Chapter 9
There's a time for you to run and a time for you to walk
"I'm concerned if this dwarf is a true alchemist," Hanz began when we arrived home again to plan our next move. "Can you ask about it?"
"Of course!" I agreed. "Who knows what their lair might be trapped with in that case? There's two kinds though, I mean I could call myself an alchemist if I focused on potions, even thought it was just magical. One moment." I first asked the universe "Does any dwarven alchemist at Savvass armory have any supernatural power?" and got back "No." Same for asking about magical power. So it seemed they were just a "chemist" or "charlatan" according to Hanz.
"I mean don't drop your guard, chemicals are nothing to take lightly in their own right," they cautioned. "But at least the place probably won't have any defense against us intruding."
"Let's start with the talking plan," Malachite decided. "We can always swipe the thing if that doesn't work out. But if we did get caught trying to swipe it, that means the talking plan is off the table."
"I have come up with a great persona for each of us," I agreed excitedly. "You're gonna love it!"
"Tho let's go!" Snarly exclaimed.
We flew out there and landed some distance away, so we could prepare. To start I put my spell of augmented skill on Snarly, and made sure he understood his role. I then put the illusion magic on myself and Hanz, turning us into draig. I wanted us to be seen as no-nonsense types, who had seen a lot of action and could loom properly. I had one more spell to maintain after all, so I wasn't going to be doing much talking, but looking intimidating was free. Hanz became a tall blue draig, with a chipped horn, missing scales, eye-patch, and as I could effect their equipment the ax looked twice as big. Their armor and such I left alone, it was fine. All that, in my mind, seemed to indicate someone that didn't shy away from combat, could handle themselves, and kept fighting no matter what happened. For myself I went with a red variety, but less physically imposing. As a magic user I had an obligation to magic, so I went with a robe that left my arms free. Those I had covered with mystical symbols. My eyes were bound as though I was blind, and I was "missing" a leg and part of my tail. My final spell was going to be telekinesis, I was going to float everywhere like the powerful mage I was. I also got out my two companion creatures, who I mentally told not to go invisible, as they were going to help with the intimidation effort. We were ready.
The door to the place was a heavy iron, covered with a scene showing dwarves in battle. Probably overdone, and the knocker seemed to be an old mace which Hanz called "metal" in a deep voice but of course it was metal. It was a mace. What did they expect? Malachite smacked the door with the mace and stepped back to wait. It wasn't long before someone came to answer it.
"Yes?" a dwarf growled at us, a small slit in the door opening up to reveal a pair of eyes.
Malachite stepped up, as was the plan. "We are here on behalf of the dragon Ax'rejj. Tell your master, the so called alchemist, that he has one chance to avoid the dragon's wrath. Speak with our hired hand," he indicated Snarly who waved up at the dwarf, "about restitution for the attack. Refuse us, and we will return in force with the dragon at our back."
"What do you need with that little one?"
Rather rich, coming from a dwarf.
"He is a neutral third party, such that our great anger does not get the better of us during negotiations. It would be a pity, if someone's ax should for example slip," he looked over at Hanz, "and chop off a head or two before it was brought under control again."
He looked us all over. I was silently floating there, looking right at him despite being "blind." Hanz was twirling their ax around.
"Wait here, I'll see if he's free."
"He better be," Malachite warned as the slot closed up. "So far so good," he whispered to us after a moment.
The door opened a moment later and we were allowed inside, so I floated in and looked around. The place was fairly utilitarian, with a living area, workbenches, and workers discussing things and trying to be uninterested in us passing by. Three dwarves in armor and weapons met us, clearly the guards of the place, as the others also seemed to be intellectuals of some kind. Not to say they couldn't fight, but they weren't in armor and had no visible weapons, so they were probably hired by the alchemist as helpers for his experiments.
"Back room, and don't touch anything," one of our escorts told us roughly.
"Very well," Malachite agreed.
We headed straight back, past what must have been the armory door but was now repurposed as a lab. Not to say there wasn't a collection of weapons and armor inside, there was. All around the wall of the room, on dummies or pegs were a variety of weapons, shields, and armor. Much of it looked old, sized for dwarves but sturdy looking enough. Antiques? Pieces of relevance to dwarves by famous smiths? Fakes? Odd for an alchemist to care but maybe this stuff was here when he took the place over.
