Left after the bar with the green redstone sign... down the second available slope after that… the third branch in the crossroads… up another slope… right twice… straight for two intersections… fourth exit in the circular room? Unchosen wasn't sure anymore. Maybe he had taken a wrong turn somewhere but a lot more time had passed than on his way back to the surface after he had left Rock Bottom for the first time. He was sure he would find it, the local saying "everyone ends up in Rock Bottom eventually" existed for a reason.

The lower districts were significantly less populated during the day, the only people Unchosen saw were those who either didn't have a regular work schedule or those who stayed down for days at a time. As a result it was also a whole lot darker, at times there were hallways where only Unchosen's own steps illuminated the walls.

At this point Unchosen was just randomly picking directions and trying to listen for the music, which proved fruitless since artificial bedrock also seemed to be an excellent sound blocker. Occasionally he passed by a bar or small shop that he had seen before or that the others had told him about, which told him that he was on the right track.

Eventually he did reach the lowest part of the lower districts. The wide corridor before the entrance of Rock Bottom wasn't crowded like it had been at night but inside the club were still a respectable number of dancers. The music played at the same volume as Unchosen remembered but the sounds themselves were new. He looked around the central dancefloor trying to spot Undira but he quickly concluded that if she was here she must be in one of the outer chambers.

Unchosen decided to search the outer chambers from left to right. He first approached the Red Zone, the earth Mencur-Besh standing at the gate signaled him that he was free to enter. It turned out that Undira wasn't there. Unchosen continued to the Orange Lounge and the Yellow Palace and was met with similar success. He finally found Undira in the Green Grove and as Ambigious had prophesized she was glowing quite brightly.

Undira was sitting on the same couch where Ambigious said he had found her, Unchosen concluded that it might be a ritual or habit of hers. As he approached her she looked up from her bottle and directly at him, she seemed to recognize him from when they had eaten at the Creeper's Tongue, which made sense since Unchosen had sat right beside her, even if she had spent the entire time talking with Fire.

Undira raised a hand in greeting. "Unchosen, is it? Hello, what brings you down here?"

Unchosen sat down next to her and said: "Ambigious told me you needed a potion."

Undira took a swig from her bottle, then replied: "Yup. It's to help with enchanting, extending my vocal range beyond what the trance brings."

With a bit of hesitation Unchosen said: "Mind if we go right now, a lot has happened in the meantime and I have a lot of things to do."

Undira sighed and looked at her bottle. "I know, that's why I'm down here again." She then added angrily: "I don't understand why anyone would poison someone as fascinating and wonderful as Fire. I don't see anything wrong with giving away the Axe either, it's never been used in war, too great of a risk to lose it."

Unchosen got up. "Alright, do you have a recipe written down somewhere?"

As Unchosen turned to walk Undira followed him, she said: "Yes and no. I have a shopping list for some of the ingredients and a piece of paper with incomplete instructions."

"I'll see what I can do. Most potions can be quickly identified by certain key ingredients and processing steps."

After leaving Rock Bottom Undira took the lead since she knew her way around the lower districts better than Unchosen did.

As they ascended the stairs to one of the three entrances she asked: "How did you end up as Fire's apprentice anyways?"

Unchosen said: "He freed us from a slave mine and took us in, he quickly discovered my talent for alchemy."

Unchosen really liked that short version of their story, it said everything that needed to be said without revealing anything about their true backgrounds. It would be a bad idea to talk about the hackers with anyone in public since it would only cause panic or tip the hackers off to their location.

Undira replied: "Anything else you're learning or just alchemy?"

Unchosen said: "Close combat, I wanted to do archery but that sort of fell flat since we're travelling with Shadow and freeZe who have range more than covered."

"Makes sense." Undira said and nodded.

After they arrived on the surface they still had a bit of walking to do, Undira's house was on the very edge of Rockhaven, the only house in a street of storage buildings.

Unchosen asked: "Any specific reason for this choice of location?"

Undira said: "Yeah, I arrived in the city quite early and wanted to have something out of the way. Rockhaven may be safe and peaceful and all but I still like being a bit isolated. Besides, it's easier to buy stuff directly off the people who store it here, better prices and it won't ever appear in any guild's sales records."

