Theo looked over what he imagined Throk would come up with. It was an enlarged version of the mixer artifice the marshling had created before, recreated in the Dreamwalk. The imagined realm still pushed back when he tried to create finalized potions, but he dedicated himself to testing the timing and mixture ratios for this new form of alchemy. Without the Dreamwalk, he wouldn’t have been able to test for the flow of mana, and he realized he would need some kind of mana storage device. Not the ones that drew mana from the air, but one that stored liquid mana.

One problem at a time.

Working to increase willpower had become tedious. Not because the act was hard, but because Theo wasn’t sure what he was working toward. More golems with better range was great, but he didn’t know where that ended. The only thing that helped him press forward was the idea that he could have an army of golems to defy reason. More golems meant less people on the front lines, putting themselves at risk when a being without a soul could do so.

After being satisfied with his work for the night, he went off to find Tresk and Alex. The goose’s body was sleeping out in the gardens of the manor, no longer able to fit within the building itself. “How much bigger is she gonna get?”

Alex swooped through the air, pulling flaming vines from nowhere to wrap around a monster’s neck. She honked in defiance as Tresk fell from the giant goose, slashing at a large ogre-like monster with both daggers. She did a pose as the monster vanished, bowing as though an audience existed to care.

“Alex thinks she’s close to something new,” Tresk said, performing some stretches to loosen up. “Something special.”

Theo scratched his chin, thinking about what it could be. Alex had grown in size and gained new affinities. He had an idea for what might happen to her, but was unsure. It was the same thing he had been hoping for some of his buildings in town. Evolution. Ever since gaining the ability to evolve his cores—of which only his Governance Core had evolved—he was interested in the topic. No one had brought him information on the topic, which was frustrating at first.

But when Theo ran up against a problem that someone in his circle knew nothing about, he assumed it was uncommon enough to be novel. Novel things, like his new alchemy technique, might be caused by the way the system functioned. When someone reached a new height in any discipline, it filled in the blanks. That was his theory about this new tier of Drogramath alchemy, and he hoped it applied elsewhere.

“Alex, show him your Fire Lance attack,” Tresk said, slapping Alex on the side.

Alex honked, opening her beak and aiming into the distance. A hissing ball of fire appeared, reshaped only moments after she generated it. It took the shape of a lance the height of Theo before shooting off into the distance, leaving a steaming trail behind.

“That looks deadly.”

“Yeah, we’ve been working on a poison aspect, but it isn’t working. Alex thinks she’s locked into nature and fire.”

“I’ve tried everything.”

“Except you won’t let me poison you.” Tresk put her hands on her hips.

“I didn’t learn my aspect for nature by eating vines. Why would your idea work?”

“I dunno! Weirder things have happened.”

“There’s only one point of reference I have for evolutions,” Theo said, nodding at the bickering pair. “And the only thing that forced the change was exposure to an realm’s energy.”

“So, what? We just toss Alex in Tero’gal for a week and call it?” Tresk asked, huffing.

“Yeah, not likely to work. Everyone in town gets enough exposure to both Tero’gal and Drogramath energy daily. What happened to the project with the karatan absorbing energy?”

Tresk shrugged. “Nothing. They’re just normal karatan.” Tresk slapped Alex on the side again. The goose snapped at her, forcing her to stumble backwards. “You’re bitey today.”

“I could eat you whole, worm.”

“That’s the spirit!” Tresk cheered. “We’ll turn you into a bloodthirsty goose. One of these days.”

When the Dreamwalk finally ended, Theo felt a strange twinge as he returned to the waking world. He remained in bed for some time, searching around his golem network to find them in various states. Some had been destroyed underground, while others were still helping the situation in Qavell. His Plat Golems tended farms and greenhouses, but nothing else seemed strange enough for concern. With a shrug, he joined everyone at breakfast downstairs. While it was a pleasant meal, he couldn’t get his mind off of the sensation.

Throk had completed Salire’s order from yesterday, which was encouraging in more ways than one. He was back in town, taking orders rather than working on the rail. According to the administrative reports, there had been a malfunction with his counterfeit coin device that required attention. After breakfast was done, Theo headed to the lab to give his apprentice some instructions. She agreed to bring the new equipment back to the lab while he checked on some things at the Adventurer’s Guild.

