The Newt and Demon

6.53 - Impure Essence

Most of Broken Tusk had recovered by the next day. The happy couple was sequestered in their tower, all drunks had been refreshed, and Theo sat at the table in his manor. Sarisa and Rowan still weren’t well enough to cook breakfast, but they could make it to Xam’s to buy some food. It was soup again, which was good enough for the alchemist.

“Did you two even wake up yesterday?” Theo asked, poking his spoon at both Rowan and Sarisa.

“No,” Rowan said, groaning. “I’m still feeling it.”

“I know. If only our resident alchemist could make a cure…” Sarisa winked about ten times at Theo.

“Oh, there is a cure for hangovers using alchemy,” Tresk said, nodding to herself. “But we don’t have the plant.”

“Of course we don’t. Why would we have nice things?” Sarisa groaned, slamming her head into the table.

“I fell asleep in here.” Rowan had a distant look on his face, as though viewing the events from yesterday. “Forgot about the mini-Dreamwalk. That was some freaky stuff.”

“You control that dream. You know that, right?” Sarisa asked. “So whatever you dreamed of was your fault. What was it?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Rowan said, going pale.

“This is why we don’t have more parties.” Theo loomed over the pair like a disappointed parent. “Maybe we should head to the swamp today as punishment.”

“You can go alone. No energy,” Sarisa said, waving the thought away.

“You can’t scare the children like that,” Tresk said, shaking her head. She clicked her tongue and waggled a finger to complete the look of a disappointed mother.

Theo expected another chill day in town. Everyone was feeling better than yesterday, but they would still be sluggish. After finishing breakfast, he headed to the Newt and Demon. He approached the entrance with caution, poking his head in the front door and searching for damage. He climbed to the third floor, doing the same thing. A fifty unit flask of distilled first tier essence sat on the table, and the still was intact.

It was hard not to compare this flask of essence to the first ones he made after arriving in town. He could now see the details—invisible to most—that distinguished the work of an amateur and the perfection of Tero’gal’s alchemy. It went beyond the old grade markers of Drogramath’s alchemy. Perfection was now measured in the essence's purity, quality of the stills, and skill of the alchemist.

The iron paddle had done its job. After cleaning the leftover reagent mash from the still, Theo removed the paddle and placed it on a clean table for inspection. Using an alchemically neutral copper knife, he removed a tiny chunk, transferring it to a glass vial for experimentation. He stowed the paddle in dimensional storage to avoid any unexpected reactions while he loaded all five of the new stills with Spiny Swamp Thistle Root, topping each with water, and setting them to work.

Theo might have had the confidence to set the stills and forget them, but he still created a small, round shield around each five. Just in case.

Holding his hand over the vial, Theo focused on his Reagent Deconstruction ability. He could feel the small amounts of the whole reagent left behind in the crystalized waste. He pulled on those bits, allowing mana to pool in his hand and drip into the vial. Tilting the glassware container on its side, he expected an explosion. But he focused on pulling the pieces of the waste apart, watching as the mixture bubbled, always on the verge of a more violent reaction. The crystalized waste condensed, tinkling as he rolled the mix around. Both a solid and liquid were left behind, after the mana evaporated. The solid registered as Alchemical Waste when he inspected it, but the murky liquid provided something new.

[Impure Healing Essence]

[Impure Essence]

Common

An incomplete essence with trace amounts of Healing components.

“Interesting,” Theo said, pulling the solid junk out and letting it fall to the table.

Intuition told him this incomplete essence would behave more like regular essence than junk. The solids were still useless, but he could work with this. Those trace elements in the Impure Essence could be used for something. He didn’t know what, but he could do something with it. For now, he would speed his way to the second tier, leaving this for later

Throk was gonna be mad.

Knowing there was something to do with the waste was an excellent step forward. Theo made his way to the aligned greenhouse, patting the Plant Golem as he entered the space. He pulled a mostly grown sample of the root from the garden, watching as the golem rushed in to fill the gap. Since they were harvesting fewer things, the poor fella had less to do. He left, passing by his Experimental Garden Plot at the Herbalist Workshop and shaking his head. He would get back to that project soon enough. Settling in before his research table, the alchemist considered how different this new variant of the plant was.

