The Newt and Demon

Tol’bak came together far faster than Tero’gal had. It didn’t have the same growing pains related to transitioning from a Mortal Dreamworld into a Throneworld. The planetoid was born as a Throneworld, given all the advantages of that from the start. Since it was also smaller than Tero’gal, it had less of itself to form. When Tresk decided to make the entire planet a swamp—much to the dismay of Belgar and Theo—that gave it even less work to do. Before long, they looked out over the endless landscape of mud, shallow water, and towering cypress trees.

“That certainly is something,” Theo said with a sigh. “And you wonder why I don’t let you decide important things.”

“What? I like it,” Tresk said, breathing in the scent of the endless swamp. “Smells like victory.”

Shaking his head, Theo inspected the world. He wasn’t surprised at how sparse it was.

[Tol’bak]

Throneworld

Leaders:

Theo Spencer, Tresk

Residents:

Cities:

0

Features:

Bridge of Shadows

Tero’gal

“Toru’aun said she wants to move here. I wonder if that still holds true now that the world is covered in a swamp,” Theo said.

“At least it's done,” Belgar said. “Perhaps Drogramath will want to live here.”

“Maybe. Was it hard to generate the world, Tresk?” Theo asked.

“No. We just pulled the throne to the edge of Tero’gal’s version of outer space. It basically formed itself.”

Anyone who lived in the ascendant realms could now take the Bridge of Shadows between the two worlds. The feature had already been open to the residents, allowing them to leave for Khahak if they wanted. While the Bridge still had a connection to the mortal world, Theo doubted that would remain open forever. Once everything was sealed away, it was unlikely to give access to anyone. As Fenian was still using it as his personal highway to get around on the mortal world, he figured the gods would put a stop to that soon enough.

There were quite a few things that Theo wanted to get back to in the mortal world. Especially now that time passed at a similar rate. Tresk wanted to remain here for a bit, so he left her to it before heading through the void. Both Tresk and Alex should have been able to bring themselves back without issue.

As expected, Broken Tusk was awake by the time he returned. Several hours had passed since he left, giving Theo a feeling of disorientation. He was too used to only a few minutes passing by while he was gone. At least there was plenty of alchemy-related things to take care of today. The dragon bone essences would be ready for him to brew, but more exciting than that was his mana-infusion technique developed in the Dreamwalk.

Another person Theo didn’t know was working in the shop of the Newt and Demon, ringing up a customer as he entered. The alchemist gave him a nod before heading to the top floor, where he found Salire. She was looking over an assortment of the small stills, waving at him as he entered.

“Throk gave me some weird machines to test out,” Salire said, shaking her head. “I don’t even know where to start.”

“Good news. We’re gonna start with some mana infusion techniques,” Theo said, slapping some Spiny Swamp Thistle Root onto the table. He held his hand over it, allowing mana to drip and infuse into the reagent. “Simple as soaking the reagent in your raw Tero’gal mana.”

“Wow. No explosions,” Salire said, stooping low to inspect the root. “I was expecting a lot of explosions.”

“I think this just reinforces the purity of the reagent,” Theo said, setting the root aside. “So any reagent you infuse with your mana should be more stable during distillation. Anything else to report?”

“Just that I don’t know what to do with these machines.”

Theo tapped his chin. Did he want to figure out what weird equipment Throk threw his way, or work on the dragon potions? The dragon potions would be much more interesting to see, so he went with that. “We’ll worry about that later. Do we have a decent stock of basic potions for the shop?”

“Yes. We have quite a few now. And…” Salire gestured to the stills running in the room. “I’m making some more. You know… just in case.”

“Back to a surplus,” Theo said, looking over his lab with pride. “Even with our reduced capacity, you’re still brewing at a surplus.”

“Well, this is kinda… the only thing I do,” Salire said with a nervous chuckle. “Not a big deal. Just the truth.”

“Yeah. Maybe we need a beach day or something,” Theo said, scratching his chin. “Well, I guess we can have an extended vacation when the world ends. For now, we need to ensure everyone has enough potions to survive until the world’s end.”

