Brewing Bad Ch. 63-64

Another bonus chapter. I've been doing a lot of writing lately because I've been inspired, so feel free to do a lot of reading! The next one will be in a few weeks when we get to... Well, you'll see.

Ch. 63 - This Changes Nothing

 The next morning, when Lucas sat down to talk with everyone else about what had happened, he left the kiss out. When he was finally done explaining how the awkward conversation had happened, Hura’gh said, “What? I was trying to help.”

Lucas shook his head at that, and Kar’gandin merely laughed and shook his head. Only Danaria’s brother Adin seemed nonplussed. 

“What’s the big deal?” he asked with a shrug. “It had to happen sooner or later with everything that’s going on.”

“You don’t think it will cause trouble?” Lucas asked. 

“She had to grow up sooner or later. ” Adin said with a shrug, “And this is as good a time as any. Once our name is cleared and we have enough for a proper dowry, it will be time to consider how she could best be used to cement further alliances.”

Lucas did his best to keep his building anger off of his face. He wasn’t sure why this was upsetting him, but it was. This is the way it was done here. Nobles played games with peoples lives and the ones closest to them were their most ready and disposible pawns. 

Still, the idea that Adin would marry his sister off to a man twice her age just because the guy had the right last name or could get him the favors he needed for some scheme or another to succeed repulsed him, and he fumed about it for the rest of the day. Of course, Danaria made every effort to avoid him, too, which gave him plenty of time to tinker in the lab. 

That should have been what he wanted, but even as he tinkered with making strength and agility potions that lasted as long as his flask of long-lasting curative did, the thoughts about it nagged at him. Should he have done something differently? Should he have lied to her or kissed her back? 

Lucas had no idea, but it bugged him.

He didn’t actually see her again until he was being driven back from another insufferable luncheon and saw her sitting there in Meadowin’s square, weaving a crown of flowers together with some of the younger children. In the afternoon light, it was impossible not to find her stunning. She’d taken to wearing simpler dresses after Lucas had pointed out just how much her extravagant wardrobe cost, but even so, in a simple lavender frock, she looked like a little princess sitting there with the flowers in her hair. 

That was what made him stop the carriage to talk to her. At first, that did not go well, and even though she didn’t speak harshly in front of the children, there was a chilly aura about her the whole time. 

“It was lovely to see you today cousin,” she said, not really meaning it, “but I’m afraid I must be heading home.”

“Why don’t you ride with me back to the manor,” he volunteered, giving her his best smile, but she brushed it off. 

“A good constitutional is excellent for the health,” she said, “You should try it sometime.”

Lucas stood there for a moment, watching her leave, then he turned to go back to his coach but said, “Fuck it,” to himself and then called to Mort, “I believe that Miss Parin has the right of it. I’ll walk back to the Manor; you can go on without us.”

Mort gave him a little salute, then flicked his reigns, bringing the horses to life and leaving him and Danaria alone on the road out of the village. Lucas jogged a few steps to catch up, and they walked in silence for a hundred feet before she said, “When I said you should try to walk more for your health, I did not mean today.”

“I mean, when a pretty girl asks me on a walk, is there even another answer besides yes?” he asked, feigning innocence. That simple line made her blush more than it had any right to, and silence returned for a long time before they finally talked at once. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I—” he said at the same moment she said, “I’m sorry I reacted so poorly the other night—”

They were both quiet for a moment before they again spoke at once. This time, they said the same thing. “No, please, after you.”

This caused them both to laugh, and finally removed the pall from the moment. That was enough to let him finally look at her without finding a look of disgust waiting for him, and for now that was enough.

“Look, this isn’t what I wanted to ether,” he said. “Not originally, anyway. When I came from Earth and found wizards and shit here, I thought that was amazing. More than anything, I wanted to be one of those, but I found out pretty fucking quick that this world doesn’t allow a lot of choice in those things, and after that, well, I sorta fell back on my old tricks, you know?”

“That sounds terrible,” she agreed before asking, “But where is this Earth place? Is it far away?”

“Very,” he agreed, cursing himself for forgetting. “But the point is, if the only thing you have is a skill that makes money, then what the hell are you supposed to do? Even if it is wrong?”

“That doesn’t make it right, you know.” She said sadly. “Even after my brother explained all of this to me, I still don't think that it makes things right.” 

Lucas was about to go into some explanation about how the right could outweigh the wrong, but at the mention of her brother Lucas realized that would have been a very Adin answer to give. So he didn’t. Instead he just said, “You’re right.”

