gronro. All bones within would have been purified by the hallowed aura. The alchemist stretched his will as far as it would go, sending his senses to the metal golem patrolling Gronro. He ordered the construct to deactivate its aura and search for usable bone samples. The golem sent back a faint message, but it seemed to understand.

“I’m just here for the ride,” Tresk said, kicking back in a chair.

“Can you send the potion from here?” Theo asked.

“Yeah. So long as Uz doesn’t stop me.”

“Why do I feel so out of place?” Salire asked, holding her hands up as though she didn’t even want to touch the subject.

Theo ignored his assistant’s statement. Most people felt out of place with the heavenly realms. Because they weren’t supposed to be involved. “How about we go over what you’re working on.”

Salire’s nervousness melted away. “Well, it’s taking me forever to get to Level 10. But I’ve been practicing my mana control, and I’m excited to get to work on second-tier stuff.”

Theo inspected the stills that she had running, finding the standard brews for restoration potions. Not only were those great for practice, but they sold well. Everyone needed some healing, even with Sulvan in town. The alchemist had some pointers for her, but there was hardly anything to criticize. Salire had helped write the book on standard Drogramathi Alchemy, after all.

Salire faced a pretty interesting problem that Theo had considered before. She was working with high-quality equipment, and highly cultivated reagents. That left her fighting an uphill battle, honing her skills to fight against those things as she learned. Theo almost felt guilty about it, but as he watched the skill with which she worked the stills, he realized how valuable it was. A less tenacious person would have given up a long time ago, but her persistence was inspiring.

“So, how does this process work?” Salire asked, watching as the rare Fairy’s Blessing Essence dripped into a glass flask.

“Suffusion?” Theo asked, scratching his chin. “That’s why your mana practice is so important.”

Theo went into lecture mode, not noticing that Salire was just being polite. She had already edited and corrected a few things in their co-authored book about the topic. He went on about pulling impurities out of essences for too long. Tresk giggled in the rooms’ corner, shaking her head. It was still fun to babble on about alchemy, especially around someone who was interested in it.

When the essence was done distilling, Theo swirled the Fairy’s Blessing Essence in its flask. It was faintly pink and smelled like cherry blossoms. Unlike regular essences, this one sparkled if the light hit it correctly. The Retreat Essence was already familiar to him. While he often modified the resulting potion, the alchemist always had some kind of Retreat Potion on hand, just in case he needed to make a quick retreat.

“We’ll work with single-unit amounts for now,” Theo said, pouring a unit of the Fairy’s Blessing Essence into another flask.

The alchemist held his hand over the flask, concentrating on his mana. Like the other spirit essences, this one was willful. He let the mana in his chest crawl through his body, dripping out of his palm like water. It infused into the essence, drawing out the impure parts with plumes of acrid smoke. After clearing the cloud away, he took a look at the primal essence. It was little more than a pile of pink ash at the bottom of the glass container, still glittering with flecks of white and red. Theo found the Retreat Essence much easier to deal with, creating the primal essence for that easily.

“And we have plenty of Suffuse Potion,” Theo said, plucking a flask of Greater Suffuse Potion from one of the many storage containers in the lab.

Adding the three ingredients together, Theo watched as they reacted. The liquid bubbled, leaving frothy foam at the top. Some suffuse potions required a lot of time to brew. Others didn’t. It depended on the way the two primal essences interacted, along with some unknown magical nonsense. Theo got the impression that the swirling mixture before him wouldn’t take long. A few hours at most.

“The waiting game,” Tresk said with a sigh.

“Salire, once we get our Clam River Pearls in we need a decent batch of those running.” Theo rummaged through their supplies, checking what else they had on hand. Thanks to the golems, they were doing well enough on the basic things. As he checked the crates, the golem in Gronro sent him a mental ping. “Ah. The golem found some bones.”

“Good!” Tresk shouted, her boredom bubbling over. “Let’s go!”

Theo’s first reaction was to object, but the brewing potion would take about two to three hours to finish. Just enough time to take the train to Gronro and back. Finally, he shrugged and departed from the lab. They left Salire behind to work on her alchemy. While she made excuses about watching the shop and leveling her core, the reason for her refusal was clear. Most people didn’t enjoy riding the tram.

As Theo and Tresk loaded into the next available train. They blasted down the track at obscene speeds. While the marshling cheered, the alchemist grimaced. They still hadn’t sorted out the windshield problem, resulting in a constant blast of air as they traveled down the track. The journey didn’t take long at all. Theo departed from the train on shaky legs, marching to the town square to deactivate the ward placed upon the town’s seed core. Once it was clear, he had the golem march the bones inside and stowed them in his inventory.

“Look at that guy,” Tresk said, patting the golem on the leg. “Strong independent boy.”

“Throk’s artifices are working well,” Theo said. He was happy that everything was running normally. He sent the golem back to work, then placed his ward back on the town.

As the group was preparing to leave, Grot came to check what was going on. He was happy enough that Theo was visiting his town, let alone checking on their little experiments. The mayor had nothing to report about the undead corruption. Things were going well in town. Fewer people were getting sick, and some wildlife was returning to the mountain pass. It was only a matter of time before they figured out how to push that bubble outward, cleansing more of the land.

“The new ward will last five days,” Theo said, shaking Grot’s hand. “Send me a message if I don’t refresh it.”

“Will do! If there’s any way we can help with the cleanup effort, let me know. I’d like to reclaim more of the mountain.”

Theo nodded, heading off with Tresk to catch the next train. The conductor had specifically waited for them, but was growing impatient. They boarded the train, zipping down the line at break-neck speeds. The alchemist tried to shut out the sound of the wind whipping by as he reviewed his administrative screens. He referenced the sections with plans for curing the corruption, which only made him frustrated. With everything going on, he had gotten distracted from the task.

“Remind me to make an army of golems to scour the land when we get back,” Theo spoke into Tresk’s mind. She only laughed in response.

Half-way back to Broken Tusk, Theo felt a haptic buzz in his mind. He sifted through his interfaces before finding a new chat started by Alise.

Alise: Salire says you’re gonna wanna see the new potion. Claims it’ll solve all your problems. Whatever that means.

Theo: :O omw

Alise: >:|