The Newt and Demon - Book 7 Chapters 28,29,30 (Patreon)

Chapter 28

Free Booze

The concerning part about developing abilities related to predicting futures was the unfurling of fates. This was something Theo had expected based on things Khahar told him, but he hadn’t been eager to experience it. He stood by the entrance to the dungeon, tapping his foot as his mind adjusted. Before, it was easy enough to watch future events play out. He would see a person move before they should, and could scrub through the events with relative ease. Now he saw the threads. Only one or two for now, but he suspected it would get worse.

Theo squinted, watching as a new thread appeared from the entrance of the dungeon. He grabbed onto it with his mind, tugging to view the event. It was nothing interesting, but the confusion was still there.

“Imagine if you could tame something like Frank,” Tresk said with a wistful sigh. “I’d ride that bad boy all over the place.”

“Think about the food you’d have to find,” Theo countered. “It wouldn’t be cheap.”

“Bah, I could do it.”

Despite what he had expected, none of the fates Theo viewed ended in disaster. But he got to watch an alert pop up for his future self, informing him of something only slightly concerning. The elves would wake in about a minute. Instead of rushing to the infirmary under the temple, he watched the entrance to the dungeon. There was no movement. Not even after the message came for real.

“I expected a surge of void energy,” Theo said. He wasn’t disappointed, just surprised.

“From the elfies?” Tresk asked, scratching her wet little chin. “Makes no sense, boss. Those elves were already drained of their void magic. Worry about the ones you still gotta bring in.”

Theo grumbled. He wasn’t in the best mood after battling against Frank and the dungeon within. Well, he had one thing to be happy about. With Xol’sa’s help he could now nuke the dungeons. He focused on that and his mood improved significantly.

“Now that I think about it, I’m not really worried about much,” Theo said. He had to admit at least that much to himself. “What’s your take on the dungeon nuke? Think it’ll be effective?”

“Well, I have something that’s gonna help with that… heh heh heh… But that’s a surprise tool we’ll save for later,” Tresk said with a wink. “But, yeah. The giant nuke should work fine for the Ocean Dungeon. Drop the nuke, give it a few hours, then check it out. Easy-peasy.”

Theo wished he had her confidence, but he simply didn’t. There were many things that could go wrong, and he simply wanted to be prepared. The calls for the alchemist to come back and check on the awake elves grew too loud, and he had to leave Tresk, Sarisa, and Rowan there at the dungeon to sort things out.

“See ya,” Theo said, waving as he departed from the dungeon. Tresk did a couple of heroic poses, which gave him an odd amount of confidence to face the issues with the elves.

Thankfully, Zarali, Bilgrob, and Sulvan were handling the situation very well. When Theo arrived at the temple, he found the junior administrators hard at work. Several hundred elves were coming up from the infirmary, squinting around and muttering with confusion. There was plenty of housing for them, but with so many folks coming out of century-long bouts of insanity, they would need to be under strict contracts. The alchemist pushed his way beyond those elves, finding Sulvan waving him over from the area near the altar.

“Theo. Thank you for coming,” Sulvan said. The smile that hung on his face was genuine. “I’m happy to report each elf is awakening without issue. They’re all very confused, but they seem eager to sign contracts with the alliance.”

“Do they remember much from their past lives?” Theo asked.

“Indeed, they do. Unfortunately, it’s nothing good. To boil their story down, they stole the shards that were keeping the world together and ran away to space,” Sulvan said with a shrug. “Things went wrong right away, and they all went insane.”

“That lines up with what we know. How many retained their cores?” Theo asked.

“None. Some even had their core slots burned out, which will require additional recovery time. It’s fairly grim, but this was the best possible outcome for them. We really made a difference.”

“Do you think so?” Theo asked, watching as more elves came up from the catacombs. “I guess we did, huh?”

“More than you know, tiny demon,” Bilgrob said, scooping Theo in a hug from behind. He squeezed—perhaps a little too tightly—before giving him a big kiss on the head. “Spit would be proud!”

