DWinchester
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Brewing Bad Ch. 120-121
🕑 Added 2025-02-17 14:59:01 +0000 UTCCh. 120 - Status
The two of them debated both options for a while longer, without coming to any clear consensus, before Lucas was too exhausted to continue arguing with him. The most he could get the alchemist to agree to was that he would keep his investigations “surreptitious” until Lucas had recovered, whatever that meant. He also agreed to more rigorous laboratory safety practices and the immediate incineration of the toxic byproduct of the water of life.
That last part was Lucas’s favorite part, considering he hadn’t even asked for it. It would make sure no one else thought to try a Potion of Greater Communion in an attempt to follow in his footsteps. That was a battle he expected to fight in a few days or a few weeks when he made his next batch, but now that he’d planted the seed in Heisenburgle’s mind that the stuff was beyond toxic, the problem had already solved itself.
So, rather than deal with paranoia or politics, he spent the rest of the week in bed, flipping through his retuned system and learning exactly what it was he’d gotten for all of his pain and suffering. The answer turned out to be quite a lot.
Name: Lucas Sharpe Class: Magical Chemist Level: 8
Agility: 13 Endurance: 11 Appearance 7
Intelligence: 14 Strength: 11 Soul: 8
Health: 100% Mana: 100%
Status Effect: Recovering (Death’s Door, 3 days remaining at the current level of care.)
Imbued Equipment: Ring of Vanishing (Fine Quality)
You have unspent points. Please use them to increase your ability scores or gain feats/perks.
Some of his stats had changed, but he didn’t remember exactly how. He was as ugly as he’d been before, but he seemed to remember that his soul was a little higher. What was a lot higher were his advancement points. He now had 35 to spend. That worked out to something like three a level and then some. He wasn’t sure exactly what the rules governing its increase were and made a note to try to figure that out later before he moved on to other portions of his status that he’d already figured out how to access.
His list of abilities was still fairly short, but he’d only had one before, so any new additions were surprising. Still, past the few he had, there were still hundreds of new options for spending those points on additional options. That list seemed bigger and more complicated than ever.
“Acolyte of Lwyn,” he noted wryly as he browsed through the list of abilities he might pick. He had no intention of taking it, of course, but it still made him chuckle. “That’s funny. I wonder if she ever gave Thrzaelwick the option to pick that.”
Aberrant Chemist (by special dispensation from Thrzaelwick the Great and Industrious!) - Aberrant Chemistry will allow you (and only you!) to use magic-fueled talents to create potions that are not on the approved list, as governed by natural laws.
Deathless - It is much harder to kill you than normal. When your health falls below 10%, it increases temporarily by 300%.
Evaluate Purity - This ability allows you to gauge the purity of any reagent at a glance for a small amount of mana.
Superior Forager - This feat will let you detect all reagents within a quarter mile to make your task of finding them that much easier. This feat uses mana for the duration that you upkeep it.
Unshakable - Those loyal to you are twice as hard to be bought off or blackmailed by others as they would normally be.
He supposed that he could get magic now. Even high magic only cost 10 points, so he could easily afford it. The question was whether he wanted to learn it. He expected that it would be a pain in the ass, not so different from Thrzaelwick’s interpretation of alchemy, and really, he wasn’t sure it would add any value to his other pursuits.
It was his achievements, though, that had been redone the most. Before, he recalled having half a dozen completed and another half a dozen in progress. There were a lot more than that, now, to the point where he had trouble figuring out exactly which ones had been affected by whatever the Gnomish God had done to his soul.
Alchemical (Chemical):
A Refined Gentleman: Refine 50/50 reagents into at least semipure forms! You gain the ability to [Evaluate purity]!
A (very) refined Gentleman: 67/250 reagents. In progress!
Accomplished forager (common): 112% of common reagents from your region gathered! +10% in all yield of reagents gathered.
Accomplished forager (common)(extended, unconventional): 112%/150% of common reagents from your region gathered. In progress!
Accomplished forager (rare): 87% reagents gathered. In progress!
Alchemical Scholar: 10/10 potions successfully created - An excellent start! +10% to the effectiveness of all created alchemical mixtures.
Alchemical Scholar, Greater: 50/50 potions successfully created - A true maestro! +10% to the amount of all created alchemical mixtures due to exceptional potencies.
Alchemical Scholar, Master: 84/100 potions successfully created - in progress.
Careful Dosages: 37% use solvents to purify toxic reagents.
