The Newt and Demon

Theo gave Sulvan access to a piece of the administration interface, allowing him to give updates about the new arrival. The alchemist settled into the lab. Salire had a way of clearing his mind of the outside world, helping him focus completely on alchemy. It didn’t hurt that the hired artificer had fixed the printing machine.

Salire thumped her hand on a bound copy of her book, an endless smile hanging on her face. “Here it is!”

Theo ran his fingers over the book, looking at his name emblazoned on the front. Modern Drogramathi Alchemy was an interesting title. She claimed it needed revisions, but was good enough for now. Within the book was their collective knowledge about distillation, including which skills were needed at which phase. It was thorough about heating instructions, and even had a section dedicated to detailing a guide to creating stills.

“Faith?” Theo asked, flipping to a new section of the book. “Hah, you’re telling them to come here to worship Drogramath. Interesting.”

“It worked for me,” Salire said with a shrug.

“I’m sure Ulvuqor would love a copy of this. Can I have one?”

“You can have ten! I’ll just make more.”

Theo laughed, stuffing a few copies in his inventory. This would be a great bridge for future generations of Drogramath alchemists, even if it would be done on a different plane. For now, he was happy to see the progress he had made represented in a book. More than that, Salire increased her knowledge of the art by putting her thoughts down. She could perform first and second tier alchemy reactions without a problem. Even without the status of Champion, she was an amazing alchemist.

“Are we running anything fun today?”

“Today?” Salire asked, craning her neck to see out the window. “Is there much left in the day?”

“I guess not… Well, since you’re an alchemy expert now, I have some things I want to run by you.”

“Oh, yeah. Look at me. Better than the Champion of Drogramath.” Salire laughed nervously. “What is it?”

Theo led the way outside to his Herbalist’s Workshop. He looked over the plants in his Experimental Garden. They were frozen in time, waiting for him to get better at manipulating plants so he could mimic the effects of the wild-grown fourth tier reagents. Until then, this place was mostly unused.

“We have a few ways we can move forward, but I suspect I know how reagents are working for us right now. We have lower-tier reagents creating lower-tier potions, which isn’t an issue. Not every nail needs a sledgehammer.”

“There’s nothing wrong with the lower potions, though. Is there?” Salire asked. She stooped low, inspecting the things growing in the Experimental Garden Plot. “Splicing has only produced new reagents, right?”

“Yeah. While that’s fine, I don’t see it as a way forward. We might be at a point where we determine where the next phase goes. But I don’t think the powerful wild reagents are it. I think that’s a side-path, rather than the true fourth tier potions. They’re listed as elixirs, rather than potions.”

“You’re saying we haven’t found the right way to make those potions? How certain are you?”

Theo wasn’t absolutely sure he was right. It was hard to know if he was even partially right, but he had followed his instincts to success so far. “Fairly certain. Your book inspired me to think about the ways we have been crafting potions and see if we can find some analogs between that and growing reagents.”

Salire looked up to the sky, biting the inside of her cheek. “Tonight?”

“No. Of course not. It’s getting too late, but I wanted to leave you with something to think about so we can start tomorrow morning.”

“Oh! Yeah, that’s a good idea.”

“I can do some experiments in the Dreamwalk.”

“Sounds good,” Salire said, looking at the sky again. She looked eager to leave.

“You’re free to leave,” Theo said, nodding at her. “Since it looks like you’re gonna pee your pants.”

“Thanks!” Salire shouted, dashing off without another word.

Theo locked up the Newt and Demon and checked his administration interface. Alise had made a report that she had worked with Salire to utilize the Order From Chaos skill to create a potion stockpile, even granting each adventurer access. Sulvan had a report that he got into a fight with Jan, striking the unclassed human in the head and inflicting a nasty wound. He had healed it, and the outworlder behaved after that. Perhaps altruism wasn’t in the man’s blood.

“Do you think Theo will figure it out?” Sarisa asked, emerging from the shadows.

Theo began walking away, hoping to outpace the siblings before they could chafe him with more jabs.

“Doubtful! He’s clueless.”

