The Autocraft Alchemist

Chapter 49



After the info dump that was the clan meeting Richard found himself full of nervous energy. It wasn't possible to know when the orcs would be attacking. But the fact that they knew an attack would be coming made him have a feeling of something impending, of something looming.

But, energy being energy, Richard pushed it into creating the new potions that he had found at the New Berl Dungeon Market. He had already made a few laps cleaning around the apartment. And he was more than ready to make a mess of it again. And then maybe some more cleaning.

First up Richard retrieved the elemental gems and Brown Centipede Carapaces from his satchel and backpack. He set them out on the kitchen table and gave them a look over. The Black Beetle Carapace looked to be a section of wing covering. It was more long than wide and had a smooth and shiny gloss to it. While the Brown Centipede Carapace looked almost like a segment of a centipede's body carapace. It was more mat than glassy and there was a rough feel to it sort of like sandpaper.

As for the gems, each one of them was a rough looking rock that matched with the color of the element. So the Fire Gem was red, Water Gem blue, and so on. With the Metal Gem being a shiny silver color. Richard also felt a small trace of the element from them. The fire gem was hot. The water gem felt a little damp. The earth gem was heavier than the others. And finally the metal gem felt like it had sharper edges to it.

Richard opened the recipe list and reviewed the description for the Fire Potion again.

Create a potion of spouting fire. Point at a target and remove the stopper.

So they were like elemental flame throwers? Would that mean that the water one would be good for putting out fires? Wait, it was frost aligned wasn't it? Could still put out fires… While maybe the earth one would be sand? The metal potion helped in that it was called a Sharp Potion. So whatever came out of it must have a cutting or piercing power to it.

Richard got to crafting and soon was looking at 8 completed potions sitting on his kitchen table. By using Bulk Autocraft it hardly took any time at all. About maybe half the time that it would have been if he crafted the potions one at a time. And while it was only a difference of a couple of seconds per potion, it would quickly stack if he wanted to create 100s of something.

Each of the potions had the same brown vial, and the stopper matched with the element of what was inside. The red glow of the Fire Potion fluctuated slightly. While the frost was a chilly looking light blue. Earth had a slowly moving glow that reminded him of dust devil. And finally the Sharp Potion didn't appear to have a glow in the stopper at first. But as Richard watched it would appear for a moment and then fade away.

While he didn't always pay attention to the glow of the stoppers, it made him wonder if there was some relation between the behavior of the glow and the effect. At first Richard had just assumed that it was a way to identify them. But seeing the Sharp Potion and how it disappeared made him wonder if there was some connection between the effect and the glow? Without any way to really get an answer Richard decided to not to worry about it. And moved on to another new potion.

He retrieved the vial he had already made and rolled it in his hand. The first clear vial that came from his Alchemy. When he had first created the Glass Golem Vial, he had hoped that it would look like a dungeon potion. But he wasn't lucky, and it had the same diamond shape as all of the other vials. Maybe he would get the ability one day to change how they looked? Then he wouldn't have to worry so much about his unique looking vials being traced back to him.

Instead of dwelling on it Richard created the Iron Skin Potion. It took the whole Iron Ingot that he had bought. And the resulting potion was one that had a silvery liquid swishing around inside of it. Richard wasn't sure that he wanted to try it, as the liquid looked more like metal colored paint. Sure it would probably put a coat of iron on his outside, but what would it do to his insides?

He focused on the Beetle Dungeon drops next. There were two new potions, Acid Potion and Large Acid Potion. The description was handy in that it even warned how not to use them.

Pour or break the potion against the desired target. It is not a good idea to get acid on anything that you value.

Simple and to the point. He crafted a pair of both of them and placed them gently into the boxes with the others.

Finally the potion that Richard had been wondering about the most, the Feather Parade Potion. It took one of the Kobold Brass Vials and a trio of Kobold Feathers. He shoveled the feathers into the Bulk Autocraft window along with the vials and confirmed the creation. The resulting potion looked the same as the brass vial did. Only it had a small feather that appeared to be hanging out from under the stopper. As to the vial glow, it slowly changed between the colors of the feathers, orange to yellow to white to blue to red, and back to orange. Either the potion was going to be a blast or a let down. And Richard was hoping for the former.

***

There was a ping on his phone and Richard grimaced. He checked and it was from the person that he had expected it to be. Chuck. Good old Chuck. A couple of days ago Richard had received a message from him. Asking him out for some drinks and being all buddy buddy. Only since Richard was pretty sure that Argence had been running on Chuck's orders he wasn't really all that interested in being friends with the man.

And in the end Richard had politely let Chuck know that he wasn't interested. And that he had enough on his plate at the time. That should have been the end of things. Only it wasn't. At first there had been another message saying it was okay. But if he could make a little bit of time for him, Chuck would even come to Welf. After another refusal things escalated from there.

Richard had done his best to remain polite with the man. And yet after persistent invites had all been turned down the tone of the messages changed. Nothing that could be considered to be a threat proper, and instead just little things. Like it would be in Richard's best interests to agree to work with Chuck. That Nora wouldn't be around forever and it would be better to have someone on the inside of the guild to work with. Someone who had Richard's best interests at heart. And so on. It was clear that Chuck wanted a connection with Richard for some reason. And considering his, or rather Argence's, insistence on only buying new potions it was probably that. Chuck must only see him as a goose that laid golden eggs.

