The Notorious Misadventures of an Alchemist and a Phoenix Chapter 32

Noah didn't dare to leave the secret passage that the Beholder had made. Moving through the spacious tunnels there was plenty to see. Apart from the many peepholes that showed the mansions occupiers, the walls were filled with cartoon depictions of the dirty things that had been witnessed by the Beholder such as a picture of nuns scrubbing a toilet with a brick. Noah decided not to look at any more of these confusing pictures.

The plan was to gain his freedom and yet, how. There weren't any potion ingredients for him to work his magic on, and the only thing he had on him was his rage-reducing pills

He made a firm decision by going back and collecting the body parts of the defeated Beholder. If he was lucky the Beholder would still be there, after all, it had only been ten minutes since he left the dead creature there.

Thankfully, no one had cleaned up the mess and he had to quickly get to work. With the flower vases that Noah collected from the room, blood was drained from the dead. A lot of it went to waste as he didn't have the proper tools to collect it. At this moment he was just twisting the curtain pole that had slammed into the Beholder's eye like some kind of gruesome pole dancer. With each push and pull a fresh new fountain of blood squirted out dosing him in bright purple-red luminous liquid.

This wasn't enough, with a knife collected from the grand table, Noah hacked away at the eye stalks. Only after taking over two minutes slicing at the first stalk did Noah swap the dull luncheon knife for the much sharper steak knife and slice the stalk off like a hot knife through butter.

Just as the eighth stalk was freed a maid wandered in, spotted Noah drenched in luminous blood and holding a knife and eye stalk and decided that she wasn't getting paid enough to deal with this kind of a mess and promptly left with a bottle of wine. Now it was definitely time to leave.

Running through the secret passage with three awkwardly sized vases and blood all over his hands caused a small accident. The first part was the sound of squelchy wet hands making a high-pitched noise as high-class porcelain slid down the wet hands of Noah. Then came soft curse words from Noah that were barely audible but couldn't be quite understood. Finally, a sharp crash as a vase was dropped and the blood within spilt out like a fire hose onto the back of a painting that had eight holes cut from it for the Beholder to peek through.

What the mansion staff experienced was a high-pitched screech and soft whispers that were followed by a dimensionally sounding crack in space and finally the painting depicting four children started to cry blood. The staff members decided to leave early that day.......with a bottle of wine to help them forget what they had just seen and heard.

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Unknown to Noah, that helped him greatly. Hell wasn't that bad of a place but when blood dripped from children's eyes, that was the time to take a walk. Noah found his way into a cellar, where he found some interesting liquids that he added to his collection. Noah was in the middle of whipping up a makeshift illusion liquid from the jelly of the Beholder's eye when he got spooked by a mid-sized bird that somehow got lost in the cellar and decided it was the height of good manners to scare Noah out of the room.

Again the unstoppable law of hell struck and the same bird that caused a brave grand master to run high and hell water out of the room, caused several bottles to topple like dominos and break. The sound of breaking glass caused the bird to shit itself and take to the air.

They say the only thing you need to start a fire is heat, fuel and oxygen. and while the new mixture of alcohol and bird poop was enough, in theory, the universe law helped again. The heat from the accidental fire would cause skin to melt and bones to turn to dust but in hell, that was a gentle summer heat. It was a sad coincidence that most buildings in hell burnt down within two months of being built. That was why everything in hell looked good because it was consistently being remade.

And so, while everyone understood that fires in hell were common and easily forgiven, someone who starts a fire on purpose was hounded and prosecuted to the full extent of hell's law, which usually meant a nasty shaped spiked vegetable being stuck where the sun doesn't shine and a slap on the wrists for good measure.

Unfortunately, that was the exact time the Phoenix turned up. Now, it would be fair to say that the Phoenix had nothing to do with the mansion being burnt to the ground but his attitude didn't help him one bit. His snide remarks, his aggravating nature, and the ability to find the route of individual self-worth and tear it down like tissue paper made him no friends down here in hell, but it did make him a glorious scapegoat.

When asked later on how the phoenix handled the minions of hell, he would lie and tell a grand story of how he bitched slapped every demon and spat in their faces, but in fact, he was chased all around hell by fire-resistant hell beasts.

As the phoenix was trying his best to flee, Noah escaped Hell, thanks to his jelly illusion mix and became one of the few to do so.

There and back again

Entering Hell is easy, escaping with all your limbs attached is worth mentioning. You have achieved something few have done.

Travel speed increased by 50%

On second thoughts

Hell isn't that bad, people just don't want to leave

Travel speed decreased to 25%"

"Thanks a lot" muttered Noah to the system in the most venom-soaked voice he could muster