Chapter 93 – Taking what isn’t yours (Patreon)

The flask’s place on the list seemed especially relevant on that particular day, given what was occurring elsewhere above their heads.

“Do you even remember how to make them, Kori?” Asked Kora.

“Mostly?” She replied, tilting her head as she tried to recall the proportions of the various ingredients. “Do we have any of the pure alcohol?” She assumed that they would at least have the fraxinella, for the stinging cloud flasks, and most of the other ingredients amongst those in the storeroom.

“No idea. You organized the storeroom, not me.” The older kobold responded teasingly with a smirk.

“I… suppose I did…” Kori grumbled. “I don’t remember seeing any, but there was a lot of things to unpack.”

Kora just shrugged at her response. “Why don’t I go look for it while you gather what we need for the suspensions. I wanna see those first.”

“Works for me!” The youngling jumping at the opportunity to put off thinking about the dangerous flasks for a while longer.

It didn’t take her very long to find what she needed as they had arranged the ingredients for the known concoctions in a single location, figuring that those would be the most used and thus best to have close to hand. When deciding whether to use the previously dried moss that was stored or to dry their own, she chose the dried. Her reasoning was that while she wanted to experiment and find ways to improve her creations it would be best to simply make what they needed and move on.

Aside from the moss, she also gathered a wide array of herbs. Sphagnum moss for fortitude and mending, licorice root for momentum, verbena, which she had to swap out with one on a different shelf as they had accidentally placed the white with her ingredients instead of the blue, for the resilience and the bitter coffee bean for vigilance. The last delighted Kora and she happily pinched a few to munch on while they worked.

They eventually came to the conclusion that there was not any of the combustible liquor on hand. The fact that they would not be making any of the infamous flasks that day was a comfort to both.

Kori already knew from her very first time creating a suspension, she could make multiple vials at the same time to decant into their individual containers afterwards. So rather than simply make the five of each that were required to fulfil the needs of the caravan, they planned to create ten of each to begin with. Kora had to help with the measurements, as she had the Skill while Kori hadn’t had the chance to work on it, or any of the others on her list, yet.

They began with the one that she had first discovered and made nearly half a litre of the basic suspension of fortitude. She even managed to produce the concoction at uncommon quality, the same as her initial success on the surface.

While Kori worked on crafting, Kora spent the entire time observing and making notes. She weighed everything, before and after, jotted down how hot the tincture was, how long it steeped, how long was spent grinding the sphagnum moss, and everything else that might impact the results. These were of course notes that Kori had already produced in abundance, but outside observation was definitely welcome.

They spent their breaks waiting on mana to recover working on the organization of the storeroom or the arrangement of the lab, or just chatting about various topics. Kora was particularly interested in stories from the surface and envious that the second youngest of her little extended family had gotten to spend so much time up there.

“And there was this really nice glassblower who taught me how to make glass vials. His name is Ulteran, he’s a gnome, would you believe that gnomes are even shorter than me?!” Kori finished off her current tangent of a tale that had grown from telling her about the rather colourful plates they had just eaten off of, to a story about a mean potion lady, whose name she didn’t even remember, to somehow talking about some of Har’s colleagues that she had met.

They worked a bit later than planned in order to complete the last of the suspensions, leaving the ointment and flasks for the following day.

The remaining suspensions went almost identically. She used the same ratios, the same temperatures, and the same process. Surprisingly they did not produce the same results. Both the momentum and vigilance suspensions produced only common qualities. The first the pair wrote off as a possible issue with the ingredients; the licorice root wasn’t one either had too much familiarity with. When it happened again and with something that Kora could verify as being decently fresh and potent this time, which she verified again with another sampling, they became a bit confused.

“I did everything the same… why’d it come out worse?” The youngling pouted as she tilted one of the vials back and forth to watch the suspension flow.

“You’re right, everything was the same.” Kora said while pondering the issue. “Perhaps that’s the problem?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, they’re made with different ingredients, maybe they need slightly different ratios or temperatures or something?” She paused momentarily before continuing. “Honestly it’s a bit of a wonder that they’re all so close to each other in recipe.”

