Brewing Bad Ch. 154-155

Ch. 154 - Strengths and Weaknesses

The following night, they didn’t get any work done because Heisenburgle was still feeling unwell. Lucas didn’t blame him for that. It had taken him a week to feel normal after his own brush with death. It wasn’t like they had anything that needed to get done. They were stocked up on drugs, and he was still technically in a time-out. 

The only thing that would be delayed by taking a night off from the lab were his experiments in supercharged alchemy, but that was hardly the only thing he needed to complete before he could arrange a showdown with Skylara. So, instead of going to any of his labs, they spent the evening in his private study, where he took documents from a wall safe and began reviewing them with him. 

“What I am about to show you are state secrets of the kingdom,” the gnome explained. “If the Prince ever finds out that you know, he’s likely to have me executed. Nonetheless, it is critical that you know the precise, weak points of a dragon if we are to have any success in ending her life.”

Lucas studied the documents intently, eager to learn the best place to strike Skylara, but it quickly became clear that the documents were woefully inaccurate. Instead of learning from the gnome, it seemed that he would be teaching him. 

Lucas started by pointing to the gaps in her armor that he agreed with, especially on her underbelly near her neck and tail, as well as the areas around her wings; though those would be almost impossible to reach in combat, he took issues with the areas marked around her head. 

“These spots are only true of younger dragons,” he said, pointing them out. “On a wyrm like her, all of those will have bony growths and horns. Not even a stiletto could get through.”

He went through other similar details on the nature of some of her attacks, noting where he agreed and disagreed with the research on her breath and her claws. Despite having the information shoved into his head, it somehow felt authentic, especially when he was describing certain reagents like her fire glands. 

It was like he’d lived those memories of butchering her. This would have annoyed him if it had been about alchemy knowledge, denying him the opportunity to learn for himself, but since he expected to hunt exactly one dragon in his entire life, he decided it was very cool. Unfortunately, Heisenburgle was none too pleased by the development. 

“Bah!” the gnome declared, “We’ve gathered this information at great cost from libraries across the known world and had it reviewed by a number of noted dragon slayers! What could you know that they don't?”

Lucas idly wondered if dragon slaying was a talent. I’m sure there are hunters, and I’m sure they can specialize, but is there someone who’s just born to slay dragons? He asked himself. Lucas didn’t know, so he answered Heisenburgle’s question with his own question. 

“What does that have to do with what I just said?” he hissed, annoyed at Lucas’ tangent. 

“Well, I’m only telling you what my talent told me,” he answered with a shrug. “Maybe if there was someone with a dragon-slaying talent, they’d know more, and you could ask them.”

“Why in tarnfabulation would a talent for the alchemical arts give you inside information into dragon hunting?!” he demanded, raising his voice as much as he dared. “Is this some trick of Lwyn’s too? Did you know all of this would happen?”

“If I knew any of this would have happened, I promise you that I would have thrown away the recipe for Blue and made a meager living off of bootleg health potions in Graybottom for the rest of my days,” Lucas sighed. “I don’t how all of this works any more than you do, but I know that I have a skill that lets choose a preferred enemy for reagent harvesting purposes, and that knowledge comes with the best ways to chop it up.”

Heisenburgle grumbled but accepted this information. After that, much of the rest of the conversation was devoted to how none of these weaknesses would do much good. “Even the strongest attack would be no more than a mild cut for her!” he declared. 

“What about poison?” Lucas asked. “Inhaled… injected… injected… There’s got to be something we can do to make that blow count.”

“Yes, yes, poison is a must, but what is a drop of poison in the ocean of her blood? Even if I built a new fire sword to replace the one you destroyed and filled it with the most potent venom I knew, it still might not be enough for her to notice. 

“Okay, but what if we put even more in than that?” Lucas asked. “Or what if we got a magic sword and—”

“Magic, Pffft…” the gnome harrumphed. “You wouldn’t catch me dead with such a thing.”

Well, we might both be dead if we don’t, Lucas thought, deciding this wasn’t the hill to die on right now. 

