The Newt and Demon

The device Salire withdrew from her inventory was interesting. It reminded Theo more of a handheld wind gauge back on earth. The top had a narrow opening with a fan inside while the bottom contained a simple screen. It displayed blocky letters, detailing what it sensed in the air. He inspected the item.

[Gas Detector]

[Artifice]

Rare

Created By: Throk

Detects all foreign gasses in the air, displaying their percentage of concentration on the attached screen.

Attachments:

[Gas Detector]

[Analyzer]

[Display Screen]

“We’re about one step away from computer games,” Theo said.

“I like games.” Salire looked too excited for that.

Theo and Salire got another simple run of Lesser Healing Essence going. Even before starting the run, they could feel how easy it would be to work with the reagents grown in the aligned greenhouse. It wasn’t just the purity of the items, but it was almost as though reagents grown there clicked better with Tero’gal’s alchemy.

“I have a feeling this is going to be way easier,” Theo said, adding the crushed reagents to yet another still. They were almost done filling the five they had, and had no intentions of filling more. They didn’t have more, so there was no choice. “I was thinking about this before, and I wanted to do it the hard way first.”

Salire nodded with excitement. “For the knowledge!”

“The knowledge!” Theo responded.

Salire had come a long way. The Gas Detector was a move that would prevent unexpected explosions, assuming it worked. Theo worked with her for a while, checking the notes she had taken and making adjustments as needed. They stood on a solid foundation now, having paved themselves a path from the start of Tero’gal’s alchemy. Now it was a matter of crawling forward, providing for Broken Tusk’s needs and discovering things along the way.

Instead of making his report into the town’s document interface, Theo left the Newt and Demon and headed for the town hall. Alise was always busy, but she cleared her schedule to get an update. They met in a meeting room with a north-facing window, providing a view of the town’s square, Xam’s tavern and bathhouse, and all the people traveling the road. The alchemist settled into his chair, writing a few numbers on parchment and sliding it across the table.

“Our theoretical maximum for producing potions is at about 125 per day,” Theo said with a shrug. “Which if we aren’t exporting is more than enough.”

Alise nodded, taking the sheet. She continued to nod for too long. “This is better than nothing. I was getting worried.”

“So were we. Worried about Sulvan, that is.”

“He’s been working very hard,” Alise said. She clicked her tongue. “But we got control of many issues that caused injuries. No dungeons waves in… how long?”

“A while.”

“And Xol’sa is spreading the strength of the dungeons between each one. The underground dungeon didn’t go rogue and your golems are holding back whatever creatures lurk in the dark down there. While we have a few missing pieces… we’re good!”

Theo nodded along as she spoke. “So, we’re moving to Tero’gal.”

“Okay. How does that work exactly?” Alise asked.

“I pick the alliance up,” Theo said, motioning as though to scoop some earth into his hands. He deposited the imaginary dirt in another spot. “And put it down.”

Alise gave Theo a withering glare. “You know what I mean. Are we gonna die? Is everyone still mortal or do we become spirits? So on.”

“Here’s the problem. The new gods are the old gods. I got one to talk, and this was their world an age ago. I thought a reset might happen, but now I’m certain of it. Khahar pushed for it, along with a lot of ascendants, but now we’re at the tipping point.”

“So, we just get reset. No big deal, right?”

“Yeah, except I don’t think we can stay during the reset. Void will likely offer us passage into the other worlds, but I don’t want to leave my town or my alliance. This will happen after I move the shards, I think.”

“And your plan is to scoop the land up, bringing it to Tero’gal. I need to know if this will affect our citizens.”

“They need to move anyway. This isn’t a choice they can make. Whatever the gods need to do while resetting the world won’t be pretty. At the least, they’ll have to shut the system down. But the system will remain intact within Tero’gal and Khahak.”

“Okay, why not?”

Theo smiled, happy to see she was mostly onboard. “Tero’gal already has at least a half-million residents. They’re building infrastructure, agriculture, and industry. By the time we arrive, I’m sure everyone will be excited to explore a new world.”

“Dragging everyone there won’t go off without an issue, though,” Alise said. “Is it an original system or the same system?”

