Brewing Bad Ch. 122-123

Ch. 122 - Interesting Results

As Lucas reached out to it, he felt that he could affect several different things. It was hard to put his finger on precisely, but he got the general impression he could probably tune almost anything with a bit of effort. He looked to the intelligence -1 effect first, visualizing it as a slightly brown oily residue on an otherwise vibrant potion. A number of options popped up. 

Remove: 5% mana

Cancel Out: 1% mana and loss of Mana 1 attribute. 

Enhance to -2 Intelligence: 7% mana.

All of those options were interesting, and Lucas considered the first two briefly before going with the second one. The moment he selected it, both of the attributes vanished. Lucas felt a brief surge of power leave him as that happened. The visual effect on the potion, though, was more interesting. 

The red fluid frothed briefly and changed colors ever so slightly, becoming less of a cherry red and more of a pure, deep red. It was still translucent, but it looked closer to what he expected a healing potion to look like. 

Alchemical Mixture (8 doses): Healing 6 (Deep Healing), agility 1 (twitchy), endurance 1 (steady).

Lucas briefly inspected each of the remaining elements of the now simplified potion and smiled. Man, this shit is sick! Where have you been all my life, baby? He thought as he flipped through each option briefly. 

Empower: 10% mana - Increase healing to 7

Greater Empower: 25% mana - Increase healing to 8

Purify: 4% mana and Agility 1 - Increase healing to 7

Alternative Purify: 3% mana and Endurance 1 - Increase healing to 7

Stabilize: 5% mana and Endurance 1 or Agility 1 - Increase the remaining attribute enhancement to 2.

Imbued specificity: 8% mana reduction to healing 5 - Increase effectiveness against cancers, digestive ailments, or blood diseases by 100%. 

Bonus Yield: 10% mana to increase the yield by 33%

Lucas’s mind balked at the options. For the longest time, he’d had to scrape together whatever he could get and boil down some pretty weak shit to make something that was worthwhile. Now, he could use mana to do the heavy lifting. 

Suddenly, he became even less interested in using magic. He really only used the stuff for his ring when he was about to die. On pretty much any other day, he had no problem using it to make potions. The real trick was going to be to limit his enthusiasm and trim a little here and a little there instead of trying to make every brew the most badass thing he’d ever created. 

It’s not a bonsai tree, he reminded himself. It's a freaking science experiment. Of course, we need to see how far we can push things. 

Unfortunately, before he could decide on one of his other options, Heisenbugle adjusted his glasses and cried out, “What did you do! The color shifted after the mixture had already matured!”

“Uhhmmm, delayed reaction?” Lucas answered as he suddenly realized just how closely the other man was paying attention. “I’m not sure. I’ve never used these ingredients before.”

“Maybe.” The gnome said, peering at the mixture closely. “I can’t recall a shift like that after such a delay without catalysts unless it was being done by a talented Alchemist.”

It took Lucas a moment to figure out that talented wasn’t an insult this time. He was discussing the magical talents that some people had, which was uncomfortably close to the truth since that was just what Lucas had used. 

Lucas stood there quietly for a moment while the gnome studied the mixture, and just when he was expecting Heisenburgle to turn around and guess the truth. Instead, he just lost interest and turned back to Lucas before he said, “Well, it certainly looks like a healing potion. I was certain that layer of rust-colored oil was going to spread and corrupt the whole batch, but this might be drinkable.”

“It’s more than drinkable!” Lucas countered, removing it from the heat. As much as he wanted to tweak it further, it probably wasn’t best to tempt fate under Heisenburgle’s watchful eye. “This right here is the good shit.”

The gnome might accept that he was a poor, misguided human who had gotten lucky a time or two, but asking him to believe that he had a deviant talent that had been altered by his own god, well, Heisenburgle would probably burn him at the stake for that. 

“And who’s going to have to suffer for your folly this time?” Heisenburgle asked. “Are you going to test it, or shall we have one of the condemned drink it, just in case you’re wrong?”

