“Now hold on just a seco—”

I ducked the first swing of the rolling pin and faced down the next. Claire was advancing, swinging wildly in a bid to take my head off and ruin my haircut alongside it. {Bill’s Sunhat} bounced around, the brim obstructing my vision. As Claire prepared to demonstrate her baking-implement skills for the last time, a wet tentacle slapped around her arm with a sound like the crack of a whip.

“HOLD IT, YOU TWO!” Otto yelled. “This is a damned potion lab, not a colosseum!”

He released her, leaving a ring of yellow dots and red welts a few centimeters from her wrist. The rolling pin clattered to the ground as she nursed the sore marks.

“My apologies, Claire. You’ve shown me a few cool things, but attacking Ollie is tantamount to attacking the town. Pour this on it.”

He handed her a salve of pasty green mush. She stuck in two fingers and applied a generous helping, glaring at me and flicking the gross-smelling excess onto my leg.

“Thanks,” I said. “I really needed my leg to smell like goat vomit, cheers.”

“My pleasure.” A light flickered in her eyes as if she was already planning a second violent attack.

With our fun, wholesome reunion complete, I bumped past Claire and walked into the middle of Otto’s operation. He had four pots boiling, two contraptions dripping condensation into a purple mixture filled with leaves, and an array of small wooden hammers with a grid of pointed pyramids on one side.

“Upgrades,” he claimed, noticing my interest. “Claire’s shown me some big-boy potions that you’ll have to try out for me. Although you’re a tad early, I’m afraid. I said midday, right?”

“Yessir, you did. Just thought I’d drop by anyway — see if I could help with anything. You realize you’re fraternizing with the enemy here?”

“I do. You any good with a wooden spoon?”

“Of course.”

He thwacked one into my hand and pointed at the leafy mixture. “Crack on with that one then, mate. I want those leaves submerged as much as possible. Should help with the potency.”

“Potency of what?”

“Do ya job and I’ll tell you when it’s done.”

I started my task, wary of turning my back to Claire. I could feel her glaring at me, her eyes like two pincers digging into the flesh between my shoulder blades. Either that, or she was actually holding two daggers there, daring me to make a sudden move. I didn’t really want to find out, so I kept stirring and pushing down the leaves.

Otto hustled and bustled around the lab, tasting mixtures and taking in scents. At times, he would take a spoonful of something over to Claire who would nod or shake her head, approving or disapproving of his creation. There were more nods than shakes, though that could’ve been a bad thing. For all I knew, a nod meant ‘Perfect, that’ll make all his fingernails fall out and his balls explode.’

I preferred to assume that she had enough integrity to lead Otto down the correct path.

When the mixtures stopped boiling and all the ingredients were poured, sifted or swirled into their respective vials, Otto presented me with an array of potions.

“Huzzah!” he said. “You asked for fire-breathing, a diamond bodysuit, and some other imbecilic thing, but I have produced a far better assortment!”

Claire elbowed him, causing the liquid in the vials to slosh. “Oi. Some of those are more my creations than yours.”

“Tut tut, my fiery-haired Asterian sympathizer. Until the moment they don’t work, I shall take credit. When...if that happens, it’s all yours.”

I took the first vial and swished around the purple contents. There were delicate blue petals swimming in the liquid, like sediment at the bottom of a wine bottle.

“A particularly volatile one, that is,” Otto told me. “I know you said no to the fart-spray, but this is much improved. Simply shake it up until those petals disintegrate, then throw it as far as you can. If you are overpowered by noxious fumes that remind you of terrible, terrible things, then you didn’t throw it far enough.”

Not quite a ‘consumable’, but it’ll work.

“Sounds handy. And the others? Any I can drink?”

Claire took the potion-holder from Otto and set it on the bench. Next, she went rapid-fire through their purposes whilst Otto looked on, crestfallen to have had his show stolen from him.

“Water-breathing is blue, voice-amplification is green, skill-empowerment is orange, max-health buff is pink, and the nuke is black.”

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“The what is black?”

“The nuke.”

I peered into the vial, assuming there was a misunderstanding. Nothing about it screamed ‘weapon of mass destruction’ to me.

“Is this another ‘throw and run’ one? Cos I’ve got like sixty spare points, but I don’t think any amount of Agility is going to outrun a nuke.”

Claire unstoppered the vial and placed it under my nose. It smelled like tar and balsamic vinegar.

“Get keen, stick-boy, you’ve gotta drink it for it to work. If I’d had one of these in our fight, you would’ve been a goner. Same goes for a good part of the crowd, but oh well.”

“Lovely. How will I even swallow this? It’s barely moving in the vial — did you put glue in it?”

“Tree sap.”

Now that my appetite was decidedly squashed, the vials were introduced to their new home in my back pocket. If I sat down and crushed Otto’s stench-in-a-bottle, I’d know about it.

“Yo, put them in your inventory, you drongo,” Claire advised, ever so politely. “Did you never learn?”

“Nope.”

“Open your inventory, then hold them out and drop them. They won’t hit the ground; even I wouldn’t want that.”

I pulled out Otto’s malodorous potion. If she was messing with me, she’d be going down with the ship. With a quick motion my nearly empty inventory lay in front of me. I held the potion at arm’s length, checking Claire’s face one last time.