“I can go ask if you like,” Theo wheezed. “Please put me down.”

Bilgrob released him, patting the alchemist on the head a few times. “When I was first told of this plan, I thought it was idiotic. But thanks to your alchemy—which makes absolutely no sense to me—we have done it.”

“Don’t discount your healing abilities, Bilgrob,” Sulvan said. The smile on his face seemed to grow wider by the moment. “The potions started the process. But we guided their souls into place, and prevented them from dying as they recovered.”

“Don’t forget about the part where we cleaned their dirty butts,” Bilgrob said, shaking his head. “Another miracle of alchemy!”

“Yes, I’d rather not remember that part,” Sulvan said. His eyes went unfocused as he shook his head. “Anyway, I’d appreciate it if you gave us some time before you bring the next batch. Either that, or hire some more healers.”

“I would hire every healer if I could find some…”

“Why not just take a healing core?” Bilgrob asked. “That shouldn’t be too hard.”

“Everyone has a role,” Sulvan said. “If Theo takes his attention away from other things, that wouldn’t do.”

It was a good point, of course. Anyone could fit the role if they could find the core. But Theo didn’t remember seeing any healing-aligned cores for sale in the market. Since the Coresmith from Tarantham had visited the port a few times, he expected to see something. But as he searched his memory, he couldn’t remember seeing any healing cores. He supposed that made sense, since most healing cores were gifted by the gods. It was hard to tell if it was even possible to craft one.

“Couldn’t he ask his realm to generate some?” Bilgrob asked. “Then we could distribute them.”

Theo raised his hand. “I’m still here.”

“Are you? Your eyes went unfocused, and I assumed you were musing about something. The way you always do,” Bilgrob countered.

“Fair point,” Theo said, folding his arms. He was still sore about the dungeon trip. For his first journey into a dungeon, it wasn’t pleasant. “Tero’gal cannot generate cores for some reason. It can change existing cores, but not make them.”

“Part of the change with the system, no doubt,” Sulvan said. “Gaining a core from an ascendant was easy enough before they were banished. Until the world resets, I suspect that would be impossible.”

Maybe… It was very hard to say what would work. The issue rested with the structure of the new gods, and their interaction with the system. Whatever, it wasn’t a point worth delving into right now. They couldn’t make healing cores and that was that.

“I can give you a few days to rest before we bring the next elves. I’ll just say that once that happens, you guys can do whatever you want. We’ll have a decent break between that and the end of the world.”

“Perfect!” Bilgrob shouted. “I plan to get extremely drunk and pick a few fights!”

“My only goal is to serve,” Sulvan said, bowing his head. “Hallow has extended his hand, and I intend to take it in earnest.”

“Oh, yeah. There’s also a new god… I should keep a list somewhere…”

“How many more slots are there?” Sulvan asked.

“Three or four. And the Realm of Death might change soon enough. Depending on if that Elrin guy works with me or not.”

“Right… Well, if you could help out with the elves, that would be nice,” Sulvan said.

Theo nodded. He had the power to give contracts to people, so that’s what he did. It was his standard contract that restricted them from harming anyone within the alliance. If they acted against the Southlands Alliance, magical wolves would come to tear them apart. That was the most negative reaction the alchemist had seen to someone breaking his contracts, anyway. The punishment could be different depending on not only the intent of the person breaking the contract, but also how bad the thing they did was.

There would have been a lot to do to settle the space elves into the city, if not for the preparedness of those in charge. Instead the process was almost effortless. Even if there were hundreds of elves to deal with, they simply had to sign their contracts and head off to the dorms. Thea watched with pride as everything was sorted efficiently. Even the food situation was better, although that had required additional staff to prepare the food.

