The Newt and Demon

6.13 - Deathbloom

The wind whipped by as Theo took the tram north. Several golems working in Gronro-Dir needed maintenance and it had been too long since he had seen the area for himself. While Fenian’s battle with the Worldbreaker had been bad for the continent, he avoided slicing the southlands up. While it was normally fun to see how the people up north were doing, the alchemist was accompanied by the masked elf, Twist. Their deal still stood, and it was his responsibility to get him back to the place where Qavell once was.

Grot was there on the platform to greet them, laughing as Theo attempted to tame his hair. Throk still hadn’t found a way to install windows without taking away the view. “Alright there, Theo?”

“Yeah.” Theo took a long moment to take in the sight. The sickly green hue that had floated in the air was gone along with the pungent scent of necromantic magic in the air. “How bad is the damage?”

Grot gestured for the duo to follow, walking up the slope that led to the town. “We’ve got some construction projects in our future. Already started, but we’re going to be a land of bridges soon enough.”

Since Broken Tusk had required so much stone to get their various projects done, Gronro had pitched in by cutting stone from the mountain. The result was a surplus that opened the gates to bridge building.

“Is there no direct path to Qavell?” Twist asked, sounding slightly annoyed.

“Not unless you can fly. Even then, there’s some nasty energy up north.” Grot led them to a karatan-drawn carriage, and the group set off.

Theo’s golems and wards had done an amazing job of clearing the immediate area of necromantic energies. The alchemist spotted rails before long, but was unaware that Throk had already started laying them. A half-hour into their ride, they found Gronro workers erecting the metalwork, adapting the straight railing for the hilly environment. The landscape leveled out after the initial rise, giving way to a straight cut through the mountains. Until an hour later, when the karatan reared to a stop before a clittering chasm.

“That is the problem,” Grot said, scooting close to the edge. “Still hot, somehow.”

Theo looked on in awe. Fenian had carved a hundred-foot swathe in the landscape. The sections near the bottom had already filled with water from the ocean, while those near the surface glowed with molten rock. He swallowed hard, considering the implications of the Herald’s power. Could he have actually taken him in a fight? Even with his nonsense dimensional powers, it would have been difficult. Fenian could be an asshole, but at least he was on the right side.

“Span like this is tricky. Ziz came to check it out, but he’s worried about stability.” Grot scratched at his beard.

Theo took a seat on a rock, picking a blade of grass from the ground to fidget with. The area was already coming back to life. Whatever alpine plants grew here before were bound to return. Especially when considering the magical density in the air. So long as some energy from Tero’gal or Drogramath’s realm came, they would come back. Ziz’s ability to build bridges was getting better, but the chasm was vast. Even with an Earth Sorcerer’s Core, he wasn’t sure how well he could fill it. He plucked more grass, trying to force his Wisdom to provide a solution.

“We could fly you over, but I don’t know,” Theo said, holding a finger in the air as though to check the weather. “The necromantic energy is gone, but whatever rushed to fill the void feels just as potent.”

Theo had expected to travel more that day, leaving him feeling aimless. Tresk had done some scouting of the area, but had failed to express how wide the chasms were. Between the point he stood and the place where Qavell once was, there were at least four breaks. She estimated as she went since the flight north would have taken too long.

“There’s nothing we can do,” Theo said, standing and gesturing to the cart. Both Grot and Twist shrugged as they made their way back.

Something caught the alchemist’s attention as he went. A small bush clung to the rocks near the road’s edge. It was a squat thing with tiny flowers dotting the surface. Each flower was a brighter shade of green than the leaves. He could feel the alchemical potential radiating and came close to inspect. After confirming they were viable for potions, he plucked several bushes clean, placing the flowers in his inventory. Then the group was off. Back to Gronro, then Broken Tusk.

“I hope you don’t feel as though you’ve left empty-handed,” Theo said, offering a grimace to Twist.

“These things take time.”

“We’ll work on it, but… I don’t know, Theo. Dangerous working conditions and all,” Grot said.

“Hmmm. I have an idea, however stupid it might be.”

“I like stupid ideas.”