He thought about it for a moment and considered drinking it just to call the gnome’s bluff. If he really thought that it was that questionable, there was no way he’d let Lucas do something that might get himself killed. As fun as that would be, though, after studying it for a few seconds, he decided that would be a waste of the strongest healing potion he’d ever made. 

Potion of Major Healing (8 doses): Moderate healing, immediate, lesser healing ongoing, endurance +1, agility +1. 

You have created a Major healing Potion and gained 88 experience!

You have developed a new healing potion recipe and gained 54 experience!

You have created your tenth type of healing potion and unlocked a new achievement. 

A Thousand Roads to Health - 10/100 - In progress.

He raised an eyebrow at all of those popups but said nothing. He could examine them later. Instead, he answered, “Nah, that would be a waste. Let’s have Betsen try it and settle the bet.” 

Betsen was one of the cooks he’d gotten to know in his time in this place that wasn’t quite a prison. She was getting on in years, and her arthritis was obvious now, but she made the best pastries in the place, so getting on her good side was never a bad idea. 

“Okay…” Heisenburgle answered skeptically. “But if you kill one of the staff, I take no responsibility for it.”

They chatted about other things the rest of the night, but mostly Lucas just agonized over not being able to try out his new powers. Instead, he eventually shifted the conversation to elemental impurities, which interested him since he’d seen them in the raw reagents before he’d purified them. 

“It's as I’ve tried to teach you from the very beginning,” Heisenburgle insisted. “The elements are at the very root of what it is we do! Too much is just as bad as too little, but worst of all are clashes and other disconcordances!”

The conversation earned Lucas three more books to read, but he found it much faster to find what the gnome was talking about and search for an example in one of the ingredients that cluttered the lab. He had no way of searching terms directly in his system, but if he found something that had the term, then he could use that to drill down for more information. 

Still, after a while, even his interest in that faded, and instead of listening to Heisenburgle pontificate further, he picked reagents at random and then used his newfound powers to search for compatible ingredients. That was a fun game and one he could play without Heisenburgle ever catching on. 

Still, as he played it, he was less and less surprised to find that there were elemental threads that ran through. Those choices. Though a water element and a fire element might sometimes mix, most earth-elemented reagents would match with other earth-elemented reagents, and the more strongly something was aspected, the more true that was. It was ditch weeds and things like that that tended to cross over the most often, which interested Lucas even more. 

I wonder if that would be the case if I had the facilities to really isolate and concentrate certain aspects of these chemicals, he wondered as dawn arrived, and they started to pack things up. If Victorian motherfuckers could isolate actual elements on Earth, then surely I can figure out how to isolate and extract elementals, right? 

Normally, Heisenburgle was slow to call an end to his nightly experiments. Lucas was sure that he would have been doubly so today after Lucas had been away for so long. Still, this morning, he was so eager to prove his human companion wrong that he practically ran down the stairs. 

That made Lucas smile when he yawned as he kept pace with the gnome's tiny legs with his long, slow strides. The dining room was mostly empty save for a few guards coming off shift. Lucas thought they would sit down to a nice breakfast first. He could smell the sausage and the greasy ham steaks they were cooking back there. 

That was not to be. Instead, the Heisenburgle made a big show of calling the elderly chef out from the kitchens and discussing a new remedy that had been prepared that night in the course of their experimentation. “You are under no obligation to try this, of course. This is the work of a novice and entirely experimental. The possible side effects are legion and might play havoc on your delicate constitution! I can offer you no guarantees as to its efficacy because I had no part whatsoever in its formulation.”

She looked from Lucas to the flask sitting on the table doubtfully after all that. Still, despite Heisenburgle’s strenuous warnings, she looked tempted, which spoke to the level of pain she was enduring. 

“Go on,” he said, pouring a small dose of the cranberry red liquid into an empty glass. “I promise you, it’s perfectly safe.”

Heisenburgle looked at him with a mixture of outrage and glee but said nothing. It was obvious he thought that Lucus was about to fall on his face. Still, the old woman took the glass and said, “Well, if you think it might help these old hands of mine,” before she hesitantly drank it. 