When they no longer required Theo’s help, he went to help keep an eye on the dungeon. But as he stood near the entrance, he watched as the edges of the portal faded, as the archway crumbled and fell to the ground, turning to dust. Despite the bad feeling he had about the situation, the dungeon was destroyed. He pulled up his dungeon information screen just to be sure, and a smile spread across his face as he read it.

[Swamp Dungeon] L30 Dormant

[River Dungeon] L19 Dormant

[Mountain Dungeon] L3 Dormant

[Ocean Dungeon] L-1 Dormant

[Cave Dungeon] L45 Dormant

Theo turned to Tresk and placed his hand on her shoulder. “One less dungeon,” he said, nodding to her.

“I actually can’t believe that worked,” Tresk said. “Seriously, I thought Frank was going to come bursting out of that portal at any moment.”

That’s exactly what Theo had expected. Instead, he felt his mind going numb when his thoughts finally caught up to him. He could only think of doing one thing. Theo and Tresk had hired somebody to work the stills to create the zee liquor. It was intended for the end-of-the-world party, but even after only a few days of brewing, they had a significant stockpile. It didn’t hurt that when it was brewed, it had to be watered down so it wouldn’t render whoever drank it blind.

The alchemist cleared his throat as he composed a message to the city.

[Theo]: The Hills Dungeon has been destroyed. Free booze at the city’s square.

“Oh, now you’ve done it,” Tresk said, cackling. She reached into the small bag on her hip and withdrew an overly large barrel. “I’ve been waiting for such an occasion.”

The half-ogres and marshlings of the town were normally well-mannered. They didn’t go out of their way to cause a ruckus, but once alcohol was involved, all bets were off. They had left alone his store of liquor until now, but the moment he made the city-wide announcement, they broke into the barrels. By the time Theo and Tresk arrived at the city’s square, stacks of the barrels were arranged around the gaudy statue dedicated to Zarali and Xol’sa.

A half-ogre dove from a nearby roof, landing hard on the ground and issuing an audible snap. He stood a moment later and thrust his fists into the air.

“Are they seriously already drunk?” Theo said, jamming a finger at the offending half-ogre.

“You said free booze,” Tresk said with a shrug.

“I suppose I should have seen this coming,” Theo said, crossing his arms.

The alchemist had no plans to partake. He really didn’t enjoy dulling his mind when there was so much risk of danger in the Alliance. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t join in the festivities. Half-ogres were known for their ability to make a game out of literally anything. They wasted no time setting up impromptu booths or breaking off into pairs after getting a drink of the watered-down liquor. It seemed to be potent stuff, and although it wasn’t alchemically useful, it served well enough as a drink.

It only took about an hour for the party to break into complete chaos. Theo mostly stuck to the sidelines, taking part in a few games, but mostly just watching. He was mostly interested in the 10 or so space elves that came out of the dorms to partake, to his surprise. Their minds were very well intact. From what he had been told, many of the elves were having issues adjusting to the mortal realm once again.

Eventually, the first elf to awaken from this batch came up alongside Theo, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Can’t say I ever expected to see this day,” Kalan said.

“As long as you guys don’t mind that we’re moving, then everything should be fine,” Theo said with a chuckle. “Must feel strange coming back to the mortal plane only to leave it so soon.”

“So long as we’re alive, I’m happy,” Kalan said with a weak shrug.

“Yeah, let’s do our best to keep it that way. Make sure your people don’t drink too much. This stuff is pretty potent.”

The party rambled on through the night. There might have been a lot of things to do, but it was nice to take a moment and appreciate what they had created here. Theo planned on taking a break before tackling the Ocean Dungeon. That required a bit of scouting anyway, so he could take it easy until the healers were ready for the next round of space elves and dungeon destruction.

Chapter 29

Hurricane in a Bottle

“I have a hangover,” Tresk said, rolling out of bed the next morning.

Theo could actually feel it through their link. He could sense the headache, and feel her sore muscles, so he simply cut the connection off. “I told you to take it easy,” he said, shaking his head, “but you just had to jump off the roof of that building into that barrel of booze.”