On the tram ride back to Broken Tusk, Theo deconstructed a few samples of the new flower to reveal all four properties, including the hidden one. He inspected one flower sample.

[Deathbloom]

[Alchemy Ingredient]

Rare

Bushes filled with this flower are known to grow on the graves of great people.

Properties:

[Poison] [Spiritsense] [Obstruct] [Soulcleave]

There were a few things to take in with this flower. It was born from necromantic energy, that much was clear. While the first property, Poison, fell in line with what Theo expected from a necromancy reagent, the others were strange. Spirit sensing, obstructing, and the cleaving of souls were only moderately in line with what he expected. Experiments were required, but he had a good feeling about this one.

The tram arrived back home in the early afternoon. Theo spotted the flags of trading ships in the port after disembarking. He apologized to Twist, who didn’t seem to care, and headed to the makeshift market in the harbor. Work had resumed on the true marketplace, but all construction efforts had been on Qavell. Ziz didn’t even have time to think about his bridge to the lizard islands, although that was still at the forefront of Theo’s thoughts. He wanted a bridge that spanned from Broken Tusk to the Khahari Desert, but understood the impossibility of it. He bought a few Monster Cores from the market, but nothing more.

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Theo dropped into Tero’gal before working on his potions, chatting with the gods and having some lovely tea. There was a new face among the regulars, but Ulvuqor was mostly silent during the conversations. The alchemist accepted more souls into the realm, bringing the total to 680. It was enough to raise the realm to Level 38, but not enough to give him a new upgrade. Another day, perhaps. Khahar was sour, but at least Drogramath was in good spirits.

When Theo returned to the mortal realm, there was enough time to do a few runs for the new reagent. Since he didn’t need to test the Poison property, he could focus on Spiritsense and Obstruct. Both were properties he had never seen in a reagent. But he didn’t have a great feeling about them. Not a negative feeling, but also not good.

Salire wasn’t working the stills on the third floor. Theo found her on the second floor, messing with an artifice. She was hunched over, cursing as the machine made horrible sputtering noises.

“What’s going on?” Theo asked. “Is that the printing machine?”

Salire turned slowly, revealing the frown on her ink-covered face. “Yes. I can’t get it working.”

It looked as though the half-ogre woman had gotten into a fight with several angry squids. And lost. “I’ll call Throk,” Theo said, turning away and offering no aid. He was confident the Cleansing Scrub could clean it away, but he loved his coat too much to risk it.

Throk didn’t come to the lab himself, but sent an apprentice. Theo left them to it, heading upstairs to do two experimental runs. The tiny stills were perfect for the job, allowing him to do quick batches with very few reagents. He started the first mini-still for the Spiritsense property, and the second for the Obstruct property. While it wouldn’t take long, he had enough time to consult his administration interface.

If he moved projects around, he could have Ziz and his people working on the bridge issue tomorrow. Broken Tusk had seen no new migrants in a while, which hamstrung any efforts to increase the workforce. People working at the lumbermill and the mine wouldn’t be happy if they were reassigned to stonemason duty. The specialists with those cores had already migrated to Ziz’s ventures and numbered fifty-something workers.

Theo considered the idea he had on the way back, but didn’t know how to make it work. He sent a command to a nearby metal golem, ordering it to wait outside the lab while he worked with the first property. The alchemist prepared a vial for the Spiritsense Essence when it was done, intent on making a second-tier potion. No need to go crazy. The alcohol binding process would take too much time for a simple curiosity. The reaction in the vial was minimal, producing a small plume of smoke. He held the potion to the light, finding familiarity in the silver solution within.

“Feels like the Holy element,” Theo muttered to himself, swirling the contents. He inspected the resulting potion.

[Sense Spirits Potion]

[Potion]

Rare

Created by: Theo Spencer

Grade: Perfect Quality

Alignment:

Drogramath (Minor Bond)

Grants the imbiber the ability to see lingering spirits.

Effect:

For an hour, the imbiber of this potion may view any nearby spirits.

