Four Horsemen: Chapter 7 Part 2 of 2

She knew she was dying and she knew the gods were powerful and that Vessali had turned into their champion buoyed by their powers and with unlimited access to their reserves.

A spell came forth within her mind. Not one of the beautiful synergy of elements, but their destructive and chaotic interaction.

“Fuck the Empire.”

She coughed and latched onto Vessali, his triumph turning to fear, that broken twisted boy, an existence that need not remain.

Elements slammed together, a chaotic and terrible swirl, sucking in the very power of the area, drawing upon the mana Vessali had leaked, the power within her.

Ilus disappeared under the teleportation spell.

He drew out his sword, tearing it from her chest.

“We will tear from you the location of Ilus, your eyelids removed so you watch the city you love burn,” Vessali’s voice resounding in tandem with another’s.

Her power faltered, her core torn.

Desari drove it into the spell, the freed elements added their tithes as shimmering figures, one of blue flame, one of black waters, one of white gales and a last of granite stone and sprouts of green.

Vessali shuddered as the gods within him looked up, and felt fear.

The power cascaded and light evaporated everything.

Desari’s hand curled into a fist. Her jaw clenching so hard she felt the tension climb up her neck.

Ilus’ spell had gone wrong somehow. Limos said that they were trapped. The city she had been sent to betray, the city she’d laid her life down for.

Her cauldron whistled. Desari withdrew the Polydraxin and put it into a bowl, mashing it and then whipping it up.

“Like a thin mashed potato.” She scraped it out into another container, her three ingredients ready.

She moved to the door and hesitated, looking back at the ingredients, the smoldering fire. Her mind working through the ingredients.

She checked her storage bracelet, checking through shelves of books, picking out one she flipped through the pages.

“It looks like they’re trying to make Angel’s touch. A simple ointment to defeat disease and increase the speed someone heals at.”

It might be simple, but it had saved countless lives. Even the smallest cut could mean death unless it was properly cleaned out and dressed.

“Its efficacy is highly impacted by ingredients and the skill of combining them together.” Her pressed lips transformed into a smile. “It will be a good way to test my skills. With this amount of ingredients I should be able to make about twenty individual batches, or two large ones.” She drew out measuring cups and scales to portion out the ingredients. Twenty attempts, twenty times she could increase her skill, or ten times and then she could cook up one large batch to test out different scenarios?

It wasn’t to distract herself from her own death or the task ahead of her. Who knew how long it would take for them to complete Limos’ missions to get the information she required?

Essence flowed through her with the first four complete batches cooled to the point they were usable.

Her core now three quarters orange.

“That was nearly half. I’ll do two more batches in the next and then I should be able to get another fifteen out of the remainder. Try to use the difference in grade as much as possible.”

She drew out more alchemical devices, lining them up on the only table in the room. Each of them had been modified for her to use her powers. She worked her power through them, heating them hotter than a normal flame could, changing the elemental properties of each to influence what passed through. Refining, purifying and combining into new forms.

Her power moved through the devices with barely a thought, as if it was welcoming her home. She studied each and funnelled a small amount of power through each to test them out.

Much more tiring than before, but workable.

She coaxed the fire up again, feeding it logs, cleaning out the cauldron.

First was the Polydraxin paste, she folded in a sprinkled measure of the berries and the Kradi roots mixture.

She touched the side of the cauldron, her power spreading inside as she used her water, fire and air elements to evenly warm and move the ingredients. Her Earth element increasing the efficacy of the ingredients.

The polydraxin gained threads of green pin pricks from the berries, the purple of the Kradi roots dissipated, the whole concoction turning red with pink flecks.

“Done.” She drew her elements back, the cauldron chilled as the air stilled becoming silent. She pulled out a glass box, setting it to the side.  She carefully opened the cauldron, a mellow medicinal smell filled the room. She bent the air to her will and mana, scraping out the cauldron’s contents. She deposited the smooth salve of red and pink flecks into the box, leaving it open to cool.