“Having these skills is still wonderful, though,” she said, trying to put a positive spin on it. “Some people with talents never find a use for them, you know, and now you’re healing the sick and doing other… less reputable things. Why not find something else you could make? People pay good money for more than drugs, don’t they?”

“You know, what… fine,” he agreed. “I’ll try. No promises I’ll succeed, but I will try at least.”

“Good,” she smiled. “That’s a fine start.”

“Your brother mentioned that you had a talent before, didn’t he?” Lucas asked, trying to change the subject. 

“Most nobles do,” she agreed noncommittally, “but mine is nothing special.”

“No?” he smiled. “What can you do?”

“If I tell you, you must promise it will be our secret,” she said, looking at him suddenly serious. “Especially not my brother. He loves his secrets, and for some reason, he insists on keeping this under wraps. I think he doesn’t want people to think less of our family because of how pathetic it is.”

“I’ll never tell,” Lucas agreed. 

Danaria beamed at him for a moment before turning away and searching the sky. “There, do you see that Sparrow?”

Lucas had no idea what a sparrow looking like, but he saw the tiny bird, and said, “Yeah. Cute little guy, isn’t he.”

She pointed at it, and for a moment, he thought that she was about to blast it out of the sky or something. Instead, it flew to her before landing on her finger and tilting its head to look at the two of them.

“You’re what… summoning it? Controlling it?” Lucas asked, genuinely impressed. Unlike his alchemy, which was nothing but a glorified video game, this was real magic, and to him, that was cool as hell. 

“I’m… riding it, let's say,” she said, struggling for a word. As she spoke, the thing took off and began to circle the two of them in a very unnatural way as it flew tiny laps in the air. “I can tell it what to do, I can see through its eyes and hear through its ears, but eventually it breaks free and…”

As she spoke, the bird suddenly altered course and took off back into the sky once more, leaving them alone. “Pretty pathetic, huh?” she asked, forcing Lucas to give her a dirty look. 

“What are you talking about?” he said louder than he intended as the little bird flew away. “That shit is fire right there.”

“But I can’t really do it with larger animals,” she sighed. “They just… they fight me, and there is little to be done in taming common songbirds.”

“Well, you know what I think? I think you should keep practicing, you know?” he said, trying to cheer her up. “Today, sparrows and robins or whatever, and if you work really hard, maybe you’ll be able to use ravens or squirrels in a month or two.”

“I can do it with squirrels too, already,” she said with remarkably less enthusiasm than he would have thought this warranted. “But I'm not sure if I can ever do use my talent on something bigger than that.”

“Nah, I’m telling you, today song birds, tomorrow eagles, and in a year or two dragons at least,” he laughed. “Hell, maybe you could use this on people too. We’re just nothing but animals, after all.”

“Well, if I did that, then I’m sure Adin would be able to make a much better match for me,” she smiled sadly. 

“As far as I’m concerned, you can do whatever you want with your life,” Lucas said with a smile. “You shouldn’t have to listen to your brother, and I say that as someone, your brother has to listen to whether he likes it or not, so if there’s a man you fancy, you just tell me, and I’ll tell him to stop his scheming, and we can set up the match that will make you happy instead.”

“Well,” she said, pausing in the shade of an oak tree not so far from the Manor’s gate, “There is one man I know. He’s not particularly suitable, but…”

“Hey, that’s great,” Lucas said, “How about him? Is he interested in you too?”

“I mean, I think so…” she answered. 

She blushed hard enough then that he was confused. At least until he figured out that he was the man she was talking about. After that, he cursed himself silently. He’d been trying to mend fences with her, not find creative new ways to break her heart. 

Right now, women were a terrible choice for him for any number of reasons, but this woman, right here. Danaria. He couldn’t have picked a more complicated match if he tried, barring Arissa, of course, but he’d sooner drink arsenic than let that woman into his bed chamber.

They stood there underneath that oak tree for a few seconds while he tried to figure out what to do. It was apparent to Lucas that she was waiting there for him to kiss her, and confess his feelings for her. 

He was unwilling to do that, but he was also unwilling to toss her heart away and put another crack in it. So, instead, he took her by her hand and kissed her fingers lightly before saying. “I think we both know that this unsuitable man of yours… He’s probably not in the right place to respond to your affections right now, but someday… when he’s a better person, then maybe—”

She hugged him before he could finish what he was going to say, but he decided to drop it so as not to spoil the moment. Instead, he stood there for a long moment, letting her cling to him before they finished their walk to the Manor. 