“Right? Imagine missing that date.”

“Well, if you die now you might be alright. It depends on if your soul can make it into the void. If it does, Death will scoop you up and give you a free pass to reincarnate.”

“Really? Wait, why would you know that?”

“I talked to him,” Theo said. “Don’t know if I’m allowed to say it, but whatever.”

“You haven’t been smote yet, so… I think you’re good.”

“Anyway… Potion time!”

“Yay!”

Theo put his worries about anything else aside, heading over to the giant metal cube to collect his essences. He had isolated the Soar, Lost Hope, and Dragon’s Insight properties from the ascendant dragon’s bones. All came out to 90% purity, and were the same off-white shade in their respective flasks. They smelled of little and put off a sense of authority even in their processed state. As expected with such low purity, the stills used to brew them were encrusted with the alchemical waste.

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“These could have been better,” Theo said, stowing the essences away for now. He would clean the stills themselves later. For now he was happy to check out the new essences.

“I’m not hopeful about those ones,” Salire said, following closely behind him. “Lost Hope? What could that even give? A sense of hopelessness? Surely that can’t be positive.”

“There’s only one way to find out,” Theo said, leading the way back to the lab. Back on the third floor, he laid out his equipment and turned on the extractor artifice. “We’ll just go in order… Soar first.”

“At least it mixes as it should,” Salire said, watching as Theo blended the essence, water, and catalyst.

The alchemist still loved the vial design she had come up with. It was now the standard way their potions were bottled, including the decorative glass topper. Just like the essence, the finished potion was an off white color, close to beige. It smelled of almost nothing, holding an almost earthy scent.

“No issues with the vapors generated by the essences, right?” Theo asked, swirling the vial to complete the reaction.

“Not really. I’m sure any potential accidents will go away once we sort your mana infusion technique out.”

Theo nodded, finally satisfied that the potion was done brewing. “Ah. Yes, I really would enjoy drinking the potion of falling to your death.”

[Lesser Soaring Potion]

[Potion]

Uncommon

Created by: Theo Spencer

Purity: 90%

Drink to soar.

Effect:

Five seconds after consuming this potion, the imbiber will be sent into the air. The distance depends on the purity of this potion.

“How high do you think it throws you up?” Salire asked, tapping her chin as she thought. “Maybe you could use it to… Climb up a mountain or something?”

“As long as you had a way to fall slowly,” Theo said. “And, yes. That depends on how high it sends you. A few feet? No problem. Five-hundred? You’re in trouble.”

“Right,” Salire said, taking the potion and setting it aside. “Let’s just not think about that one ever again.”

“We should start a list of dud potions,” Theo said, moving on to the next one. Soar was actually a property he had some hope for. Theo wanted to see a potion that allowed him to fly. He would’ve settled for gliding. But, no. It was another weird potion that made him do something he didn’t want to do. Even the Retreat potion was more useful.

Moving on to the next one, Theo knew what he was in for before he even examined it. There were qualities of potions that set them apart from poisons. Poisons all seemed more viscous than potions, and they put off an aura of malice. The potion derived from the Lost Hope property was a poison.

[Lesser Hopeless Poison]

[Poison]

Uncommon

Created by: Theo Spencer

Purity: 90%

Apply to a weapon to inflict the [Hopeless] effect on a target.

Effect:

Applies the [Hopeless] effect, reducing an entity’s willingness to fight. The strength of this effect depends on the purity of this poison.

“Making a person hopeless…” Theo trailed off, shaking his head. “I suppose you could use that to route monsters… if they had morale.”

“Wow. Two crappy potions in a row.” Salire offered Theo a pained smile, patting him on the shoulder. “Who knew dragon bones sucked this much?”

“Even if all properties are bad, it doesn’t matter,” Theo said. “They’ve served their purpose already. Well, Alex is almost a dragon. She has to eat more bones.”

“Alex is eating the bones?” Salire asked. “Disgusting.”

“Yeah, I’m not a fan. Let’s get to work on this last potion. Anything with the word ‘insight’ is usually good.”