Celestial Solvents: You have created 1/4 Celestial Solvents. +1 advancement point.
Forbidden Knowledge: You have created 1/7 forbidden potions. +1 advancement point.
Master Alchemist: You have accomplished 3/13 requirements to become a Master Alchemist. In progress.
Naturalist extraordinaire: 32% You have discovered many reagents, solvents, and catalysts, but there are always more to find! In progress!
Perfectionist: 10/10 recipes perfected - You have perfected several easy recipes. Additional levels of quality have been unlocked.
Perfectionist, Serious: 89/100 recipes perfected. In Progress.
Practice makes perfect: 13% Different failed potions created will help you learn what you did wrong that much faster!
Combat:
Dead Man: Die 1/0 times. You have died and lived to tell about it. +2 Endurance, -1 soul. You have gained the ability Deathless.
Fancy Footwork: 44% complete - learn one style of sword fighting.
Murderer: Kill 1/1 humans or demihumans. - You have committed your first murder. +2% to all damage.
Murderer, Killer: Kill 1/10 humans or demihumans. - in progress.
Social:
Cheater: 1/0 - Be intimate with someone besides the woman you love. -10% willpower to resist cheating in the future.
Exceptional Etiquette: 77% learn all of Lordanin’s cultural rules.
Friends in High Places: Speak with 2/0 gods directly. +2 advancement points.
Happily Ever After: Fall in love with a partner who reciprocates your feelings! +1 to the attribute of your choice.
Nemesis: Gain 3/0 serious enemies that want to see you dead. Increase luck by 3%.
Lifesaver: Save the lives of at least 1/1 person with the use of medicine, magic, or alchemical potions and elixirs made by you. +1 advancement point.
Lifesaver, Greater: Save the lives of at least 10/10 people with the use of medicine, magic, or alchemical potions and elixirs made by you. +3 advancement point.
Lifesaver Legendary: Save the lives of at least 27/100 people with the use of medicine, magic, or alchemical potions and elixirs made by you. In Progress.
Popular: Gain 10/10 allies that are loyal or very loyal to you. Gain Unshakable!
Popular, very: Gain 56/100 allies that are loyal or very loyal to you. In progress.
Rich: Gain at least 100/100 dragons worth of wealth and property. +1 advancement point.
Rich, Very: Gain at least 1,000/1,000 dragons worth of wealth and property. +3 advancement point.
Rich, Extremely: Gain at least 1,247/10,000 dragons worth of wealth and property. In progress!
Smooth Talker: Convince the King, or other people of similar importance, to help you, 7/10. In progress.
All in all, the list was dizzying. Lucas thought it was pretty unfair for the thing to tell him he was a cheater, given how hard he’d tried not to be unfaithful to Danaria, but there was little he could do. That hadn’t been there before either, as he recalled, so it was entirely possible that it was just Thrzaelwick fucking with him.
In the end, only one choice was particularly easy. He used the points granted by his Happily Ever After achievement to increase his soul by 1. That made him feel a bit stronger almost immediately, and it was a balm to his soul to know that some of the damage this experienced had been done was healed by her.
After that, decisions were harder. After reviewing the information on the soul attribute and noting that it was responsible for mental and magical resistances as well as mana and a variety of other effects, he spent another point bringing it to ten. He could certainly justify having at least an average soul.
I feel like I have a pretty great soul! He thought with a smile, though I doubt that Darius and his friends see it that way.
Lucas might have bumped it up even more, just to stick it to them, but he noticed that now that it was at ten, it cost two points to increase instead of one. He looked around at his other attributes and found that they were pretty much the same.
“So if it’s below average, it costs one to raise, but if it’s average or above, it costs two points to raise,” he said to himself. “I guess that makes sense. I wonder if I can increase attributes with more than just magical bullshit and potions. Like - does exercise matter?”
Lucas would have had the answer to that if he’d had access to all of this information back when he was recovering from his owl bear attack. He was weak as shit then. Now, though, there was really no way to say for sure without working out. He still couldn’t see exactly how much health, mana, or experience he had. There were plenty of abilities to increase all of them, though, if he wanted.
Fast Learner would increase the amount of experience he gained from all alchemical activities going forward by 10% for 2 points, Sage’s Blood would increase his mana by 30% for 3 points, and Heroic Toughness or Infatigable would increase his hit points. The first seemed to be able to increase them by 100% for 5 points, while the second option would increase them by 33% for 1 point.
