Bloodfallen: Curse of The All Knowing

“Hey Lydus, how is the paperwork coming along?” Arthur asked as he walked up to the man sitting at the desk buried in paperwork. Lydus looked up showing his tired eyes before he smiled slightly and put his ink pot to the side.

“It's coming along quite nicely, how have you been recently?” Lydus took this pause in his work to crack the bones in his fingers and neck with a satisfying and gross crack that was followed by a sigh of relief.

“Not bad, I've recently taken on someone as an apprentice of sorts. I started to try and teach him magic and alchemy, so far we have had little progress with magic but non-magical alchemy has been quite the opposite. Even though it's only been around a day he has made up a few nice potions for his skill level.

“That is wonderful to hear, it is always a wonderful thing to hear about newcomers to the magical community. With all the advancements that have been happening recently we need them more than ever, like that observation magic that has been showing some promise recently with enchanted tubes collecting images and storing them for later viewings.”

The two continued their conversation for around five minutes before they eventually moved onto other matters. “So what brings you here today? More healing potions? You have been selling a lot of those lately.”

Arthur smiled, he had been selling a lot of those recently because Gaelin had been mostly bringing him plants that are used to create healing potions, probably because those were the only ones that had survived for so long. “No, not this time. Instead I have eighteen bottles of spark powder each with 45 grams inside.” Arthur brought out the eighteen bottles and placed them on the table, the light yellow powder proving that this was in fact what Arthur said it was.

Lydus took the nearest bottle in his hand and opened the bottle before taking a whiff of the white powder, the slight spicy smell it proving that it was in fact what Arthur said it was. “Are all these of the same quality?” Lydus looked to Arthur while he reached for the money to pay him.

“Yes they were made in batches of one pound, I used 45 grams each time to test the end product to see if it would work and each burned for around ten minutes and gave off the heat comparable to a small woodfire.” Arthur said as Lydus began to count out the money he would soon be receiving.

After a short wait Arthur was handed a pouch containing the two silver and fourteen copper coins he was expecting. He was tempted to start celebrating right then and there at his increase in daily income but stopped himself for when he left the guild and got home.

“This is a wonderful batch Arthur, bring me more in the future and I’ll see about getting you a better deal for larger amounts of the stuff.” Lydus said with a smile as he picked up the eighteen bottles from the desk and brought them over to a nearby shelf behind where he previously stood. Arthur didn’t stick around long after that and quickly returned home to try and make more spark powder for that exact purpose.

**********

After a long evening of furious alchemy Arthur was left with four pounds of spark powder which he then burned 180 grams of to test leaving himself with three pounds and 270 grams. Based on what Arthur was just paid for the previous amount of spark powder he estimated that this would sell for around 108 copper coins, or five silver and eight copper coins.

The only downside to this was that Arthur managed to run through a whole crate worth of the necessary ingredients to create this much, and unfortunately it most involved multipurpose ingredients that could be used for other potions and alchemical products. He could alway buy more but that would take time, and the supplier couldn’t always guarantee that they would be able to supply him throughout the year. Unless they were growing the plants and animals they were harvested from all throughout the year.

Regardless Arthur would need to think up a solution regarding either his long term ingredient storage or in finding one or more suppliers that are able to do so year round to keep up the production of spark powder. With the amount of money Arthur was currently able to make with a night's work he was definitely going to find at least one, though it might not be necessarily right away.

********

Sixteen days later Arthur sat at his table with Gaelin on the other side, the two were eating some leftover soup that Arthur made for dinner the night before and like normal he made more than enough to eat for a few days with just a little pyromancy.

Since he began to teach Gaelin alchemy and magic the young elf had begun to open up a little and learn, while it did take almost a week to feel his mana he did eventually figure out how to control a small amount of water al long as it touched his skin.

His alchemy skill on the other hand were a bit more developed than his magic and he already had a good grasp on the basic potions he was first taught, now he was making them in batches of four or five at a time and selling them at the market for a nice amount of money for his skills and experience, with Arthur footing the cost of the ingredients and bottles Gaelin was able to earn around ten copper coins in a day with each potion going for one or two copper coins depending on what it actually was.

Arthur did however need to slow down his production of spark powder as at the rate he did before he would be unable to keep it up long term. Instead he settled for creating the two pounds he did before and a few extra healing potions, since both of these used completely different ingredients it wouldn’t force Arthur to buy up lots of the same thing and risk buying too much and driving up the prices to something unreasonable.

“Um, sir I have a question for you.” Gaelin asked, since he became an apprentice of sorts to Arthur he had become a bit more comfortable and confident with himself. Whenever he had a question regarding alchemy or magic he would ask and Arthur would do his best to answer it in a way that he could understand.

Seeing him a little nervous was a little different as he had been quite confident for quite some time now. “Sure thing, go ahead.”

“I'm not trying to be racist, but why do dwarves prefer alcohol over water almost all the time?” Arthur coughed and almost spat out some of his soup at the question. It wasn’t exactly what he was expecting but it wasn’t the worst question as he was correct.