Theo stood outside of the building for some time, gazing at the foundation. This spot had been a patch of bare earth some time ago. From here, he could see the wall leading to the west and out into the swamp. That wall itself wasn’t there either. Broken Tusk had been a defenseless patch of mud that wasn’t worth defending. HIs impression of the place when he got here was sky-high, and had only climbed beyond what was reasonable. Going from a dead world to anything with life made him latch onto everything and everyone. With a steady breath, he entered the guild to search for Jan.

Resting in an uncomfortable-looking chair near a fireplace was Jan, chatting and smiling with other adventurers. It hadn’t taken him long to adjust to this life, which might have been concerning. Theo approached.

“So, I grab this scrawny elf by the neck,” Jan said, wiping tears from his eyes. He had been laughing. He placed a hand on his chest, wincing from some phantom pain. “And he explodes out. Broke two ribs. I couldn’t taste anything for a week.”

Theo cleared his throat. The other adventurers stood at attention, but Jan only looked back with a lazy drag of his gaze. The newest servant of Glantheir nodded to him. “A word?” the alchemist asked.

“I’ve got a few,” Jan said, pushing himself to his feet.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Theo made his way to the hall’s front, pushing through the door. He didn’t bother looking to see if Jan followed behind, instead tracking him with his senses. There was something of Glantheir’s power blooming in the man’s chest. He must have taken the core. Good.

“Elves on Earth,” Theo said, shaking his head. “I know you didn’t fight an elf here. You would’ve been dead.”

“That’s right,” Jan nodded.

Some intuition took over. Theo’s increasing Wisdom had him seeing possibilities in conversation as well as in physical space. “Who was the elf?”

“A guy from the other place.”

“What was his name?” Theo pressed on, finding it comforting to walk his town.

“Eric or something,” Jan said, waving a dismissive hand. “I’m not good with names.”

“Elrin,” Theo corrected. He felt Jan’s soul quiver slightly.

“Yeah, how did you know?”

Because Gold said that name, Theo thought, gritting his teeth.

“Was Twist from that other place?” Theo asked, not answering the last question.

“As far as I know. They didn’t tell me much. Do you know what happened? It sounds like you know what happened.”

“I have a theory. It sounds like there was a realm overlayed over Earth. But if it was there in my time, I didn’t know about it.”

“They said only certain people could go there. You might be right but I really don’t know.”

Theo paused near the monolith in Broken Tusk. He looked back on his memories, seeing the monolith in Qavell with perfect clarity. He had to do something about that monolith soon, but no ideas had come to mind. But he had a basic plan that involved letting the venom do its work for a while.

“I pulled you aside to have a talk, but I’m getting more interested in what happened on Earth. I’m wondering if you saw anyone that looked like a half-bird half-person when you were on Earth.”

Jan shrugged. “Just the big eye in the sky.”

Theo turned, shaking his head. “What about the government? You were in the Old United States of America. Did they know there was a realm overlayed on theirs?”

Jan laughed. A deep belly laugh that brought a smile to Theo’s face, even if he was trying to be serious. “Old United States of America. Damn, you really are from the future.”

“There was nothing left in my time. Everyone migrated north or south, but the country was dissolved. We splintered into smaller countries.”

“Oh. Bummer. Yeah, we had some fights with the government over people coming to and from the other place. There were a bunch of people on the other side that were trapped. G-men came for this girl, and I was part of the group that busted her out. That Eric guy was from the other world, but he broke through into ours. Rescued her and some other people. But the eye showed up not too long after.”

So, the plot thickened. Theo wouldn’t correct Jan again for saying ‘Eric’ instead of ‘Elrin’. “Interesting.”

“Yup. Eric had a bunch of magic powers like the others. Didn’t think they could use them outside of the other place, but what do I know?” Jan shrugged. “I was a grunt with an arsenal.”

Theo couldn’t stop himself from laughing. He knew a few guys like that in his time. “That’s relatable.”

Jan raised a brow. “Did you serve? Not me, by the way. Private all the way.”

That wasn’t so easy to define. “Kinda. I’m not sure you could understand the structure of the government back then. We got trained for spycraft from an early age. It was mostly about blending in and reporting.”