Stony.

“Here goes. If you’re wrong, we’re in for a hell of a time.”

She rolled her eyes, and I dropped the vial.

My nostrils crinkled, expecting a dastardly assault that could put the dumpsters behind Stanley’s Diner to shame. Instead, the potion fell neatly into my inventory, taking up residence in a slot in the top-left corner.

It’d taken a while, but I’d finally be able to put things in my inventory.

“Woah. Cheers, Claire. Could’ve told me earlier, but I’ll respect it.”

“You know how to take stuff out?” she asked.

I tapped on the potion, pulling up a secondary screen.

{Stink Potion : Grade A} (Otto)

Equip? Yes/No

I selected ‘Yes’ and held out my prize for Claire’s inspection.

“Easy,” she said. “Now you have no reason to message me ever again. Good luck with stuff, I guess.”

Then she turned heel and left.

I wasn’t shocked — there was no expectation of a warm welcome and a sing-along to our favourite songs — but she’d been interested enough to come to the lab, so I’d assumed there was something worth coming for.

Perhaps not.

She turned the heat down on one of Otto’s boiling pots as she went. He raised a tentacle as she passed, as though he had a question, but he didn’t have time to get the words out.

When the hidden door closed behind her, the room was quiet.

“Well Otto, I guess it’s just back to you and me now. Thanks for the potions, the Stink Potion is top notch according to my inventory.”

He went back to stirring and sniffing. “Sure thing, buddy boy. You just lemme know what else I can do to help you get that Dallywort and Perrytongue.”

“You mean Dallytongue and Perrywort?”

“Aye. And I know that lassie didn’t do right by the town, but keep an eye out for her, okay? Didn’t seem too evil to me.”

I laughed at the concept. “She’s probably the last person in the Yard that needs me to look out for them. You mightn’t have seen it in your time together, but she could shoot the eye from a squirrel.”

“What the heck’s a sqwee-rill?”

I clapped him on the shoulder, dropped the remaining potions in my inventory, and left. Hanging out with Otto was cool, but I had places to be. There was a budding plan in my mind involving a heavily fortified plateau and a super-buffed nuke-juice.

The return to the Asterian border was simple, though I was rapidly convincing myself to drop a few more stat points into Agility. What was the point in having all these spare points if I was too afraid to use them? Even if I spent them inefficiently, I’d still be a downright monster for a while yet.

Who knows. There could still be another invasion, or a full-blown war after what I’m about to do.

The plan had some downsides, of course. Although the plateau served mostly as a way of keeping people out of Asteroth, it also formed a barrier that encouraged the Asterians to stay in their own territory. To expand past that point would require the construction of a new forward base, and there weren’t many giant rocks or mountains to fortify between the Yard and here.

Destroying the plateau would force their hand, or at least give them a damn good reason to retaliate and encroach further on the Yard and the surrounding town’s territories.

So be it. Unless those ‘Seven Stakes’ show up, I can afford to take chances.

The orange afternoon light turned the normally brown monolith to a clay-colour, making it difficult to see the undulations and corners leading up the plateau. I was in roughly the same position as I was not so long ago, so the first of the switchbacks had to be in basically a straight line ahead of me.

With a quick prayer to whoever might’ve been listening, I launched forward and half-strode, half-ran up the path. I would’ve been a small target from above, but when two thousand soldiers had been tasked with catching anyone who might try to do exactly what I was doing, I was bound to get caught very soon.

“Intrusion! Light the call!” I heard above.

{Bill’s Sunhat} might disguise me as a farmer for a little while longer, but pretty soon my spear and shield would give me away. I opened my inventory and called forth the black potion, clutching it in my fist.

“Stop where you are or die!” they continued. I was pushing more and more, right on the brink of testing out whether this hat could deflect an arrow or three.

I’d made it only a quarter of the way up, but it would have to be enough. I popped the cap from the potion as the first projectiles littered the ground around me. A piece of shale glanced off my back, nearly throwing the vial out of my grip and into the dirt. I threw my head back and tried to drink the potion, but the tree sap held tight to the inside like glue.

I’m dead. Cursed by an undrinkable potion and a vengeful ex-crush.

Heating it up might’ve helped the viscosity, but I had nothing to burn. The Asterian’s aim was awful, but with sheer numbers, they were beginning to prevail. An arrow tore a hole in {Bill’s Sunhat} and nearly impaled my foot, and another would’ve ended me on the spot if I hadn’t flinched away in shock from the first.

The liquid — which at this point I considered closer to a solid — still refused to budge, fighting against my will like a stubborn child.

Maybe if I...

I had a thought that ran completely contrary to all my instincts. I had no idea if it was a good one, but at that point, it was my only option.

The vial was glass, and glass could be shattered.

Raising the vial to my mouth, I could almost hear Mom telling me the obvious. Don’t eat glass. But this was Blade & Battle, and here the rules are different.

With two hands, I cracked the vial and chewed down the gritty contents. For a moment nothing happened, but a notification restored my faith in Otto.

[Bard of the Yard : Consumables crafted in Bill’s Yard grant 5x bonuses]

My body turned white, the atmosphere scorched, and the world exploded.