“So long as he’s getting better, I will wait for him,” she said finally. “If you must tell my brother something, then tell him that.”

Ch. 64 - A New Product

 The next few days were busy ones. Lucas sent messengers to various places in the city and secured himself molds, double boilers, and several sacks of sugar, which was a very expensive substance in a world that hadn’t invited sugar cane. 

No one understood why he bought the candy making equipment and bribed a few talented members of the confectioners guild to understand the most important parts of caramelizing sugar. Not until after days spent making more caramel than blue he tossed Adin a lozenge of condensed Blue narcotic and said “Here man, try this.”

Candy of Mana Intoxication (pure) (1 dose): Euphoria 9, poison 2, intelligence -1, mana regeneration decreased by 190% for 1 hour. Sweet.

Adin did exactly as he was told, like Pavlov’s Noble, and passed out with a look of bliss on his face almost immediately. The fact that the noble lay there in a stupor for several hours afterward certainly spoke to the effectiveness of the new variety of the drug. “I think you might have killed him,” Kar’gandin said at one point after he kicked the man, and he didn’t respond. 

“Nah,” Lucas answered with a shit-eating grin, “But that asshole is going to be fiending for a while after this. I can promise you that.”

For a long time, Lucas had been trying to wean Adin off of the hard stuff with the very best intentions. Lately, he’d only been giving him potions that were euphoria 3 and 4. 

Those numbers were typical of the quality he gave to the Knights of Brass, though they probably watered that down in half before they sold it cheap to the peasants. Nobles, on the other hand, typically got a much higher quality of Blue that was closer to 7 to make sure they stayed customers for a long time to come. 

Lucas could have done the same thing with Adin, but for months, he’d felt bad enough getting him hooked in the first place, and he wanted the man to have a good shot at getting clean. However, with everything that was going to happen now, Lucas decided that letting the man think he might be able to break free of his addiction was a bad move. After all, at this point, he had no idea what sort of poison his fiancée might be pouring into his ear, and the easiest way to secure the noble’s loyalty was to reinforce his addiction, for better or worse.

In his mind, inflicting this on someone, even someone as selfish and wretched as the Viscount, was almost as bad as slitting Garren’s throat had been. It was unquestionably wrong. In this case, the only bright side was that he expected this wouldn’t haunt his dreams quite as badly as the murder had. 

In fact, looking at Adin laying there, he was surprised to find that it didn’t bother him at all because the man deserved it. All he did was treat other people like pawns, so it was only fair that he became one.

Of course, strengthening his leash on someone who was spending entirely too much time with his fiancée to be trusted was a sensible precaution, but it wasn’t the only reason he was doing it. The fact that they were now only a few days out from the engagement dinner, and after that, all hell might break loose. Soon, several members of both the Whisperers and the Tovrin family would be here, and Lucas was sure that things would start to move fast after that. 

Of course, that wasn’t all he was working on. Now that his visits into the country were slowing down because all of his biggest customers had been topped up so recently, he finally had some time to focus on alchemy. 

Since he’d already improved the duration of his boost potions and made recipes for any number of specialized healing products for Cassara to make both the manor and the village, Lucas had spent the last few days working on a new product to appease Danaria: Cosmetics. 

Not for her, of course. She hardly needed anything to make herself even prettier, but other than booze and drugs, it was one of the few things on Earth that made more money than drugs, so until he perfected the recipe for magic Viagra or potion of eternal youth, face creams and beauty products were pretty high up on the list of things that might make enough money that they might eventually be able to get out of the drug business. 

That was a vain hope, of course, especially with everything that was going to happen next, but he still believed that he might be able to limit his narcotic deprivations to the upper crust. If they could leave the working stiffs to lesser vices, that was enough for him. 

His partners weren’t the least bit interested, they didn’t even care for Adin’s idea of trying to research new and better drugs to sell to more people. It was obvious that they considered it to be a waste of time. Kar’Gandin was fond of saying, “We already have a golden goose! It would be downright ready to go off in search of another!”

Even the idea of a dwarf calling someone else greedy wasn’t enough to dissuade him, though. It changed nothing as far as Lucas was concerned. It wasn’t like they could stop him from cooking up whatever the hell felt like anyway. It was the main thing he got out of this relationship: complete freedom to do what he wanted as long as he gave them the good shit. 

