by Deck Davis
“I like it,” said Jake.
“Yeah…I pretend I like it, too. Cason’s not as much of an ass as he likes everyone to think. Only thing is, he doesn’t really know how to act around me when I’m upset. Treats me like I’m a little girl half the time.”
“Do you…get upset much?”
She shrugged. “As much as everyone else. I just don’t bother hiding it when I’m pissed off. Or when I’m happy or sad, for that matter. When Cason’s in a mood he’ll ignore me for hours and insist nothing’s wrong. Then he’ll brew some explosion potions and blow craters in the granite quarry up north. I don’t bother with all that; if there’s something going on, I’ll tell you.”
“And how are you feeling now, then?”
“Fifty percent confused about the clothes you’re wearing, ten percent tired and forty percent hungry as hell.”
He took a liking to Faei straight away. She was his type of girl, except for the fact that she’d swing for him if he tried his moves. Not that he really had moves, as such. The only thing besmirching her flawless complexion was a black mossy growth on her neck, which she didn’t bother to cover up. Jake didn’t feel like he knew her well enough to ask about it yet. Another subject he didn’t bring up with the two mutilated fingers on her right hand, where her index and middle fingers had been amputated halfway up.
He talked to her whenever he thought she looked happy to have a conversation, which wasn’t all the time. Faei was a nice girl. She had a mean streak to her though, especially when she was due one of Cason’s potions to stop her demogoth infection taking over.
As for Cason, well the more he got to know the alchemist, the more he liked him. He was grouchier than a brothel owner whose whores had caught the clap, but he had a restless sense of humor, and he didn't always act like such an asshole. Most of his attitude was bluster, Jake decided. The best way to deal with him was to match him curse for curse.
He sometimes watched the alchemist at work. Jake itched to get his hands on the ingredients that he saw him use, but whenever he broached it, the alchemist told him, in much less polite language, to leave the subject alone for now.
“You’re not touching a single vial yet,” he’d say. “First, you gotta earn your keep. If I’m gonna be your daddy, then you’ll do your chores.”
Earning his keep meant sweeping the floors and cleaning vials. That wasn’t such a chore, since he used to be a bartender after all. Still, if he was a bartender back home, it would suck to be one in a fantasy world, too. He decided that he’d only put up with it until he had a solid lead on where to go next. Until then, he’d try to absorb every scrap of alchemical knowledge that he could from Cason.
That was how the his first few days in his new world passed. Once he began to feel used to his new surroundings, a familiar feeling hit him.
He was bored as hell.
He wasn’t a prisoner here, so he could just leave whenever he wanted, but he had no equipment. Out in the big wide world of Sarametis, he’d just be a lone alchemist with no skills, tools, or alchemical knowledge. A lack of any such knowledge, he decided, was a pretty big weakness for an alchemist. Kinda like a doctor who couldn’t even spell the word medicine.
When he wasn’t earning his keep or watching Cason work and trying to gleam alchemical knowledge, he did a little exploring.
Cason’s hut was at the top of a hill, so there was only one way to get to it. Runes were buried under the muddy slope, and these magic slabs warded away any creatures who decided to see what was going on in the hut. The runes, Cason told him, only worked against things that meant him harm.
“No sense having customers get flames blasted up their bums when they come to give me work, is there?” he said.
Since Jake’s intentions hadn’t been hostile when he climbed the hill, he hadn’t been hurt by Cason’s protections.
At the bottom of the hill was the field of dead yellow grass that had cushioned Jake’s ass when he first appeared in this world. It used to be a lush plain, but Cason had accidentally spilled a barrel of poxol poison one day. The liquid had run down the hill and seeped into the field and there, it spread through the roots until every blade of grass died.
Not far away from the field there was a forest. This particularly sinister patch of trees was alive with the sound of mean little critters. When Jake walked by it he heard grunts, growls, and squeals, none of which made him want to get too close just yet. He knew that he needed to start levelling up soon but he only had a dagger, and that wouldn’t have been much good in a fight. He needed to tool up.
The land expanded way beyond the little section he’d walked through, and the reckless side of him urged him to go explore. His passion was urban exploring, and this place might not have been urban, but he’d take a planet from another dimension over some abandoned tissue factory any day. Not only that, but somewhere out there would be information about the portal. When he was strong enough, he’d go out and get it. He also needed to get a map at some point.
On the morning of his fourth day in the hut, Cason was in a foul mood. He and Jake had gotten drunk the night before on a brew the alchemist made. Jake had stopped drinking when his words started to slur. Cason, though, drank until he couldn’t move, and he slept sat in an upright position with a vial in his hand, mumbling sweet nothings in his sleep to a woman named Jessica.
Faei, on the other hand, hadn’t touched a drop.