[Spiny Swamp Thistle Root]

[Alchemy Ingredient]

Common

The root of a Spiny Swamp Thistle.

Research:

Infused with an exceptional amount of Tero’gal energy.

Medium Growth Cycle.

Exceptionally pure sample.

Will not generate a known potion.

Properties:

[Healing] [Regeneration] [Flourish]

The information provided by the workshop contained things Theo was aware of. It made sense that this would be soaked in Tero’gal energy, but he was glad to see it was a pure sample. It would not cause a new potion, much to his disappointment. The system only allowed him to get away with earning so many attributes before it stepped in. That was fine, though. Tero’gal Alchemy was more about working with pure samples, so cultivating these plants was necessary.

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Tero’gal Alchemy would be easier with these reagents, but Theo wanted to get it right from the start. He wanted a detailed instruction manual. The more they knew about the hardships future alchemists would endure the better. The alchemist updated the list of orders for his golem, instructing it to harvest from the Tero’gal Greenhouse. Before moving to his next task, he updated his other greenhouses, making the hard decision on which plants to put in each structure.

“Interesting,” Theo said, kneeling to inspect what had been generated for the Flame Rose.

The exterior of the greenhouse looked normal enough. But as Theo poked his head inside, he saw the volcanic conditions within. The ground was a darker shade, and the heat was unbearable. That heat didn’t escape from the building, but the glass on the outside was almost too hot to touch. Theo clicked his tongue, looking over the eight greenhouses he had. He could only cover the three restoration plants and the five attribute plants before running out of room. But those were the eight most useful reagents he had access to.

“Difficult choices,” Theo grumbled to himself, looking over the strange new greenhouses. “I don’t trust the one with lightning inside…”

Maintaining enough greenhouses to service every reagent Theo wanted to use wasn’t possible now. While he could split the space inside, he doubted non-aligned reagents would flourish within. Especially not the greenhouse for the Lightning Poppy. Between his understanding of the new alchemy techniques and the greenhouses, the potions would flow once again.

Theo departed from the tangle of greenhouses, wandering out onto the street. Instead of completing a massive 500 unit batch within hours, he now had to wait at least a day. With more time between runs, he made his way through the town. With more people heading out onto the street, it felt more alive. That narrow window of time where everyone was too sensitive to the light, or completely unconscious had passed in a flash. Before long, he found Sulvan slumped by the town’s monolith.

“Rough couple of days?” Theo asked, withdrawing a Stamina Potion from his inventory and holding it out.

Sulvan took the potion with a feeble grasp, downing it in one go and hiccuping. “Alcohol poisoning counts as poisoning. Just in case you needed to know.”

Theo laughed, helping the man to his feet. “I didn’t know that. How many people were affected?”

“Something like half,” Sulvan said, rubbing his face. “I hope you’re creating more potions.”

“We just nailed the process down. It might take a week, but we’ll have everything we need.”

Sulvan clasped his hands together, muttering a prayer. “I’ll be more prepared for the next party. Perhaps you can brew some potions to cure the poisonous effects.”

“The effect comes from zee, so I don’t see a problem with that. We could mix it in with the booze.”

“Really?”

“No, it might explode. You should take a break for the day.”

Sulvan shook his head, rolling his shoulders. The effects of the Stamina Potion were immediate and potent. “I feel better after drinking the potion.”

“Yeah, but you’ll crash later. Just keep that in mind.”

Theo departed the company of the town’s main healer. Bilgrob was a new brand of healer, too. But the ogre had trouble understanding how his Tero’gal Healer’s Core worked. While the alchemist wished he could infuse the man with some insight, he knew as much as anyone else. His connection with Tero’gal was strong, but the Throneworld wouldn’t give him the keys to each of its cores. With most of the town now with cores of his own making, that was a problem.

The bright spot in the saga of old cores losing their power was the workforce of the town. Most had unaligned cores—typically called laborer cores—that experienced nothing when the shift happened. Gridgen at the mines, Ziz in the quarry, Nira at the smelters, Perg from the tannery, Throk and Thim at the smith and artificer, and even the infirmed Sledge that worked the woodcutting station all had unaligned cores. There was a point where folks were considering aligned with Drogramath. They had dismissed the idea at the time, but happily accepted Tero’gal cores later.