He hadn’t promised Danaria that he would get out of the drug business, but he had promised her that he would try to find another way, and this was part of that, or at the very least, a good faith dead end if it didn’t go anywhere. 

Sweet Red Berries: Beauty 2, Intelligence -1, sweet. 

White River Clay: Endurance 2, poison -1, beauty 1. 

Thickened Cream: Beauty 1, agility -1.

So far his only success he’d managed to make was a skin cream out of white river clay, cream, and red berries, but as a nighttime mask it was promising, considering that most of the richer members of the nobility used white power with a toxic lead base to make their completions clearer and smoother. 

Nighttime Face Mask of Moisturization: If worn for at least 1 hour, it increases the user’s appearance by 1 for 12 hours. If worn for 8 hours, it increases the user’s appearance by 2 for 24 hours. 

It wasn’t a bad start, of course, but true cosmetics would require more knowledge about how they were made, and those were secrets that the alchemists in those industries guarded very carefully. He vowed to do just that, or maybe even reach out to the Red Lantern gang and see about mending fences now that the gang war between the Butchers and the Blind was slowly dying down.

 Other than keeping an eye out for new talent, that’s mostly what Hura’gh did for them these days. He kept his ear to the ground and provided them regular updates. To hear him talk, things were quiet, and there hadn’t been any new wanted posters for Lucas in weeks. It would seem they’d given up hunting their mysterious alchemist. 

More interestingly, though, was that the Blind were practically an endangered species at this point. “After the watch got sick of their shit, the other gangs in the area basically declared open season on ‘em,” the half-orc explained that night as the three of them sat around having dinner in the cider house. 

“This was when you were dying in the forest, of course, but it weren’t like you woulda gone to Lordanin to check it out, would you? So it wasn’t like you missed much,” he said between bites. “Anyway, they shut the whole market district down for a couple of days, and the Butchers, the Knights, and the Illuminated just went in there and beat the snot out of them until there was practically no one left that was willing to claim allegiance to the dead gang. Now, the territory that was theirs is split between the other three gangs, more or less, and the Orphans got a bit larger. Other than that, everything is pretty much back to normal.”

“There’s a lesson to be learned there,” Lucas said. 

“Aye,” Kar’gandin agreed with a laugh. “Never be weaker than yer enemies or yer neighbors, lest they take advantage.”

“More like, never become a big enough public nuisance that they feel the need to make an example out of you,” Lucas shot back. “It’s bad for business.”

“You sayin’ we just got to cower and hope we ain’t next?” Hura’gh asked. “Because, as far as I’m concerned, that’s one of the quickest ways to paint a target on your back.”

“It is,” Lucas agreed. “We can’t show weakness, but in my mind, whenever it's possible, I prefer not to show ourselves at all, you know? The Whisperers might not have the right of it in general, but they have the right of it there, and if Adin plans on allying with them, I play on stealing from their playbook in a big way. It’s the only way to make sure they don’t swallow us whole.” 

“Yeah, I confess I do not care for the way this is playing out either,” the dwarf agreed, gesturing to Adin’s empty chair in the cider house. “A man that is too good to eat with us is probably too good to work with us for much longer.”

Lucas thought about reminding them that the house food was much better but decided against it. Honestly, he was tempted to eat in the manor sometimes. Only his desire to avoid Danaria before things got even weirder made him avoid the place.

“It’s not like he can just quit and go somewhere else,” Lucas shrugged, taking another drink. “If he turns on us, he’ll never find another drop of Blue, and I have a feeling that’s a choice he’d regret for a long time to come.”

“Only until he manages to steal the recipe and give it to his new wife,” Hura’gh said. “You’re always sending him to fetch ingredients. I wouldn’t be surprised if he knows how to make it already.”

Lucas laughed at that. “The man can’t make a healing potion, and he gets the plants wrong half the time anyway. We have twelve-year-old boys working for us now who are more dutiful and attentive than our Viscount!” Lucas smiled at that. “No, I think my secrets are shielded by, among other things, his incompetence and ego. We’ll be fine.”

“We’ll to me, it sounds like yer cookin’ something up there Lucas,” Kar’gandin said. “Perhaps not the words, but certainly the tone in which ye say them…”

“Rest assured that both of you will be included in any plans I cook up,” Lucas said with a smile, “And truthfully, right now, I’m only cooking up a few things: Blue, beauty products, and preparations for Adin’s announcement dinner toward the end of the week.”