The Newt and Demon

Salire stood outside with Theo, watching as he decomposed the solid part of the leftover essence. It broke into two parts, one-tenth of which was volatile and couldn’t be broken down further. The liquid it left behind was marked as ‘impure,’ which neither member of the duo knew what to make of. The alchemist held it to the light, swirling the flask of lightly pink liquid and humming to himself.

“It feels slightly reactive,” Theo said. “I’m not sure this is worth using, though.”

“Everything is worth taking a note for, though!” Salire said with a bit too much excitement. “I’ll record it anyway.”

“Let’s review,” Theo said, clearing his throat. “Everything we know about Tero’gal’s version of alchemy and herbalism.”

Salire flipped through the pages of her notebook, nodding and looking up as though ready to take notes.

“We swapped from the grade of an essence, to purity. Which makes a lot more sense. If you examine raw reagents, you can determine some of that purity before processing.”

“Which is why reagent quality matters more for Tero’gal’s alchemy. That’s also why we have the specialized greenhouses.” Salire underlined a section in her notes. “We have better control over what we’re doing because we can assume less pure reactions are more volatile.”

“Agreed,” Theo said, tapping his chin. “Jumping from tier 2 to 3 might be about something else, though. We need some theories about that, since we can only make an essence so pure before the numbers are meaningless. We’ll jump from 95 to 98 percent and then what?”

“Alternative methods,” Salire said with an excited nod. “But I have the current method documented very well. For the second tier, we’re looking at the same deal. A centrifuge removes the impure part of the essence, leaving behind waste. But the pressure vapor condenser is still required.”

“That might be a way to help isolate the functional parts of the essence, though. We might be cheating with that part, but I can’t tell.” Theo clicked his tongue, letting his Wisdom go to work. He would lament his lacking Intelligence attribute more, but he preferred Wisdom. Intuition went a long way with alchemy, and he had leaned on it heavily in the past. A sample of second tier essence was available for testing, but there seemed to be nothing he could gain by inspecting it. As expected, the purity dropped but it was still stable compared to the first tier.

“I think we should enter a phase of experimentation,” Salire said. “We have a lot of functions within Drogramath’s alchemy to test still. Fermentation, alcohol interactions… All that stuff we did daily.”

“There are even more things to consider, though. I’m no longer Drogramath’s Champion.”

“Seriously? Tero’gal didn’t make you the champion?”

Theo turned, offering the woman a half-smile. “I don’t think we have champions anymore. We’re doing this on our own merit now. Which is… Well, if you could get Throk to make some more machines, that would be nice. Think of different methods to remove the impurities involving alcohol. While you work on that, I’ll focus on other experiments.”

“Such as?” Salire asked, making a note.

“Mana injections, gaseous injections, and so on. It wouldn’t hurt to do research into how the space elf is doing…”

“Good idea,” Salire said with a nod. She flipped to the last page written on in her notebook. “I’ve got a few orders to fill. And you still have dragon bones to experiment with.”

Theo clapped Salire on the shoulder, nodding. “I might be back tonight for my experimentations. Gotta visit a dungeon first.”

Theo wasn’t sure what he thought about the dragon bones. He could brew potions for them right now, but was uncertain about if he should. Stepping out into the streets of Broken Tusk, he found Thim standing awkwardly.

“I was about to knock,” the dwarf said. “Finished your weird building.”

“I can see that,” Theo said, nodding toward the completed building. He had been ignoring it, waiting for the man to finish his job. “Care to give a tour?”

“There isn’t much to tour,” Thim said, leading the way down the road.

“Theo!” Gridgen shouted from down the road, rushing up and completely out of breath. “We got a problem.”

Nira was close behind him, her arms folded and her face stained with soot. She was always covered in a thin layer of black soot, though.

“Can it wait?” Theo asked.

“Quick tour,” Thim said, waving at the giant metal cube. It was about the size of his alchemy building, made of faintly purple metal. “Giant metal cube. Sliding door. Have at it.”

Thim left without saying another word. Theo felt something in the way he left, as though he wanted nothing to do with what the others had to say.

“What’s the problem? You never have problems, Gridgen,” Theo said.

“Ore dried up,” the miner said.