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After some more consideration Richard finally blocked Chuck's number. It probably wouldn't be the end of things. But it would be enough for the moment. And the fact that the guild didn't have anything in place to protect the crafters from overly enthusiastic management kind of soured the whole relationship for Richard. He needed the connection to sell his potions for the moment. But that was something that was going to have to change.

Richard stuffed his phone back into his pocket and looked around the lobby of the Dungeon Center. He had made a plan with Windry to explore and she was late. Which wasn't that unusual. Considering that she was often pretty busy for long periods of time. She probably still had birthdays to deal with.

When she finally arrived Windry had a small scowl on her face. "Remind me not to have any more kids. They are cute at first. And then they aren't. Then they give you cute grandkids. Who likewise grow into not so cute teenagers and young adults."

"Ugh. I hate to break things to you Windry. But you should be done with having kids right? You know, uh, on account of your-"

She crossed her arms. "Never mention a woman's age Richard, I thought that you were more suave then that?"

Richard shrugged. "I mean. Sometimes the elephant in the room needs to be addressed. I couldn't call myself your friend if I didn't say anything. And instead just left the poor elephant covered with Great Gram's quilt that had seen better days."

Windry smiled and shook her head. "Right. So. What's on the docket for today? Slimes? I would have thought that you would want to move away from the so-called safe dungeons."

"Well. That requires more people. And most of the ones who I trust to explore with are all based in Rowan. When I want to do something local I don't have anyone. And sometimes you just want to hit something and slimes are all you got."

"You need more friends. Probably need to get out of your shell some more. More than what you have been doing. See," she stuck her hands onto her hips, "I can mention the elephant as well," she said and stuck out her tongue.

Richard tried to show a smile. "I mean. I know that. But you are all that I got for the moment. So let's get to it. The second floor should be enough for today."

Windry signed. "Alright. And what's spawns on the second floor? You've done your research for once right?"

"Right. They call them Double Slimes. Not much bigger than the normal ones. But when you kill one they split into 2. And then you have to fight two fresh slimes at once. Should be pretty easy to deal with since we didn't really struggle the last time we were on the second floor of the Mushroom Dungeon."

"Right," Windry agreed. "So let's get to running then. You don't know how much I need something other than family time. Why did I marry so many times?"

Richard shook his head and didn't bother to quip back. Sometimes the elephant in the room was too big to address. Also sometimes they also were wielding a pair of short swords and knew how to use them. He apologized to the elephant in his mind and hoped that it didn't mind wearing the quilt for a while longer.

They took the well worn path down to the second floor of the dungeon. Then once they arrived Windry and Richard spread out and confirmed that there wasn't anything waiting for them. Monster, or people, or both.

From what he could tell the second floor looked the same as the one above it. With great, green, plains of grass as far as the eye could see. "Doesn't seem like anything has really changed?" Richard asked and turned to Windry. "Usually when going down a floor something is different from the one above, right?"

Windry laughed. "Do you see it?" She asked.

Richard frowned at her and then looked towards the plains of flowing grass again. The wind blew his hair into his face and his eyes widened. "Is it the wind? I don't really remember there being much, if any, on the first floor."

"Right! This dungeon has more wind the deeper you go. Might have something to do with the Wind Slimes deeper inside. Or it might be that they exist due to the wind," she said and shrugged. "With dungeons, who knows how they work or why they do what they do."

***

Lala lept from tree branch to tree branch. It wasn't the fastest method to move by any means. However, it was faster than running through the thick undergrowth of the forest. And she was once again glad to have the Feather Step skill. Without it she might have been tempted to try the roads. Which would have been a bad thing since someone else had already put them back into use.

The first orc settlement that she had found was only a little deeper into the wilds. Maybe about a day's journey after the last ratter warren. They were far enough away that they might not have come into contact with humans yet. But assumptions weren't something they could afford to count on. And who knew how close the orcs had already come with their scouting parties.

The orcs had taken to clearing any trees or brush from the roads, and were using them to travel between their own settlements. Each one placed near or on top of a city or town that had been there before the break. What houses they had managed to convert appeared to be rather ramshackle and just thrown together with whatever they could salvage. Just enough to keep the wind and rain out.

As Lala continued north she found more and more orcs. She stuck to the tree lines and moved with stealth. And while it meant that it was hard to get a complete read on their numbers. With her Distant Vision skill she was able to at least get some ideas. And she didn't like how the numbers weren't adding up.

If a broken dungeon could provide enough orcs to fill a small village. Then there were enough orcs that multiple dungeons would need to break in order release the numbers she found. What surprised her the most was how many non combatants she had noticed in the settlements. In addition to the warriors there were unarmored orcs moving around, clearing land, building, washing, farming. As she watched the small figures running around and playing she felt chills running down her spine.

Lala cut her scouting mission short when she found Nickel city. It should have been destroyed in the break, like everything else. And yet there was a sizable settlement in its place. Bigger than all of the others she had seen yet. She had seen enough of them to know that they would have quite the problem on their hands.

She had been old enough to remember the break. And had come of age in time to fight against most of the monsters with her parents. Between her own experiences, and those relayed to her by older clan members, Lala knew how it was back then. How they had to fight tooth and nail against the break species for every scrap of land they reclaimed.

Just how were they going to resist such a force if they all marched at once? Could the Scales province weather on their own? Or would they need the provinces to band together? Would they even send aid? Or would they take a wait and see approach?

Lala turned over her shoulder to take one last look at the settlement. And then turned to leave and race home. She just hoped that what resistance they could drum up would be enough.


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