Chapter Two: Alchemy
The sun cast a haze over Forsynthia, and as its beautiful glow landed upon the wildflowers, it seemed to spread their sweet fragrance throughout the city.
Adelia sat alone on an atoll far from the keep. She had woken up some time before – a habit she was pleased with. Still, the young lady was surprised to see a letter slipped beneath her door. A little shaken by its appearance, she had fled from the keep into the open area of the city.
There was once a time when the slightest noise outside of her door would wake her. She cursed that she so easily grew comfortable in her warm new bed.
Safely nestled between fields of flowers and hedge guardians, Adelia had ventured to read the letter. She had shaken her head, for it was merely Gaston’s formal invitation to her first lesson that morning. Still, long after reading it, she had not budged.
When that golden aura touched the grey keep however, she knew it was time to go. With urgency, she made her way back. No longer a stranger to the gardens, she effortlessly chose the correct paths.
The portcullis was still drawn, as it had been when she had left in the early morning. She didn’t realize, as she tenuously passed beneath it, her muscles going taut. Not much of her attention remained there. She hurried to the second floor of the keep and quickly yet quietly made her way to the end of the hall. A conversation was already in progress behind the door.
“Are you sure that’s what’s causing it?” an unfamiliar voice asked.
The sound of someone loudly sipping on a morning beverage could be heard. Adelia breathed deeply and could smell the tangy aroma of the tea.
“I’m willing to stake my claim, yes,” Gaston replied.
“The last time we knew of someone with ancestral recall was more than thirty years ago,” the other man said.
“Yes, but this is the first time we know of that a mage is showing the signs. You can understand my intrigue.”
“You almost seem excited about the prospect.”
“Well, it certainly makes my job… easier. After all, the girl –”
Adelia knocked on the door, and the conversation immediately halted.
“Come in,” the sage called out.
After hearing the sudden quiet, the young lady tenuously opened the door. The morning light poured through the open window, casting down upon the two men seated just beyond the desk. Adelia was familiar with one, the sage. The other remained somewhat of a mystery. He was well kept, wearing shining polished leather. He seemed almost not to notice her.
She wasn’t focused long enough to be offended. She felt the presence of something else in the room as well. Something dark and sinister had its eyes locked on her.
Turning slowly, she nearly missed the large, yellow eyes peering at her. With a gasp, Adelia leapt away, summoning and flinging a spear of ice at the creature without hesitation.
Gaston stood quickly and thrust out his arm. The missile collided into an invisible shield just in front of a row of vials. A thousand flecks of frost exploded into the air before expiring.
Merlin cautiously sat upon his haunches, as if unaware of the fright he had given the poor girl. He offered a single meow as consolation.
“Well, she’s a skittish one, isn’t she?” the stranger said, his voice dripping with dissatisfaction.
After a brief silence, Adelia’s jaw dropped. “I’m sorry,” she said.
The silence persisted for some time afterward. Then, despite the tension in the room, Gaston snorted as he struggled not to laugh.
“Worry not, young lady,” the sage offered. “I may be old, but my reflexes are much better than you’d think. You’ve got a long way to go before you’re quicker than me at slinging spells.”
She bowed her head in defeat, as if even that comment was meant to disarm her.
Edric’s cup landed upon the desk, and he stood, groaning as he did. “It’s best I set out,” he said. “Wouldn’t want to be around the next time an errant snowball is let loose.”
“In time, this one will sparkle like a diamond,” Gaston assured. He extended his arm.
Returning the gesture, Edric nodded. “Aye. For now, though, she’s still yet a lump of coal.” The mercenary passed by the young lady, who found she could not make eye contact. “Chin up, girl,” Edric said. “Merlin doesn’t hold a grudge.” He reached out and patted the cat upon its head before exiting the room.
Adelia turned fully to Gaston. “I’m sorry,” she said again.
He was already shaking his head. “When a wizard takes on an apprentice, they are aware of certain… risks. It’s nothing I can’t handle. You’ll grow into your magic and sense when to use it.
“We have some behavior we need to break you of,” he continued. “There is a fear in you that will be more detrimental to you than it needs to be. In time, you’ll understand when it is best to cast a spell and when it is best to give pause.”
She nodded, woefully accepting the good advice as a punishing lecture.
“Worry not, young lady,” Gaston more forcefully asserted. “No harm was done, and as Edric pointed out, the cat holds no grudges.” The sage gestured with his eyes toward her feet.
When Adelia looked down, she saw Merlin there, walking figure eights against her legs. The young lady breathed deeply, accepting the cat’s attention.
“Water under the bridge,” Gaston said. “In any case, you can ruminate on your near feline-icide later. It’s time for your first lesson.
“You’ve already been provided with your own room,” the sage continued. “What you do in there is your own business. In here, your safety falls to me. As such, I’ve provided you with your own workstation.”