She made a sour face, but he couldn’t blame her for that. Medicine tasted like shit in any world. 

For a brief moment, everyone, including a couple of maids who had gathered to see what the commotion was all about, stood still. The tension was thick. At least, it was for everyone but Lucas. He stood there perfectly calm as he waited for the magical drug to take hold, and in a few seconds, she started to smile. 

“By the Gods above, it works, it actually works!” she said, taking his hands in hers and growing more excited by the second. “Am I— Will this work forever?”

“Who can say,” Lucas answered with a shrug as he gave Heisenburgle a look. “New formulation. You can help us test it. You just let me know when it wears off, and I’ll give you another dose.”

“Oh, bless your heart,” she said with a smile before returning to the kitchens. 

“See, I told you,” Lucas answered, swiping both coins from where they were sitting on the table once the two of them were mostly alone again. “Ditch weed one, time-honored alchemical recipes, zero.”

Heisenburgle glared at him for that one, but since there were so many other people around, he managed to suppress his usual outbursts. Instead, he fumed silently for a time. However, halfway through the meal, when the now-healed cook came out with a large sweet roll just for Lucas, the gnome abruptly left without a word. 

Lucas didn’t let that bother him. In fact, he lingered and cleaned his plate, and when the footman inquired about his foot, which was bothering him later, Lucas was happy to pour him a shot, too. He was under no illusions that even a moderately strong potion would heal their ailments forever, of course. Medicine needed to be taken regularly. Still, it was nice to do some good now, and then, he decided as he walked back to his room humming a little song. 

He lay in bed that morning before he drifted off to sleep with a dumb smile on his face. “I’m going to be able to do some crazy shit now,” he said to himself. “Once I get this monkey off my back, we’re going to do some crazy shit!”

Ch. 123 - Reporting the Results

The following night, they made a second batch of Lwynthenl without any issue. It used up Lucas’s second batch of Distilled Moonlight, but even without any attempts to steer the reaction with his Empowered Alchemy, the potion cleanly divided into the toxic black potion of Greater Communion and the sparkling blue water of life. 

Seeing it for the second time was almost as pretty as seeing it for the first time, and not even Heisenburgle’s suspicious gaze could ruin the magic of that moment as he watched the catalyst reactions twinkle and swirl. Of course, the bad part was he saw that he had options with his new ability even here, but he couldn’t use them, not when the gnome obviously suspected something. 

Potion of Greater Communion (fatal) (1 dose): Poison 30. This potion will kill the imbiber. He will come back to life only by the grace of the Goddess herself if she judges them worthy.

No Modifications possible. 

Water of Life (pure) (30 doses): Euphoria 20, poison 1, mana regeneration decreased by 300% for one hour. Increases fertility by 100% for eight hours. It is not addictive if used less than once a month. 

Fecund: 11% mana - increase fertility by 200% for eight hours. 

Potent: 7% mana, +1 Poison - Increase Euphoria by 3. 

Long Lasting: 8% mana, -2 Euphoria - Double the length of the effects.

Abundant: 10% mana - Increase yields by 33%.

Lucas didn’t need any of those effects, of course. The shit was already straight rocket fuel. Still, he would have loved to experiment, but that would have to wait. The gnome had already found a way to bring up talents in three separate conversations that night. So, he wasn’t just being suspicious; his suspicions were correct, which meant he either told him the truth or sat on his hands and for now, the latter was a much better choice. 

For now, Lucas concentrated on his fake safety precautions. They’d opened all the windows in the tower to let the fumes escape, and he wore thick leather gloves when he poured off the “waste product” into a waiting metal bucket that had been filled with Charcoal to neutralize it. 

Of course, that waste product was really one of the most powerful potions in existence. It was the Water of Life that was essentially the waste product, however desirable, but Heisenburgle didn’t need to know that. 

It was only after they’d carefully disposed of that viscous black liquid and closed the windows so things could warm up that Heisenburgle said, “Well, I must say, you have quite the talent for making this stuff. The Prince will be absolutely thrilled that you—”

“Could you give it a rest already?” Lucas exploded, deciding that was the most normal reaction he could give. “You aren’t being clever or subtle. If you’ve got something to say, then say it.”

