When he woke up TehLulz could see rays of light shining through the redstone fans on the ceiling, judging by their angle it was still quite early. He was lying on a comfortable bed, not unlike the ones Shadow had in her house. Unchosen and Egis probably were still in the lab working on their potion, after they started they had soon urged the others to leave. From what he gathered you absolutely didn't want to breathe in some of the byproducts of the brewing process without a mask.

There were multiple more beds in the room he was in, currently only three others were occupied by Ambigious, freeZe and Undira, who were all still sleeping.

He swung his feet out of the bed and started walking towards the door.

Undira's voice stopped him: "Off to check on the potion?"

TehLulz simply nodded, not wanting to wake up the others. He carefully opened the door and slipped outside. The room just left was in was a tier below Egis' laboratory, from what Egis told him it was used as a medical room in wartimes but now served as a bedroom for anyone that needed it.

Even at this early hour there were still plenty of alchemists walking the tiers, going between labs and ingredient stores. TehLulz went up the stairs to Egis' lab, then knocked on the door, resulting in a pleasant resonance.

Unchosen was the one to open the door, he was still wearing his mask, which concealed his eyes behind two panes of glass. Upon closer inspection it was clear that he was very tired, though he looked content.

Through his mask he said: "Come in, air should be safe to breathe, we engaged the fans a couple of minutes ago."

The room looked more cluttered than the day before, TehLulz suspected that every bit of equipment that once had been in the cupboards was now somewhere on a table. An impressive piping construction had been built that seemed to span the entire room.

Egis was at the end of the central table, currently filling a flask with what seemed to be the end result of the night. As opposed to Unchosen, Egis was not wearing a mask and didn't seem to be tired in the least.

"Ah, welcome. You arrived just in time." Egis called out.

The potion he was now holding looked interesting to say the least, it was pitch black but occasionally streaks of other colors seemed to pulsate through the mixture.

Egis said: "I spent years developing this formula, you know? And now it is finally here. I have yet to give it a name."

TehLulz asked: "What does it do?"

Egis explained: "Usually potions only improve one aspect of a body, be that strength, speed, you name it. The more of those potions you drink at the same time the more you risk a conflict between the effects, the result of which can range from inconvenient over painful up to lethal."

Egis placed the flask on the table, then pointed to himself. "Naturally it is possible to slowly improve your body with alchemy but that process takes years and can backfire just as easily. I was quite lucky that it only cost me my hair. Now, this potion is like your usual potions with a very important difference, it improves every aspect of your body, allowing even completely unaltered people to achieve incredible feats. I was told it was insanity to think this potion was possible but here it is."

TehLulz asked: "So, who will drink it?"

Unchosen had sat down on a chair in the meantime, he had also taken off his mask. "We don't know yet. It'll probably be either you or Undira since you are the only ones who can distort the artificial bedrock to get into the house."

Just that moment the door flew open and Ambigious and Undira walked in. freeZe was not with them but TehLulz trusted Egis' promise that her life was not in danger. The Guild also seemed to be reasonably safe from the conspiracy with the Eye-and-Claws presence being as high as it was.

Undira asked: "Did someone say my name?"

Egis greeted them: "Good morning, the potion is ready."

TehLulz said: "So, Undira. One of us two has to drink the potion and steal the book. If you don't mind I would prefer to be the one."

Undira thought for a second. "That would probably be best, yeah. I'm not one for sneaking around."

It was decided, TehLulz walked over to Egis and reached for the potion. Egis stopped him.

He said: "There are a couple of things you should know first. While this potion will allow you to do great things, it is still an experiment. I can guarantee that while it is active it does exactly what I intended but once it wears off you will experience after effects when your metabolism finds out what it did while under the effect of the potion. I can guarantee that they are not lethal but it will be very unpleasant and it will probably stay that way for a while."

TehLulz took a few seconds to think, his own well-being really did not matter in this situation as long as he could guarantee that the conspiracy was stopped.

He said: "I think I can hazard the consequences. Anything else?"

"Yes." Egis opened a drawer and pulled out what looked like a green wetsuit. "You'll need to wear this, it is designed to take on potion effects of its wearer. While for simple potions like invisibility you can do some trickery to affect clothes as well, that is not possible for a complex potion like this."

TehLulz spent a couple of minutes in an adjacent chamber squeezing into the suit, then returned to Egis. He took the potion from the table, just before he was about to drink it he was interrupted by Unchosen.

"Just so you know, that potion has demon speech built into it but sadly not the version that allows you to speak normally as well. So I have to tell you this now. Once you drink it I'll tell you a location I overheard from the eye, after you have the book it would be good if you took a look there as well. I have a feeling that it's important."

"I can do that." TehLulz said.

TehLulz uncorked the flask, then started drinking the potion. As the potion touched the inside of his mouth the effect stated to set in immediately. He felt how his heartbeat accelerated, how his senses got sharper, his thoughts clearer. This was only the beginning though. Once he had drank the entire flask he felt the effects growing more and more intense. His heartbeat sped up to speeds that probably would have killed a normal human. The entire process was uncomfortable to say the least.

TehLulz clamped his hand around the diamond-glass flask, to his own surprise it shattered in his grasp. He instinctively looked at his hand to check for splinters but not only was his hand completely unscathed but it also had turned black. As he looked down he saw that his entire body and the suit he was wearing had taken on the color of the surrounding obsidian.

He moved his hand over to a leather bound book that was lying on the table, almost instantly his skin changed color to blend in with the cover. He took a look around the room, everything was unnaturally clear and detailed, it was like he was focusing on every spot in his vision at once.

He then noticed that in the time it had taken him to move to the book, the shards from the flask hadn't even properly hit the ground yet. Was this what Fire meant when he talked about his combat ability? The others looked at him with a look of surprise, except for Egis, who was currently in the middle of a comically slow victory dance.

Unchosen was also in the process of drinking demon tongue potion. TehLulz tried bringing his perception back to normal speed and it did, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. He heard the others talking but couldn't understand what they said, just like Unchosen had told him. Unchosen had finished drinking in the meantime.

He spoke and a location appeared in TehLulz' mind, this was the location of the house of the conspiracy leader. Then another location, this time on the opposite side of town on the very outskirts.

TehLulz gave Unchosen thumbs up, then walked towards the door and carefully opened it, now acutely aware of the strength the potion had given him. It was time to visit the house with the nether wart blooms.