“Well, engineering is a sort of magic all on its own,” Lucas said, “And I think that—”

“You take that back!” Heisenburgle growled. 

“What, so everything can be alchemy, but engineering can’t be magic?” Lucas asked. 

“Magic is a shifting shortcut for the untalented,” the gnome spat. “True knowledge comes with discipline and repeated experimentation.”

Lucas smirked at that and thought of all the ways he could cut the man’s argument to pieces, but instead, he continued with his original point. “What if there was a way we could pour gallons of poison into her?” Lucas asked.

“Explain yourself,” the gnome stated, obviously unsure of where he was going with this. 

“Well, like, what if we hallowed out a lance or something similar and filled it full of the biggest badest dragon poison we could find?” as he spoke, he sketched out what he meant in the margins of one of the gnome's top secret pieces of research. “And then we just sort of… eject it into her.”

The gnome studied the schematic a few seconds before announcing it wouldn’t work. “The friction alone,” he insisted. “Would require monstrous strength. Even if you get the tip into her, you’d never deliver your foul payload.”

Lucaus skipped the part where he explained just how monstrous his strength could become for a few minutes at a time and instead got to his real point. “Not me, the gunpowder… I mean, highly explosive fire dust. You pack a little in the bottom. You light it off, and it forces all the poison straight into her bloodstream, along with smoke and whatever else.”

Lucas didn’t expect smoke or fire to do much to the fire-breathing dragon, but he had no idea if magical creatures were immune to air embolisms. This idea was more persuasive, and with a flash in his eyes, the gnome started to work through some complicated equation. It took several minutes, and every time Lucas tried to ask about it, the alchemist ignored him. Still, when it was done, and he looked up, there was a smile on his face. 

“All this time and you finally come up with your first good idea,” Heiselburgle said, coming as close as he ever had to congratulating Lucas. “I didn’t know you had anything in there but drug knowledge and a bad attitude.”

Lucas laughed it off. “Even my surprises have surprises, man. You’ll see.”

Lucas tried to push the gnome to talk about other ideas, but he became obsessed with this one, eventually becoming hyperfocused on the wall thickness of the lance. Its walls had to be thick enough to withstand the blast, as well as the force of the thrust, but thin enough that someone could actually wield it, which made for a fine balancing act.

Of course, Lucas pointed out that she would simply incinerate anyone on horseback before they could close the distance with her, but Heisenburgle seemed much less concerned about that than the ability to hurt her. 

“On that, at least we have some options,” he declared. “Insulated shields, smoke screens, etc. Reaching her isn’t the problem; hurting her is. With any luck, we can simply distract her and strike the fatal blow before she even realizes there’s an ambush.”

Lucas was a little skeptical of that, but the gnome assured him it was possible. “We’ll have to use you as bait, of course, but it shouldn’t be too difficult to seduce her with a series of letters and convince her to—”

“No way,” Lucas balked. He didn’t mind being bait, but having to seduce the woman who had burned down Parrin Manor felt like a bridge too far. 

“You dragged me into this mess, and you will do your part!” Heisenburgle insisted. “That woman loves herself more than anyone else, and she loves to see people crawl. So, you will crawl. You will beg her for another chance, and she will be happy to give it to you. Then, when you have it, we will strike, and we will end her.”

“Even if I was willing to do that, and I’m not,” Lucas clarified, “Where would we ambush her? It can’t be at one of the parties at the Castle in Lordanin. Hundreds of people would die and in her lair…”

“No, not her lair, I think. Familiar turf would offer her too much of an advantage,” Heisenburgle mused. “Perhaps we will use one of the Prince’s rural properties. There are a few that are quite romantic, but since taking charge of the kingdom he has little use for them.”

“Hey, since we’re on the subject,” Lucas asked, “I have to ask. What is his dad’s deal? Why isn’t the Prince just the King already?”

“That’s a state secret I’m not at liberty to disclose,” Hesenburgle answered with a shake of his head. “I betray my patron enough by engaging in this ludicrous activity. Do not think for a moment that I will betray him in any other way, though. I do this for the good of the kingdom and, indeed, the world. Nothing more.”