“I don’t know what you mean?” Heisenburgle said in a voice that was the caricature of innocence as he acted wounded. 

“A talent for this, a talent for that,” Lucas sighed. “This is the fourth goddamn time you’ve thrown that word around tonight.”

“Is it?” Heisenburgle asked sarcastically. “It sounds like a guilty conscience to me.”

“Does it?” Lucas asked. “If I really had a talent for this stuff, then why would I be messing about with ditch weeds and other similar wastes of time?”

“Why indeed,” the gnome agreed. “Perhaps the only reason you can make such things work is because of some secret talent.”

“Unlikely,” Lucas answered dismissively, marveling at how close Heisenburgle was getting to the truth. He might be a pain in the ass, but he was a pretty smart one. “Not everyone has a talent. You know that. I’m just not one of the lucky few.”

Lucas threw that line out there to muddy the waters, but when he saw the way the gnome flinched, he realized that he might have hit too close to the mark for him. Lucas smiled and seized the opportunity to point the conversation away from him. 

“I mean, you don’t have one either, right?” he asked. When he saw the gnome squirm slightly, he realized he’d missed the mark slightly, and he changed tactics. “Wait, you do, but it’s not compatible with Alchemy, is that it?”

The gnome was in full retreat now and walked away from Lucas as he babbled, “It is as you said, not everyone is blessed with talents—”

“But you are!” Lucas insisted as he followed him. He didn’t really care one way or the other, but the surest way to make the alchemist stop looking into Lucas was to make him so uncomfortable about this topic that he never dared to bring it up again. “That’s it, isn’t it? You’re Heisenburgle the Black because you’re a black sheep, right? You’ve got some Mage talent or a warrior, and you—”

“Worse,” he admitted, finally, as he turned to face Lucas. “You are a very clever human to have figured out my disgraceful secret, but then I suppose it is not entirely a secret if you run in rarefied alchemist circles.”

“Which I never would,” Lucas volunteered. 

“Exactly,” the gnome agreed, “Which means that, like everything else, you are obnoxiously able to figure out complex things all on your own. It is a peculiar talent. Perhaps I should be studying you and not your alchemical techniques.”

“Nah,” Lucas said with a shake of his head. “Once you report on our success to the Prince, I plan to go back home and relax as much as possible. I have some dragon peppers at home that I—”

“Do you think they might be an important alchemical ingredient?” the gnome asked. 

“No. Definitely not,” Lucas shook his head. “They are an important culinary ingredient in some hot sauce I was working on, but none of this has anything to do with the point.”

“You’d waste all your alchemical potential just to make sauce? To eat?” Heisenburgle asked skeptically. 

“Heisenburgle…” Lucas repeated in annoyance. 

“Fine,” the gnome said, dropping it. “I will share with you my shameful secret, but it is imperative that you share this with no one. Even if it might be common knowledge to some people, I have no wish for word about these embarrassing facts to spread further.”

“I… Hmmmm, okay,” Lucas agreed. “I’m listening.”

“It is easier to show than tell,” Heisenburgle said, grabbing his cloak. “Bottle that mixture and meet me in the main hall.”

Lucas nodded and did what the gnome asked, then ran down the steps two at a time, getting down to the ground floor even before the gnome had quite reached the main hall. That whole time, though, he was wondering what it was that Heisenburgle was going to show him. 

Lucas had very little information on the talents of others. He knew that his own talent system was very different from everyone else's because he came from another world, but aside from that, he really didn’t know anything. He knew that Danaria could talk to birds or possess them and that his tailor made a living as a man who could telekinetically fling about poisoned needles. He suspected the man could do more than that, but he’d only got a glimpse at his scroll, and honestly, he didn’t really want to know. 

What the gnome could do might be anything. Maybe he’s like a level six werewolf or some shit? Lucas wondered with a smirk. Of course, an actual werewolf was unlikely, given that he’d worked with the man on the night of the full moon on a number of occasions already. Still, it had to be something weird for him to be so ashamed of it. 

