The Return of The Alchemist

The Herald

If you feel contempt for me, for my following actions I completely understand. I will say in my defense my recollection of the event that killed me was pretty blurry due to the ****, and all.

But I returned to Celeste.

It’s not that I hadn’t considered her as my killer, because I had.

Poisoning just seemed to make so much more sense for her. She couldn’t shut up about poison! An explosion is just about the farthest from poison you can get. So if discounted her as the killer. She was a three star, why would she care about a store clerk and Pennies worth of stolen supplies?

Never underestimate the pettiness of the powerful and never over estimate your own genius.

I did both and with that in mind I sauntered into the lair of my killer, basking in the blissful ignorance of children. As much as it pained me to admit I needed her help. She was the only remotely useful asset I had when it came to alchemy. I wanted to figure this slime thing out.

Daliah was gone of course, blasted to bits by the woman I was coming to see. Much like myself. A capable looking teen was reading something at the counter, and trusted me to pick out my own ingredients.

But I was there for Celeste, and she knew it because she was down the stairs only seconds later. If I was a suspicious man I would have said she was surprised to see me alive. “Surprised?” I grin at her.

She got out behind the counter and squinted at me. “Hard to say. A little and yet not at all.” She had an odd time to her voice. For the first time she seemed scared of me. No not scared that’s ridiculous, but cautious. I overlooked this, too eager to manipulate her to my ends, I bulldozed my way forward.

I reached in to my satchel and pulled out a potion of Bull’s Strength. “You didn’t think I’d be up to your challenge did you?” I held the potion out to her. Not unlike a fish sticking its head in a turtles mouth.

I knew I couldn’t return to her empty handed and solving her riddle gave me a good excuse to see her again. It was a good challenge. I had to render the potion down and identify the materials used. From there I could only hope and guess at the methods and temperatures used to distill it from there. To her credit she took it, and examined it. Then she tilted her head. “Impressive.” Though she didn’t quite smile.

“Aren’t you going to check to make sure I didn’t just pour your potion into a…”

“No meed.” She said, returning the potion with me. “You cooked it in an obsidian cauldron. I can smell the volcanic notes in it.” She then gave me the side eye. “Unusual choice for a cauldron I must say.”

I grin. “So you’re saying I have style?”

“Undoubtedly.” She crossed her arms, then moved back behind the counter. The clerk had retreated to the back room. “Where have you been. I haven’t seen you since you came hauling that corpse into my shop.”

“I see the stains came out!” I laughed and stowed the potion, greatful I got to keep it.

“Indeed. The question.” She flexed something in her and I felt that familiar prey sense fill me, **** me, paralyze me.

“I’ve been working on my potion, on my alchemy really. That’s the real reason I came hear actually. I wanted your opinion on a project.” I tried to ignore the absence of Daliah, but I missed her there behind the counter where this alien goddess now stood.

“What sort of project?”

“I’m cultivating a slime. I want it to form around a person, like a second skin. Then solidify and stay in place.”

She smiled and seamed to relax. For whatever reason she’d been coiled like a spring since I saw her. All it took was a little scientific inquiry to loosen her up. “Why would you possibly want that?”

“For sex of course.” I said with a shrug.

I think I actually surprised her with that and she laughed. “Well, slimes are rather more complicated than what I thought you capable of.”

“I beat your challenge didn’t I?”

She tilts her head. “Hardly the same thing, and if you think they are it just proves my point.”

I shrug. “Well I’d like your help regardless of how worthy of it you think I am.”

She gave me a look. “Most alchemist get quite burned working with their first slime.”

“No burns here.” I assure her. “Just sex, like I said.”

She caved, or at least allowed me a small indulgence. She proposed a few compounds that would give me the results I desired. A sort of symbiotic slime that coexisted with the wearer, growing over their body like a second skin.

It was honestly amazing to pick the brain of someone so monstrously more knowledgeable than me. It was curious too. Alchemist are supposed to be secretive like their mage counter parts. Maybe she saw me as an apprentice, flattering if so.

After about an hour of instruction she broke off the lesson. “As valuable as my knowledge is, I had something else in mind for your reward.”

I liked the sound of that. “I’m all ears.”

She grabbed an empty jar and handed it to me.

“Wow thanks.” I snarked and inspected the jar.

She just smiled and tapped it with her finger. “Touch of Midas.” She intoned, “three stars.” There was a soft burst of energy as she activated a star.

A wave of gold over took the glass cylinder. It wasn’t simple gilding. The glass itself was transforming, from base glass to the purest of all metals. She was the philosopher’s stone, the goal of all alchemists, and in just a few moments I was holding a a solid gold jar. “Amazing.” I almost came. “How are you allowed to have such a star?” She could reduce the economy to ruin with a star like that!

“You haven’t even seen the best part.”

The jar shook and in an instant shards of jewels erupted from it, like the quills of a puffer fish.

Right through my hand.

“Aaagh!” I cried out as a thick emerald crystal jabbed my hand. The jar fell to the ground, thumping heavily where it would have once shattered.

“Whoops.” Celeste feigned a giggle, and walked towards me. “Excuse me showing off, the third level has combat applications and it’s been a while since I used it.” She took my hand, and I noticed her nostrils flaring. She was…smelling my blood?

“Nothing you can’t fix I’m sure.”

She nodded and with a simple gesture pierced the palm of my hand with her nail.

My hand seized up instantly.

Then my wrist, then my arm.

I grunt, realization trailing just behind the toxin. “That’s some fast acting poison.”

She gave me a curious look. “Calm to the end. Tell me, why return? What do you think you had to gain? Do you think you could fool me?”

Customers hurriedly left the store, none entertained the idea of helping me. This was a three star, I’d no sooner instruct Bellowyn on sexual positions or chide her for the treatment of a ****.

“I didn’t realize it was you until now.” My killer.

“You’re a fool to think you could challenge me.”

“I just realized that as well.”

“A shame.” She patted me on my now frozen cheek, and the world ebbed away.

——-

The Bad Luck Continues!