“But I made the jump,” Tresk said, snapping her fingers. “And it was a damn good jump, wasn’t it?”

“It was a very impressive jump, especially the way you drank your way out of the barrel,” Theo said, nodding in agreement. He sniffed at the air, smelling the scent of something greasy cooking downstairs. “It seems as though Sarisa is looking out for you.”

“Food,” Tresk groaned, crawling along the ground. “Greasy food. I need it.”

Theo watched an amusement, Tresk crawled her way out of the room and then down the stairs. She dragged herself into a chair and slammed her forehead into the table. He descended the stairs with amusement and took his seat. A few moments later, Sarisa and Rowan served them plates piled high with greasy sausages and bacon. The alchemist picked at his food as his companion shoveled it down her gullet.

“Are you going to be up for scouting the ocean dungeon today, Tresk?” Theo asked.

“Once my head stops pounding, I’ll be fine to do it. But don’t get your hopes up. That dungeon sucks, even if we have the tower built around it.”

The tower they had built was effectively a watertight system that allowed access to the dungeon, but that didn’t make going into the dungeon itself any less harrowing. The reports he had received said that the interior was its own ocean. Completing that dungeon was more about not drowning rather than killing monsters. From what Theo had heard, there were some dungeons that were more puzzle than fighting challenge, but they hadn’t thoroughly scouted the interior of this dungeon yet, so it could have been anything. Negative dungeons had a way of changing.

But Theo had his eye set on different tasks today. With his new method of infusing potions with properties, he had quite a few he wanted to test. He had also harvested enough blubber from Frank to cover the town, and the properties seemed promising. He was particularly interested in the Defense property. Although we had to admit that the hurricane property was just as tempting.

It might have taken Trask a while, but she was eventually back to her old self. She perked up after some hair of the dog as some watered wine. The greasy food also did some work for her roiling gut. Her task today was an unenviable one. She had to do scouting missions in the ocean dungeon and planned to stop by the shop to grab the potions required to survive.

“One of you two gets an easy day today,” Theo said, patting Sarisa and Rowan on the shoulder at the same time. “Who wants to stand around the place where the Hills dungeon was to look for anything weird?”

Rowan raised his hand. “Not me. I had a weird dream that Frank ate me.”

“Did you sleep in the manor last night?” Sarisa asked.

“Yeah, I slept in that manner,” Rowan said, folding his arms. “Why?”

“Because when you sleep in the manor, you can control your dreams, you idiot.”

“What you’re saying is that I’m just torturing myself?” Rowan asked with a scoff. That’s exactly what was happening. “I think you should go watch the dungeon, sister.”

Sarisa shrugged, slapping her brother on the back before heading out. It wouldn’t be a hard job, and Theo didn’t foresee any problems with it, but he still couldn’t shake the strange feeling he got about the dungeon. It felt as though something more should have happened than the collapse. The dungeon’s destruction made little sense to him, but then again he wasn’t an expert on dungeons. He normally left that to Xol’sa, who thought everything was fine. Now the man was busy reuniting with his people, so perhaps Theo was the next best expert.

“You understand you can control your dreams when you sleep in here, right?” Theo asked, leveling his gaze at Rowan.

“The heart wants what it wants,” Rowan said.

“So, your deepest desire is to be eaten by a giant whale monster?” Theo asked, nodding. “That’s fine. How about you just get into the shadows and we’ll go brew some potions?”

“I brought a book this time,” Rowan said, holding up a book.

“That’s nice,” Theo said, patting him on the head. Rowan vanished into the shadows shortly after that.

Now that Theo and Salire had a better handle on the new form of alchemy, she was pumping out more potions than ever. Theo entered the lab and breathed in the scent of brewing health potions. She had been kind enough to leave a few stills empty for him to use, which was always appreciated. And, as always, there was another strange person working the store downstairs, but there hardly seemed to be a need for anyone of skill. Most of the patrons were locals, almost always adventurers.

