8

Improvised Alchemy

Sethel wasn’t sure why everyone had thrown themselves into such a fervour. He was having a great time.

He was back to doing what he did best. Putting random shit in a bottle and selling it for way more than it actually was worth. Except, this time, it was a barrel and the powdered remnants of a powerful narcotic.

It reminded him of those times at the University, before he got kicked out, of course. But fuck those guys; if they didn’t want the exam answers to be written out and passed around for a reasonable price, they shouldn’t have made them so obvious.

This was just like his alchemical class, where they had a cauldron, he now had a barrel. Instead of simple healing poultices and remedy salves, he was making drugs. Instead of greenwort, hester seed, and crayroot, he had whatever was currently available.

What was available? Mostly mud. That wouldn’t work, huska was a fine, light red powder. Mud is far too dark.

What was left?

The dim light of the farmhouse caught his eye.

A farm! Of course!

‘There! He shouted, pointing at the miserable little hut. ‘Find something!’

‘What?’ Kathiya asked.

‘Anything!’

The door came down easily. One kick was all it took. Rusty hinges proved no match for a solid boot.

Ludgar ran through and Kathiya followed yelling ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry!’ as they began tearing through what they assumed was the stockroom.

An understandably upset farmer stood from their disappointing dining table, pointed and yelled when Ves’sa stepped in front. She towered a full two heads over him and he quickly capitulated and sat back down.

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Caspar followed them in, noting a mother and child huddled in the corner bearing an expression of fear and abject confusion.

He left a coin pouch on the end of the table.

Ludgar and Kathiya continued their raid of the pantry, finding nothing but sacks of flour, some vegetables and a bunch of rotten potatoes. Far from a good haul.

‘I wonder why she trusted us with a job like this in the first place,’ Kathiya said, as they pilfered through sacks, boxes and barrels.

‘Because it was so simple it couldn’t be fucked up,’ said Ludgar.

‘And what happened?’ she asked, probably rhetorically.

‘We... fucked it up.’

They ushered themselves out of the farmhouse, hauling a few sacks of assorted ingredients, which they dropped at Sethel’s feet.

A sly smile crept across his face.

There was little huska left, but enough to work with. The aim wasn’t to replicate it, but to disguise it. A good layer on top, and they’d be none the wiser, provided they didn’t dig any deeper. Hopefully, they’d be long gone before they would conduct any thorough checks.

The beetroot gave a fine red colour; the flour was about the same texture.

‘Mash the beetroot, mix it in with the flour. It should look similar enough.’

‘Are you fucking serious?’ Kathiya asked, completely dumbfounded.

‘Mostly. If you have a better alternative, please be my guest.’

They went to work and Sethel sat back, reminiscing of the days when he had to substitute vichita for devil’s root. That salve still closed the wound, even if all the patient’s hair fell out, along with temporary blindness, and maybe some lost teeth, but that could have been from the subject’s general dental hygiene..

He never considered himself bad at alchemy. He considered himself too good. Finding the answers most deemed “uncomfortable.”

He even remembered when the Archmagister himself personally kicked him out. He would have considered it an honour if he hadn’t disgraced him by revealing his incorrect cheat sheets.

His answers weren’t wrong; how could they be? He had written them, after all. The logical conclusion must be that the answers were completely and utterly correct and the questions themselves were wrong.

The substitute huska was complete, and it looked… fine?

It was more like a red slop than a powder. More flour just made it coagulate into a greater congealed mess.

Whatever, it’s not like he’s being graded on it this time. He dumped it into the barrel and poured the huska on top.

Now it looked almost normal. At a certain distance, in a certain light, it would look like the real thing. He slid the lid back on top and forced it down.

‘There’s our counterfeit drug ready,’ he said, wiping the powder from his hands. ‘That’s the easy part over,’

‘Then what’s the hard part?’ asked Kathiya.

‘Getting away with it.’