On a bench was a glowing, icy looking thing I took to be the gland, which the dwarf studying it quickly draped a cloth over and come up to us.
"I'm Sarvaan, the alchemist," he announced. "What's this all about?"
"You're up, Squeak," Malachite told Snarly. Of course we all decided on fake names, or at least Malachite decided on that one for him.
"Hello, hi!" he greeted the dwarf. "Nice place you have here. Is that pieth there an example of the dwarven thmith Raam Stonetoes?" He pointed to, as far as I knew, a random piece of the collection.
"Yes," the dwarf answered. "How did you know?"
"I know quality work when I thee it," he replied modestly. "Now, to buithness. These fine gentleman-"
I cleared my throat.
"And lady are followerth of the dragon you attacked rethantly. You were lucky not to run into them when you did the deed, they were off doing the bidding of their mathster. But they came back to find him violated, and enraged. They agreed to come thpeek to you, to see if the dragonth great anger can be quenched without violence. To that end they offer the following deal; You return the tholen gland, and the dragon agreeth to leave you in peace."
"That's hardly a good deal for us."
"Tho you don't value you livth? Very well, we will peacefully depart and when next you thee these gentleman- and lady- it will be with Ax'rejj to tear this place apart. Pity about the dithplay pieceth, but perhapth they can be dug from the rubble when ith all over. Good day." He turned to leave.
"Now just wait a moment, I'm sure we can work something out," Sarvaan hastily assured him.
Oh yes, with my magic helping him, this guy is going to be handing us this room to keep his life in a minute.
But Snarly didn't insist on anything but the gland, and after some back and forth, mostly Sarvaan trying to convince himself the dragon wouldn't be bothered to come after a now useless gland, he handed it over. Snarly had dropped many hints, points we had coached him on about Ax'rejj's family paying them all a visit, and could they fight a half dozen dragons at a time? No, they could not. Of how the life of even one of his researchers wasn't worth all this, and how other dwarves wouldn't even try to get revenge on his behalf, because he was seen as an eccentric that wasn't worth it. He tried, in vain, to get us to give him something for it, but every time Snarly saw this as him not valuing his life and heading for the door, making Sarvaan call him back, and he finally got the message. The other researchers in the room were also looking a bit haunted, looking us all over and shooting him pointed looks, like "get rid of them before they decide to just take the thing, what are we going to against these three?" I took that as the successful application of my disguise magic, and tried hard to keep a beaming smile from my face.
Snarly didn't rub it in as he took the offered gland, now wrapped up in the cloth as it was still quite cold. In fact he apologized for the whole thing and said if they ever needed services in town to get in touch with a "Snarly" who would help them out. He was, after all, a hired hand and had no stake in this himself. So "a good friend of mine" would be able to see to their needs. Sarvaan thanked him for agreeing to represent the dragon and hoped this really did put an end to it.
"We'll see," Malachite told him on the way out.
With the door slammed behind us there was no need for the deception anymore so I quickly dropped my spells and enlarged Malachite so he could fly us back to the dragon right away. He did, dropping us once again into the lair of the beast. But the location was empty, and we stood for a moment looking around.
"One minute," a voice called to us, from a nearby crack in the wall. Ax'rejj appeared, and looked us all over. "You're back quickly."
"We decided this was the quickest thing to do, so we got it done," Malachite told him. "Hanz?"
Hanz handed the gland over, and Ax'rejj opened the sack and looked inside. "Yes, this is mine," he decided wistfully. "If only it could be returned."
"Your healing magic?" Malachite whispered to me. I shook my head.
"And the dwarves?" the dragon continued.
"They won't be bothering you again," he agreed. "They now realize the danger."
"Very well. I will announce my presence to the town, as agreed. They will learn they have nothing to fear from me, as long as I am left alone."
"They'll be glad to hear it."
"As for you four..." He reached behind him, taking something from the cave and handing it to Malachite. "I decided you should have a reward of some kind, and I guess I can part with a few coins."
"Thank you very much, I know that must have been hard for you."
"You have no idea. I'll be down to the town in a few days, please warn them I'm coming."
"I will."
"Then I wish you a good day." He turned and went back into the cave.
Back at home, having collected our reward from the guard captain and explained the dragon was coming and not to attack him, we divided up the coins the dragon had given us.
