"Look out!" Tahlea shouted. "The athanor is running out of control!"
It will be noted that Tahlea crying out for others to beware of danger and take cover was a respectably common occurrence in the Alchemy labs of the Silver Star Tower. Alchemy was, after all, an art of painstaking trial and error, of risk and experimentation, and Tahlea had the kind of devil-take-the-hindmost attitude towards it one might expect of a fairy who'd volunteered to have her spirit ripped out of her body and used as the core of an experimental homunculus for the sake of the knowledge to be gained.
This time, though, the cause of the alarm had nothing to do with her. Rather, the athanor in which magical reagents were subjected to intense heat and pressure—in this case, with the intent of creating a hybrid slime creature larger than the typical blob—was rapidly overheating. The size of the gelatinous creature was expanding more rapidly than Dr. Chartreuse had calculated. Indeed, blue gel was starting to leak from the seams around the door! And in plugging up all exit orifices of the equipment, it prevented both heat and pressure from properly venting.
Two homunculi who had been waiting to contain the finished gel immediately started to move towards cover. Unlike Tahlea, these standard homunculi lacked a core, and so did not look like beautiful blonde women but were catlike creatures a foot tall largely still encased in the inverted alchemical flasks they'd grown inside, only their hands and feet protruding, and as such a dead sprint for them was little more than a slow waddle.
A loud, shrill howl began to keen from the athanor, and more azure slime was forced through every crack and crevice as fast as the building pressure could drive it—but not fast enough.
Tahlea sprinted across the lab floor, bent low, and scooped up a homunculus in each arm while at full dash, then sprang, twisting her body in the air so that she'd cushion the impact against the stone floor to keep the flasks from shattering and killing their occupants. She landed hard, grunting with the shock, but her momentum kept her skidding beneath a heavy wooden table and behind the iron body of an inert golem.
The cover was fortunate, because it was a tossup if more glassware was obliterated by the shockwave, the flying shrapnel from the exploding athanor, or the layer of blue goo that ended up coating nearly everything (though thankfully smothering any stray fires before they got started).
"It's quite exciting to practice magic!" quipped one of the homunculi.
"...Too exciting," Tahlea groaned.
~X X X~
"Gammel, I find myself in need of advice," Dr. Chartreuse declared. Gammel Dore leaned back in his chair and waved a hand at the seat opposite.
"How unusual," said the old wizard. "Usually you prefer to work things through for yourself. Though of course, your knowledge of Alchemy exceeds mine, so there's that as well. How can I help?"
"Ah...it's not so much a magical problem as it is a parenting one."
The lion-headed professor settled into the seat opposite Professor Gammel.
"Oh? Do tell."
"It's Tahlea," he said, which was fairly self-evident, given that his other homunculus "daughter" had lived in the capital for nearly two decades. Gammel supposed it was a sign of just how agitated the situation had made Dr. Chartreuse. "I've heard about this. She's twelve now"—technically correct, if one ignored that she had been created with the unaging body of an eighteen-year-old and that her fairy core had previously lived an adult life—"and is starting to develop a political understanding, one colored by the idealistic perspective of the young."
Gammel chuckled. Generations of young magicians had passed through the Tower's doors to study, and he was well-familiar with that particular turn of thought. In general, he found that the energy of the young was a necessary counter to the complacency of their seniors, just as a mature perspective balanced out youthful fire-eating passion.
"You surprise me. From what I've seen, she's as dedicated to the study of Alchemy as you are. A rather remarkable example, but not one that leaves much time for other pursuits."
"It's a matter of combination." He let his head sag forward, and pressed a massive, paw-like hand over his eyes. "Tahlea has gotten together with the other homunculi and is pushing for the Alchemy familiars to form a trade union."
Peals of laughter greeted this announcement, but not from Professor Gammel. Rather, the hilarity came from under the table. A small, black rat scurried out, still laughing, and in the next minute a tall, slender, elegantly handsome man in antiquated finery stood there.
"Truly, you alchemists are treading upon God's purview now as the priests claim," Advocat said, still chortling. "You've created life, only to have it turn and defy your commands."
"This is hardly a laughing matter," Chartreuse said.
"Oh, indeed not. Just think if this rebellious attitude should spread beyond the homunculi. While I'm sure the chimeras' resolve will be short-lived, the golems' will is made of stronger steel, and the blobs will stick with it 'til the end!"
Chartreuse sighed.
"Just like a devil to think that's funny."
"As a matter of fact, I do."
"There is precedent, though," Gammel said. "While devils are commanded into service by brute magical force so as to avoid their infernal bargains, and likewise the necromantic shades of the deceased must be called and bound, the familiars of Glamour are not commanded to serve but rather obey the ancient pact between magicians and the rulers of Faerie, their service governed by rite and contract. I see no reason why the same could not apply to the familiars crafted by Alchemy, at least the intelligent ones. As Advocat points out in his backwards way, we magicians are not God and what we make does not owe us the duty we are bound to offer an omniscient Creator."
Advocat rolled his eyes at that, but the others ignored him.
"So you would advise me to take this matter seriously, then, old friend?" Chartreuse asked. "You don't think this is likely to go away of its own accord?"
Gammel shrugged.
"As to that, I cannot say. Your daughter can be flighty and prone to lose focus when the next interesting project comes along. But I would suggest you not count on it. It would be poor practice indeed to think her ideas inconvenient to you will just vanish without consequence. After all, wishful thinking has never served a parent yet, not with her teenage years just beginning, and I suggest you not get into bad habits."