“Well from what I understand about dwarves is that it is entirely a cultural thing. I have had a few dwarven friends in the past but I never really thought about how most of them drink alcohol of some kind throughout the entire day. Since it's mostly just dwarves it must be something that they just grew up doing and their parents gave them, they do mostly live underground and odds are the water down in the caverns isn’t exactly fit for drinking.”

Gaelin watched intently as Arthur gave his thoughts on the matter slowly nodding along every so often, the explanation did make a lot of sense as dwarves did live underground for the most part and it was practically exclusive to dwarves. The only real examples of humans doing it was in places where the water wasn’t drinkable and those communities were usually under dwarven rule.

“Anyways, I have to leave soon. Will you be staying here by yourself or will you be going out to sell your potions in the market?” Arthur asked as he finished up his soup.

“I will be leaving soon as well. I have my potions all ready and I managed to convince someone to lend me their stall while they go eat lunch and for a little while after that.” Gaelin smiled as he showed Arthur the satchel that contained all of his potions he intended to sell today. Five were nutrient potions a few shades darker than his first, and the other five were drowsiness potions. From his own experience Gaelin found there potions were the potions that sold the best and quickest. The satchel he bought at the market on sale.

“That is very good, your skills as an alchemist have come quite a ways since you first started around two weeks ago now. When do you think you will be leaving?”

“Soon, definitely soon. Jofami, the man who is letting me borrow his stall, should be taking his lunch break soon and I only get it for around an hour.” Gaelin stood up quickly as he finished speaking and walked over to the door taking his newer jacket off the coat hanger. Since he started earning more money Gaelin took the time to buy nicer and better clothes for the changing weather, since this morning people had been saying “Feels like we're getting snow soon.” Whatever that even is it sounds bad especially when you factor in how people look when they say it.

********

Around an hour later Arthur had left his home several minutes after Gaelin left and went to Henry for more lessons. With the increase to his daily income Arthur had begun to have lessons with him almost every day of the week, the only two days he did not were the last two of the week or the weekend and everyone called it.

“Honestly Arthur, you surprise me quite often. First it was your incredible progress with learning magic and now you have already taken on an apprentice of your own at such a young age. Normally humans wait until they are in their thirties to start teaching.” Henry said as he pushed against Arthur’s control of the small sphere of air he was controlling in a way similar to lifting weights. The two have been doing exercises like this for a while now and Arthur’s skill has considerably grown because of it.

“Yeah well he didn’t have anything really going on in his life and maybe if things go well he can get into the mages guild by the end of the year given his current pace.” Arthur struggled to keep both the sphere controlled and answer his teacher at the same time as the sphere required most of his attention to keep stable.

“Well I wouldn’t be surprised if this helps your career within the guild quite considerably given your own progress and his. I do have a question for you though, it isn’t related to magic but it is a personal one.” Henry said as he relaxed his control over Arthur’s sphere and he followed suit in dispelling the orb.

“Sure, go ahead, what is it?” Arthur asked while collecting the sweat from his face with hydromancy and absorbing it into a towel he kept nearby with these lessons.

“Why did your parents name you after an ancient king from the early second era?” Arthur looked up to his teacher confused by the question. While he noticed his name was quite unique he didn’t know of any second era kingdom led by someone with the same name.

“I’m sorry, what do you mean by that?” Now it was Henry’s turn to look confused.

“Wait, do you not know the origin of your own name? Did your parents not tell you about it?” Henry was baffled, who would name their child after such a historic figure and not say anything to their child. They either didn’t know the significance of the name or never had the chance to tell him about it.

“Well, truth be told I don’t know who my parents are.” Arthur said, trying to avoid the subject, everyone who hears what he says about his parents always says something along the lines of “I'm sorry to hear that” and it was starting to become annoying.

“Well I'm sorry to hear that.” Arthur visibly cringed at his words. “But you parents were likely historians given what they named you. King Arthur was the king of the Runead kingdom that existed for around two thousand years, roughly around the beginning of the second era when the gods began to intervene in mortal affairs. He was king at around the one thousand year mark, while he didn’t have any children of his own he did have cousins who did and eventually they took the throne once he was unable to.”

“As interesting as this little history lesson is, this King Arthur doesn’t exactly sound like he was all that interesting.” Arthur said as he stood up and then sat down on a chair.

“Well king Arthur wasn’t just any king, he was also a very powerful mage in his time. Under the command of the god he worshipped he drove the goblin hordes to near extinction within his own borders. Admittedly finding records of this god has been practically a lost cause as all we know about them is that they were more powerful than all the other gods at the time, and it was by a long shot.”

“Was there anything else that this king Arthur did that warranted such a reputation?”

“Well after he retired from the throne and passed it onto someone else he didn’t remain around for long, he disappeared from his own kingdom and according to the few reports that were uncovered regarding him in this time period he began to travel the continent. We obviously don’t know why but he put his magic skills to great use while doing this, he killed several powerful demons by himself and brought down an entire goblin empire that inhabited what we now know as the Yolan empire.”

“Wait, the Yolan empire used to be covered by goblins? You would think this king Arthur would be better known with feats such as that. Funny enough I haven’t heard anything about that from the kingdom or the empire regarding him either.”