He looked to the corner of the room, where a desk much like his own was fashioned. Tomes lined the wall, colorful and eye-catching. Empty vials were neatly arranged on the left side of the desk, while filled jars – some containing very odd looking contents – were placed in a row on the opposite side. In the center of the desk, a stone rod and bowl were set, old and weathered and appearing as if ready to break at any moment.
“Do you recognize those tools?” the sage asked. Adelia shook her head, inciting a smile from the old wizard. “Few would. They are rarely used, mostly by clerics, some very dedicated chefs, and of course, practitioners of the arcane arts. They are the mortar and pestle, akin to what your mother would stir your morning porridge with.
“Here, in this room, you will use them on various reagents. Alchemy is an art often forgotten and shunned by many casters. It requires some level of humility, I suppose, for few wizards would prefer to be seen falling back on a potion to save their lives.”
Gaston walked to Adelia’s desk and pulled one of the tomes from the raised shelf against the wall. He placed it down beside the stone bowl and opened it. He guided his apprentice near, and both began looking through the weathered pages.
“What those fools openly admit,” the sage began again, “is that they’d rather be a smear on the ground beneath a giant’s boot than alive with a bitter taste in their mouths. Adelia, when I tell you this, I pray you believe me. The greatest sorcerers were undone by their own hubris. Magic is not without its flaws, and it will not always save you.”
The young lady nodded in understanding.
“As you look through this book, you’ll see dozens of recipes for potions, salves, and even poisons. Many of them are difficult to concoct and can even be dangerous. With practice, though, you could become a great alchemist.
“Read what you can,” he said, “and attempt to craft the potions that seem easiest. Many ingredients are available to you. I know they can be a little difficult to identify, so I’ve labeled the containers for you. If you have any questions for me, I’ll be at my desk, scribbling away at some old tome I’ve no business writing.”
The sage lightly pat his pupil on the back, but he stepped away mere moments later. A powerful yet quiet sigh shook Adelia
as she pulled the chair from the desk and sank into it. Shaking her head, a golden lock of hair dangled in front of her blue eyes. She swept it aside, focusing on the massive book in front of her. Adelia turned through several of the pages but neglected to find anything she thought she might be skilled enough to try.
Dejected, she more carefully perused the contents, focusing on more than just the titles of each page and the length of their passages. Each entry seemed diligently written, inscribed with grace and poise, never rushed. Adelia wondered if perhaps it was her teacher that had filled the tome.
The apprentice firmly shut her eyes then, reminding herself of the task at hand. She turned several more pages, until her vision settled upon a specific concoction.
“The mage’s mark,” she whispered.
As she read on, Adelia learned that the mixture had the ability to invisibly identify an object if it was exposed to it. A secondary potion or a magic spell could activate the wizard’s mark, allowing others – or the wizard alone, if he was skilled enough – to see the object through darkness and fog.
The young lady had heard of an effect like that before. The elves were said to illuminate their prey with faerie fire. If a mage could somehow harness that power, they would be a force to be reckoned with.
Nodding, Adelia committed to her task. She scrutinized the entry, reading up on the ingredients. The concoction called for natural reagents like dragonwort and silvercloak. All of the herbs required were readily available on her desk.
She went to it immediately, setting aside the jars she needed. Removing their lids, the pungent aroma of each item was unsettling. The young apprentice shrugged that combined odor away and dumped the dragonwort into the bowl.
Only a short while later, Adelia finished up with the final ingredient. The silvercloak was a resilient, mossy substance, and the pestle was only barely beginning to crush it. Beside the bowl, the other items had been mashed into pastes or liquids. Her arm grew sore, but she managed to pulp the silvercloak and poured its remnants into an empty vial.
Turning her attention back to the tome, she read the final steps of preparation.
“Once all the ingredients are mixed together, they will form a liquid that appears to be water. If the concoction is poured onto an object, it can be activated later and will glow with a bluish-grey tint.”
Content with the directions, Adelia gathered a larger flask and poured the contents of each vial into it. Combined, the mixture began to bubble. The apprentice’s eyes went wide in anticipation.
Rather than turning clear, however, the concoction took a green hue. It thickened in mere moments, and Adelia’s brow furled. She tried to pour her failed mixture into a large glass bowl at the edge of the table. Like slime, the concoction oozed out of the flask, emerging with a sickening slurp. It slapped into the bowl, jiggling for some time once it landed.
Adelia sighed and shook her head. Glancing over her shoulder, she peered at her mentor. Gaston was oblivious to her failure, whistling nonsensically to a bluebird that had perched upon his windowsill.
The young lady spun back toward her desk and pushed the bowl of slime away. She turned her attention to the book once more, flipping through the pages until she happened upon another simple potion.
“Fire resistance,” she said, wincing as she recalled her painful past.
The concoction called for a selection of easily identifiable ingredients, such as thistlebark and sunfoil. It required very little mixing yet, ironically, needed an open flame to melt the herbs and distill the useless parts of them.