“Girl doesn’t like to lose control,” Cason had whispered to Jake. “You’ll see why.”
As soon as the sun rose, Cason had gotten up early and spent a few hours at the wooden counter making healing potions.
“Bloody orders. I should have told them to piss off,” he grumbled.
His alchemical apron was covered in the stains of potion making, but it didn’t matter since it was self-cleaning. Jake had been amazed the first time he’d seen Cason wear it while butchering a goat, only to see that thirty minutes afterward the bloodstains vanished. Not only that, but the apron was fire and ice-resistant. It made sense, really, since Cason often spilled things while making potions. He might have been an alchemical master, but his drinking had given him the shakes and his hands weren’t as steady as they should have been.
Where his apron was self-cleaning, Cason’s arms and hands were another story. His skin was splattered in red healing potion, and the only part of him that wasn’t stained was the strip of metal that covered part of his arm. Whenever any liquid hit the metal, it just ran off it.
“Need any help?” said Jake.
“A million gonil coins would be great, if you can shit those out of your golden rump.”
“I mean with the potions, you arsegoblin. Why are you making so many?”
“Took an order from a fortress up north. They need a hundred potions before they march on some imp town in the stinking rump of nowhere. I completely forget about it, and now I’ve got ten left to make.”
“Why do you live in such a shabby place if you’re making so much money selling potions?”
“None of your business.”
Fine, thought Jake. I was gonna help, but you can shove it up your ass. He settled down to watch Cason work, simultaneously absorbing whatever alchemical knowledge he could, while taking satisfaction in how flustered Cason was getting. He had to admit, though, that even though he was sleep-deprived and hungover, Cason still showed amazing skill with his brews.
After Cason had made a few more potions, someone banged on the door.
“Tell them to piss off for me, will you?” he said.
Jake opened the door to find a terrified-looking man stood outside it. If a ghost had sprung out and whispered ‘boo,’ this guy would have jumped so high he would have got a face full of clouds. He wore a dirty brown tunic that was covered in a mixture of black slime and blood. He was out of breath, and it was only after a few seconds of deep breaths that he could even talk.
“Where’s Whisperin’ Carver?” he said, panting.
Cason met them at the door. He’d
trimmed his beard earlier, which only served to make the patchy part where his hair didn’t grow stand out.
“What’s the problem?” he said.
“Beg your pardon, Carver, but I live a few hours north on Tully farm. A pack of cobaluses attacked us. I fought them off… but my wife got bitten. Really bad.”
Cason stood with his hands on his hips. “And?” he said.
“And you were the only person I could think to come to. I’ve got a horse out front. You can take it, Carver… and I’ll walk. Just come and help her. I’m desperate.”
“This is going to cost you.”
“What? She’s dying!”
“Am I the fucker who bit her? I’ll bring my potions and see what I can do, but I want paying for it. Now, let’s get a move on. I have more important stuff to do today than fixing a woman who got her fat rump bitten by a cobalus.”
The man walked away from the hut and toward his horse. He hadn’t even bothered to tie up to stop it wandering. “This…way, Carver,” he said, still out of breath.
Cason turned to Jake. “Where’s Faei?” he asked.
“She went out hunting this morning.”
“Damn, damn, damn, bugger me with a demogoth’s cock. She can make a decent healing potion, can the lass. How in the name of all that is holy am I going to fill the order?”
“Who’s G’ydor?”
Cason waved his hand dismissively. “A lesser demon in the seventh sanctum. Doesn’t really matter.”
“I could do it,” said Jake. “I’ll finish the potions for you.”
“Aye, and when the soldiers get injured they’ll be pleased they can heal a mighty eleven of their hitpoints with one of your piss-water concoctions. No, I’ll just have to hurry up. Until then, keep a look out for Faei and don’t touch anything.”
With that, Cason and the man left. Cason had taken him up on the offer of using his horse, and the poor man ran behind them.
With Cason and Faei both out of the hut, Jake was faced with the age-old question of what to do with himself. His gaze kept getting drawn to the empty vials lined up on the counter, and the edium leaves in the jar.
Cason had told him not to touch anything…
Fuck it.
Cason had ten potions left to make. If Jake could improve his skills enough to make even a single ‘mediocre’ potion, then he’d feel better about things.
He’d watched Cason enough now that he understood that a potion consisted of two elements. One was the herbs that gave a potion its effects. The world was full of different types of herbs all with various properties, and a master alchemist knew which could be combined for interesting brews. The trick was knowing which herbs did what, and where to find them.
When Jake had asked Cason how he could find this stuff out, the old alchemist had tapped his nose and said ‘Experience, lad. Experience.’ Then, later on, Jake had caught him looking something up in a book called ‘Wondrous Herbs of the Land.’ So much for experience.
