Forest of Desire
a novel
by Vasily Mahanenko
THE ALCHEMIST
Book 2
Magic Dome Books
Forest of Desire
The Alchemist, Book # 2
Copyright © V. Mahanenko 2020
Cover Art © Ivan Khivrenko 2020
Cover Design © V. Manyukhin 2020
English translation copyright © Jared Firth 2020
Published by Magic Dome Books, 2020
All Rights Reserved
ISBN: 978-80-7619-175-4
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental..
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Table of Contents:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Epilogue
Chapter 1
“COLD EXPLOSION… You’re dead, Tailyn Vlashich…”
“Alchemical fire… You’re dead, Tailyn Vlashich…”
“Acid. Your shield’s gone; your armor was eaten away, too. You’re dead, Tailyn Vlashich…”
Tailyn got to his feet and shot an annoyed glance over at Berad, a level thirty-two ranger who was doubled over laughing. Calling the whole thing a waste of time, the caravan leader was openly mocking the boy’s attempts to fight back against Valanil. He was convinced mages capable of using cards should stick to them rather than jumping around the field like a goat with its butt on fire.
But in those moments, all Tailyn could do was sigh heavily and nod to let Valanil know he was ready for the next round. The Culmart herbalist was hurling in his direction pieces of wood that had been painted different colors to stand in for alchemical flasks. It was Tailyn’s job to pick out the color, say what the flask had inside, and correctly respond to the throw — duck, block, or turn and run. Everything depended on the contents of what Valanil was tossing at him. Six months earlier, back when he’d just begun training, Tailyn had protested that she only ever threw potions he had no way of protection himself against. Since then, Valanil had written down on a piece of paper the exact order she was going to follow and stuck to it, throwing the pieces of wood in that sequence. But that didn’t really help. Not once had Tailyn been able to avoid death even ten times out of every thirty throws.
“You’re not just a mage,” Valanil always said. “You’re an alchemist! Your strength isn’t cards; it’s the ability to create and use different potions to match the situation. Remember the City of the Dead — the moment you ran out of charges for your cards, you were dead weight. You couldn’t charge them, and you couldn’t do anything to fight back against the mages. You couldn’t do anything! Tailyn Vlashich, you have to get stronger. Go pick up the pieces and bring them over here so we can go again.”
It was only once, the day after he began training, that Tailyn made the mistake of not falling in line with his trainer, and Valanil decided to show him up. After heading a hundred meters away, she turned and yelled back at the boy.
“Stop me any way you can! No matter how, just stop me!”
The herbalist sprinted toward the stunned kid, who hadn’t so much as pulled out his cards, and threw a freeze potion that turned Tailyn’s legs into pieces of ice. And that was despite his armor and shield level. His regeneration told him it was going to need a good five hours to restore him to working order, but Valanil wasn’t done. As soon as Tailyn had recovered, she jumped in for another round.
“Stop me. Whatever it takes!”
That time, Tailyn wasn’t caught sleeping. As soon as she started moving, enormous balls of fire came flying at her, accompanied by electric strikes. The boy had become adept at using his cards, switching the order around with just an eye movement. His third-generation outdoor headgear for mages, or OHM-III, made that as easy as pie.
But it was useless. The herbalist ignored the fireballs and paid no attention to the electricity. Running up to the boy, she tossed another potion at him, that time liquid fire. And Tailyn howled like he’d never howled before. The heat cut through his shield and baked him alive, while Valanil did nothing to ease his suffering. But six hours later, once his regeneration had brought him back from the brink, and his costume had restored itself, Valanil tried a third time.
“Stop me. Whatever it takes.”
She went back to the hundred-meter mark. That round, Tailyn decided to go all out, bringing his wave of fire, his most powerful weapon, to bear. It was better to mourn the herbalist’s death than let her mutilate him yet again, he decided. But oh, how naïve he was. Valanil didn’t run at him. Striding easily, she moved right through the inferno, the flames doing exactly nothing to her. Tailyn spent fifty charges, turning the field they were training on into scorched earth, but the herbalist just laughed it off. Her third flask contained an acid that had the boy wishing he were back to being burned alive. Feeling his flesh dissolve, that was real pain.
Twelve hours later, Tailyn had wised up and was standing in front of Valanil ready to get back to training. The question of how was plastered all over his face, and the herbalist responded by showing him the description of one of her flasks.