“About what?” Theo asked, glaring at Sarisa and Rowan.

“Oh. Just that your apprentice has a hot date.” Salire whistled.

“Smoldering.”

“Is it Fenian?” Theo asked, narrowing his eyes at the pair.

“No,” they said at the same time.

“Then I don’t care. As long as Fenian didn’t get her, I can rest easy. Let’s go make dinner.”

The confines of the Dreamwalk gave Theo room to think. His first thought for creating new potions was to discover a new technique to extract as much potency as possible. Distillation squeezed an absurd amount of purity from reagents, meaning it was the most effective way he knew of. But there might have been another way.

Tresk and Alex were training in the distance the way they always had. Theo hadn’t been invited to fight alongside them in a long time. They had instead become a fighting pair that required constant drilling. The aerial moves they performed required a level of precision that could only be gained through practice. The alchemist concerned his thoughts with alchemy tonight, instead of increasing his willpower.

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The first stage of alchemy was simple distillation. Next came the concentration of essence, and finally the infusion of enchanted alcohol into the mix. The third step worked because it allowed the alcohol to burn away the impurities, leaving them behind during the distillation process. Perhaps that idea could be taken further.

Theo set up a few stills to observe the reactions within during an alcohol run. He asked himself questions about the run, and explained each stage to a rubber duck he had summoned. It wasn’t named Bob, but he just needed something to talk to.

“A Bound Enchanted DIlution works because the alcohol is infused with the property you’re looking to extract,” Theo said, nodding to the yellow duck perched on a rock. “What if we infuse it with more?”

Running a few experiments with his stills showed Theo that this was the right track, but wrong application. He sifted through the skills for his Drogramath Alchemy Core, finding nothing that gave him a hint. There might have been some strange stuff going on, since he was on the forefront of Drogramath’s alchemy in the mortal realm, but he didn’t get that impression. He instead focused on ways he could use existing essence to enhance a run, coming up with several approaches.

The first angle he took was the way he always did things. Standard alchemy. This was the attempt to infuse the essences during the first stage of production. Even with Wisdom of the Soul, his intuition pushed him in a different direction. The resulting angle he approached the problem from brought insights, but wasn’t the way forward. There was no way to entangle the vapor version of the essence with a liquid version. Which led to the last idea.

Messing with the vapor form of an essence was untapped territory. The only way they had worked with essence vapor was by compressing it, resulting in a refined version. Theo worked on imagining this new method, drawing things out in his interface and testing them in the Dreamwalk. Starting with an alcohol infusion during the first step, and ending with another version at the end was the only way. He made alterations to his imagined still, directing the output into the old version of the pressure tank. These were heated, which would allow the essence to maintain vapor form.

“This makes sense, right?” Theo asked himself. He wasn’t convinced, but the strength of his feelings on this concept was undeniable.

Theo allowed the distillation to play out slowly, creating a third tier essence that never reached the condensation stage. It instead poured into the condenser, although the artifice that added pressure to the vessel never activated. It was instead kept warm enough to maintain vapor form. Storage of large quantities of the gaseous essence might be a pain, but this might work. The concept was sound, even if he didn’t have every step. He would double-down on the core of an essence, reinfusing that concept back into the mix.

But the Dreamwalk refused to go too far with this one. It bit back, giving Theo a sensation of foreboding. He instead collected his thoughts, adding them to his notes. Eight hours of rest meant eight hours of experimentation for the alchemist. His nights had been spent using the exploit to send his willpower to absurd heights, but the thrill of discovering new alchemy was too alluring. It was good to take a break, anyway.

Stepping out of the Dreamwalk, Theo followed behind Tresk. They headed downstairs to get some breakfast. As he walked, the alchemist smelled something in the air that was… interesting. It held a similar savory scent he was used to smelling in the morning, but was different. Down in the dining area, he spotted Sarisa and Rowan setting out bowls, instead of plates. Each was filled with a clear broth liquid topped with sliced greens.

“What is this!?” Tresk shouted. Theo could feel her fighting back the urge to flip the table. “Where’s the bacon?”

