Aclysia.

‚Weak muscles tissue in the left foot. Slight limping. Reason: Broken ankle. Likely age of incident: Seven.’ Aclysia analyses one of her helpers as they heave the giant glass object to the ceiling. A sphere narrows towards the ground until it ends in a small pipe with a valve that regulates the maximum outflow. Hundreds of little or bigger entrances allow for connections to other contraptions. It is doubtful she will ever need this but not at all impossible.

It is always better to have everything ready.

The men have managed to pull the glass up to the ceiling, the steel rope now getting fixated by other people. Aclysia watches the asynchrony and badly executed work. ‘It will suffice.’ She thinks and sends them away after they are done.

Finally alone again Aclysia gets back to work. First item on her list, filtering the Dragonbone for the tenth time. She walks to a small cooling chamber where she currently keeps the mass. She opens the chamber and steps inside. ‘Temperature -8 Degrees on the Kelzia Scale. Air slightly humid. Add dehydrators.’

Other people would need many clothes to be comfortable in these conditions but to Aclysia the cold is merely an information. She walks to the back end of the chamber where she finds the two glass containers.

What had been a mostly white liquid with a black remainder at the bottom she had separated into these two parts. After nine filtrations less of the liquid remains, most impurities being removed. However impurities in alchemy have the nasty habit of becoming harder to remove the more of it you already got and for what Ulal and she have been planning only absolute purity of magical particles is acceptable.

She takes the container containing the frozen white liquid and takes it back into the main laboratory. The circular room at the top of the tower of even better than her old lab in the southern state she used to govern. Officially. She never paid much attention to politics and she won’t do here either. All in all politics always got in the way.

People are illogical. Therefore, making rules based on people’s feelings are illogical. The only kind of laws logical could be those made by a single person that acts purely on pragmatism. When she tried to do that people revolted. Although the country prospered. Illogical. Ulal would maybe fare better.

Aclysia knows that she has a different thought process than other people. She is fine with it. She embraces it. There is no need to understand other people if she can understand the world around her.

She puts down the container on the working table in the middle of the room. It is a round table with a hole in the middle so that she can stand in the middle. Several thin metal poles erect from the wood and are the fixing points for the glass contraptions. She has twenty minutes until the white block has changed from solid to liquid. Enough time to build the needed mechanisms.

The alterations between one stage of filtration to the next are minimal. A couple of more filters here, less heat there, longer cooling pipes at the end. Methodically she takes the necessary tools. Heaters, glass containers, pipes, valves, filtration systems. She puts all of it on the table, making sure everything is clean, no damages, no remainders from previous experiments.

‘Step one, complete.’ Aclysia thinks as she starts assembling the contraption. Pipes connect to other pipes and containers, flasks, heaters, some with valves in between them some without. Many of the flasks have separate, still unused, entrances. Aclysia takes some corks and seals most of them. The ones she leaves open she fills with alchemical fluids, used to draw out certain elements or add others, the she seals them as well.

Finally, she takes the container and after adding another alchemical element to it purrs it into the contraption around her. The element she added makes sure that all of the liquid cleanly purrs out of the glass, no remainders. She still makes sure that there is nothing of the rare substance remaining inside before going to clean the container for later re-use.

When she returns the liquid has spread through the system. Getting separated into several smaller units within the system and then reunified at other points Aclysia studies the different colours of each of the many alchemical changes. ‘Imperfection at catalyst 45. Add heat.’ She does and the red liquid three pipes down becomes a bit cloudier. She continues to work out small problems throughout the next hours. Alchemy at the highest level is always a juggling process, if you change the slightest thing it could have catastrophic consequences. However if you do nothing you are likely to be left with a less product than you could have achieved. Aclysia herself, with her inhuman senses and a lifetime of experience, has no problem to change things on the fly if necessary.

It is not confidence she feels, it is certainty. Her eyes dart over to the end point of the contraption where some of the white liquid now drips out of the final valve. “Looks like it is advancing steadily.” A voice says. ‘Female, slightly arrogant, vocal cords of a young person, around twenty, speaks to me without fear.’ “Catherine, what do you need?” Her voice is only loud enough to be understood, her tone melancholic and calm. There is no use for overly emotional dialogue and breathing more than necessary is wasted energy.

“Just checking what you are doing.” She says and walks around the room, keeping her distance from the sensible contraptions. Aclysia appreciates that. Catherine is a smart woman, not as smart as Ulal or herself but that is a high bar to reach. However she is also a greedy woman so chances are that she tries to get something out of this. Aclysia much prefers to be alone with her work so getting this behind her is preferable.

“Grimoire, Filtration ten, white liquid.” That should be all the information Catherine needs to know. Indeed that seems to be enough, through a gap in the glass around her she sees the witch nod. “How many more will you need to make?” “Twenty.” Aclysia is quick to answer as she slightly turns a small valve. Catherine isn’t leaving, Aclysia takes that as a sign to ask: “What do you want?”

Catherine smirks at her. Typical face of somebody who expected to be caught. “The battery, when will it be completed.” “Minus two days.” Catherine slightly tilts her head. Confusion. Aclysia needs to elaborate. “I completed it two days ago. 01-43-04-56.” That Catherine understands and she looks into the decipher book for the Helenic system. A bit later she has found the corresponding part of the shelf. Inside she finds both the prototype and the plans for it.

“So you need alchemical liquid to create the core, huh?” Catherine mumbles as she goes through the plans. “You mind if I copy this? I want to experiment with the theory.” “Go ahead.” Aclysia says. She doesn’t mind that Catherine is pretty much about to steal her work. She gained the knowledge she was after already and at least here she would be credited. Not what Acrae apparently did to her Amber Dust theory.

“I will make a class three container full of the needed liquid this night.” Aclysia says before Catherine can ask. This conversation starts to tire her. “You can send somebody to get it then.” “Great.” Catherine answers; she feels when she is no longer welcome. Another thing Aclysia appreciates about her. The young witch finishes her copy, puts the battery and the plan back into their rightful place and leaves.

Aclysia watches as the liquid continues to drip out of the alchemical contraption. It seems that the process is finally working absolutely as intended. Therefore she now has time to get the biomass from the cellar. Biomass of course sounds overly dramatic for wood. She does not need much, the enrichment process being much more relevant in the later stages when the liquid becomes thicker and needs to pressed instead of ran through pipes.

She takes a wooden log and starts sawing it into smaller pieces. She needs to reduce it to dust in order to have the maximum effectiveness. In the days before her transformation, she would have simply transmuted the wood into dust but sadly, that route is now blocked to her. So she has to rely on other tools instead, it takes longer but she has a lot of time until the liquid is completely through the process of filtration.

So much time in fact that she is long done with the cutting before she even has to consider going back to the filtration. Instead she works on the needed alchemical liquid for the battery a bit, It is a simple side project that doesn’t need much of her attention.

After having killed some time with that she gets back to the filtration. The white liquid is completely through the contraption and the many alchemical fluids that remain she will have to neutralize later. First Aclysia has to carefully add the wood dust to the liquid. At first the biomass simply sinks to the ground but after a bit of stirring the acidic properties of the liquefied Dragonbone take over and soon none is left.

Aclysia takes the container and walks back into the cooling chamber. Alchemy is a weird thing, what she has to do now is wait until the acidity neutralizes itself and until then she cannot do anything. She places the container back right beside the black one. When she walks back to her laboratory she feels watched. She looks over her shoulder. There is nothing there, only the black and white liquid. Also a bit of Eclys in the early stages she needs for the cover of the Grimoire, unable to hold a soul.

‘Paranoia based on legends around Dragons.’ She concludes and walks off.