Salamander Potion. Description: rare item. Forms a Salamander Skin that lets you ignore thermal damage for 30 seconds.
“People who actually are alchemists rather than just sporting the title have lots of tricks up their sleeves. There’s a potion that answers any card a mage might use. Just take that Nemean lion — you can put it to sleep. If I’d had my arsenal with me, we would have left the City of the Dead at the head of an army of captive lixes… I got too used to peace and quiet…”
It was a bald-faced lie. Valanil had only gotten the potions she had with her a couple days before, but the boy didn’t need to know that.
“There’s a lot you need to learn, Tailyn Vlashich, and if you’d like to continue, you need to declare me your trainer. That’s the only way I can pass my knowledge on to you.”
Valanil Revolt would like to be your trainer. Accept?
And that was when Tailyn’s life changed. Valanil cut a deal with Motar, and every day when his lessons with the herbalist were over, the boy had sword and dagger lessons. He didn’t have anything else to do, either — Isor continued to ignore him — so he just spent twelve
hours a day training. But Tailyn didn’t even have the rest of the time to relax, spending it studying the encyclopedia Valia had given him. Soon enough, he cursed whoever had written it, the girl, and really the process itself. You couldn’t just open the book and read whatever you wanted. Instead, Tailyn had to start from the very first page and memorize the whole thing. The book somehow knew when he was reading as opposed to when he was just leafing through, and it would keep him from turning to the next page. Not only that, but it also knew when he’d forgotten something he’d read before, pulling it back up to relearn. Over the previous six months, Tailyn had made it a third of the way and hated the book with all his heart. But he was at least positive that even if someone woke him up in the middle of the night and tested him on it, he’d be able to quote any of the paragraphs he’d learned.
“That’s enough for today.” Another series of thirty pieces of wood had come and gone with just six blocked correctly. “You’re not seeing the colors anymore.”
“They’re impossible to see,” the boy muttered as he dug around in the grass to find the stick. “It’s dark out!”
“You think the enemy is going to wait for you to rub your eyes?” the woman replied harshly. “Set up the training dummy and get to work with your sword.”
It was the caravan’s second week spent moving through the Gray Lands. Made up of ten covered wagons packed with people, Tailyn thought it strange that most of them were numerical farmers, herdsmen, and tanners. They were all scared stiff and huddled together. Afraid to catch so much as a glimpse of the area around them, they didn’t even get out of the wagons, though Tailyn wasn’t exactly at ease, either. There were all too many rumors floating around when it came to the Gray Lands. It was supposedly populated with monsters, lixes running free, and a new horror sitting behind each bush. But two weeks later, they’d come across nothing but the odd tree, enormous boulders, and deep ravines. The boy didn’t have time to think about that, however, as he spent all his time training. As soon as Valanil had heard that he was going to be sent off with the caravan, she ran off to talk with Isor. And while Tailyn had no idea what they discussed, she left her meeting with him the owner of a letter with his signature on it. Berad spent a long time turning it over and holding it up to the light, suspecting a trick, and he even went to see Isor himself, but in the end he had to throw up his hands and free up another spot in the caravan. Valanil was going with them.
Of course, beyond the peasants, there were serious fighters, too — ten people just as morose and austere as the caravan leader. All of them topped level thirty, they were well equipped, and they kept their eyes fixed on their surroundings in search of anything out of the ordinary. At the beginning, Tailyn tried to strike up a conversation with them. They just stared right through him, however, and since there was no point talking with the numericals, he was left with Valanil. She’d let him know that Valia really had disappeared more than a month before. Her father had put together a manhunt, setting an incredible reward, only she’d been kidnapped in a completely different part of the empire than the one they were in then.
After setting up the dummy, Tailyn sighed, pulled out his sword, and began dodging the advanced mechanism’s feints. Motar hadn’t told him where he’d gotten the monster. One day, he’d just shown up and announced that it was from all the guards and one other person, apologizing for how rude they’d been and thanking the boy for saving their lives. The human-like device didn’t just stand there; it was practically alive. It moved, spun, attacked, sliced. For the first few months, Tailyn toiled away at the inept level before moving up to novice. Finally, he'd mastered the first three of seven apprentice training levels.
