Once we'd confirmed there was nothing in the room upstairs dangerous to anyone but urban foragers we all climbed the steps to explore the alchemy lab. When we stepped out into the room, the first thing that struck me was the smell. Floral, a bit medicinal at times, but more than anything...almost electric. I felt my skin buzzing from the fumes alone, and my head might have started fogging without my mask, judging by the slightly woozy look on Jessie's face.

Granted, that might have been shock at the variety and appearance of the plants up here, because the first thing we stumbled on were a series of planter boxes filled with hundreds of types of valuable herbs and, if my nose didn't deceive me, some spices.

"They're so...beautiful." Breathed our healer. Which they were, and there were more than a few flowers mixed in. Jessie had grown up around flowers, and developed her original ability in horticulture. Her appreciation for pretty plants was well documented.

Callie stepped forward, glancing down at the label plaques at the base of each plant. "Interesting." She remarked. "A box for each stat. No Impact plants, obviously. If they had those they're probably either gone or kept somewhere substantially more secure than what appears to be a classroom. Still, an impressive selection, even if all of them are F-rank."

F-rank was also the standard for the tests, so it was probably the lowest level of student they accepted here. Maybe because that was the time when getting your Azure Soul Body was easiest. I knew it was possible to do it earlier, but being stronger when you did the trials was probably helpful. They were aimed more at the soul than anything, but I wasn't sure G-ranked me could have managed some of the things we'd had to do.

"What makes you think it's a classroom?" Asked Benny. "I'd have guessed plant nursery or something. Maybe a greenhouse?"

"The rank of the plants." I answered for her. "All the lowest level. Plus if you look back there you can see tables covered with cauldrons, alembics, boilers. All sorts of alchemy shit that I don't know the name or function of. Actually, do YOU know what that stuff is?" I pointed back to the tables I'd just mentioned. "Maybe from your Inventing knowledge?"

Spotting them, he walked towards the back of the room with interest. "Huh. One or two things. That's an evaporator, an essence extractor, and that's a malfas contextualizer." At my blank look he just chuckled. "They're tools for removing specific elements or qualities to add to inventions to try to steer your results. They're also used heavily in Alchemy, which has much more concrete formuli involved."

I knew it was possible for Mad Scientists to exert some small amount of control at lower ranks, and that by synergizing skills or mutating abilities you could even get to the point where you could exert actual control over what you made, albeit in exchange for a decrease in power and capability. Part of the strength of Inventing came from the unpredictability. The mass perception that anything could come from a Mad Scientist's projects removed the limiters on the ability. The more control you exerted the less powerful your Inventions could be.

Benny had done some work learning to guide his Inventions before realizing he got stronger items if he let things take their course. It sounded like the tools in question were a bit of a loophole though, altering the ingredients beforehand to maximize your chances of whatever random item was created being a specific type.

"Can I take these?" Asked my best friend greedily. "Because I could get some use out of this stuff for sure."

Celine smiled placidly. "Of course, even more time you'll be spending tinkering with your toys. That sounds lovely." Her voice was casual, but I noticed Benny's eyes snap to her as he chuckled awkwardly. I was reminded that she'd been less than thrilled by the hardcore nonstop training for months on end during the trip here, and that adding another thing to his plate was bound to cause friction.

He smiled awkwardly at her. "Sorry Cel. I swear, I'm cutting back on training for a while. It's Jessie's turn to put her nose to the grindstone."

We all looked over to where Jessie had picked up a hoe and was trying to use it to pry the flower boxes off the tables. She looked up in surprise. "Huh?" When she saw our gazes she shrugged. "I can't fit the tables in my ring, and the connectors are making it impossible to take the plants. I need to get them off of here so I can ste- I mean, so I can relocate these poor neglected plants."

Randall, who hadn't been able to fit up the stairway in the column, wasn't around to tear them loose, so I could understand needing to pry them up. I chuckled. "Carry on. You got a place to put them when you get them? And can we put still living things in our rings?"

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

She nodded. "We can, though not sentient things. Also the temporal slowdown in the rings doesn't apply to lifeforce, so the second they go in they start to die. I did some tests on it with other plants. As long as you don't leave them in there for more than a day without life energy they're fine. I can recharge them with my healing every day until we get out, and then find a place to plant them on the Necromedes until we get..." She paused. "Where are we going after this?"

I laughed at that. "I'm still wondering if there'll BE an after this. Even odds we all get murdered here and never see our loved ones again." I glanced over at my girlfriend, who was glowering at me. "Although I'm sure that won't happen and everything will be fine." I tacked on belatedly.