Theo clicked his tongue. Gridgen clearly thought he should have a stronger response, but that was that. The energies of the old ascendants was fading from the world. The last weird monster wave was proof enough of that, but he hadn’t expected it to happen this quickly.

“Is our stock of Drogramathi and Tworgnothi metals secured? How much do we have?” Theo asked.

“A lot,” Nira said with a shrug. She produced a faintly blue-silver bar, holding it out for him to see. “Looks like we can get mythril production going.”

“No choice,” Theo said, waving the question away. He took the bar for inspection. “We can’t cry because we’re making the world better. If we have mythril deposits, we should exploit them.”

[Mythril Ingot]

[Metal Ingot]

Legendary

Quality: Excellent

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

An ingot of legendary mythril metal.

“Very nice work on this, Nira,” Theo said, rolling the bar over in his hands. It was lighter than he expected. “This would be a decent substitute for Azrugium.”

“You have a keen eye,” Nira said, smiling up at the alchemist. “We’ll get about equal strength to that alloy. And, I have something else to show you.”

Nira produced another bar of metal. It was a swirling pattern of black and silver-blue. Although the sun was high in the sky, Theo could have sworn the ingot was glowing. He inspected the item.

[Dragoniron Ingot]

[Metal Ingot]

Legendary

Quality: Excellent

An alloy of mythril and iron. Only the finest smelters can produce such an ingot.

Theo felt the weight of the ingot in his hand. It was heavier than pure mythril, but perhaps there was some advantage to that. “What are the qualities of the dragoniron compared to mythril?”

“Mythril is lighter. A lot lighter. But dragoniron is tougher.”

“Excellent,” Theo said. “This is going to do very well for what we need. Now, is there anything I can do for either of you?”

“I’m good,” Nira said, turning and heading out. She was a very self-sufficient person, so Theo wasn’t surprised.

“We could use more mythril veins,” Gridgen said with a nervous smile. “Although we wouldn’t want to wake that beast…”

Theo sent a mental command to his metal golems. He ordered them to march down into the mine, toward the new vein of mythril they had exposed. “Let’s sort this out real quick. Come on, we’ll meet my army there.”

Before heading into the mine with the golems, the alchemist sent word to Aarok about his plan. Then they evacuated the mine, just in case anything happened. With the adventurers on standby, and the mine packed with golems, Theo headed down alone. After some probing with his Earth Sorcerer’s Core, he found the cavern belonging to whatever beasty was waiting to burst forth. He reinforced the walls, scouting new tunnels with more mythril nodes. The process took a few hours, but he was taking it slow. Whatever creature waited below didn’t stir during his work, so it seemed safe enough.

“I found a few safer veins of mythril,” Theo said. He left about twenty-five golems behind to handle any unexpected monster incursions. “Keep the first one we found sealed, and just hit the other ones I revealed.”

“Got it,” Gridgen said, saluting. “You heard the boss! Back in the mine!”

Copper and iron were still valuable metals, so there was no reason to stop production. Theo made his way to the smelter before visiting the temple, giving Nira some new orders. The moment the mythril nuggets rolled in, she was to shift her focus to them and nothing else. Whatever leftover aligned nuggets they had could be stowed for now. He didn’t want to operate off a dwindling supply of anything.

Nira didn’t care what the orders were, so long as she could work the smelter.

Theo had some time to think as he made his way to the temple. It wasn’t far, but it gave him enough time to reflect on his progression. His advancement in terms of levels had stagnated. But he had made progress in other ways. Both the town and the alliance were rocketing forward in power. Tero’gal had become a Throneworld. And his ability with alchemy had expanded significantly, making him a better alchemist. It was only a matter of time before he caught up to where he was before. This was a fact he hoped to accomplish before he had to take his people to Tero’gal.

“Gotta remember to check in on the doomsday party supplies,” Theo muttered to himself. He sent his senses off to his Plant Golems managing his small farm. They had been banking wheat for a while, so there would be no shortage of bread. Perhaps it was time to make some zee-shine.

The temple was as intimidating as ever. Theo stepped into the halls, reflexively bowing his head. He could feel the power of the true gods here now. They all mingled together to create a tapestry of something he couldn’t quite identify. Those gods waited in a cloistered heaven for him to bring the shards back, adding some stabilizing force to the world. Xol’sa would pull through. The space elf always pulled through.