“Quiet down!” barked one of the guards, though Tailyn ignored him. He much preferred swordplay to figuring out and reacting to the pieces of wood. And judging by the progress bar that showed up every time he started training, he was already halfway to the fourth level, or senior apprentice. He’d had to unlock the strength and agility attributes to feel more comfortable with the whole thing. Of course, he knew they were pointless for someone who could use cards, but Valanil had insisted he diversify his weaponry, even giving him the gold so he could unlock the attributes without burning through his savings. With that said, the boy had parted ways with a thousand gold of his own to unlock a little something else.
Strength. Description: an attribute that impacts your stamina and ability to lift weights. Note! For the Alchemist class, this attribute does not affect physical attack. Does not integrate with Enhancement.
***
Agility. Description: an attribute that impacts your speed, mobility, and coordination. Note! For the Alchemist class, this attribute does not affect physical attack. Does not integrate with Enhancement.
***
Concealment. Description: an attribute that lets you hide your parameters from other people, including by replacing them. In order to read your name, level, and age, the other person’s Perception should be equal to or higher than your Concealment.
Leveling-up his strength and agility seemed like an absurd idea to Tailyn. Not only that, but just having them meant that if he got an update to the coordinates or ancient history missions, the god might spend invaluable points on an attribute he didn’t need in the least. Speaking of missions, the day after getting back to Culmart, the boy had headed off to see the god and get some answers. He’d been looking to find out what “release,” “player,” and “exodus” meant. But he came up empty.
That information will be made available after your initiation is complete.
“I told you to stop!” The training sword was yanked out of his hands. Tailyn stopped, breathing heavily, as he’d been fighting off the dummy on reflexes alone the whole time he’d been reminiscing. Checking the settings, he couldn’t help but smile — he was just 32% away from senior apprentice. Reaching the next level was going to take a month at the most.
“What’s wrong?” Valanil asked, showing up next to him. “Why did you stop practicing?”
“The leader gave orders for quiet,” the guard shot back rudely. “We’re close to red lix territory.”
Tailyn looked around. Regardless of the falling darkness, everything within a hundred meters was as plain as day thanks to his built-in scanner. Valanil had given him a great tip, having him head over to the market, buy simple hunter clothing, and turn his level three armor into them. There was a reason the academy mages all looked identical in their white robes despite the fact that they were actually wearing armor even better than Tailyn’s. And the boy had agreed — the idea was a good one. Seeing him as just one of them also helped everyone in Culmart forget the god’s terrifying tribunal and stop avoiding him.
“There’s something out there,” Tailyn said, squinting and hearing the guard’s scornful snort. Just like everyone else, all the latter saw were simple clothes. But the boy didn’t take his eyes off a large boulder right at the edge of his scanning range. His attention had been grabbed by a barely perceptible movement — it seemed like the stone had moved. And in the direction of the camp, too.
“There can’t be anything out there,” the guard deigned to answer, but Tailyn just raised his voice in excitement, pointing out into the darkness. The boulder really had moved. His perception gave him nothing, almost as if it were just a rock, but the boy grew surer with each passing second.
“There’s someone hiding under that rock. And they’re crawling toward us!”
The guard glanced oddly at the boy, no longer snorting.
“Where is he?” Valanil knew Tailyn wouldn’t panic without a good reason, so she activated her cards just in case. While she couldn’t show it, the Gray Lands scared her, too.
“Over there,” the boy said as he jabbed a finger into the darkness. “Do you really not see it?”
Suddenly, it hit the boy that neither the guard not Valanil could see what he was seeing, and so he decided to prove to everyone that he was right.
Ka-Li.
An
enormous fireball soared into the sky. After reaching its set hundred meters, it began easing its way gently back down to earth, casting a red glow on everything in the near vicinity as it did. That made it easy to pick out the boulder the boy was pointing at. However, a popping sound was heard at the same time.
“That rock, the second from the left, is coming toward us. It — ” Tailyn was pointing, but a powerful kick knocked him to the ground before he could finish what he was saying.
“What are you doing, idiot?!” the guard yelled as he loomed over the boy. Valanil jumped over to protect her student, but the guard just threw her aside with a simple wave of his hand.
“Who launched that?” A sleepy Berad appeared out of the main wagon. When he saw Tailyn lying on the ground, his face twisted in rage. “You? Our defenses are down because of you! For that — ”
Nobody found out what he was going to get for his blunder. The fireball finally hit the ground, and night fell again. But just then, a prolonged lix howl broke out, and Tailyn could even tell what the creature was saying.
Outsiders in the steppe! We found them!
Forest of Desire (The Alchemist Book #2): LitRPG Series Page 1