“I’ll be testing a new reagent today,” Theo said, cleaning out the three stills that had been left for him. He withdrew a chunk of the blubber from his inventory and held it out for her to see.

“Ew, why does it stink so much?” Salire asked, pinching her nose.

“Yeah, now that I think about it, the whole thing stank. We were just worried about not dying, so I don’t think anyone noticed it at the time…”

“Right, I heard about your harrowing adventure,” Salire said, smiling softly. “That sounded a lot more dangerous than I had expected.”

“Alright, well, we figured out how to nuke the dungeon, so further excursions should be a lot easier,” Theo said. “Anyway, which property do you think would be the best to try first?”

He read the properties off to her, as she had yet to discover them herself. It took her a bit, but of course Salire was interested in seeing what the hurricane property would do. So they would brew Hurricane, Barricade, and Defense. The Blubber property sounded too much like the fluff property, and nobody liked potions that altered their skin.

Theo got to work on the potions, finding the blubber easy enough to work with. When he ran it through his crushing artifice, it gummed up pretty badly, but he had enough of the material not to worry about it, and simply cleaned the devices after each use. He added the right amount of enchanted water, and ensured the iron was fresh on the impurity extraction part of the artifice, and set them to work.

It would take most of the day for the devices to run fully, but he could get enough of the refined essence to test what potion each would make by midday.

“Would you mind watching these for me?” Theo asked. “Just trying to fix his stills. I’ll be back by midday, but I wanted to check on the elves and the dungeon.”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Salire said, waving him away. “I shouldn’t be expecting anything crazy, should I?”

“Just keep the extractor fan on, and they should be fine. I’ve noticed that reagents that stink more always put off more vapors. Maybe crack a window while you’re at it.”

“Alright,” Salire said with a shrug, “just leave me with the stinky blubber. I don’t mind.”

Theo smiled as he headed out from the lab. It didn’t smell that bad, and they had smelled far worse. He made his way through the city, making note of the space elves that walked around. He wasn’t sure if they’d be able to offer each of them jobs, but he was sure somebody would put them to work. The alchemist thought the problem with the end of the world would be the devaluation of money. If the coins would become useless at the end of the world, he was certain people wouldn’t use them for trade. But if the business and market section of the city were anything to go by, that was completely false.

The people of this world still love their money. They use it for everything and always seem to want more. Theo completely did not understand it, but he wouldn’t question it. Even the space elves that had been locked in the void were now searching for jobs that paid. And they would use that money to buy stuff they needed to survive. Perhaps this was thanks to his own upbringing on a broken Earth, but he doubted he would ever understand it and just accepted it as a fact. This world was used to things collapsing around them only to be rebuilt months later.

There’s a whole purpose to the seed core system. Civilizations could crumble to the ground and be rebuilt in a few months if there were enough people with the right classes and the right seed cores. This cycle had continued for too long, and Theo preferred not to think too much about it. It was going to end soon enough anyway. After he was satisfied that the elves were settling in, he stopped by the harbor to check on the ocean dungeon. As expected, there were quite a few adventurers there, taking turns going down the tower and visiting the dungeon. Early reports were appearing in the administration interface. It looked better than he had expected. The nightmare hellscape on the other side wasn’t as hostile as the Hills dungeon.

After wandering around for a while, Theo returned to the lab. The flasks had collected enough essence for him to brew a few potions. And of course he wanted to start with the Hurricane property. Salire stopped what she was doing to come over and see what the result would be. The essence itself was a cloudy blue mixture, and when he introduced it into the vial, the reaction was violent. He plugged the stopper into the top to keep the swirling mixture from escaping. A small cloud appeared overhead and it began raining in the lab.

Salire cursed, running around to summon tarps from her inventory. She covered the equipment and open containers as the rain came down. Theo opened the door to the stairway, allowing water to pour down to the first floor.