"I think it should be an unequal split," I told the others. "Snarly should get more this time. He did a lot of the work."
"Thath not nethathary," he insisted. "In fact I wath going to pay you for tha thpell you put on me. I could tell it wath working I don't know if I could have done all that without it."
"Party members is a gray area," I insisted. "Heaven knows I heal and repair and whatnot for you all enough without charging you. Heck you're all sitting on furniture I made with magic."
"I inthitht."
"Very well. Thank you." It's me the guild would come after anyway, but whatever.
"So our next step is looking more into the prophecy and curing Orchid's condition?" Hanz asked.
I nodded. "If you don't mind putting the wind spirit thing on hold. We don't really have any leads on cultist activity in the area so it's a good time to see if this poem really was worth the money. I have some ideas on how to track down the nexus I want to try."
"I don't think they'll mind, and this is more important to you," Malachite told me. "What do you need from us?"
"Time," I answered simply. "We're taking a few days to prepare. I'll let you look through my book of magic so you can pick out any spells you want made up as tokens. Hanz, remember you can probably just have them burned onto various places on your body to activate with a word. Meanwhile, brush up on your skills, or just rest up I know it's been a hectic couple of weeks. I'll be learning some new magic. That shrink spell we got from the dragon to start, as we seem to keep running into giant bears and whatnot, and I'm going to look into a better healing spell. Something that doesn't care how wounded you are." And something a little more personal you all don't need to know about. "With the tokens made, spells learned, core cultivated, we'll be ready. I won't even think about asking my magic how to find the nexus until we're ready. For all I know something will snatch us up for even asking the question so I want to be as prepared for this as we've ever been. I have no idea where it will lead to, or what we'll be asked to do, so whatever you need to prepare please do it."
"I'm going to prepare to be less hungry," Malachite announced. "How about it Snarly? Let's go get lunch, leave these people that don't eat here to do their thing. We can talk sword skills or something on the way."
"Yay! Food time!"
I snorted. "See you guys in a bit."
I headed to see Solara disguised as a kumiho, or shape-shifting fox demon. They were one of the few that could walk around almost without comment, as long as they behaved themselves. (In fact, only a few demons were "mindless" or "animals" and while some were more associated with torture or deals, most were tolerated as just more victims of the Lord's strange desire to punish souls for eternity and were given a chance to live a peaceful life here instead) Turning into people was the least of their powers, so I gave myself some nice fox ears and three tails, figuring I had earned at least that many. Four would have been a bit ostentatious, in my mind, while two just wouldn't be enough. As expected not many even looked at me twice, demons were common enough even here- passing through usually- though I did get a stern look from a being I was pretty sure was an angel. They were of course more rare but they were around, if you knew where to look. I just gave them a flirty wave and went on my way.
Once inside the shop I dropped the act so Solara knew it was me, and we got down to business.
"I have your profits," she told me. "The spell tokens have been fairly popular. That old coot across the way is fuming about how much more business I'm doing now."
I waved that off. "Keep them, I'm here to get some more spells. We're on the track of curing my- hold on a minute."
"Yes?"
"You and the guy across the street are the only two mages around here, right?"
"The only official ones, yes. Why?"
"So it was one of the two of you that helped Malachite by coming up with the poem!" Why didn't I think of this before? Where do you think he went?
"Yes, I thought he was talking about you when he described the situation," she admitted. "I couldn't exactly say I knew you, I wasn't sure how much he knew about our arrangement or that you had shown me your 'true self.' It's a good thing it was you, I think that helped, me knowing you directly, when I got the answer."
"It would have been fine, I don't hide- much- from him."
"He seemed quite smitten with you."
"Ah, yes," I blushed mightily. "That's one of the spells I'm here for. We're sort of involved now, and I needed a spell to make sure we, uh, don't bring any little ones into the world. If you take my meaning." As I think, even as far away as we are species wise, we are compatible in that way. I've been taking a risk fooling around with him lately but that ends today. Not the fooling around part, that I hope continues long into the future. Of course it's up to the woman while the man remains clueless. That hasn't changed in thousands of years...
She laughed. "Say no more, that's a popular one. Normally I would try to get you on my subscription plan, which would have to be renewed every five days."
"What grade is it?" I asked, eyes narrowed.
"Two, Pluto."
