An Unintentional Result

Althana had gone a decent way into the forest before she had her homunculus helpers set the cauldron down; the cauldron leaned a bit away and to the left of her but didn’t tip over on the uneven ground, before pulling the cloth-coated wooden cover off the top of the cauldron. She didn’t believe what she was looking at; Althana had expected her little project to be some kind of topical tonic, not some strange cream she would have to smear around and rub into her skin. The cream’s slight blueish-yellow tint, which somehow did not give a greenish hint, was less concerning; sometimes, you got odd color combinations when mixing chemicals in alchemy.

Just as Althana was getting ready to dip her hand into the cream, the mass in the cauldron seemed to move of its own volition. A moment later, the cream started pouring out over all sides, collecting twigs, leaves, and dirt as it did so. Althana quickly backed away from the oozing mass of cream. Before she knew it, a portion had formed a noticeably unsettling face as the rest of its body coalesced into a goopy mass beneath the face-like structure made of the cream, twigs, and leaves; the entity now stood four and a half feet tall. The eyeless eye sockets that had been formed and lined with leaves and dust shifted into an angry state before the strange goo creature gave a cry that sounded like the wind blowing through geletan while also getting gulped down by waves for a moment before it seemed to resettle its form and began moving towards the gnome with an uncomfortable sloshing slorching sound.

Althana kept backing up, unsure of how to respond to this problem, as the creature seemed to chase after her. After both had gone maybe thirty or so feet from their starting positions, the goo creature was suddenly struck by a javelin of ice before Thelsia, Alma, Lithira, Usagi, and Yuri made an appearance to the gnome’s right.

“Looks like my theory about it being easily freezable was right,” said Yuri with an annoyed smirk, “it should be easy enough for the next part.” Alma rushed forward with her weapon raised high, and it almost looked like she would miss the creature as she swung down her halberd and sliced the creature in two before it shattered into over a dozen pieces. As the pieces flew threw the air, they unfroze at an unreasonably fast time and hit the ground unfrozen before slorping back towards each other. A moment later, the creature was reformed, just a little smaller than before, collecting forest debris as it did so.

“Freezing wasn’t as effective as we would have liked,” said Yuri with annoyance, “so let’s try burning it instead.” That statement gave Althana an idea.

As Lithira raised her bow to shoot the creature, Yuri imbued the tip of the arrow with fire’s elemental power; then she shot the arrow at the creature with the arrow; it struck the creature and ignited some of the leaves and twigs. Althana shot a bolt of fire at the creature, almost missing with her attack, and ignited more twigs and leaves on the creature. Lithira summoned a blazing bonfire around the creature; it was surprised it was unable to react fast enough to avoid the fire. A moment later, the cries of **** could be heard from the creature.

The scent of burnt wood, leaves, and hair gel came wafting from the creature’s immolated corpse. As the unpleasant scent made its way to everyone, all attention turned towards Althana. The first one to speak was Lithira, surprisingly enough.

“Had another lapse in your thinking, I see,” said Lithira, “probably would have done you some good to have someone else check everything over before bringing whatever that,” she gestured to the smoking pile of sludge that was beginning to char, “was supposed to be.”

“I was so careful, too,” said Althana with annoyance, “I guess I messed up the dosage for some of the components.”

“I’m guessing you had your little goof one of the times I popped in for something,” said Yuri, “that seems to be the case almost every other time we are in the same room together. Just what is that supposed to be?”

“An asset enhancement stimulant,” said Althana meekly, “all the rest of these women around you have much more defined physical assets than me; I just wanted a way to compete for a little while.”

“While I can see that would be interesting to see,” said Thelsia, “maybe you should stick to things that compliment a girl’s figure and not mess with it. Although, I can see a potential market for something like that. You’re lucky that Lithira and Alma noticed you when they did and went to get a little extra backup for something like this.”

“The thing about that sort of market,” said Yuri, “is that it would likely be a fad that lasted a handful of years before seeming to disappear, seeing most fads have a very short lifespan. And given there are no legal ways of safeguarding inventions and innovations, the first few months would have likely been the only ones that saw any real profit; after that, we would have copycat formulas from competitors stealing the market, and likely with far more hazardous mixes than whatever was used here.”

Althana perked up; that was a new term she was unfamiliar with, “Tell me more of these fads of which you mentioned.”

“Later,” said Yuri, “first you will be cleaning up this mess,” he gestured to the charred pile of sludge, “under the supervision of Thelsia and Alma, the lion woman gave an annoyed growl, “then return to the projects you were actually authorized to do.”

“Fair enough,” said Althana with a defeated tone, “I just hope this was a real learning experience.”