“I think Tero’gal wants to make a new system, but that reset should be minor. It doesn’t have to reshape itself because it doesn’t have a system. The only ascendant I know of that retained their cores is Uz’Xulven. Everyone else is in a state of limbo where their cores work a little or not at all.”

“Not that I can argue. What am I going to do about it?” Alise asked.

“We can give everyone the choice to stay or go. If they want to stay here, we can send them off to the Khahari or wherever else they want to go.”

“I suppose that settles it,” Alise said, scribbling notes down. “While we just had a wedding, I wanted to make you aware of something…”

Stolen novel; please report.

Theo snapped his fingers, nodding with excitement. “First wedding in Tero’gal!”

“What?”

“You want to marry Nira, right? Could you wait until we arrive in Tero’gal? You would be the first two people married in the realm as far as I know. Well, the first two people I care about. We could have a planet-wide celebration.”

Alise’s cheeks went pink as she looked down at her notes. “That might be cool,” she muttered.

“We’re gonna do it. The gods are readjusting the time soon, so everything is going to be weird for a while. I doubt this planet will have the same orbit as before, and… I just realized I don’t know how many days are in a year on Tero’gal. We might not even have months, yet. I’ll name our first month there Nirise.”

“Oh gods, please don’t.” Alise buried her face in her hands.

“I want you to purchase and store as much booze as you can. Enough to get about one-million people wasted.”

“That’s a lot of hooch…”

“Do you want a wedding, or do you want a wedding?”

“I think our meeting is over,” Alise said, standing and bowing slightly. She giggled nervously. “Gotta talk to Nira.”

Theo watched as Alise stormed from the room, a smile hanging on his face. Moving to Tero’gal was exciting. Because he knew the system there would kick off a reset when they moved there permanently. When everyone severed their ties to the mortal world, they would trap themselves in a new one. He was reminded of what the space elves had done to themselves in that pocket of the void. The alchemist still needed to heal them, but he would get to it. He withdrew a dragon’s bone from his inventory, shrugging.

“Why not?” he asked no one in particular. “Might as well figure out what properties a dragon’s bone can make… right?”

Before undertaking the task of destroying a piece of a not-god, Theo considered unexpected consequences. The Reagent Deconstruction ability wasn’t aligned with Tero’gal or Drogramath. Using it on the dragon bones should have been fine. But things going correctly hadn’t been in the cards lately, so he would treat the task with caution. He couldn’t think of a place in town suitable for an ascendant-level explosion, so wandered out the gate near Miana’s ranch. He always loved seeing several marshlings riding tamed Marsh Wolves.

The train zipped off, heading north with a load of passengers and cargo. Angling northeast, the track followed the path of the river, fording its own path some ways in the unseeable distance. When there were no more shadows to cling to, Sarisa and Rowan came forth. Compared to their old Baelthar cores, the Tero’gal versions of their stealth ranger and guardian cores had a much more potent effect.

“We’re gonna blow something up, aren’t we?” Sarisa asked.

“I’ve made peace with my life. I’m ready to die,” Rowan said.

“You’ll be fine, stinky,” Theo said, picking a spot far away from anything important. These fields were open, rolling hills punctuated in very few places with minor stone formations.

“I don’t stink,” Rowan said, genuinely wounded.

“You do kinda stink, though.”

Theo withdrew a small segment of the dead ascendant dragon’s bones. He would love to pretend he could feel some radiating sense of divinity, but he didn’t. Instead, he compared it closer to some reanimated skeleton fragments he had deconstructed. But before getting to work, he created some shields that would catch errant explosions. Might as well take advantage of his Tero’gal Mage’s Core.

“Outside of the shield, right?” Rowan asked.

Sarisa rolled her eyes. “No, stand right next to the thing that might explode.”

“It’ll give you character,” Theo said, positioning himself behind the shimmering shield. The dragon’s bone rested on the ground, ready to be turned into primal essence. With his advanced control of his mana, he levitated some onto the other side of the protective shields. Mana dripped onto the white bone, sizzling on the surface. Steam rose from the points it touched, soon filling the open air a strange scent. “Try not to breathe that in.”

Sarisa and Rowan both held their breath.

