"A bit of lake water…a touch of fairy dust…a couple of lizard tails..." Clara kept going on as she put more ingredients into the cauldron. Like most sanctioned witches she practiced potion brewing and runology.
They were on the 1st floor of the Midnight Hour. A witchy name for a clinic run by a witch. A normal business if Asher ignored whatever Stephan was doing in the basement. On that note, it's been weeks since he'd seen him.
She was teaching the boy how to make some potions to help around. He was staying here now after healing most of his injuries. It was his way of repaying her.
Aside from the daily cleaning and taking care of patients…She'd teach him brewing, history, and math. Math was important for some godforsaken reason. He hated math with passion.
"Focus…this is the most important part." Clara snapped with her metal fingers, so he'd pay attention. She grabbed a touch of powder from one of the cabinets and threw it to the fire below the cauldron. In a flash, the flames turned blue and the runes on the cauldron shined in a green hue. She recited an old chant in the archaic version of Loci which he was required to memorize.
"It should take a few minutes…now did you finish the book I gave you last week?"
The book in question was titled…Alchemy Redefined by Theodore the Mad. It was surprisingly by an alchemist instead of a fellow witch. With a broken mask, anybody could tell that she was banished from her coven, but Asher didn't ask. She didn't ask about his past so he would return the favor.
"Yes!" The once malnourished boy replied with a tinge of enthusiasm. He was healthier now, at least of body. The nightmares were getting worse but thus far the companions in his mind have been less talkative.
His pale complexion became a bit rosier leaning towards a healthy tint. As for Asher's body, it was free of bandages and gained some muscle. It would take more time for it to return to a decent state.
"Then recite the three laws!"
"Equivalency, Causality, and Order."
Equivalency of essences describes how a concoction's materials shouldn't and mustn't counteract each other or their purpose. A slow-healing potion used stagnant water and the essence of slow-healing creatures. If you wanted a fast-acting one, you'd use running river water and mandrakes for example.
Causality of elements states that the richer a material is in its source's essence, the more prone it is to mutation and the development of bygone egos. In return, it gives stronger effects if the user can handle it. Dangerous stuff but inconsequential for normal potions which used weak creatures to begin with.
And Finally Order. Order was the simplest and most important. Don't mix the arcane with the process of making a potion. Magic is born of chaos and alchemy is its polar, constant, and born of order. The alchemy association preached these three ideals while witches followed their coven rules resulting in a lot of legal clashing between the two.
"Aaand it's done." Clara smiled, Scooping the dark red liquid into multiple glass vials. Before she continued talking a customer walked into the storefront. It was a Dremin. He was slender, pure black, and had the shape of a python with splashes of green. His black shape despite the lack of legs was humanoid from the waist up meaning that his owners were feeding him well.
The Dremin slithered with his tail towards the counter, the mask on his head covering only the upper part of his face, leaving the large serpentine mouth on display.
"Tommy…what brings you hear today." Clara said dryly. Tommy was an old customer. A servant of house Trene. He'd come pick up medicine from here from time to time and…
"To visit you of course…Here a flower for my fffflower." His serpentine tongue emphasized the 'f' with a large smile. He kneeled slightly presenting a rose from his butler's garments towards Clara who took it and placed it in a nearby vase filled with similar roses. The lack of tact throughout this display almost made Asher gag.
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"Is that potion the one I requesssted?" Tommy slithered closer to the counter, eyeing the newly made potion.
"No of course not…Yours I made specially…it's in the back, give me a minute." Clara quickly left to leave the potion, leaving Asher alone with Tommy. Asher at this point was not comfortable enough to hold a conversation with a new person but he held his ground. He had to face the discomfort at some point.
"How delightful…what do I taste…Ffffear, uneasiness, and a tinge of…how weird. I don't what the last thing is." Tommy closed the gap between him and Asher and began to circle him while his long tongue licked the boy slightly.
"Hey kid…want some help calming those emmmotions. I'd even do it for free to since you made Clara happy."
"Happy?" Ash mustered the words while closing his eyes, enduring Tommy's breach of private space.