And so you can finally get your hands on alchemy talents, Lucas added silently. 

He didn’t force the issue. Instead, they continued to discuss all of the details they could agree on, and a few hours later, they had the start of a workable plan. There were a lot of things that would need to be tested and fabricated, but it was a good start. 

By the time Lucas left that night to go work on his sword drills, this had become the plan. Theoretically, he wouldn’t even need superhuman stats for it, either, though he had no plans to give up that line of research. Plans went to shit all the time, and even if they made a weird medieval cruise missile and launched with a man on horseback, he still wanted a strong sword on his hip to gouge out Skylara’s eyes if the opportunity arose. 

Ch. 155 - Pushing His Limits

While Hiesenburgle saw to the metalworking, Lucas spent the rest of the week playing with potions and working on his swordplay. The potions took priority. Even though Heisenburgle forbade him from any more showy displays, he was given complete license to go through the man’s reagents and make whatever he liked. 

That lead to progress on a number of fronts. The first and most important of which was that he was able to get another achievement, which he figured out how to make a slightly more potent version of his Potion of Divine Grace. His endurance potion would still take some work to get to level three, but 2 was promising. 

Maximum Alchemical Potential 2: 2/2 increase two attributes to 35+, the maximum for any single mortal attribute. Your attribute maximum has been increased to 37. To achieve Maximum Alchemical Potential 3, increase any three attributes to 35+. 

He was also able to nudge his Divine Potential up by another couple of points, though that achievement was nowhere near being accomplished. Still, that achievement enabled him to try out the difference between a strength of 35 and a 37, several days apart. 

Lucas’s previous attempt at weightlifting had been with a strength of twenty. He’d been able to lift up hundreds of pounds with just that much. With 35, though, he was able to lift up the largest anvil in Heisenburgle’s workshop. It was a huge industrial thing with rollers that they used for making sheet metal. It had to weigh at least a ton. When Lucas tried again with a stronger formulation a few days later, he had to journey into the woods and find a damn boulder because it was the only thing that was small enough that he could get a grip on it but heavy enough to be a challenge. 

The ease at which he’d been able to do that astounded him. I can be Superman for ten minutes at a time, he told himself as he lifted it over his head before slamming it down on the ground. After that, he even punched the thing hard enough to split it right down the middle, which was enough to make him laugh hysterically. 

Of course, he wasn’t laughing an hour later when his hand was aching. “Note to self,” he said as he went hunting for a healing potion to fix his fuck up. “Do not punch a rock with a strength of 37 when you only have an endurance of 34.”

The more he experimented, the more Lucas was sure that endurance was the most important attribute he had. So much so that he spent six points to increase it by three. That brought him down to 21 remaining advancement points, but he decided that would be worth it. 

Not only would that let him Achieve Maximum Alchemical Potential 3 the next time he popped his max strength potion, but it would also let him stand up to the increasing strain his other concoctions were placing on him. The last thing he wanted in any of these fights was to be so strong he could tear himself apart. While that was a laughable statement most of the time, when he was hyped up on alchemy and tossing boulders, it was a real possibility.

Name: Lucas Sharpe Class: Magical Chemist   Level: 9

Agility: 13 Endurance: 14 Appearance 10

Intelligence: 14 Strength: 11 Soul: 10

Health: 100% Mana: 100%

Status Effect: None. 

Imbued Equipment: Ring of Vanishing (Fine Quality)

You have unspent points. Please use them to increase your ability scores or gain feats/perks.

After his hand healed, he did a few experiments on exactly what an endurance of 37 looked like. He already knew he could run pretty much until the potion ran out, but the idea that he’d been able to hurt himself raised other questions. 

If I can punch a boulder and come away with nothing but a cracked knuckle, what else can I do? He wondered. The answer, as it turned out, was quite a lot. While he took things slowly because he didn’t want to find himself crippled when the potion wore off, he recruited the lab assistants he’d helped with their illicit alchemy project a few weeks before, and he had them beat the crap out of him, or at least let them try. 

Neither of them was particularly strong, but he knew if he asked one of the guards, word of his crazy experiment was much more likely to get around. He had something on these guys, so they were less likely to talk about his impromptu fight club. 