It didn’t seem entirely consistent to him, but then, he’d never played these sorts of games before. He was a shooter sort of guy as a kid, and after that, well, he was too busy getting laid and getting in trouble to worry about what level a fireball was or whatever.
Still, even with no knowledge of these subjects, what stood out to him most was that he needed to have a plan. There were a million directions he could go, so he needed to choose one and stick with it. It’s like a major in college, he told himself. He’d never been, of course, but his guidance counselor had talked about them a lot before he’d dropped out, in between the speeches on wasting his potential.
Well, in this case, his goal was obvious, at least. He wanted to be a badass alchemist. Compared to that, Skylara’s dangers, the Prince’s machinations, and Heisenburgle’s obsessions meant nothing. So, Lucas spent the better part of the day just reviewing the list with that thought in mind. What would make me a better alchemist, he thought as he reviewed the list.
He completely dismissed anything that was unrelated, skipping right by anything that was related to combat, socializing, or anything like that. He looked at things that were related to magic or gathering only a little longer before moving past them.
It took him all day, but when he was done, those that remained fell into only a few separate categories. There were only a few that were directly related to his goal in a way that made it hard to argue there were any other options.
There were some that were helpful but nonspecific that he might get in the future, like Sage Blood. There were others he really wanted, like Preternatural Grace, which increased his speed by +25% for short bursts of time for two points, along with others like Luck of the Damned, which increased his luck by 5% for a point, even though it came at the cost of making unlucky breaks for him much, much worse.
For now, though, he stuck with Empowered Alchemy, Industrial Brewing, Enduring High, and Toxicity Tolerance. Each of them was very specific to what he needed, and at seven points in total, they were an absolute bargain as far as he was concerned. Those choices left him with 27 points to spend in the future once he got a handle on all of this.
Empowered Alchemy - For two points, you can use your mana to imbue potions with essence. This can be used to increase the potency, decrease the side effects, or cause other novel effects.
Enduring High - For one point, potions last twice as long as usual to you, at the cost of slightly increased toxicity (all potions count as having a poison value of 1 higher than they actually are when imbibed by you).
Industrial Brewing - For two points, you may make batches twice as large as usual with no difficulty. Additionally, bonus yields increase proportionally to the size of the batch brewed.
Precision Indicators - For one point you can see temperatures, viscosities, and other key indicators at a glance when brewing potions. This requires a small amount of ongoing mana as long as it is in use.
Toxicity Tolerance - For one point, all potions you imbibe are treated as having half their normal poison content.
Ch. 121 - Back to the Lab
Three nights later, Lucas finally rejoined Heisenburgle in the lab. They did not immediately try to make another batch of Lwynthenll because the gnome did not wish to squander their only other celestial solvent should Lucas prove to be “off his game.” The truth was just the opposite.
He might still feel a little lethargic, but that was the sort of effect that death had on someone. Otherwise, he’d never been better. Before now, he’d always seen pop-ups on various potions and reagents, but now there was more information than ever.
Blue Esper Willow Vine (sap): Perception 4 (ethereal), poison 3 (fire contaminants), endurance -2 (fatigued), 20% chance to hear voices and/or experience paranoia for 3 hours. These whispers are a result of peering through the veils between worlds and are liable to provide real insight as much as madness.
Concentrated Storm Shards (minor): Electrical 6, poison 3 (air contaminants), speed 2, strength -1 (ephemeral). Strongly air-aligned and electrically charged. Twice as powerful in highly polarized charged reactions.
Goblin Bile: Poison 9 (taint), strength 3 (primal), endurance -1 (sickly), violent diarrhea. Imbibing any taint is dangerous and likely to build up over time. It should be avoided whenever possible. Only half as strong upon purification with any normal solvents.
Though he’d seen all the ingredients before, he’d never seen them like this before. Is this because my shit got retuned, or is it because I leveled up? He wondered. No, it has to be because of precision indicators. I thought that only applied to brewing, though.
When Lucas realized he didn’t even have that power turned on yet, he was even more confused, but then he supposed that it didn’t matter. He was confused half the time anyway. He’d figure it out.
Now, more than anything, he wondered what Heisenburgle saw when he looked at the world during potion crafting because he was pretty sure the gnome saw precisely none of this shit. That was interesting to Lucas. In many ways, it meant that the gnome was probably better than him at a lot of this shit, but then, he was like five times as old, and he was pretty sure he could lap the bastard in a year or three if he kept at it.
Hopefully, I won’t even have to talk to him in a year, he thought as he set about preparing some reagents.