Once again the lids were removed from various jars. Those reagents offered very little aroma. However, Adelia couldn’t plainly ignore the suddenly dry air that seemed to accost her. She proceeded with the preparation in spite of that.
Before long, the concoction was boiling. When she removed the flask from the heat source, it seemed to hiss in protest. The eager apprentice waited only several moments before tightly grasping the glassware. Breathing deeply, Adelia quaffed the mixture.
The young lady immediately regretted that decision. Though the potion had no overt scent, it tasted terrible. She thought of it as the old trail of a slug that had been left to cook on a hot cobblestone all day. Beyond that, however, there seemed to be no adverse effects.
Nodding subtly, Adelia gazed toward the flame she kept burning. She cautiously moved her hand over the fire. Reflexively, the apprentice gnashed her teeth together. That expectation toppled, though, for she felt no pain, even as the flame seemed to lick at her skin.
A wide smile formed on the young lady’s face.
That grin contorted wildly when her hand became engulfed in flames. A stunted gasp reported, but she realized quickly that she continued to experience no discomfort. Adelia looked to her mentor again, who remained blissfully ignorant of the situation. A glance to her right showed she did not go unwatched. Merlin tilted his head to the side and meowed nonchalantly.
Flailing her arm erratically, the flames finally dissipated. Adelia breathed a sigh of relief. Even though there remained an absence of pain, she still groaned discontentedly. Her experiments had gone wrong at every turn.
Her brow furled, and she locked her jaw. Once again, she thumbed through the pages of the old tome. The apprentice took her time, focusing on the lists of ingredients she would need. Finally, her eyes settled on a concoction she was confident she could make.
“Smoke,” Adelia whispered. “Just smoke. There’s no way I can fail this task.”
The potion only required two herbs. Hornroot grew just about anywhere but required a keen eye to spot it. Rock ash was actually neither of the things its name implied. It was a mossy, moldy plant that grew on wet rocks, giving them a charred look.
Both ingredients were readily available in front of the pupil, marked in their jars. Even without the labels, Adelia was confident she could identify them.
Assertively, she removed the lids and placed them into separate flasks. She was so focused that she didn’t notice the odor. To her side, Merlin’s nose twitched, and he shied away from the desk.
Both flasks were heated then, their contents beginning to fall apart and eventually bubble. While the hornroot gave off no particular steam or smoke, thin wisps crawled from the flask of rock ash, wriggling into the open air like shadowy tendrils. After only a short while longer, the herbs fully dissolved and remained only as liquids at the bottoms of the glassware.
Confidently, Adelia poured the contents into another clean flask. The mixture sizzled in protest and began to bubble. Almost immediately thereafter, a trail of smoke emerged. It was black and volatile, and Adelia was concerned the entire room would be engulfed. Still, she could not hide her smile.
She poured half of the contents into another empty vial and turned to the sage.
“Master Camlann,” the pupil said, rising from her seat and approaching the wizard with the potion in hand.
“Just Gaston will do,” he said. He seemed almost too busy to be concerned. He caught the strong scent of the concoction then and stood, turning to the young lady. “My child, you’ve turned my study into a chimney,” he playfully mused.
“It’s about time I’ve done something I sought to do,” she asserted.
The sage reached out, collecting the smoking concoction. Adelia proudly relinquished it. She couldn’t help but notice the subtle shift in her teacher’s eyes when the potion neared his face.
“This is… hornroot and rock ash?” he queried.
His tone was urgent, but Adelia’s reply was not quick enough. Gaston turned abruptly and pitched the flask out of the window. The bluebird perched upon the sill flew from its spot.
Both pupil and tutor were privy to the sight of the glassware exploding. Shards went flying, and the contents that had been within ignited in a brief yet powerful display.
“Have you been paying attention to the quantities of your ingredients?” Gaston asked.
Adelia heard the question but found she could not immediately respond. The sage followed her gaze back toward her desk, where smoke still billowed toward the ceiling. Both magi could see the violent reaction taking place within the vial.
Gaston thrust out his hand, when a bright flash emitted in the room. The sage did his best to fight past the discomfort but eventually had to narrow his eyes reflexively. Adelia averted her gaze entirely.
When the powerful light faded, the pupil ventured another look toward her failed mixture. Merlin scurried from the room, but she paid him little heed.
There, where she had just been sitting, everything was in disarray. All of the jars of reagents were shattered, as well as the stoneware bowl she had used to make her earlier concoction. The desk had a large hole in it, and the top of the chair had been mangled. Only the tomes remained unscathed. Laying on the floor, shut once again, the tome she had been reading from seemed not to have a mark.
Her mentor turned slowly toward her, and she felt the need to shy away.
“Well,” he said, his voice as calm as ever. “This will lead us right into our next lesson. Can’t very well continue to practice potion making without reagents, can we?”
At the conclusion of his question, the desk collapsed, spilling the rest of the contents to the floor.
Adelia winced and covered her face with her hand.