Still, it was anyone’s guess as the two of them walked out into the snowy night toward one of the outer annexes that was not attached to the main building. Lucas figured that the gnome was doing so for privacy since he feared spies. Instead, though, they walked into the main blacksmith building, which had plenty of people working day and night. 

Lucas said nothing, and instead, he let the man talk. “As you know, some nights I am not in the lab,” the gnome said slowly like he was about to come out of the closet. “Those nights, I am almost always here, in Blackgate’s Smithy.”

“Okay,” Lucas said, unsure of what he was supposed to be reading into this. “Makes sense. I figure you come here for custom armatures and equipment. Just like the glassblower’s hut, right?”

“Oh, how I wish that were the case,” the gnome sighed as he took them past the main forges to a locked room at the end. “I… well, there are many that might be proud to have my talent. For a time, even I was. I thought that I might be able to use it to push the bounds of Alchemy, but that was not to be.”

The room they entered was dark enough that before Heisenburgle closed the door, he lit a lantern. While he did that, though, he kept talking. “I learned the error of my ways when I was young… Not much older than you, really. Still, the damage was done.”

“What damage?” Lucas asked. “You’re the Prince’s right-hand man. You run this whole facility. What could be more important than that?”

“For a human kingdom? Pah! It's true that it is hardly an awful fate, but the project we have been working on together has been the only interesting thing I’ve worked on alchemically in years,” the gnome insisted. “I would trade  the lowest chair at a proper gnomish alchemy academy, but what use would they have for a tinkerer like me?”

As the gnome panned the light around, Lucas saw any number of interesting objects. There was armor that looked like the love child of a deep sea diving suit and full plate mail, a number of strange and unconventional weapons, and even a mostly complete metal horse. 

“So Heisenburgle the Black is Heisenburgle the Black… Smith?” Lucas ventured, keeping all the mockery out of his voice. It wasn’t hard. Though he could see why the gnome might hate that, he thought that was kind of cool. 

“Put quite succinctly,” the gnome agreed with a sigh. “To someone else, it might have been a blessing, but I have only ever found it to be a curse.”

“How is it a curse to make something like this?” Lucas asked, gesturing to the horse. “Does it work?”

“The hyperquadabulator?” the gnome asked. “For a short time. The only problem is in its regulation. It only goes faster and faster until it runs out of fuel. I’d hoped to find a better alchemical replacement than lamp oil, but… Well, it’s all a dead end now, isn’t it? What need have we to slay a dragon if she’s perfectly happy to be bribed by your Lwynthenl?”

“Well, I think it’s badass,” Lucas said. “I don’t see why you’d be ashamed by engineering.”

“Because it does nothing to further my path along the one true path of alchemy!” Heisenburgle insisted plaintively. 

“Yeah, well, you’re the one that’s always trying to tell me everything is alchemy,” Lucas answered with a shrug. “Did you really mean everything but turning metal ore into awesome metal horses is alchemy?”

Heisenburgle shook his head. He looked like he was about to address Lucas’ point for a moment, but instead, he just stood there silently for a moment and told Lucas about some of the more interesting engineering projects they’d worked on in case Skylara needed to be taken out. Lucas didn’t force the issue. As much as he might have wanted to dig deeper into the point, he wasn’t in the mood to kick a man when he was down. Still, he came away from the conversation wondering how it was that Heisenburgle could feel that way about the things he’d done or the things that his men were working on even now. 

It sounded like he was capable of doing just what Lucas could do with potions, but with metal. He could see the exact temperatures things were heated to, and he could gauge the thickness of parts as if his eye was a micrometer. He probably had other powers, too, but Lucas didn’t want to get too interested or show enough insight to bring the conversation full circle to where it had started. 

Still, when they were finally done and went to breakfast, Lucas’ estimation of the gnome had gone up by quite a bit. That wasn’t hard, of course, since his opinion of the alchemist had been so low, but he thought the other projects that Blackgate had been working on were very cool, even if they were never going to have to kill Skylara, thanks to his hard work.