He rushed downstairs and nodded to the person running the shop today. “Could you sweep the water out the front?”

The half-ogre grabbed a broom with a grunt and obeyed, opening the front door and sweeping the water out.

“Thanks,” Theo said, rushing back upstairs. The reaction of the potion was mostly done, and the contents of the vial had settled down to an opaque swirling mix of blue and white.

“That was unexpected,” Salire said, watching as the cloud dispersed above.

“Hurricane in a bottle, maybe,” Theo said, scooping the potion up for inspection.

[Hurricane Potion]

[Potion]

Epic

Created by: Theo Spencer

Purity: 85%

Imbibing this potion creates a powerful cyclone of air. If the effect is allowed to continue, it will eventually generate a hurricane above the drinker. The storm will proceed in a random direction. Strength and duration depend on the purity of this potion.

Effect:

Summon a hurricane.

“That isn’t useful,” Theo said, frowning down at the potion.

Salire leaned in to inspect it, clapping a hand over her mouth. “Absolutely not. Throw it away.”

Theo couldn’t help but laugh at the potion. It wasn’t absolutely devastating like some other potions he had crafted, but summoning a hurricane was something else. Once again, the extra property on a reagent had generated a powerful effect. Useless, but powerful.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever understand the logic of these potions,” Theo said, switching the still off. He took the flask into his inventory, intending to destroy it later. “I’d rather not have this one available in the lab.”

“Could we move on to the next one?” Salire asked. “I’d rather not think about the hurricane in a bottle anymore.”

“Right… Good idea,” Theo said, clearing his throat. “No hurricane potions.

Chapter 30

Plenty of Blubber

Theo turned his attention to the Defense Essence next. As he worked with it, he felt a similarity between the essence and the property he applied to his wards. At least it made sense that a creature like Frank would have ‌the Defense property. It was a very enduring monster he doubted they could kill through normal means.

Compared to the hurricane property, the Defense property was very easy to work with. The essence itself was pale silver and poured into the potion vial with ease. Theo mixed the contents and—owing to the previous potion—took cover when he mixed it. The reaction was very subdued, hardly even bubbling. It smelled like engine grease or rusted metal. He couldn’t tell.

“See, that’s the kind of potion you want to see,” Salire said, nodding with approval. “A useful, easy-to-understand potion.” 

She had apparently inspected it before Theo had the chance. He held the potion to the light first, checking the quality and giving his approval. He then inspected the potion itself.

[Defense Potion]

[Potion]

Uncommon

Created by: Theo Spencer

Purity: 95%

Imbibing this potion grants the drinker a reactive shield. This barrier activates when a hit would have normally struck the drinker. The barrier reduces damage taken by 25%.

Effect:

Creates a reactive barrier that reduces damage by 25% for 2 hours.

“That is a very reasonable potion,” Theo said. “We’ve been getting so many weird potions lately, and I wasn’t sure the system had it in us to give us something normal.”

It was interesting to examine the differences in quality between the two potions. Quality was now represented as purity, and the first potion he had crafted that day was 85% pure. This new one was 95%. That was because of the complexity of the property. The more complex or strange a property was, the harder it was to get it pure. There were still some steps they needed to take to make the alchemy process perfect, but it was getting better by the day.

Although the defense potion only reduced damage taken by 25%, it would do so for two hours with no additional actions required by the drinker. He suspected that would place this potion as one of the most important ones that people would use for adventuring. Who wouldn’t like a quarter reduction in the damage they took for two hours? All for the low price of a few silver coins, so long as they were locals to the city.

“This simply makes me concerned about the barricade property,” Salire said. She tapped the side of the flask holding the essence and shook her head. “We had one dud, one great potion. I think that means this last one’s going to be just as bad. I’m getting memories from the Fluff Potion.”

“Well, there’s only one way to find out,” Theo said, grabbing the flask containing the Barricade Essence. He prepared a vial and inspected the essence itself. It was odd how it had a strangely brown tinge. It was almost rust-colored and smelled like freshly cut wood. He wasn’t sure if he had ever seen a reagent that produced three distinct properties like this.