Next, was the base. This was usually a powdery substance that dissolved in water. It was ground from ‘potio’ flowers that grew in abundant supply almost everywhere, Cason had told him. The job of a potio base powder was to magnify the effects of the herbs. If you mixed herbs with just water, then whatever effects they produced would be more diluted than the beer at a football stadium. If herbs were the heart of a potion, potio powder was the blood.
Mixing the medicinal edium leaves with the powder base, Jake created two healing potions. At first, he was excited to have just made on them on his own without Cason mumbling behind him. It felt good; he’d used his, admittedly small, knowledge, and he’d made something.
He found that the more he practiced alchemy, the more it sucked him in. He began to get lost in the little details, much the same way he used to when planning urban explorations. Maybe even as much as he used to with photography. It was a great feeling, where time just flew by as if he’d disengaged from it and stepped aside, getting out of the winds of minutes and hours and existing in a different zone entirely.
When he saw the quality of what he’d made, he wasn’t so proud of himself.
- Healing Potion [Poor] x 2
- Brewing increased by 40%
It took him forty-five minutes to make two potions. This was obviously too long, since even if the quality was good enough, it’d take him eight hours to make all ten required to complete the order. Cason would be back well before then. Jake wanted to surprise him by having the order completed and prove he had the right stuff to be an alchemist.
He worked on potions until his fingers were stained red with edium leaf juice and the counter was covered in a dusting of potio powder. He’d made three vials, but this had taken him two and a half hours, since four of his potions had failed.
That was where luck came into play, it seemed. Sometimes you could mix the right ingredients and still get bugger-all for your efforts. He’d have to factor luck into it when he spent his attribute points after levelling up.
Healing Potion [Poor] x 3
Brewing increased by 60%
**Brewing upgraded to level 2!**
- Brewing speed inc to 2/50
- Potion quality inc to 4/50
After his level up he brewed his potions a little faster, though the quality still wasn’t right. The problem was the when he mixed the edium leaves with the base powder and water, not all of them were melding properly. He didn’t know if he was getting the quantities wrong, or if he was supposed to prepare the leaves in some way to make them more effective. There was a lot more to alchemy than just whacking stuff in a vial and stirring them.
There must be something else I need to do, but what?
He slogged through for a few more hours, before looking at his efforts.
- Healing Potion [Poor] x 4
- Brewing increased by 60%
Damn. After getting brewing level two, it seemed that every potion was only increasing his brewing by 15%, not 20. That meant that with each level, it would be harder to advance.
More than four hours had passed now, and all he had to show for it were seven shitty potions. He was happy he’d advanced his brewing skill, at least. The rush of energy that filled him when his skill levelled up reminded him of the first time he’d gotten drunk. It was like a buzz. A happy, floaty feeling. It spurred him on.
Time to get back to it.
When he reached to the jar for more edium leaves, he found it empty.
Shit - he’d used all of Cason’s supply! He was going to hit the roof!
He’d gotten so lost in work that he hadn’t realized how low the leaf supplies were, and this left him in a quandary. He decided that rather than have a showdown with the bearded coot, he’d go outside and pick some edium leaves to replenish the stock.
He wandered out of the hut, down the hill and across the dead grass plains. Before long he came to a field where the grass was green, having been spared the effects of Cason’s toxic spill.
Here, amongst the green stalks, he saw the leaves of dozens of different herbs. Some were bright blue with thorns sticking out from them, others were purple and shaped like little cotton balls. He was looking for something bright red, which shouldn’t have been hard to find.
The problem was that he soon discovered that there were two different types of red herbs in this area. They looked similar, but one had yellow vein-like lines running through the leaves, while the other had black veins.
Damn it. Which were the edium herbs?
He should have paid more attention when he’d been elbow deep in the goddamn things back in the hut. He’d been so consumed with trying to get better at brewing that he hadn’t looked at the leaves closely enough. He was going to have to fix that if he was going to be working with dangerous concoctions in the future.
He kneeled down and picked one of each herb. He brought them close to his face and studied them. Which was the right one to choose? The last thing he wanted to do was pick an herb that was poisonous or had some
other horrible effect. Cason would lose his shit.
As he studied each leaf, he began to notice little intricate differences. A peculiar feeling shook his brain.
Hang on…I’m getting somewhere here!
**Gauge Skill learned!**
-Property Identify 1/50
-Herb Lore 1/50
An alchemist must know which herbs to use in his potions unless he wants to unwittingly poison himself. Alchemical wisdom will help you discern the properties of different plants, herbs and flowers.
Awesome! Improving his existing brewing skill felt good and that was one thing, but learning a new skill entirely was fantastic, like the warm glow spreading through his joints after a 10k run. This time, when he looked at the two herbs, he got more information.
