NOVEL NEXT Chapter 179 - Tangled Webs
The next few days were among the best that Lucas had experienced since Parin Manor had burned down. He lingered in bed every morning before going to the market with his fiancée. Then, after fetching hot bread for everyone's breakfast, they'd take a walk through the fields or check out the progress their home was making.
Mostly, during these times, they'd do nothing more productive than flirt. Whenever he raised the specter of their impending marriage, she'd get flustered immediately. No matter what part Lucas tried to talk about, she wished that her brother or father were around to handle such details.
It was adorable, but as much as he loved watching her blush, he felt like they actually needed to pick a date, and soon. It wasn't just that he was tired of sleeping alone, either. It was that an unmarried couple in the same house got any number of suspicious looks; he had yet to hear any barroom whispers, but men like Mort, whom he trusted implicitly, insisted they were happening.
So, eventually, on their third morning outing, he picked a date nearly at random. "We'll do it on Midsomer then," he said after she wilted beneath the question one final time. That's still a couple of months away, and time for our tailor to make you something nice.
"Well, h-he might actually be working on such a thing already," she admitted with burning cheeks. "But you can't see it! It would be bad luck."
"Not even a little peek?" Lucas teased, earning a slap.
While he spent his mornings and evenings with the woman he loved, he spent the afternoons with his crew. Sometimes these were just logistical meetings, discussing what resources they had and the like. Still, as boring as that sort of thing would normally be, after being away for long, even simple discussions about manpower and reagents were nice to have again, and in less than a week, they were practically back up to full speed and gathering the things he'd need to make Blue.
Of course, Blue was something he hoped to make less of, but Lwynthenll wasn't on the menu for the first few days, as he stocked up, because he had no way to make more Distilled Moonlight. Despite the expense of making those mirrors, Lucas got that project started right away. The sooner he did, the sooner he could start weaning people off the hard stuff.
That's the way things went for the next few days. In fact, until he received a message from Heisenburgle, he'd almost calmed down and convinced himself there was nothing to worry about. However, when he received the scroll one morning at the farmhouse that was their temporary base, it pricked his paranoia right away. That uneasy feeling started before Lucas even opened it. It started as soon as he remembered who the messenger was.
Even before he noticed that the seal looked a little sloppy for the gnome, he noticed that the man who was carrying it was someone that Heisenburgle had already pointed out as being one of the Prince's men. That put him on edge as he smiled and greeted the man. Likewise, the messy seal told him that the message had already been forced open and resealed en route here.
Both of those were concerning, but Lucas didn't let that show on his face. Instead, he made chit-chat and asked the man, "You and your buddy ever figure out your recipe?"
"Ugh, don't remind me," the assistant sighed. "I tried doing what you did a few weeks later, as an experiment, you understand... Made me as sick as a dog."
"That will happen," Lucas laughed, pretending to be at ease. He even gossiped about Heisenburgle and how awful he was behind his back to put a little social distance between them. It was only after all that that he finally cracked open the scroll and saw that something was afoot.
While there was nothing special about the paper or the words, Lucas knew as soon as he read the first few lines that there was some spy movie shit going on. He knew that right away, because all of the recipes that the gnome referenced were all wrong.
'My dear colleague,' it started out, somehow managing to make the man's abrasive voice come right through the page. Not Lucas, or even Mister Blue. Just colleague. 'While you are shirking your duties and no doubt enjoying your newfound glory back in the city, I regret to inform you that you've left a real mess back here in Blackgate. While most of the problems can be muddled through, you've left the critical reagents I will need for several elixirs practically empty, and I will require you to replenish them.'
While Lucas could imagine Heisenburgle writing a scathing note like this, the part that came next was something that he would have never done. He made a long list of potions and their reagents. All of the potions were real; while Lucas hadn't made any except for Lwynthenll and Distilled Moonlight, he'd seen them in the gnomes' books.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
None of the reagents were correct, though. They were all over the map; they weren't even elementally categorized, which would have been the first thing the damn gnome would have done.
What game is it he's playing here, Lucas wondered as he pretended to studiously read the thing. I've never even used half of these.
Wight Bones (ground), Alum (powdered), Terethitha Blossoms (dried), Chimera Teeth (crushed), Hair (orc, preferably male), Ogre Bile (purified), Umberhulk Grease (aged), Talons, Eagle (sharpened).