Still, as much as he thought he was on his game, his focus definitely wasn’t what it needed to be. Every time he looked at some new ingredient and thought about a piece of information, another small pop-up appeared like a god-damned hyperlink, explaining the thing to him.
This is the way it should have worked all along! He thought testily. Still, it was better late than never.
Goblin Bile led to poison types, which in turn led to taint and all sorts of interesting concepts. He’d seen some of them mentioned in passing in Heisenburgle’s dull-ass books, but as distracting as new information was, the ingredient cross-referencing he stumbled across by accident while he was talking to Heisenburgle blew his mind.
One second, the gnome had been arguing with him for the hundredth time about how his “ditch weeds” were not true reagents. The next, his world changed forever as he finally understood the true value of his new system.
“How can you say that?” Lucas said, understanding very well how he could say it. If it wasn’t on the list his god had made, it wasn’t a reagent. Still, it annoyed Lucas enough that he felt the need to try to change his mind even if he knew that was impossible. “elderberry seeds and Inner rosewood bark absolutely heal the sick. It might not be as strong as some of the shit in your book, but we don’t need to import tropical ingredients and charge people an arm and a leg to make that happen!”
Elderberry Seeds (processed): Healing 2 (Purification), mana 1 (revivifying), poison 1 (inflammatory), intelligence -1 (slow-witted)
Rosewood inner tree bark (leached): Healing 2 (fortification), poison 1 (acid), endurance 1 (hale), intelligence -1 (hazy memory).
Neither of those ingredients was going to set the world on fire, of course. They were valuable because they were common, not because they were powerful. The fact that most potions failed as more ingredients were added meant that they’d never be strong without a ton of experimentation. What they would do, though, was get the elderly through a bad flu or help a child with a broken arm mend faster, which was precisely what they used them for in Meadowin.
The fact that any little injury could pretty much be handled for free by his people not only made them profoundly loyal to Lucas. It also made them the healthiest village in the region. It was prospering even while other parts of the city weren’t, and there was no way that anyone could tell Lucas that those weren’t good things.
“How can I say that?” the gnome demanded. “How can you say that. Even if those herbal remedies have some small utility, for peasants, the mere fact that you can’t mix them with any true reagents makes the point nil.”
“Who says I can’t?” Lucas demanded as he lifted his bowl of crushed elderberry seeds and pointed at the wall of potions behind Heisenburgle. “I don’t even need the whole lab. I’ll bet I can make something strong from at least one, and maybe even two of the ingredients on that shelf right there.”
The gnome laughed and pulled a single golden dragon out of his purse before sliding it halfway across the table with his finger. “I do believe we have a bet. It will doubtlessly waste more resources and time, but more fortunately, in light of our successes, we have plenty of both at this moment.”
Lucas wasn’t one to back down, but heaven, as he dug out his own matching coin, he was the slightest bit unsure of himself. What in the world am I going to mix these seeds with? He thought to himself as he studied the rack.
He was more surprised than anything when most of the floating pop-ups with their names and properties extinguished themselves at that moment. “Hold the fuck up,” he mumbled as he tried to take in what he’d just seen.
“Oh? Changing your mind already?” the gnome gloated.
Lucas shook his head, unwilling to say anything that might break his concentration, as he counted the number of remaining glowing boxes. Out of over a hundred reagents on that shelf, only twelve were still lit up. Nothing said that made them compatible, but he was pretty sure that was the case.
He put the elderberry seeds down and then retrieved the rest of them, moving them over to the table, one at a time. Then he started experimenting.
“Oh, you’re just going to start mixing together things at random, huh? In a completely slipshod manner, too! This is exactly the opposite of alchemy!” the gnome howled.
“This is chemistry, bitch,” Lucas said, regretting the momentary slip but unwilling to take it back. “Or maybe alchemistry or Magic chemistry. I don’t know what to call it, but it’s something else.”
Heisenburgle sputtered then, seemingly more affronted by the idea that what Lucas was doing wasn’t Alchemy than that he’d just called him a bitch. “What do you mean!? Everything is alchemy at its most basic level. Even combat and magic are, in a sense—”
“No, they aren’t,” Lucas said flatly, turning away from what he was doing. “You’ve said so yourself plenty of times. Alchemy is taking specific reagents and mixing them in specific ways to make specific potions. It’s pretty much the opposite of experimental.”
“That is just not so!” the gnome shot back. “Experimentation, within tightly proscribed bounds, is an important part of alchemy. Recipes are refined! New concentrations and better yields are achieved!”