“And murder, right?” Jan asked.

Theo shrugged. “Not really.”

“But, hey… This place is nice. And I’m alive, so thanks for that.”

Theo nodded. “Yeah. Guess you’re right.”

“Hey, is that everything? I’m scheduled to do some patrols. Looking to let off some steam on some goblins.”

“Yeah, you’re good.” Theo watched as Jan turned, his trenchcoat trailing as he went. At least he was adjusting to the new world.

Theo wandered back to the lab, finding himself taking more turns than he intended. He rolled the information over in his mind, allowing his intuition to make connections. Loose ends earned knots, binding them to other loose ends. The door to the Newt and Demon jingled as he entered, a smile on his face. Salire had already brought the new device to the lab, along with some new equipment.

“What’s that?” Theo asked, jabbing his finger at a Drogramathi Iron tank resting on its side. The tank was longer than he was tall.

“New design for the pressure vessel. Throk guarantees it won’t explode!” Salire seemed a bit too excited about that claim. He doubted it was completely accurate.

“I like not exploding.” Theo inspected the device, finding it to be similar to the first generation of pressure vessels Throk had made. The big change here were bands of Drogramathi Iron reinforcing the sides, and the built-in heating system. An artifice could accept liquid, turn it to vapor, and hold that vapor at pressure so it wouldn’t lose its form. The only limit on the vessel’s operation was the amount of power that was introduced. Throk had apparently recommended using real coins, or those created by his money printer. “Let’s hook this crap up.”

The lab had become a mess. The mixer device was exactly as Theo imagined it, but had been shoved into the room’s corner. If they wanted to maintain both the industrial capacity of the lab while also producing these labor-intensive potions, they would need to take some space on the second floor. For now, Theo sucked five of the ten Drogramathi Iron stills into his inventory and arranged the new devices in the area they once occupied.

“Looks like we’ll finally get use out of the second floor,” Theo said, shoving his weight against the pressure vessel until it was in place. He filled it with third tier Refined Bound Healing Essence, switching the artifice on before affixing the output tube from there to the first input of the mixer. “But we still can’t store liquid mana.”

“Throk said he was working on that, but didn’t think it was possible,” Salire said. She grunted, attaching the tube from a second pressure vessel to the mixer. That would be the line that fed the dilution into the mix. “So, this is an incomplete test.”

“The next phase in our proof of concept.” Theo slapped the pressure vessel, almost burning his hand. “That’s already really hot. Crank the AC.”

Theo thought of ways to store his liquid mana as they waited for everything to heat. He drew mana into his palm, watching as it evaporated in his hand. Capturing it in gas form might have worked, but mana had a habit of soaking into the air in a strange way. Like the energy that flowed around Broken Tusk, it soaked into something other than the air itself. Perhaps it was another state of matter, but he didn’t know enough about it to solve the problem on his own. For now, he would feed mana to the machine directly. It was good enough for now.

“This looks pretty good,” Theo said, inspecting the imperfect seams in the connections. “We have a small leak here.”

Salire scratched her head, squinting at the seam between the first pressure vessel and the mixer. “Really?”

“Yeah, we need someone to weld this stuff together.” Theo slapped the mixer. It hissed slightly. “Just turn on the extractor for now. Shouldn’t be horribly explosive.”

Salire gained a nervous look on her face, but did as told. Once the extractor fan was on, they watched as the mixer did its job. It took mana from Theo, essence from the first pressure tank, and dilution from the second pressure tank. The mix was then passed through a standard condenser, where it was collected in a flask. While this method was much faster than the small scale version, it still produced pitiful amounts of essence.

“There it is,” Theo said, grabbing the flask and replacing it with a new one. He swirled the single unit of essence in the flask. “Good quality, but better than before. And the best part?”

“It isn’t exploding…”

“Exactly. But there’s something more important to consider here.” Theo held the flask up, allowing the sun to shine through the hazy pink liquid. “We’re the first people to create it. An outworlder dronon and a half-ogre just pushed Drogramath’s alchemy to the next level.”

Salire gazed at the flask with amazement. “Do you think you’ll get something special for doing this? Like the other Potions of Significance?”

Theo offered Salire a smile. “I know I will.”