Four Horsemen: Chapter 6 Part 5 of 5

“Fear is good, it tells you that you don’t know enough, or that you don’t think you do. Fear is the mind killer, use it as the fuel.” She pulled out spell books before she could think too much about them. She’d read through several of them, while the concepts made sense, it was on a level well beyond what she was able to do.

Just how powerful was I before this? All of her power came from knowledge. Her killing instincts the fighting, that had been ingrained into her bones like with the others. The knowledge, her real power was cut off from her. She was just a pale imitation of the woman she had been before.

Desari looked like she was in her thirties, but she felt older, her spell books telling the tale of years of research, of understanding, of sorting fact from fiction and acquiring a great understanding over magic. Here she was, able to call upon elemental power, with no understanding of how it worked.

A child, uneducated with a spark of power a step away from being a raging inferno.

Her grip tightened, frustration welling up in her chest, wanting her to take one of those spell books and smash it into the ground.

She breathed in and out, releasing her hand. “What was once learned can be learned again. I might not have made any notes of my life, but I penned notes on plenty of magic and alchemy.”

The weak let fate guide them, no matter the obstacles there was a way forward a way through. She needed to know what she did remember and what she needed to work on.

“Elemental mecahnics, a primer. By Desari Namasi”  She had written the book, but had done it with a different last name.

“Printed by the Academy of Ilos.” She copied the pseudonym and the academy name down and flipped through the pages.

“The elements are interconnected completely, a changing state of energy, heat might increase the speed that air moves at, evaporate water which spreads high speed winds and clouds, that then fall upon the earth, creating nutrients for the ground to grow plants. Life is a balance of the elements, by controlling the elements we can create local phenomena, working with the elements we can create massive changes. Like balanced dominoes, to know nature, to know the elements, it is to control the world itself, through one domino.”

Desari raised her eyes to her cauldron, the earth and water had created the logs that burned underneath, the metal of the cauldron created through the pressures of earth and the heat at its core. Using heat to transform the contents of the cauldron born from the earth, the air heated up to boil off the water content, rising up through the chimney.

“A volcano, an avalanche, a tornado or hurricane,” Desari snapped her fingers. “A slight imbalance.”

Her skin rippled cold and hot at the same time, her hairs raising. That was true power, that was knowledge, knowing the precise act one needed to do to change the world. “Why use wasteful large spells when one could use one so much smaller?”

She closed her eyes, drawing essence into them. The world changed into eddies of colors, red covering the fire, green for the wood, blue for the steam and air intertwined in one another, escaping to the ceiling, the white of the air threading under the door, feeding the flames.

Patterns, roads, a balance.

Take away the flame and the fire would go out, the heat on the cauldron would dissipate, the air would slow down and the moisture would not longer evaporate. Slow the air the fire would starve, take away the wood and it would starve. Remove the pot and then more air would heat up.

Stretching her fingers she plucked at the energies in the room, shifting them, altering their path directing the air into the fire, causing it to flare up. Reinforcing the power of the earth making the logs burn longer.

She kept reading.

‘The elements are different materials in different charge states, while one can affect the system by adding more essence to it. I hypothesize that one can draw upon the world’s energies to regain essences.’

She dove into the book headfirst, consuming every word, forcing herself to slow to not miss a single item.

Her cauldron whistled. Putting her pencil and notepad into the book she closed it, pulling the cauldron from the heat, pulling out a whisk. Popping off the top she whipped the contents.

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

She moved to the door and hesitated, looking back at the ingredients, the smoldering fire.

“Well, they were kind enough to give me these ingredients.” Smiling she pulled out an alchemy book, flipping through pages she slowed, fingering through recipes.

“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?

“We’ll see how the first ten go.”

She drew out 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.

She drew out ingredients, her head feeling light while her stomach tightened, she didn’t fight the fear of the unknowing, wondering what she had missed, instead she focused on what she was doing completely, making notes on her errant thoughts. There, but a distant memory, letting her focus on her work and figure out the pain points later.

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

First was the Kradi root paste, and sprinkled over a measure of the berries, a

The water and the mashed Kradi roots had turned into a paste she scraped out of the mortar and pestle and into the warm cauldron.

She added a dash of spirits and closed the lid. She touched the side of the cauldron, her power spreading inside as she used her water, fire and air elements to evenly warm the ingredients. The purple of the Kradi root paste gained threads of green pin pricks from the berries, the polydraxin white blended in, folded over the others, suddenly it all transformed, turning red with pink flecks.

“Done.” She drew her power back in, the elemental energies returning to essence as the cauldron chilled as the air stilled becoming silent. She pulled out a glass box opening the cauldron and using her water element to draw out the cauldron’s contents. A smooth salve of red and pink flecks rested in the box, cooling, giving off a mellow medicinal smell.

“So I can pull my power back in, restoring some of what I spent. That book talked about environmental charge. Could I do that to fire that I didn’t make or winds I didn’t control?” She sunk into silence, running it through her mind.

“I’ll look into it more later, for now I have ingredients and free fuel.” Picking up her notes she compared it against the information in her alchemy books, trying to improve the process before she started on her second batch.

She applied the modifications, making a new list and began anew. Reading and concocting a door opening up for her. Excitement, not dread fueled her. Secrets waiting to be unravelled.

She paused, flipping through pages after her fourth completed Angel’s touch and smiled. “I did it once, hell if I can’t do it again.” She took solace in her words and pressed on.

Time slipped away as she worked until she had finished with the ointments. 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.

“Here you are.” Someone else said with the clink of coins.

Adventurers and  people from Sorelli filled the store.

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

“How many sachets?”

“Enough for three please?”

Desari caught Kat’s eye.

“I’l get that in a moment.” She assured the customer and moved to Desari. “Did you finish refining the ingredients?”

“I did. I turned them into angel’s touch.”

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.”

“Sorry about that miss, I’ll get you those sachets, each are fourteen coppers.”

Desari walked to the door, smelling the fire and ingredients coming together. She 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 pulled out the ointment and put it on the counter.

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

He wafted the ointment towards himself. “That’s powerful. Better than mine.” He studied the containers. “And your loss of materials is minimal. How did you know it was going to be angel’s touch?”

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

“Little rusty on your alchemy,” Carl chuckled. “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 wafter 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.”

“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 her work room.

“Now lets figure out what these are.” Armed with list and her alchemy books she started researching concoctions that fulfilled what the list wanted. Best to stay with the simple ones, easier to get ingredients and don’t waste a bunch of expensive ones if I fail.

A smile crept onto her face, unravelling the secrets of Alchemy.