“No bacon today.” Sarisa sighed into her seat, picking up a spoon and slurping some soup. “This is a cleansing broth.”

“Give me something yummy from your inventory,” Tresk said, pawing at Theo. “I need some proper food.”

“Try it, Tresk.” Rowan sipped from his bowl.

Theo tested his own bowl before passing judgment. He sipped the clear broth, shrugging after the flavor hit his tongue. It tasted like watered-down chicken broth with lemon. His first thought was that it would be great to have if he were sick. It was light and unoffensive while still filling his stomach. “I like it,” he said after a long pause.

“That’ll purge your guts,” Sarisa said. “Which Tresk needs more than anyone. I bet her guts are gross.”

Tresk grumbled, sipping soup from her spoon. “I don’t hate it,” she grumbled.

“Good. Everyone needs to keep their strength up!” Sarisa said, striking a pose. freēnovelkiss.com

After drinking his breakfast soup, Theo headed off to check on Jan. Sulvan was being a good disciple of Glantheir and updating the things he was doing with the newcomer that day. He gave a play-by-play, including things about Jan’s temperament and desires for the future. They had been up at the asscrack of dawn, serving the people of Qavell in whatever way they needed. The alchemist went there himself, finding the pair distributing food to citizens.

“Enjoying the work?” Theo asked, looking down at the human.

“Oh, yeah. Toting some boxes around. Excellent use of my skills.”

“He’s doing very well,” Sulvan said, nodding to Jan. “Grumpy, but he’s eager to help. More than anything, he enjoys learning about our world. And I have enjoyed learning about his world.”

That made sense. Jan’s story involved parts where he helped random people as they rescued his nephew. There was some good in him, and Glantheir would only help pull that out.

“Keep it up, guys.”

Jan grunted a response while Sulvan waved, smiling as Theo headed out. Qavell was still a problem and Hanan hadn’t ironed out the details of his acceptance into the alliance. This city and the underground town needed to be sorted. But both were big projects that would take time. Theo instead headed to the Newt and Demon to share his findings with Salire. She was dealing with a customer downstairs. It was a customer representing the town, so was it really a customer? Whatever, they were exchanging cash for potions.

Theo found a length of parchment to scribble on. If they were going to get this to work, they would need a few artifice pieces for their stills. A few quick sketches later and he was ready to show his findings off. But she took too long getting upstairs, so he got busy with some basic alchemy. There was nothing wrong with having low-tier potions on hand, especially now that the adventurers had a pool they could draw from. With the quantities the lab produced, it wouldn’t hurt them. If only there was a way to industrialize the spirit reagent process… Another day, perhaps.

“You look eager,” Salire said, ascending to the lab on the third floor. “I hope that means you found something.”

“Maybe. I couldn’t really test it in the Dreamwalk, but it makes sense. Listen to this…”

Theo explained his idea of injecting the vapor form of aligned essence into the condensation part of their process. Salire nodded along, waiting until he finished to bring feedback.

“But what element of the distillation binds the two essences?” Salire asked.

Yeah, a vaporized essence wouldn’t bind with another just because they were introduced in a pressurized environment. That needed a sort of catalyst, like the Suffuse Potion. “Damn. Why do I have the feeling you’re right?” The alchemist tapped his chin, his tail sweeping back and forth. “Why does this feel like it should work?”

Salire blew out a steady breath, drumming her fingers on the table. “I see what you’re going for here, but we’re talking about a lot of specialized equipment. It’s easy pulling liquid essences together, but as a gas? How would we measure it?”

“I’m hoping we can have Throk create an artifice to do the job.”

“We can follow your gut, though. We’ll need new pressure tanks, some tubing, an injection mechanism, and… Well, other things we can’t predict.”

“Maybe we can do a small-scale experiment. Any ideas on how we can skim some vapor into another vessel?” Theo was eager to get this idea working. He was certain it would work.

“Yeah, we can do that. Let’s put our heads together. What would bind two vaporized essences together so completely that they are almost without flaws?” Salire asked.

Theo cracked his knuckles. “Only one way to find out. Gotta do random bullshit until something sticks.”