The reaction was controlled, especially compared to the hurricane essence. When it was mixed with the catalyst and the enchanted water, it bubbled for a bit, intensifying the woody smell of the potion. He held it and swirled it, nodding with approval as vapors collected on the side of the vial and evaporated into the air. When the bubbles subsided, the faintly reddish brown color had deepened, becoming something more like stained mahogany.

Salire whistled before he had a chance to inspect the resulting potion. Apparently, she had taken to inspecting it before him and offering her reaction. Theo shook his head and inspected the potion.

[Barricade Potion]

[Potion]

Rare

Created by: Theo Spencer

Purity: 90%

Imbibing this potion surrounds the drinker with orbiting wooden barricades tipped with metal spikes. Enemies who make contact with these barricades will take damage.

Effect:

Summon [Floating Barricades]

“Yeah, why the hell is that one literal?” Theo asked, tapping his foot. More than anything, he was annoyed with the result of the potion. He had expected something that would bolster someone’s defense even further than the Defense Potion.

Salire snorted. Then she released a laugh and continued laughing until she fell over onto the floor of the lab. Theo stared down as she rolled around, cackling. He tried not to show how funny the situation was, but eventually broke and joined her. At least he didn’t end up on the ground.

“You should have seen your face,” Salire said, wiping tears from her eyes. “You were expecting something that was actually good, and the system was like, ‘Nope, here’s a bunch of floating barricades for you.’”

“Oh yeah?” Theo asked, pressing the potion against his lips. “I’ll do it.”

“Oh gods, please don’t,” Salire begged, clasping her hands together. She actually looked pretty worried. “You don’t know how big those barricades are going to be. They’ll smash the lab up.”

“You’re lucky this lab equipment is so expensive,” Theo said, pulling the potion away from his lips. “We should just destroy most of these potions. The defense one is the only one worth using.”

“What, did you go outside and test the potion?” Salire suggested. “Maybe you’ll find something worthwhile about the barricade one. Just please don’t test the Hurricane Potion.”

“I think I’ll do exactly that,” Theo said, straightening his back and striking the most impressive pose he could manage. “Why don’t you clean up the disgusting stills while I’m gone? That’ll be punishment for laughing at me.”

Salire withdrew cleansing scrub from her inventory and dripped it into the stills. The mess that was left behind was cleared away in an instant. “You’re such a slave driver,” she said dramatically.

Theo smiled to himself as he left the lab. He stepped out onto the roads of the city and then found a quiet place to the east to test the potion. “Rowan,” he said, waiting only a moment before the half-ogre appeared from the shadows. He had his book in his hand. “Could you please test this potion for me?”

“How much are you going to pay me?” Rowan asked, not even looking up from his book.

“I pay you a salary,” Theo said, holding the potion out for him to take. When the half-ogre refused, he sighed and withdrew a single gold coin from his inventory. It really wasn’t worth the gold coin to test, but who cared?

Rowan drank the potion down and won, smacking his lips and making a face as though he was disgusted. A moment later, four literal wooden barriers appeared from nowhere and began orbiting him. Rowan had a confused look on his face and stared at Theo for help.

“How long is this supposed to last?” Rowan asked.

“Some are between one and five hours,” Theo said, getting closer and holding his hand out. When a barrier orbited, rowing it, it simply passed through his hands. So the barriers themselves wouldn’t affect anything that wasn’t an enemy. “Could you walk over to that tree and get the barricades to slam against it?”

With a shrug, Rowan approached the tree. Sure enough, as he got close enough, the barriers passed through the tree. It was difficult to understand why the system had designed this potion to create literal wooden barriers. It was just something Theo couldn’t understand. But it worked, and it might actually have some uses if it didn’t run into either allies or inanimate objects.