“When is the last time you made a wholly new potion, then?” Lucas asked. “How did you find it? What did you do?”
“Well, aside from the Lwynthenl that we created the other night…” Heisenburgle started to answer. “Regardless. It’s a silly question. Thrzealwick the Divine has already created a complete list of every potion the world needs. It is up to us to use those and discover ways to improve them. Not to stray from the path in our own pursuits, thinking we know what is best. What is chemistry compared to the path of enlightenment?”
“Chemistry is where you take any ingredient and figure out how to make it work for you. If you don’t know what it does, you figure it out. If you do know what it does, then you figure out how to make it work with other ingredients to make the shit you need,” Lucas said. “That’s how you go from firecrackers and shit to gunpowder.”
“Firecrackers?” Heisenburgle asked. “I don’t know what gunpowder is, but they use volatile pyronite, not whatever gunpowder is.”
“Exactly,” Lucas agreed sarcastically as he gestured broadly. “Which is why you’ve got all of this and no real gunpowder. Now, how about you let me focus on winning your dragon? After that, we can talk about whatever you want.”
Heisenburgle sulked after that, but Lucas was not dissuaded. Instead, he got to work as he tried to continue his incompatibility testing as he, tried to figure out how all of this worked. First, he tried with the seeds again and verified that all twelve bottles he’d gotten from the shelf displayed their details a second time. Then he tried the same thing with inner rosewood bark. That time, only one of them lit up. Deer antler velvet was the only ingredient that was compatible with both.
Deer Antler Velvet (aged): Healing 3 (Regeneration), poison 1 (numbing), agility -2 (clumsy)
More interestingly, though, it wasn’t compatible with both at once. Lucas wasn’t quite sure how to square that circle, but for now, it didn’t matter. He set it aside and, methodically, one ingredient at a time, searched for a combination where three ingredients were simultaneously compatible with each other. He eventually found that in the form of elderberry seeds, ground mussel shell lining, and red wine vinegar.
Elderberry Seeds (processed): Healing 2 (Purification), mana 1 (revivifying), poison 1 (inflammatory), intelligence -1 (slow-witted)
Ground Mussel Shell Lining (powdered): Healing 2 (Fortified), poison -1 (reactive), endurance 1 (steady)
Red Wine Vinegar (poor quality): Healing 1 (revitalizing), poison 1 (irritating), agility 1 (twitchy)
None of them were particularly strong ingredients, but the idea that red wine vinegar was a healing ingredient at all opened up options for him when he got back home. That was something they could make in bulk, and when he left here, he made a note to try it. The fact that this stuff was poor quality gave him high hopes on that front, but he ignored those and focused on the now.
He chose those three ingredients and put the rest back on the shelf while Heisenburgle raised one of his white, bushy eyebrows in judgment. Then, he fetched some alcohol to purify the elderberry seeds. It was only then, when the burners were lit that he got to work and finally tried one of his new powers for the first time.
Unlike this latest wrinkle, Precision Indicators worked just as he’d expected it to. Honestly, it worked better than that. He could always see the values of the mixture changing over time, but now, as the poison decreased and the healing potency of the elderberry seeds increased, he could see little arrows next to each value, indicating the rate of change. There were even little temperature bands that seemed to be the optimal points for each chemical, and he adjusted the burners to match them as closely as possible.
Then, when all was in readiness, he combined the three solutions into a single mixture and gauged the results.
Alchemical Mixture (8 doses): Healing 6 (Deep Healing), mana 1 (revivifying), intelligence -1 (slow-witted), agility 1 (twitchy), endurance 1 (steady).
The information was interesting and, at times, contradictory, but still, if he let it cool, it should make for a perfectly serviceable healing potion. He should have left it alone, but he wasn’t that sort of guy, and instead, he decided to try his Empowered Alchemy while Heisenburgle watched the red, vinegary potions boil angrily.
Comments
D. Winchester
Especially the arc you guys are in right now. I just loved the hell out of all the reveals and the foreshadowing.
Tom Stapleton
This story is the epitome of fun. Fun to read and it sure as hell feels as though it was fun to write
D. Winchester
Look at me. Dealing the good shit. I just finished writing the end of book 2 recently, and .... I love it.
Jack Smith
Aaaaaaaaaw yeaaaaaah. Cant wait for more. Its hoenstly quite tragic that it takes a entire week just for more of this stuff man. Half the time feels like im doing fent…