Unchosen asked: "When you say early, how early do you mean?"

Undira replied: "Just a few years after Rockhaven was found abandoned." After a short pause she added: "If I'm correct that should be a bit more than three thousand years ago."

Undira took out her keys and unlocked the door to her house, they both went inside.

She said: "Yeah, I've been here for a while. Know the city better than almost anyone else. Anyways, that potion…"

Undira's house was completely unlike Shadow's house, while the furniture was definitely of high quality it wasn't as meticulously arranged. In general it reminded him of his own house in the real world, he'd never been one for perfectly laid out rooms, that and it was impossible to keep them that way with children in the household.

Undira began searching various cupboards, it was noticeable that she was trying not to just throw everything to the ground. Eventually she handed Unchosen two sheets of paper. One of them had a list of ingredients on them, the other one looked like it was a partial carbon copy of a hastily written recipe.

Undira admitted: "I'm not actually supposed to have the recipe but it was just too tempting not to grab the sheet and make the lines visible again."

Unchosen took the sheets, while looking over the shopping list he asked: "Who brewed that potion for you before?"

Dungeon moss… purified blaze powder…

"Erin, young alchemist, daughter of a weaver and a tool smith." Undira explained. "Lovely girl and quite talented too. She recently left the city under the premise of travelling to Redwater to buy some ingredients, maybe go further and hunt down some rarer ones herself. But I know that she really just wants to see the world outside of the walls. I hope she's well."

Wither skeleton dust… blue stone flower petals…

Unchosen said: "The world outside can be dangerous, experienced a lot of that first hand. We have taken the fun path more often than not in our travels so I seriously doubt that she'll intentionally go down a cave and face a ghoul."

Enderman liver… huh.

Undira replied: "Ghouls… nasty creatures. Say, ever heard of fog wraiths?"

Prepare large basin of potion base and heat to just below boiling…

Having read the shopping list Unchosen had moved on to the recipe. He replied: "Yeah, freeZe told me about them briefly. Only know that they live near bedrock and are nothing to be messed with."

Add whole petals… cut liver into thin strips…

Unchosen stopped. "Undira, is there something you are not telling me?"

Undira looked at Unchosen. "What do you mean?"

"This is demon tongue potion." Unchosen said. "Unless you are going for very specific enchantments this won't do you any good. But I have to admit, the part where you said that it extends the vocal range was clever."

Undira slowly said: "I never did ask what the proper name for it was. Makes sense now I guess. I might have slightly lied to you about what I am using it for but only slightly."

Unchosen sighed. "Out with it."

Undira explained: "As you might have noticed I am very interested in the Mencur-Besh and their culture, their architecture, their anatomy, their everything. I know that they built this city and that there are powerful enchantments within some of the artificial bedrock, in the past I used the potion to be able to look at those enchantments, try to understand them."

Unchosen said: "Your interest in the Mencur-Besh seems to be of a positive nature, everything I've seen so far supports this. I imagine you'd also be interested in finding out who poisoned Fire."

Undira nodded. "That I am. Are you hunting them?"

"Something like that, yes. Right now we don't really know where to start but we assume that it's someone who is hostile towards the Mencur-Besh. Having some as knowledgeable about the city as you on our side would help."

Undira said: "Yeah, I know a few people who would rather see the Mencur-Besh gone or dead. We have a deal then. Make me that potion and I'll help you dig through Rockhaven."

Unchosen extended his hand, Undira shook it.

Unchosen said: "One last question, there are some ingredients that are a bit different from normal demon tongue potion, did your alchemist ever say anything about that?"

"No, not that I remember." Undira said.

Unchosen got up, at the door he turned around. "It'd be best if you're either here or at the Enchanter Guild in case I need to find you again, going to Rock Bottom is fun and all but it's time consuming and time is something that we might not have much of."

Undira nodded in agreement. Unchosen went outside and closed the door behind him. Now he would need to make his way back to the central plaza again, he'd have to talk to the other alchemists about this potion since he currently had no idea where to get ingredients.

They were still far away from finding Fire's murderer but he just had gotten one step closer.