“Let’s go,” Theo said, jerking his head up the road. Rowan followed close behind him, and it didn’t take long to gain the attention of the people walking on the streets. They spotted the floating barriers and giggled or got out of the way. When the crowd got thick towards the city’s center, they could avoid allowing the floating barricades to pass through people. Thankfully, none were hurt. It just floated through them and made them shout in fear.

Before long, the duo was stepping out into the swamp through the western gate. They sloshed through the mud, finding their way deep enough to discover some monsters. The place hadn’t had much monster activity lately, with the dungeons no longer generating the creatures. They were becoming a rare sight, but Theo eventually spotted an ogre snapper in the distance.

“Walk up to that creature and see what happens when the barriers pass through it,” Theo instructed. He folded his arms and watched as Rowan stomped through the mud.

Before the half-ogre even approached the snapper, it rose from the muck and removed its head from its shell. It emitted a low gurgling sound and moved forward with all the speed a swamp turtle could manage. Rowan edged closer until the barriers were only about a foot from the monster. It moved forward, its head eventually coming into range of the orbit. The barricade smashed into the monster’s head and bits of spectral wood fell to the ground.

“That’s an interesting interaction,” Theo said, watching at a safe distance. The turtle stumbled back a few steps. Rowan pressed the advantage, allowing the barricades to smash into the turtle. It eventually retreated into its shell, but the potion still did its work. Repeated hits to the creature’s hard shell. The turtle was driven back from the force of the hits, even if it was tucked safely in its shell. Although the barricades moved slowly, they brought a lot of force to the fight.

“That’s a strange interaction, right?” Rowan shouted back at Theo.

“That’s an extremely strange interaction,” Theo said. “I expected absolutely nothing from this potion, but it seems kind of effective. Could you see any use for combat?”

“Maybe, for other people, but not for me,” Rowan said. “I fight from stealth, so if I had a bunch of barriers around me all the time, it would be hard to stay out of sight.”

And that was very interesting. Most potions, it was pretty easy to tell if they were going to be useful or not, but this one had evaded Theo’s notice. He was certain it would be a dud, but as he watched the barricades slam against the turtle’s shell, he realized it might actually be useful. Eventually, Rowan was able to defeat the turtle without landing a single blow himself. Instead, he let the potion do the work. And he claimed he even got experience for the kill.

Two of the barricades had been destroyed during the attack, but Theo considered that to be an acceptable loss. Since Rowan didn’t lift a finger, there might be a use for these potions for low-level people adding into dungeons or fighting monsters they weren’t prepared to fight. Since the drinker of the potions didn’t need to do a damn thing, it was a power-leveling strategy.

The duo tested the potion, checking what would happen when it expired from running out of barricades, as expected. The effect just went away. There were no detrimental effects after it ran out of orbiting barricades. After that, they headed back to the lab to talk to Salire about it. She was shocked to hear that it did anything more than slam into furniture and ruin buildings.

“Well, good thing I just wasted all that essence,” Salire said, gesturing to the still she had just cleaned.

“Don’t worry about it,” Theo said. “I’ve got plenty of the blubber, more than we’ll ever need. But I wanted to get a run of the potion started again so we can test it with a low-level adventurer.”

“There is a flaw in your plan,” Rowan said with a shrug. “The issue is that we don’t really have many monsters to test this stuff on. It’s going to be hard to get levels for people if we don’t have access to monsters.”

“Fair enough,” Theo said. “I know we’ve discovered some dungeons north of the Alliance, but some of them are corrupted with undead power.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that running undead dungeons isn’t fun,” Rowan said. “You’d be hard-pressed to get veterans to go in there, let alone the newbies.”

Well, there went that idea. It might still be worth investigating, but there were bigger things that concerned Theo for now. Like the reports that were rolling in about the Ocean Dungeon. The alchemist left everything to Salire for now.

“I gotta nuke a dungeon. Be right back,” he said, ducking out of the Newt and Demon.