Rolling her eyes, my girlfriend snorted. "Nice backpedal. But yeah, things aren't great right now. Do you see any signs that this place is what the BMP are looking for?"

"Well for a minute I thought it might be that box in the corner marked 'secret god resurrecting potion' but that seemed too obvious." At her glare I just shrugged. "What? You don't think I'd tell you if I saw some sort of clue to why we're all here? My eye of revelation isn't picking up any secret doors or passages. My overlay has about five golden arrows showing right now, so I don't know which might be which."

One of them was probably leading to Gabriel, as for the other four, who knew. She rolled her eyes, but I saw her lips twitch a bit, and I could feel her amusement. She knew I was just messing with her through the bond anyway.

"Eeeek!" Squeaked Jessie from behind us. We all whirled as a crash sounded out, finding our healer on her back with a planter box on top of her. It had broken on her costume without hurting her much, but she was covered in dirt and a long stalk of green with purple bell shaped flowers was wrapping itself around her neck.

Benny walked over, grabbed the stalk, and pulled. The thing snapped in half, one half still around her neck and the other lashing up to grab HIS neck. Pulling out my staff, I whacked it against the plants one after another, the life energy being sucked away enough to make them let go and fall to the ground. Jessie scrambled free of the dirt, spitting and grimacing as she put distance between herself and the plant.

"Ok first of all." I said with repressed humor in my voice. "Did you just SAY eek when that thing grabbed you? And second of all what was that?"

She leaned down to pick up the plaque, which had fallen into the dirt, and held it up for me. "Choking violet. Might focused. I didn't realize it was so literal. Apparently the anchors that keep them on the tables also prevent them from doing things like...well, that. Also I didn't say eek. I said...Zeke. Like your uncle. Because...I was hoping he would save me. Because he's so powerful. But I forgot he wasn't here."

Bethy gave her a pitying look. "Jessie. Even I know that's a terrible lie. And I believe most stuff. Do you want me to have Poptarts follow you around for a while until we can join back up with Randall?"

My friend's shoulders slumped. "Yes." She said sulkily. "Speaking of, Abel, can't you bring him up now?"

"Nope." Said my mentor with a shake of his head. "Not until we get into a hallway or something. So we should move on from this room and figure out where we're going."

Sighing, I gestured to the tables. "Lets see if we can figure out how to take the plants without them trying to murder us. These could be useful later. We should really find an Alchemist actually. Anyone here know Alchemy?" That just got head shakes from everybody.

Once we decided that, we all looked around to find the most harmless sounding plant, and then worked together to try to sever the link between it and the table. My Enchanting was way out of date and I didn't know this style anyway, but luckily Nat was here and my cousin knew a bit about this kind of thing. She studied the runes carefully, tracing them with her fingers until she finally located one and jammed a knife in it.

Jessie tried again to lift the box of dirt and plants and it came up easily. She squealed in joy, storing it in her ring, and then the two of them started cleaning the whole place out even as Celine helped Benny take all the equipment.

After that, we searched the room for documents or any kind of books or maps. I used Eye of Revelation to speed things up, and to my delight I actually found a book hidden behind a wall panel. We pulled it out, and I couldn't read a word of it, but Chelsea, being more versed in older languages, was able to decipher some.

She flipped through the book for a while before slamming it shut. "Ok, this is a journal from the person who taught this class. Sadly no convenient mentions of secret weapons, but the person DID make an offhand reference to a vault in the headmaster's office. I can't say for sure that's where the thing we're looking for will be, but it seems like as good a place to start as any."

"That's awesome!" I crowed in excitement. That was a hugely lucky break. "You did it Chelsea." My smile dropped as I saw her frown. "You don't seem like you did it though. You seem worried."

She flipped the book back open to the last page. Due to her high Focus she'd skimmed it unbelievably fast, but I think she wanted to recite this part aloud just to make sure we got the point. "The school has fallen." She said grimly. "The enemy are at the gates. Even now they invade our halls, perverting the sanctity of our most noble place of learning. Their greed will be their undoing. Soon we will be gone. But death...death will remain."

I froze, looking down at the book. "I don't suppose the word for death translates into something else? Something happy? Maybe puppies? Could it be puppies that remain?"

She shook her head. "Whatever killed the people who ran this place, they didn't want it to get what it wanted. They left safeguards. Something is in here with us, and it doesn't want us here. I'm not sure how many of them are still here, or how strong they might still be, but I don't think we should take it for granted. We should get Randall up here soon. We can't leave him alone. None of us should be alone." I swallowed hard but nodded. She was right. The Blood Murder Palace had brought us to a bad place, and I hoped we would all make it through.