“Seriously,” Salire said, lifting the potion for inspection. “Hmmm. Not sure what you’re going to think about this one.”

Theo inspected the potion, willing to wait no longer to get this saga behind him.

[Lesser Dragon’s Insight]

[Potion]

Rare

Created by: Theo Spencer

Purity: 85%

Your gaze is peerless, like that of the mighty dragon.

Effect:

Locking eyes with a sapient enemy will initiate the [Dragon’s Duel] effect.

While under the effect of [Dragon’s Duel], you gain insight into the attack patterns of your opponent.

“How long does it even last?” Theo asked, scratching his head. “I mean, this is a great potion if you’re planning on murdering people. Gaining insight into someone’s attacks would be useful. Almost like my precognition. But there are problems…”

“Like the purity,” Salire pointed out. “Why was it less than the others? They came from the same plant with the same distillation method.”

This was certainly one of the more strange potions Theo had created. It was only so strange because it was so unlike his other potions. The effect was strange, activating when a person locked eyes with an opponent. That likely meant it had an infinite duration to start—or a long one anyway. After that, the Dragon’s Duel effect would last… what? Until either member of the duel died?

“This effect might be strange because it comes from a draconic ascendant,” Theo said. “Which brings me to another confusing question. Is this an aligned reagent, or just a shard of the dead dragon’s power?”

“You’re asking questions only you and the other throne people can answer, I think,” Salire said.

Theo nodded. She was right, of course. “These potions aren’t great, but maybe we can use this as a jumping-off point for something else. The modifiers, maybe. Or some other enhancement method we can use to increase the potency of reagents.”

“What do you have in mind?”

Theo had to think for a second as his thoughts shifted away from the dragon potions. They were a bust, and that was fine. This was the point of alchemy, even if things took longer now that he didn’t have Drogramath’s power to lean on. The way reagents reacted with each other was going to change when they moved to Tero’gal. Perhaps it was best to verbalize his thoughts.

“This is a trial run for us, Salire,” Theo said, clapping a hand on her shoulder. “When we move to Tero’gal, we’re going to experience more challenges like this. We’re going to rebuild the basics of alchemy from the start.”

“How pliable is Tero’gal going to be once we get there?”

Theo clicked his tongue. “That’s hard to say. Like everything else, it seems as though it's waiting for the next shift to happen. It doesn’t want to commit to anything until we reset the universe.”

“I’m thinking you should get on that soon,” Salire said, laughing nervously.

Theo shook his head. “We’re all getting used to the new way of things. I had a good meeting with the system and Death earlier. I went to our meeting place with respect, and they treated me with respect. Everyone—the worlds included—are trying to approach their new roles with honor and respect. I’m trying to say we’re all willing to adapt to the change. Since every cog in the machine is happy, the outcome should be good.”

“Are you trying to reassure yourself of something?” Salire asked with a pained look on her face.

Theo gritted his teeth for a moment, thinking back to Earth. They faced the same change during Jan’s time. When Iaredin was linked with Earth. Something happened and Earth lost out in that deal. The result was the destruction of the world. Perhaps this was a similar situation. But this fake version of Iaredin they lived in wasn’t the design the system had in mind. It likely wasn’t the version the defenders of Earth had in mind. It was something twisted by people who wanted to grab for power.

“We’re trying to create the ideal version of a universe,” Theo said. “Even Tero’gal refuses to allow the people on it to wage war. It ejected souls into the void rather than allowing them to keep fighting. Yeah, I’m trying to make myself feel better so I know we’re on the right course. Because I have to believe that Yuri and Fenian were doing what’s best for the world. Especially Fenian.”

“He’s hard to stomach, isn’t he?” Salire asked.

“Yes and no. I knew people on Earth who did similar things. You can’t discount a person’s situation when considering their actions.” Theo took in a deep breath, whipping his tail through the air. “Come on. Let’s go get some tea or something. We can discuss alchemy instead of war crimes.”

“Oh, I like tea. Much more than war crimes,” Salire said, bouncing toward the door. The alchemist followed after, leaving the three failures behind on the table.