“Huh… I just figured that since they do nearly the same thing, they should be treated the same.” Kori scratched her chin with her claws. “The other three are all soft plants and the two that are only common are harder, a bean and a root.” She looked at the parcels of ingredients still laid out on the work surface. “And they were a pain to grind wet too…”

“Well, we’re done for the day now, we can try crushing them before we start next time. Or hotter tincture, I know coffee is supposed to be brewed with really hot water.” Kora suggested, hoping that they’d be able to bring up the quality.

Kori grimaced at the thought of the bitter brew made from the beans, how anyone could enjoy such a thing was beyond her. She’d stick with a nice warm cup of tea any day. Especially if there was honey in it.

“Yeah, my head feels like I’ve been sparring with Blonc all day again…” She grumbled. “Even my horns ache… I didn’t know they could do that…”

Kora looked at the youngling in shock, looking her over for any sign of illness. “What? What’s wrong?” Once she actually looked for it, it was hard not to notice that her scales seemed a bit pale and her eyes were bloodshot.

Kori just shook her head, wincing as the sudden movement exacerbated the thrumming in her skull. “I used soooo much mana… each batch took around a hundred and forty points, just over half of my total…”

It took the older kobold a few moments to process what she had just heard. “Wait, it takes how much to make a batch of these?” She pointed at one of the neatly arranged stacks of vials. The second part of Kori’s statement finally clicked for her. “And that’s only half?!”

Kori responded in a small voice, she didn’t like discussing her Ability Scores with most people. “It’s over half… by five…”

“You… you… you have more mana than I do…” Kora stammered. The young woman was eleven years old and early into her tier two class, for a non-mage her total of two hundred and forty was considered quite respectable. To find out that she, and most of those in her age group, were outclassed by a four-year-old was a bit of a blow.

Kori felt that it probably wasn’t the best time to mention that she had actually earned two points of Attunement for her efforts throughout the day.

When the incredulity of her junior’s stat advantage, which she didn’t even know the half of, faded, Kora was reminded of why the subject had come up. “Come on, lets go get you some dinner and a good night’s sleep. We’ll take it a bit easier on the large batches tomorrow…”

Their pace back up to the main caverns was significantly slower than the way down. They filled the time with more stories of the surface and Kori’s very detailed description of Imelda’s shop. The thoughts of the wall-to-wall shelves of herbs, roots, and remedies bringing a sparkle back to her eyes as she spoke about it. Kora could only imagine having access to so many options to work with. From Kori’s perspective the space was rather expansive and she described it as such, painting a picture much larger than the somewhat cramped reality.

Rather than hope that there was still food to be had at the brood chamber, the pair picked up some food from one of the communal kitchens directly and found a place to sit and enjoy the meal. Kori even shared some of her spicy oil, though it was a bit too hot for Kora’s liking. A full belly thankfully helped a little to dull the effects of overusing her mana by such a large margin, but only exasperated the weariness that dragged her feet down and slowed their pace.

They parted ways after dinner, Kori assuring her elder sister that she could make it back to her den without issue. She nearly made a liar out of herself every time she spotted an out of the way cubby and wanted nothing more than to sit down and rest. Even she knew that if she did, she’d probably be asleep within moments.

A few bleary greetings and a yawn so wide she could have fit one of her sibling’s heads between her jaws were the only forms of communication shared as she made her way through the brood chamber to her den. Crawling inside, she didn’t even bother to stand back up or prepare for bed, she simply continued crawling straight onto her mat and let herself fall flat onto it.

Arriving at her den asleep on her feet wasn’t exactly something new for the youngling. She’d done it before and was certain she would do so again. But not falling asleep right away, despite how dearly she wanted to, was.

Uhhhgh… I feel like I did after I zeroed myself out… well, maybe not that bad…

She knew full well that it was her own fault. Resiliency against the strain of heavy mana usage was a lesson that she never made it to during her time with the mages, but it was fairly common knowledge that resisting the effects of mana expenditure was something that a magic user had to train to withstand. She wasn’t sure if it was dependant on Ability Scores or if it was a Skill that helped fortify yourself against the effects, but she did unfortunately know the recommended remedy for it… Meditation…

It’s always that damn Skill… If I can’t sleep, I might as well try again…

So, she did. Face down on her mat in nearly the same position she had collapsed into. Just as she had been taught, she stilled her breathing and tried to center herself while letting her senses drift to the mana that wafted through the air and hummed along in the stone.

