The Newt and Demon

6.32 - Cheating With Potions

“I ain’t going in there.” Tresk placed her hands on her hips, looking at the monolith.

Theo, as always, tried to placate her. She intended to delve into the disgusting mind of whatever weird monster plagued Qavell, but it was best to watch him squirm a bit. He went on about how important it was for them to do what they needed to do. She held the Throne of the Dreamer, so she had to go into a nightmare dream world.

“Yeah, yeah,” Tresk said, waving him away. “Get off my back, I’m going.”

“You only need to drive him away,” Theo yapped. “Or figure out why he’s there.”

Tresk cracked her knuckles. Well, she imitated the motion of it, having seen someone else do it. But nothing popped within her fingers. “Okay. Into the dream I go.”

Focusing on her Dreamer’s Core, Tresk felt herself falling. Her stomach shot up to her throat for only a moment, a sensation like falling through eternal nothing flooding through her for only a moment. While she would never admit it, she felt fear for only a moment. The next moment, the falling stopped. Tresk stood on a plane of darkness, the silhouette of something against the sky above.

“Hey!” Tresk shouted. “Go on! Get!”

Her voice echoed through the place, reflecting off of unseen surfaces and repeated into the distance. Theo was eager for her to jump into the dream, but as Tresk thought about it, this might not have been such a good idea. Would jumping into a dead god’s dream be such a good idea? She shook the thought from her head, pushing forward. After what felt like hours of walking, she spotted something in the distance.

“Ah, yeah. That’s really weird.”

Tresk realized she was standing inside of something. A massive dome loomed overhead, giving view to an obscured section of sky outside. The dome had a patchwork of metal bands, creating some shape she didn’t recognize. On the horizon of the structure was a sliver of blue. The closer she got to that band of color, the more she realized what it was. Images from Theo’s memory came flooding back. It was a planet from orbit. And it wasn’t her planet.

“The dead guy dreams of Earth.” Tresk scoffed, shaking her head. “Talk about reliving your glory days.”

Upon the blue orb, a single light shone. It was as though the glimmer of a bright red star rested on the surface, waiting for this entity to pluck it. The planet shifted, viewed as though in fast-forward. An instant later, and the structure was right up against the planet. Tresk could see the detail of the continents, outlined by lights that lit up the night’s sky. This was well before Theo’s time. There weren’t enough craters.

Tresk felt a tickle of something in her chest. Her Dreamer’s Core found something offensive in this area, and wanted her to prune it. For now, she let the scene play out. The red star came closer… No, the structure was moving closer to the red star. Sections of the dome were revealed, folding back onto themselves until more of the interior could be viewed from outside. The star drew closer until Tresk could see a dark-haired figure staring back, standing on some sidewalk back in Old Earth.

There was a brief exchange of words she couldn’t understand. No one else on the street could see the domed structure. Only black-haired guy. The sense in Tresk’s chest grew stronger. She realized that being here had stirred the entity to life. This had happened before. Someone’s dreams had been boring before she arrived, only to get wild after she showed up. Her core practically vibrated by this time.

“Alrighty, core. You can do your thing.”

Tresk snapped back into reality a moment later. She blinked a few times, locking eyes with Theo.

“I think that should do it,” Tresk said, shrugging at her companion. “Hard to say.”

Theo narrowed his eyes at her, reading what little he could from her mind. He saw the visions of Earth and the weird structure. The patterns above her looked close enough to an eye for him to assume this was the Baleful Eye he had heard about. Observing the monolith for Qavell, he was pleased to see the corruption retreating slightly. “Whatever you did, it worked.”

“Yeah. No problem. I’m the best.” Tresk vanished without another word.

Theo watched the monolith for some time. While the corruption was retreating, it wasn’t being purged instantly. “This is great,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “I think we can salvage your town soon enough, Hanan.”

“So, you had the solution all along? You just didn’t want to tell me?” Hanan placed his hands on his hips. Theo couldn’t tell if he was truly offended.

“As much as I’d like it, I don’t know everything.”

“So long as you fix my city, I’ll be forever in your debt. But I do wish the climate here was more temperate. How do you survive in the heat?”

Theo laughed, tugging at the Coat of Rake. “Temperature regulation coat. You should get one.”