I laughed uproariously. "How many people actually take you up on that offer? That's what I make in a week making a dozen statues and jewelry pieces to be painted and sold by the artist Upbright Vacuum. And you're saying it only lasts five days? I would be losing money every week! Unless-" I regarded her. "Is it subsidized by the kingdom? Given we have a queen and she would of course understand how important it is for a woman to have complete control over her reproductive health. And thus- no?"
Solara was shaking her head. "Afraid not. And you're right, not many have that kind of money when there are cheaper, if less effective methods, on the market."
I laughed again. "There is so much wrong with that. I'm on the road so much, trying to keep track of the days would be impossible. It's way too expensive for the benefit you get, I mean come on, two moons every five days? That's..." I started trying to work it out in my head. If there were roughly 350 days in the year 350/5 was 70 times it would need to be cast. 70 times 2 moons each time was 140 moons. There were 20 moons to the sun. Drop the zeros, divide 14 in half. "That's 7 suns a year! How many people do you think, even in a town like this one, have seen a sun in the last year?" Not everyone stumbles upon pirate treasure and whatnot, after all.
"Not many," she admitted glumly. "But on the bright side, as tokens it's one of my most popular spells."
"Yeah, I can't see why." If someone wanted to bring a guy home for a bit of fun every so often, they could have the spell on hand and not need to announce the fact to you by rushing over here beforehand. Of course men could buy them as well.
"Neither can I," she agreed with a smirk and a raised eyebrow. We both giggled. "Anyway, let me copy it into your book, I'll take it out of your profits."
"Thank you."
While she got busy with that I sat and made some replacement tokens for spells she was low on, so that worked out fine, just fine.
Once that was done I got into the second reason I was there.
"So I know the so called 'standard' healing spell, which has a pretty big weakness. It's the same as the repair spell honestly, and why I picked up the lesser version of that spell. If someone is 'too hurt' for the magic to affect, right when you need it the most the spell is useless. Not a great design, if you ask me." I glanced upwards. No offense intended, oh Lord, but really what were You thinking? Of course the theory is magic was actually here first but I digress. "So here's what I know; various elements exist. I know of four. Ice, for my anti-ice spell for Malachite. Knockout, earth, and magic itself. I also know elemental magic comes in many forms. Beams. Elemental creation. Blasts. You get the idea. So, my question is can we weaponize healing somehow? Is there an element that heals, and can be shoved into an elemental touch or beam spell, so I can, in essence, 'attack' with healing? Something that doesn't care how wounded a person is, but just does at least some good to the person getting hit with it? More than a lesser healing spell would, but maybe less than the 'standard' healing spell does? Which of course can be hardly anything, because I guess again that's just how magic works." Again, no offense Lord. But come ON! "That way I can just fire off a healing spell, stabilize someone, when they need it. Actually is there some kind of continuous healing beam I could hit someone with from behind? That would be pretty amazing now that I think about it..."
"There is a healing element," Solara admitted. "I believe it was discovered when researching the opposite of the necromantic elements, to more effectively hurt the undead. Quite a pleasant surprise to find it also healed us. It's called vitality, I think."
"Amazing! Gimme!"
She laughed, but shook her head. "Sorry. That's after my time. I've heard about it, but only in the experimental sense. I wasn't taught anything about it in my training."
"Well, crap," I muttered. "Do you at least have the lesser healing spell?" I sighed.
"I do."
"Fine. Actually," I glanced over my shoulder. "It's a long shot, but I'm going to talk to your competition. See if he knows anything about vitality. Naturally I'll come sell it to you if he does. At the standard guild rate," I added slyly.
"I doubt it, but good luck."
"Thanks." I put my disguise back on and headed over there. I knew exactly what to ask for now, after all. But as she anticipated, I was disappointed. He didn't know any spells utilizing that element either. He also said it was fairly new, and not available to the general public while healers experimented with it to make sure there were no side effects. I went back to Solara, tails between my legs, and picked up the lesser healing spell. This I purchased with party funds, part of the pirate treasure haul we still hadn't exactly divided up. They get hurt much more than I do, after all. And given how fast I am at casting, it should be fine. Really would have liked a beam or something though, this one is still touch based. But at least it doesn't 'care' how hurt you are, healing a small amount each time. It'll just have to do.
With that I headed back home, I had cultivating to do, to engrave some new spells onto my core.