Her mind of course wandered. Everything from their earlier speculation about different approaches to different ingredients, to how she really wanted pancakes, defied the stillness she sought like a breeze rustling the leaves. The more she tried to let her mind drift into silence, the louder the thoughts that intruded became.

She knew the purpose of meditation, to still the mind and become part of something greater than herself. To let her own mana mingle with the ambient so that it could be absorbed to fill and sooth her depleted reserves. But no matter how hard she tried, that state of selflessness was simply beyond her, just as it had always been.

As her frustration grew, her impatience took over and she knew that her attempt was not going to succeed this night, or probably ever.

Scale it. I don’t care about that stupid Skill anymore.

Betraying her own intent, she still tried again. This time instead of simply laying there and trying to let it happen she reached out with her meager mana control and tried to pull the drifting mana into herself, hoping once it was there, she could use it the same way as the Skill.

To her shock, it worked. The mana drifted closer and closer until it alighted upon her scales. This is when she realized, to her horror, that this was very much the wrong way to deal with mana. Meditation attuned the mana around oneself to be compatible with their own. What she had just tried, was instead drawing in raw and unattuned mana. This was generally considered a very bad idea.

She tried to stop, to stem the flow of mana into herself, to expel what she had taken, nothing worked. Once the door had been thrown wide, the mana considered it an open invitation and continued to speed its way through her body and towards her reserve. The foreign mana struck her own like rain upon a blaze, spittering and spattering and erupting in bursts of steam as it threatened to douse that fire within.

Kori knew she was in trouble. There was no way something that hurt this much wasn’t bad. But there was nothing she could do. Her world dissolved into naught but the mana she had tried to seize and her own in a war for dominance. A war she was presently losing.

No! What do I do?

Her blaze was slowly reduced, more and more of the ambient mana laying claim to its surrendered territory.

I can’t stop it… Stupid meditation… Stupid Kori…

She berated herself in her thoughts as a sense of helplessness overwhelmed her. She tried to push away the rain, to shield her flame from its onslaught, to combat the intrusion, all to no avail.

I’m… am I going to die? Or burn away my mana and never be able to use it again?

Her thoughts echoed in her mind as she felt her mana reduced from a blaze to a guttering, flickering, flame. She knew that she was out of time. She’d lost.

No!

She’d always been stubborn. Always saw obstacles as simply challenges to be overcome. Giving up wasn’t something she’d entertain.

The next thought was one she had frequently.

Why? Why can the Skill absorb mana and I can’t? How does it do it? It extends my mana outwards… does it change the ambient mana as it draws it inwards to match my own?

As she frantically tried to work out what she was missing, the flickering flame lost the last of its spark. Naught but embers remained. Embers soon to be engulphed like the rest had been.

Scale it!

She wasn’t letting her flame be extinguished.

From the smallest ember, a blaze to consume the world may be born.

So, what if the mana wanted to smother her own. Mana was mana, if she needed more of it, she’d take it. And there was plenty for the taking right there in her reserve.

She’d tried to fight it. She’d tried to defend against it. She tried to drive it away. She failed at all the things she had tried. So instead, it was time to try using it. If she needed fuel to reignite her flame, then she’d take it.

The first step was the hardest, letting go. The fall of her meager defenses allowed the flood to assault her flame unopposed. Instead of fighting, she pulled. Instead of recoiling and protecting, she flared what little remained. She breathed what might just be her last breath upon the embers and set the sparks loose with a single purpose. Consume.

It was both painstakingly slow and downright painful. For every mote that grew to feast, a dozen more were snuffed out, their final moments a hot knife stabbing into her mind. But each that succeeded, spread. First just a single candle’s flame, then more and more dotted the landscape of her mind, her imagination giving substance to the conflict raging within.

She wasn’t sure if it was minutes or days, but slowly the flames devoured the mana to fuel their resurgence. First in small pockets until they spread and merged, becoming larger and larger, faster and faster. Hundreds joining to become dozens, dozens becoming the few, and finally the few becoming a singular, towering blaze.

The last thing she was aware of was the blinking light of a notification and that she was most definitely not laying on her sleeping mat any longer. The where and why of her location was going to have to wait though. As soon as the pressures of her ordeal evaporated, so too did her consciousness.