“Don’t take it easy on me,” Lucas admonished them as the three of them stood there in a disused storage barn that had been built against one wall. “But do stop when I tell you to stop. I’m not exactly sure how this will go.”

Both of them agreed though they seemed almost more nervous than he was. The men started with their fists, but those started to hurt before he did. So, they switched to tools like shovels, which promptly broke as their wooden shafts shattered against his back. With every strike, they were less afraid of hurting him, and he, in turn, was less worried about being hurt. 

“I cannot believe this,” he thought, realizing for the first time that Heisenburgle might have a point about the dragon’s toughness. He’d been using entirely too much logic and not enough magic in his plans. If she was as tough as he was in this moment, it would be hard to pierce her skin in even her weakest spots, and with her thick scales, it would be absolutely impossible. 

Lucas was too busy thinking about her and not focusing enough on the men who were trying and failing to beat the snot out of him. As a result, he didn’t notice that one of them was thrusting right toward his stomach with a pitchfork. “Whoah, whoah, whoah!” Lucas said, raising his hands as the man did that. “That’s—” His words were cut off by the three metal tines pressing against his belly.

Strangely, though, nothing happened. Even though he flinched and turned away, the only damage was to the farm implement, which was bent slightly. In a contest of toughness between him and a piece of cheap steel, he’d won. 

That result surprised him, even though it shouldn’t have. Afterward, he only had three small bruises to show for it, too. He wasn’t even sore anywhere else, despite how much the junior alchemists beat on him. 

Unfortunately, despite all of his other efforts, his experiments with duration weren’t going nearly as well. Strength wasn’t a problem, but the minute he tried to stretch that strength into something that lasted half an hour or an hour, it cut the strength of the boost potion in half, at a minimum.

The good news was that if he tried to make something with long-lasting ingredients, he was given the option to make that duration last even longer with his empowered alchemy. If he used mana to make any of those flasks, they were worlds better than the flask he’d made to help him when he was recovering from his owlbear attack. 

His Long Lasting Curative Flask had increased his endurance by 3 for four hours. He could make an endurance 8 flask now that lasted all day or an endurance 12 flask that lasted for twelve hours with the right combination of ingredients, but he’d yet to make anything in the twenties that could last for even an hour, which seemed about as short as he should expect a fight with a dragon to last whether he won or lost. 

Unfortunately, the idea of being very strong for a long time wasn’t nearly as interesting to him as being fantastically strong for a short time, but there was little he could do about it. Even after searching through his talent abilities, he found he already had the best duration expanding talent in the form of Enduring High. 

He talked with Heisenburgle about this some, but for once, the gnome had little interest in alchemy. He didn’t avoid Lucas exactly, but he locked himself in his workshop until all hours of the night and focused on nothing but temperatures, metallurgy, and precise angles. 

Instead, that conversation had to wait for Sir. Milen’s first appearance at Black Gate later that week. “Don’t tell me you’ve gone soft again after your little vacation, Lord Parrin,” the man admonished him.

“Soft?” Lucas laughed as he shook his hand. “Who you talking to?”

“My tardiest, least talented student,” the man answered with a roguish smile. “You show me you haven’t forgotten what I’ve taught you, or I’ll have you running laps around the walls of this strange place until you can’t.”

“This is one of the crown’s properties,” Lucas explained as he led the warrior to the barn he’d used so recently for his beat-down experiment. “Best not ask too many questions.”

The man exchanged swords with him first thing, noting, “You might find that one a touch unbalanced. It’s a bit overfull.”

Lucas smiled at that, and that moment of distraction very nearly led to getting hit in the face with his opponent's blade. Lucas cursed under his breath as he took a step back. Then he got serious.

“Careful, you’re going to hurt someone,” he said, trying to show the man just how much he remembered with a series of rapid strikes. 

“That would be the point,” Sir. Milen answered dryly, using a riposte to tag Lucas on the chest, scoring what would have been a fatal wound. 

For a moment, Lucas was tempted to tell him about the ice troll. The only reason it didn’t was because it would have begged lots of questions, chiefly how the fuck was he still breathing. 