“No kidding.” Hanan looked at the coat with covetous eyes. “Are we done here? I need to visit the market in Broken Tusk.”

“Of course.” Theo jerked his head toward the exit. “Let’s go. I have some alchemy to do.”

Tresk might have set things in motion, but they would still take time. Theo knew better than to ask what she had done to kick things off. Something about her Dreamer’s Core allowed her to banish whatever influence that entity had. The alchemist left Qavell with his group, stopping by the Adventurer’s Guild to hire a few people to watch both Jan and Sulvan. He was transparent about it, explaining to anyone who would ask what the situation was. The heavens were changing, and there was no way to know what effect it would have on those that held aligned cores.

On his way back to the lab, Theo was surprised when he checked the town’s temple. There had been no changes to it, or its function. Everything worked how it should have worked, and he even summoned Drogramath for a moment. He left the temple when the projected image of the dronon ascendant yelled at him for being too weak. The difference between the authentic version of him and the projection was too great.

Someone Theo didn’t recognize was working the shop at the Newt and Demon. Theo nodded at the woman, heading upstairs to see what Salire was working on. He found her piling reagents on tables throughout the lab. She turned, a slightly manic look on her face. Before he could say anything, she struck a pose.

“I have a plan!”

“Looks like a comprehensive plan.” Theo spotted the sheets of paper strewn over the table. “Let’s hear it.”

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“This is pretty simple, actually. I made a list of each potion we’re going to make. I put in a work order with Throk to get a new mixer made. And I collected a bunch of reagents we can use.”

Theo nodded, appreciating her thoroughness. The only problem with creating such high-ranking potions was the time required to do so. Mana was still a sticking point, preventing them from industrializing the process. The alchemist had shot a quick inquiry to Zarali, who refused to help thanks to wedding planning. The short response she shot back claimed it was unlikely to be possible, thanks to the volatile nature of mana.

“There’s nothing we can do but try,” Theo said, appreciating the reagents on the table. Salire’s plan was to handle the restoration potions first before moving on to attribute potions. Each would give him ten attribute points. The number still seemed absurd.

“Let’s get started!”

Theo felt bolstered by Salire’s enthusiasm, but the process was daunting. Alongside those collected reagents, she had also placed flasks filled with completed essences where applicable. Since they could only use third tier essences, that supply was thin. For most of the potions, they had to start from step one.

“Five stills working at once,” Theo said, nodding at the stills they already had functional. “All producing bound dilutions or essences to make those dilutions… We can bank those in the building’s storage, but we can keep the runs small. What do you think, 50 units?”

“Just make it 100,” Salire said, attaching an artifice grinder to one still. “There’s nothing wrong with leftovers.”

Five stills meant they would start on mana, stamina, strength, dexterity, and vigor potions. That only left intelligence and wisdom potions for the attribute potions. They could have brought out the other five stills they had in storage, but this would keep them busy for a while. Theo didn’t want to get bogged down with this work, just in case something else came up. Instead, they would do reasonable batches of everything.

“Looking good?” Theo asked, supervising the first run.

Each still had enough material inside, filling the air with a noxious mixture that the overhead fan drew away. “Looking great,” Salire said. She had set up a series of flasks to catch the produced essences for now. The plan was to add them to the building’s storage later. “You should get working on the dilutions.”

Even with a tiny amount of second tier essence, Theo could create the Unbound Enchanted Dilution for each potion. He started with the Refined Mana Essence, enchanting Purified Water and binding that property to the mixture. He was thankful that Tresk hadn’t taken all of his alcohol, making it easy enough to transform the unbound version of the dilution into the bound one.

It took most of the day, but in the late afternoon they had five paths forward to brew five new potions. Although there wasn’t enough time in the day to do them all, Theo figured they could get a few done before the sun set. He had plenty to do in the Dreamwalk, and didn’t want to miss a moment there. But some extra attributes would do him good.

“First one,” Salire said, clapping with excitement.

Theo nodded, appreciating the design of Throk’s mixer. The old marshling must have been fairly annoyed with the amount of revisions they had him making. He was working on one that was even better, but this one would allow the alchemist to add essence and dilution directly into the device. He cupped his hand over the second port of the mixer, allowing his mana to fill the chamber. The smaller, longer version of the pressure vessel hummed to life as Salire added essence.