She breathed in, drawing in the wind, fire, water and earth elemental mana around her, relieving some of the mana fatigue.

Her core swelled with the power of her orange core and kept climbing as the concoctions cooled.

She was regaining what she’d lost.

Essence trickled into her core at the creation of the concoction. The trickle grew as her mixed core of white and red filled, she felt the tension mount and then release, her senses and mana expanded, filling the room and the hallway beyond.

“Better, still not amazing. Creating a few of these ointments is well within my current ability.” She circulated her mana. Wishing that crafting earned more than killing a goat would.

“I’m as weak as a child in Ilus, but I’ve done it before I can do it again.”

Quietly she admitted she’d forgotten just the rush that came with increasing one’s core size. The feeling of power.

It was all a prelude to when she climbed up the core ranks further.

She was two thirds of the way to adding some yellow flecks to her orange core.

She cleaned up her workspace, storing her gear and books.

No one was in the corridor as she stepped out, but people could be heard moving in the shop.

“That will be eighteen silvers and forty-three coppers.” Kat’s voice carried down the corridor. Desari walked towards the door.

“Here you are.” Someone else said with the clink of coins. Opening the door the store was filled with people, many adventurers by their armor.

“Do you have that sleeping tea?” A woman asked at the counter.

“How many sachets?” Kat asked.

“Enough for three please?”

Desari caught Kat’s eye.

“Sure, one moment.” She assured the customer and moved to Desari. “Did you finish refining the ingredients?”

“I did. I turned them into a healing ointment.”

Kat raised an eyebrow, looking between her and the customers. “Carl is in the first alchemy room, one before yours, knock on his door.”

“Okay.”

Kat hurried between the shelves of items, pulling out a drawer.

Desari closed the corridor door behind her and moved to Carl’s alchemy room and knocked on the door.

“Kat?”

“It’s Desari, the adventurer that can do alchemy.”

“Oh, you finished up? Come on in.”

She opened the door. He was preparing ingredients in several different alchemical tools.

Desari held out the ointment to him.

He picked up one of the containers, frowning and opened it. “I thought you were supposed to refine-wow!”

He wafted the ointment towards himself. “That’s powerful.” He studied the containers. “And your loss of materials is minimal. How did you know it was going to be Soldier’s Virtue?” She mentally filed that away as this regions name for Angel’s touch. Thankfully ingredients were all the same name.

“It uses all three ingredients, or permutations of them, has a good storage life and is best used on wounded as soon as possible.”

She took out the other containers and put them on a stone shelf.

“Little rusty on your alchemy,” Carl chuckled and sniffed the others. “These are better than what I can produce. I’ll have Kat replace the containers so you can keep them and I’ll give you,” He picked up a larger container and wafted it. “You got better as you went. Three gold!”

He closed the container and pulled out a list. “These are the potions that the church has commissioned from us. Pick out whichever ones you want to make and I’ll get Kat to get you ingredients.”

“Okay,” Desari nodded, reading through the list, there were the potions and the ingredients. The names were all different than what she knew but she could deduct what they were based on the ingredients.

“Poison cures?” Her brows pinched together among the strength, stamina and health potions, it leapt out at her.

“Seems they’re worried about the other god’s armies having underhanded tactics. I was confused too, there haven’t been reports of poisoning being used before, fires for sure.” His voice lost its cheer, his gaze becoming distant. He shook himself. “Yeah these are the ones they’re looking for, as many as you can produce. Though they did come last night and took a bunch of ingredients, so might not be able to do some of them.”

“Okay,” Desari copied down the different concoctions.

“And grab some containers too so you don’t have to use your own.” He wrote out his own note, stirring a beaker over a flame absently and adjusting a spigot.

He ripped off the paper and held it out to her. “Give this to Kat.”

Desari took it and put her notepad away.

“Good luck.” He turned back to his work. Desari closed the door behind herself and moved to the store again, checking her storage devices.

I should be able to make some of the stronger concoctions. She’d work her way up through crafting. A few for Carl and a few for herself, strong enough to add some flecks of yellow to her orange core.