Instead, he buckled down and focused on this moment. Bragging wouldn’t help me beat the knight. Neither would being distracted. Tomorrow, he could work on everything else. Right now, he needed to get every little thing he could out of this training. 

So, they fought brutally for the next three hours, almost without a break. As they did, his instructor shredded him with critique almost as much as his weapon, and by the end of it, Lucas didn’t feel like he had anything to be proud of. 

“Well, now that you’ve thoroughly kicked my ass, there’s something I want to show you,” Lucas said, panting as he pulled three small vials out of his pouch. 

“Some new product?” the knight asked. “You didn’t strike me as the type to use your own drugs.”

“I would never,” Lucas agreed, “But these aren’t drugs. Their boost potions.”

“Ah…” Sr. Milen said with a nod. “I know a few men that use potions of strength to rise to the challenge, but you must remember they are tricks, and tricks will never replace skill.”

“They are,” Lucas agreed, as he felt strength and energy surging through him as the magic of his alchemy took hold. “But I’ve been dying to find out how these babies will do when combined with all you’ve taught me.”

The knight grinned fiercely at that, but instead of saying anything, he gave Lucas a mock salute and resumed his stance. Lucas delayed only a moment then before he struck. 

With his ability scores boosted over twenty, there wasn’t anything that, Sir. Milen could do. The man was better and more skilled than him but turbocharged as he was, Lucas was untouchable. He parried so firmly that he stopped even the most powerful strikes in their tracks, and though Milen tried to dodge, he might as well have been moving in slow motion as Lucas went on the attack. 

While Milen won all the other bouts as always, in those final three, even if he went all out, Lucas won handily. After that, when they sat together on a dusty bench resting, the knight told him, “I’ve never seen anything like that. Maybe you should start selling that stuff as well as your Blue. I imagine, Sir. Tristin would pay a pretty penny to have a couple doses of that lying around just in case.”

“These can’t be the first boost potions you’ve ever seen,” Lucas answered. 

“Not even close,” his instructor nodded, “thought the same thing could be said about their power. Nothing I’ve ever seen or tried was even close to whatever you just drank. What's your secret?”

“Very expensive ingredients,” Lucas said. It wasn’t even a lie. “It's a project for His Majesty’s army. Not a personal project.”

“I see,” Sir Milen answered, though his eyes never stopped gleaming with curiosity. He tried to bring the topic back up several times, but Lucas played it off, grateful that he hadn’t shown the man anything stronger. 

They exercised a bit longer, and his instructor gave him some specific tips to work on before their next lesson, and then Lucas was once more on his own. No sooner had he returned to his room, though, than he ripped open the sword and found four small notes. Three were from Danaria, and one was from Kar’gandin. He read Kar’gandin’s first, registering annoyance at Lucas’ continued absence more than anything. 

‘Yer house is near to halfway done, and ye still ain’t been by to see it!’ he complained. Since the dwarf didn't report any major problems, though, Lucas largely ignored it. Instead, he focused on Danaria’s messages, which were much cuter.

He’d expected some impatience from her, but he found none. Instead, she mostly stuck to little bits about her day. One was about how cute it was that she could visit him as a bird and sing to him. He loved that. What he didn’t love was that he had to destroy them. These were things that he should have treasured, but he didn’t dare leave them lying around for someone to find them, not even in their hiding place. 

Later, he talked to Hiesenburgle, and the gnome promised him a demonstration soon, though he was still too obsessed with his projects to break away from them. “Here’s my fuel recipe for the Hyperquadabulator,” he said, handing Lucas a folded-up piece of paper. “See what your talents can do to optimize that, and make me a half-pound charge of your flash powder to test with.”

Lucas promised that he would the following evening. Unfortunately, he never got the chance. A few hours after Lucas crashed out, he was woken by unfamiliar guards. He found that surprising because it never happened, but when he asked what this was about while he got dressed, it got even worse. “You’ve been summoned by the Prince. You are to meet with him at the castle immediately.”

Shit, Lucas thought. He knows.