“Knock knock,” Theo said, standing at the entrance to the dungeon.

The door swung open, revealing a massive figure. “Ah, Theo,” Bilgrob said. The massive ogre barely fit in the dungeon, even though it had been constructed with half-ogres in mind. “Come to visit the elf?”

“Yeah, how is he doing? And how is that Tero’gal core treating you?”

Bilgrob grunted, turning and leading the way down the darkened corridor. “I won’t lie. It isn’t as fun as my Spit core, but I can’t complain. At least I didn’t get my core stripped away or something like that. Anyway, the healing magic is fine. There is a diagnosis spell that works well.”

“How does Tero’gal magic work?” Theo asked.

“Just some magic language adjacent to Axpashi. I assumed you invented it.” Bilgrob pushed the door to a cell open. It really was like a dungeon, but the space elves needed to be contained. There was no way to tell if they would still be insane when they woke. And until this one came to his senses, the alchemist refused to bring more.

“Tero’gal has a mind of its own. It must have invented the language,” Theo said. The elf rested on a bed, a wet cloth draped over his forehead. He had been stripped of his clothes with only a thin sheet covering his body. A small air conditioning artifice sat in the corner, pumping gently cool air into the room. “What does your diagnosis spell say about him?”

“He’s in stable condition, but he has a lot of problems. We’ve been working on curing him… slowly,” Bilgrob sighed. “The good news is that we’ve purged the void mana from his system. Everything else comes down to potions and healing spells.”

“Is the Reforge Mind potion doing its work?”

“Very much so. Watched his head go transparent earlier this morning. I could see his brain.”

“That’s nasty,” Theo said, placing a hand on the downed man’s shoulder. His body temperature was high, but that was to be expected. He had something like a fever, reminding the alchemist of what happened with Xol’sa. “Can you inspect his soul?”

“There doesn’t appear to be obvious damage to the soul,” Bilgrob said. “Were you expecting soul damage?”

“I was expecting a lot of soul damage,” Theo said, knitting his brow. That flew in the face of what he knew about the Bara’thier. “Xol’sa had soul damage when he came here. I thought the void energy they held in their bodies would affect the soul.”

“Not so. The energy was only in his body, not his soul. How did Xol’sa arrive here if he is from the Bara’thier?”

“That’s a good question. I suppose they catapulted him through… Ah, I get it.”

“What?”

“They sent him into the void unprotected. The place where the space elves are hiding out was protected by a bubble. It was weak, but the shards are still keeping them safe. I think they tossed baby Xol’sa straight into the void, allowing him to sail on magic to Iaredin.”

“Nasty business,” Bilgrob said, shaking his head. “Well, I’m working shifts with Zarali and Sulvan. We’re trying to recruit more healers for when you bring more elves. But you know how hard that is.”

Theo shook his head. “The care of an actual healer is too important. I don’t think my potions could see them through. Perhaps we can throw some money at people.”

“Or we could train up new healers. Can’t you gift cores?” Bilgrob asked.

Theo winced at the question. “I don’t know. I can’t create them, only change the ones people already have.”

“That’s unfortunate. At least you don’t have to worry about this one. He is under our care, and he won’t decline. I can promise you that.”

Theo didn’t doubt the man. What kind of secrets would this space elf hold to the old world? They had shoved off with the shards a long time ago. Those precious lodestones had likely enabled the ascendants to do what they did, creating a mockery of the intended system with their realms. With the old gods back as the new gods, order would soon be restored. This long-plotted scheme cooked up by Khahar and whoever else would finally come to a close.

The alchemist would rip his people from this land, sending them through the void and onto a permanent home. A place where he could ensure everyone would be safe. But even after they left, he had a job to do. The Dreamwalker was the hand of the void, ensuring everything ran as it should have.

“Keep up the good work,” Theo said, backing out of the room. “Update me if something else happens.”

“Can do.”

Theo left the temple with alchemy on his mind. Rocketing through the next tier was essential if he wanted to produce powerful potions. And of course he wanted to produce powerful potions. Maybe he would even have time to figure out what kind of potions a dragon’s bones would make.