Theo felt the bone’s properties through his senses. There was power within them—raw strength he could never hope to match. An undercurrent of a dynamic will was left behind, something like a building thunderstorm. These feelings he got from the bone’s deconstruction were vague, coming as ideas rather than defined things. He let the mana drip onto it, allowing the gasses to vent into the air. Dumping a puddle would’ve been too sudden, creating a violent reaction, but this seemed fine.

Rowan fell to the side, his face blue. He gasped for air, looking up with a fearful expression.

“There shouldn’t be enough vapor to harm you,” Theo said. “I guess this is what you would call impure essence, according to the system.”

Sarisa took a deep breath. “I win. Again,” she mocked, grinning down at her brother.

Even before the bones were done melting into dust, Theo could feel the significance of them. Between his intuition and experience, he knew a potion brewed from any of the revealed properties would be difficult to create. The first three properties rolled in without an issue, but the hidden one was stubborn. While the bone was ash, it refused to give up its secrets.

“That’s it,” Theo said, stepping into the protective barriers to collect the primal essence.

“Did you get something good?” Rowan asked, still on the ground.

“Hard to answer that question without doing some brewing,” Theo said. “But that third property is… weird. Actually, all of them are weird.”

“What are they?”

Theo pulled another bone from his inventory, examining it.

[Quindalias Bone]

[Alchemy Ingredient] [Dragon Ascendant Bone]

A piece of the Dragon Ascendant Quindalias’ skeleton.

Properties:

[Soar] [Lost Hope] [Dragon’s Insight]

“I’m not sure what I think about ‌Lost Hope. Think that’s a useless property?” Sarisa asked.

“Yeah, I think so,” Theo said. “Sometimes I’ll get useless properties on reagents. Soar is likely a temporary flight power, and we can assume Dragon’s Insight gives you information. It might be like the Dragon Apple.”

Testing reagents for properties was one thing, but extracting them with the new alchemy system could be tricky. With Drogramath’s system, he expected something to happen but with Tero’gal’s system? The unexpected was almost guaranteed. Crushing the bones shouldn’t have been a problem, as they seemed more brittle than they should have been. But a system for experimenting with unknown materials was needed. And Theo didn’t want to spend his lab upgrades on the experimentation room.

That was a big problem with the way the buildings gained upgrades. The higher one went in the levels, the more enticed they were to take the newest upgrade. Those older features usually couldn’t hold a candle to the newer ones, resulting in them being left behind every time. But as Theo thought about it, he wouldn’t complain. A testing chamber under the lab was fine, but couldn’t Drogramathi Iron do the same thing? It wouldn’t even anger Throk, since the new resident smith Thim could handle the job.

Theo left the clearing, dismissing his barriers and heading off to the blacksmith’s workshop. He found the dwarf near the forge, pounding iron into shape and humming a tune.

“Been a while, Thim,” Theo said, bowing his head.

“Because you only show up when you need something.”

“Just because you took Throk’s job, doesn’t mean you need to absorb his personality.”

Thim gave him a flat look, pausing his work on the metal. “So you’re not here to demand some silly project?”

“Would you call safety silly?” Theo asked, placing his hands on his hips. “I think not. Anyway, I need about ten-thousand units of Drogramathi Iron or Azrugium formed into an experimentation chamber.”

Thim gestured with his hammer, narrowing his eyes. “Yeah, see? You like to pretend it isn’t weird, then you say stuff like that.” He paused for a few breaths before sighing. “How big?”

Theo explained his needs and the location he wanted the structure built. After Thim heard how simple it would be, he agreed. For a price. But the alchemist owned the chains that produced the metal, meaning it would cost him almost nothing. It was just the labor that needed time. But blacksmiths in this world could work wonders with metal. When they slammed their hammers into a bar, it deformed into a shape of their liking.

Yes, Theo could simply maintain barriers in an open field, but he wanted an extra layer of protection. Throk’s counterfeit coin operation had done well with physical barriers, and he’d feel better having a thick sheet between the ascendant’s bones and the wider world.

“This might take a few days,” Thim said. He gestured to the other anvils in the workshop. “But I have quite a few apprentices for the job.”

“Good,” Theo said, tossing Thim a few gold coins for the deposit. “I look forward to blowing the giant metal box up.”

Thim shook his head. “Alchemists…”