"You're new…she was sad oh so very sssad…now she's happy…I can taste it." Tommy slithered to the back of the counter just before the woman in question appeared in the room.
"Here it is…packaged and ready to go. That would be 2 silver Talins."
"How cruel…not even a little disssscount." Tommy tried his hand at negotiating, but Clara didn't budge. "Ffffine...It's a bouquet of roses next time." The Serpentine Dremin said these words while laughing. He winked at Asher and slithered out of the glass door of the Midnight hour.
"What was that about?" Clara asked with a bit of concern.
"He just wanted a taste of my emotions." Asher preferred saying that over confronting her happiness. He wasn't sure if he deserved to make her happy. He needed more time to understand.
"How unpleasant…You have to promise me Asher." The masked woman was adept at displaying her emotions. She was angry and dissatisfied. Asher didn't know why but he recoiled a bit at her tone and looked at the ground. She kneeled beside him, placing her metal hand on his shoulder. He didn't recoil at her touch like he used to.
"Emotions are cruel…yes but they also are important…Never give them up…Promise me." Her tone mellowed to a gentler one as she looked Asher straight in honey-yellow eyes.
"I promise." Asher gave his word even if it amounted to little. He understood what she meant but sometimes it was hard not to try to ignore them.
She stared at him in silence for a minute before getting up and grabbing one of the vials they made before Tommy barged in.
"Another promise...you keep taking on more...have you fullfilled even one...? Regret spoke up from her dormancy leaving Asher in a daze. The word promise that echoed in his head made him gulp. He tried to take deep breaths, but his emotions were in a disarray. It was hard to resist the urge to run...to hide...to huddle up where no one could find him.
"We can't keep your friend waiting…lets go." Clara mused, breaking Asher's daze. He followed behind her in silence. The mood which was settling back to a comfortable one turned uneasy as they entered one of the patient rooms inside the Midnight hour.
Inside was another Dremin. A Dremin he was growing familiar with after all it was the one that he got beaten up defending. He was staying with them for a while now with Clara feeding him some of her emotions till he got back on his feet. Through brief moments of lucidity, the avian Dremin managed to tell its name. He was Balar.
However, the poor thing was beaten so badly that his avian form deteriorated leaving nothing but the black malleable sludge that made up all Dremin. It lost its form after the beating, and it needed a lot of emotions to get back to its conscious self.
Dremin were fascinating creatures. Most are born like this sludge in populated areas after condensing the ambient human consciousness. In contrast, others could be born from two Dremin who have gathered enough emotions to gain a more physical form. They would adopt human names or be named by their owners. Tommy was clearly named by his owners but Balar probably picked his own.
Their forms depended on the type of emotions they fed on or were fed because most were slaves. For each thousand humans, there was one Dremin and even though they displayed no immediate hostility towards the major species, most of the populace viewed them as monsters.
Nobody really knew where they come from not even the Dremin themselves, but they've become a large part of society since the Pyre wars a few hundred years back.
"How long do you think till he wakes up." Clara broke his reverie of the history lesson she gave a while ago. It wasn't new information to him, but she sounded happy teaching him, so he pretended otherwise.
"A week at most." Asher summarized as the sludge was slowly coalescing back together and forming proper limbs. He grew closer to the bed in order to check the rest of the body but just as he got close, the sludge making up the Balar moved.
The sludge was normally docile however Asher noticed that it began to bubble all over as if agitated. It slowly convulsed and began to grow out of Balar's mask and mouth till it...
"ASHER...GET BACK!" Clara grabbed him by the scruff and shoved him aside, narrowly dodging the tentacles which sprung everywhere from the now blob like mass.
The sludge turned into sharp needles and stabbed into the walls and furniture. Clara barely defended herself with her metal arms.
"Blights…I hoped to avoid this…Get the Crystal Asher." Clara Shouted at the boy who was getting further from the bed.
This was the reason why Dremin were viewed as monsters. If they consumed too many negative emotions, they would turn feral and lose the ability to think.