It took him several seconds longer than it should have to see the pattern. He would have seen it immediately if the items were listed one atop the other, but then so would everyone else. The first letters of each ingredient spelled out a message. W-A-T-C-H-O-U-T.
That was almost certainly, and Lucas stiffened enough at that, that he forced himself to laugh after, and say, "This fucking guy, right? The Prince stops paying his bills, and suddenly he wants me to shell out for his reagents, am I right?"
The messenger smiled back, but there was a nervousness there, too. "You don't really think the crown will withdraw its support, do you?" he asked.
Lucas gave a noncommittal answer and kept reading. He was much less interested in the man who was certainly spying on him than the hidden messages he was obviously meant to ferret out.
'While I can do without these ingredients for some time, there is one critical component that is greatly delaying my moonlight experiments, and it is vital that you get it post haste! By that, I of course mean the Moonflower Blossom. Any respectable alchemist would know that, but in your case, I feel the need to make sure so there are no further mistakes. I seem to recall that you once found such a blossom in a marshy pond not so far from the keep. Perhaps you could check there and see if any have regrown. It is urgent that you get these for me as soon as possible!'
After that, there was a long-winded passage about the growing habits of such flowers, along with their seasonality and information on harvest. The gnome insisted that if he found one, he pluck it only at night to shield it from daylight to prevent a loss of potency.
In person, Heisenburgle tended to raise his voice to express emphasis. Sometimes he did it until he was screeching and painful to listen to. Still, Lucas had never seen the equivalent in writing before now and found the underlined passages and exclamation points to be a bit over the top.
Is there a code in there, too? He wondered. It didn't look that way, but it sure looked like he wanted him to go somewhere very specific.
"So is that it?" Lucas said finally, feigning exasperation. "Look, I'm busy here. I've got shit to make and without a real lab it takes a lot longer than it used to, so why don't you go back and tell him to just add all this shit up and bill me for it, alright?"
"Are you sure that will be all?" the apprentice asked. "You don't wish to send him a message or—"
"Look, my message is to tell him to go to hell," Lucas interrupted, "but I'm sure you don't want to be the one to tell that gray haired weasel that, so just tell him I asked him how many golden dragons it will take to keep him out of my hair forever, alright?"
The apprentice nodded glumly at that, visibly disappointed, making it so obvious that Lucas was tempted to ask him if he got paid by the document or the betrayal. The man was a poor spy, but then he supposed that, given his current level of paranoia, almost everyone was probably a poor spy.
That encounter weighed on Lucas for the rest of the day. He didn't tell anyone about it, or let them see the message, which he read several more times in an attempt to find additional messages that either weren't there, or that he was too stupid to find. Eventually, though, he decided his first interpretation had been the correct one. This was a warning, and Heisenburgle wanted him to go to a very specific spot in the middle of the woods, hours from here.
What would he find there? He couldn't say. The most likely option would be Heisenburgle himself, there to relay some message to him. After that, though, the next most likely option was probably an ambush or worse.
Do I really want to flip that coin? He asked himself.
The answer was, of course. He would always choose yes on something like this. Ever since he'd met with Lord Torvin, he'd felt a distant sort of doom hovering over him. While it vanished when he was with his fiancée, it intensified in the hours afterward as he worried about her as much as himself.
Still, he waited until Danaria was in bed before he got on his horse and started to ride, with nothing but a few ghetto boost potions he was working on with locally available ingredients and his sword. He told Kar'gandin where he was going, but not Hura'gh. The half-orc would have insisted that he come along, and Lucas was more interested in being quick and quiet than getting into fights.
Potion of Lesser Physicality (3 doses): Strength 3 (brawny), poison 2 (itching), endurance 2 (thick-skinned), agility 2 (reflexive). Provides full benefit for ten minutes, and a more limited benefit for up to half an hour.
Three strength isn't much, but it's better than nothing. Even if it is an ambush, invisibility at night will work a lot better than a sword, he told himself. Besides, the sooner I get there, the sooner I can get back.
Having just started his attempt to resume a day schedule, his mind protested at the idea of spending half the night on a horse, but it was only a couple hours each way; if all went well he should be able to get there and in time to still get a couple hours of shut eye.