Faith in the false gods was thin, even before they had been discovered as such.

Theo listened to the chime of the bell at Whisper’s butcher shop. She didn’t look up from the sausage stuffing artifice Throk had built her.

“How are the new cores working?” Theo asked, leaning over the counter. Without the Coat of Rake, he would’ve been too cold. She kept the air conditioner as low as it would go, resulting in a layer of frozen condensation on the window.

“Very well,” she said.

“Could I get some sausages?”

“Of course.”

Whisper tried to refuse payment, but Theo used an old tactic. After placing the cured meat in his inventory, he threw money at her and ran out the door. He made his way to the Weaver’s Workshop on the other side of town, taking his time to appreciate the sights of the dying summer. The weather was improving, if only a little. Constant rain in the Season of Blooms, unending heat in the Season of Fire, and now a pleasant breeze that blew from the north for the Season of Death. If this season mirrored those on Earth, there would be celebrations. Perhaps he should focus on those Cure Poison Potions…

“Hello,” Theo said, entering Kaya’s workshop and bowing slightly. He spoke in a broken version of the elf-tongue, only ever picking up a few words. “Having fun?”

Kaya looked up, shaking her head. “I’m learning Qavelli.”

Theo shrugged. “It’s close, right? Just checking in on everyone.” He cleared his throat, switching between languages again. “New cores good?”

“Very good. Thank you,” Kaya said, bowing her head.

Theo gave her a healthy thumbs-up before leaving. He had learned Axphashi for no reason, but couldn’t bring himself to learn the most popular language in Tarantham. Taranthamese? Whatever. The elf-tongue. In a twist of irony, Russian was more useful. Especially if one were going to the Khahari Desert. For his next stop, the alchemist wanted to check on a very important member of the town. Broken Tusk had the Synergistics upgrade which had done little since Sledge was laid up.

The alchemist approached Mudball Fundamental, watching as the children played in the massive yard. While the fence kept the kids inside, it also provided a crude form of a defense for any errant monsters. Not that a monster had been sighted inside the walls for a while. They had enough patrols to put a stop to that risk. Bob was teaching a class about the shifting politics of the world. He had been hit as hard as anyone else, his Zaul cores transforming into Shadow cores overnight.

Theo found the room Sledge had claimed in the back. He cracked the door, his eyes going wide as he spotted a sight too cute to believe. Three tiny marshlings that could fit in the palm of his hand, were running around the room. They shrieked, bit, and hissed at just about everything. Sledge sat in the corner, watching her children with pride. After spending a short time in the eggs, the marshling babies were finally here.

“I’ll kill you!” Sledge shouted, withdrawing a knife from nowhere.

Theo snapped the door closed before the angered marshling could charge him. He turned away, catching a knowing look from Bob.

“Perhaps we should invite our esteemed leader over for a lesson on marshling child rearing,” Bob said, smacking his lips. “Since he’s so clueless.”

The children giggled.

“I didn’t know they had hatched,” Theo said, making his way to the front door.

“And you should be happy about that. She might have killed you if they were still in egg form.” Bob shook his head. “What do we always say, children?”

“Never mess with a marshling,” the children said at the same time.

“That’s right.”

Theo let himself out of the school, thinking about how short of a gestation period that was. Asexual reproduction must have been a boon for the marshling people. Perhaps that’s why they had survived so long without being destroyed. As the alchemist thought about how the marshlings had endured for so long, his mind drifted to the lizard islands. He had wanted a bridge to their side of the world for a while, but every project had failed. Ziz’s bridge was at the bottom of the sea somewhere. More than one bridge, actually.

With his newfound spare time, and abundance of willpower, he could make the bridge. A massive causeway might screw with the way the oceans worked, but it might be fine. He could construct gaps in the middle. Since his plan was to take the entire region with him when they migrated to Tero’gal, none of the work he did would be lost. Instead of seeing this place as disposable, he wanted to see what it could look like if crafted with the tools he had.

Free time meant construction projects. And construction projects were fun.