Theo stood there for some time, his mouth hanging open as he considered the implications. Looking at the potion from afar, one might assume it was innocuous. It allowed the drinker to see spirits, so what? Death wasn’t the end in this world, so that wasn’t the weird part. But everything he understood about the way a soul worked centered around the void. It was the primordial soup that everyone returned to when they died. No matter how devout they were, there was no fast pass to a realm. The one thing that he had as an absolute rule in his mind was the void. Spirits simply didn’t linger.

“I’ve learned my lesson from quaffing random potions,” Theo said, holding his hand against his heart. “Nah.”

Theo drank the potion.

The edges of Theo’s vision went murky, his sight looking as though someone had smeared it with silvery grease. He took a steady breath as the grease overtook his vision. Things within the lab glowed a similar color, until a singular figure resolved itself. It was a malformed spirit, like the ones that arrived in his realm. And it was glaring at him. There were no eyes to see, or features to make out on the spirit’s face, but it was glaring.

“Sorry, who are you?” Theo asked.

The spirit didn’t react. Based on height, it was one of the many taller races in this world. Dronon, half-ogre, or ogre. But it wasn’t wide enough to be an ogre, and it made little sense that a dronon would be here. Theo decided it was a long-dead spirit of an angry half-ogre. Perhaps one of many proto half-ogres that called this place home hundred of years ago. One of the many that were trampled under the feet of Qavell’s progress.

But this was wrong. The spirit shouldn’t have been here. Its form shifted, as though a wisp blown by air, but maintained its general shape. Theo didn’t know why he felt some much hate coming from the thing. The potion only allowed him to see the spirit. If it had been there for a while, this was just what it did.

“You can move on, you know,” Theo said. He wanted to point in a direction, but that was meaningless. “You should have already moved on. Should I get a priest? An exorcist? I’ll need a young catholic priest and an old one.”

The spirit moved a bit at the joke, and Theo raised a brow. “So, you can hear me?”

“What’s going on?” Salire asked, climbing the stairs to the third floor. “You don’t normally talk to yourself while you work.”

She had cleared herself of the ink, looking as fresh as always. Theo brewed another Sense Spirit Potion from his stock of essence and handed it over. “Drink it.”

“Uh, no?”

“Come on.”

Salire hesitated a few more times, but downed the potion. A moment later, she fell back on her ass with a yelp. “Is this normal, Theo?”

“No. I don’t think so,” he said, leaning in to inspect the spirit’s features. “Come on, let’s see if there’s more outside.

Salire shot him a look as though he had offended her. “How about ‘no’?”

Theo shrugged, trudging outside. He paused at the entrance to the lab, swallowing hard. Broken Tusk was filled with angry spirits. They crowded the streets, standing outside of doorways or lurking between buildings. Salire screamed when she exited the building.

“I don’t like this potion, Theo. Why are they here? Why are they so mad?”

Sulvan or Zarali might now. Theo turned away and went back into the lab. He had enough essence to make another four potions, and brewed them as the angry spirit looked on. It took interest when he was brewing the potions, but nothing more than a sidelong glance.

“Hopefully the Obstruct property provides a less…” Theo paused, looking at the spirit and shivering. “Unnerving potion.”

Theo brewed the next potion, finding it to come out as a murky silver, rather than the brilliant color like the creepy spirit potion. The reaction was slightly more violent, spewing some black smoke into the air and rumbling on the table. The alchemist hoisted it for inspection. Salire leaned in to inspect it at the same time.

[Obstruct Potion]

[Potion]

Rare

Created by: Theo Spencer

Grade: Perfect Quality

Alignment:

Drogramath (Minor Bond)

Reduces the effectiveness of all forms of restoration.

Effect:

For thirty minutes, the imbiber of this potion is unable to restore health, mana, stamina, etc.

“Hardly a useful potion, is it?” Salire asked. “Turning it into a bomb might help, but as is? I wouldn’t drink it.”

“Bomb makes the most sense. Or Aerosolize it and toss it into a crowd.”

Theo couldn’t keep his eyes off the spirit. As much as he had leaned on Zarali and Sulvan for help, he would need to do it again. If anyone knew about the way souls should work, it was those two.

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