“Mana first,” Theo said. “Because why not?”

“We’re expecting a similar increase compared to the Major Healing Potion,” Salire said, marking her notes.

“The mix looks good,” Theo said, watching as the parts of the new essence combined in the mixing chamber.

“Really? Throk needs to put a window on these things. And I’m pretty sure you can’t see through metal.”

Theo smiled, pressing his hand to the bottom chamber. It wasn’t too hot for him to touch yet. “It feels like it’s mixing well. How’s that?”

“Much better.”

Theo watched the mixer as it worked. He added mana by instinct, judging the levels by feel. As his wisdom increased, he felt drawn closer to operating off of instinct and the information provided by his cores rather than step-by-step instructions. The condenser did its job, collecting the resulting vapor and depositing the completed essence into a flask the alchemist had at the ready. Salire’s face lit up when she saw the essence, clasping her hands together and jumping up and down.

“You’re very excited about this,” Theo said, flicking the side of the flask. Condensation collected, forming drops of pure essence that dripped into the mixture below. The color was a pale blue, and he could hardly sense any impurities.

“This is history, Theo. I’d say that people would write books about this, but we already have.” Salire allowed herself to giggle. “Hard not to be excited.”

Theo observed the mixer. He could hardly think of any room for improvement. Throk was always thinking ahead, making sure that both parts of the mixing chamber could be fed by modular pipes, or by hand. The size was perfect. Anything larger would make it hard for the alchemist to keep up with his levels of mana. The town’s artificer wasn’t just good at making stuff, he was good at predicting the needs of his customers.

“Ready?” Theo asked, tapping the end of the condenser. The mixer had extracted everything it could.

“I’m so ready,” Salire said, following close behind as Theo brought the essence to a work table.

The mixing process operated at a loss. If ten units of dilution and ten units of essence were injected into the mixer, only five units would come out the other end. This was a change from the way things had always worked. Theo was used to alchemy operated on a one-to-one ratio going from essence to potion.

“Here we go,” Theo said, distributing the new essence in a vial. Salire had made an extra-special vial for this one. It had more flourishes than he thought possible.

“Hooray!” Salire watched as a plume of uneven smoke came from the top of the vial. It smelled pleasant, as though someone had bottled a storm. A moment later, the reaction was done.

Theo ignored his prompt for more attributes, inspecting the new potions.

[Major Mana Potion]

[Potion]

Epic

Created by: Theo Spencer

Grade: Good Quality

Alignment:

Tero’gal (Perfect Bond)

A major mana potion. Drink to restore mana.

Effect:

Instantly restores 260 mana.

“Beautiful,” Salire said, bringing her eyes level with the table to peer through the potion. “Look at that. Did you get the prompt?”

“Yep.” Theo swayed to one side after applying his points to Wisdom yet again. His plan was to get that attribute to 100 before trying anything else. He watched as his precognition grew stronger. He knew that without the Wisdom of the Soul potion, he would have been on his ass for days, if not weeks. It acted as a buffer between the attribute and his mind. “Feels great. Three more potions and I’ll break 100 Wisdom.”

“You’re kidding! That’s insane, Theo.”

Theo nodded. It was nuts. This was the equivalent of getting ten levels all at once. And there were many potions they could make to exploit this same boost. The alchemist found a seat, waiting for his lightheadedness to go away. As he did, Salire cleaned the mixer for their next run.

Theo considered which attribute he would boost next. Intelligence was a dangerous attribute to work on, since he was already feeling the cold effects of endless logic with only 30 intelligence. He couldn’t imagine what it would feel like if he had 100. Unless he could break the meta-barrier between his soul and his Intelligence, he would put points into Dexterity and Vigor. Both were useful in their own way, and had served him well.

“Let me know when you’re ready,” Salire said.

Theo craned his neck, watching as the sun drew lower outside. “I guess we have time for one more,” he said, pushing himself to his feet and wobbling on the spot. “Someone might need to carry me home if I get another prompt, though.”

“Oh, I can do that.” Sarisa appeared from the shadows.

“Yeah, me too,” Rowan added. “I’m real gentle.”

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