Bloodfallen: Curse of The All Knowing

“What exactly do you need, Captain?” Arthur asked while shifting a little uncomfortably, normally when the Captain wanted something it was due to his physical or magical capabilities rather than his alchemical skills.

“I need you to create potions and poisons for me and my men to use in an upcoming series of events that are going to happen soon.” Captain Tasius said as he walked around the table to Arthur’s side. “I can tell you anything in detail right now, but if you could help us in a discrete manner I would be very thankful.”

“As much as I would like to help you captain I would need a list of what you want me to make, and even then I may not have the ingredients or recipes necessary to do as you ask.”

“That will not be an issue, I am having the city government foot the bill making the ingredients and recipes not an issue. The only problem I currently have is finding someone who is both trustworthy and skilled enough to perform the task.” The offer was quite tempting for Arthur, from what he could understand the Captain was offering both ingredients and recipes that he might have a hard time acquiring through normal means. This might also help Arthur with getting some prisoners for Gaelin to kill to raise his level and by extension his mana capacity.

“Alright, I will see if I am able to help you. But I also have a request unrelated to this matter, it was actually the reason why I came here in the first place.” Captain Tasius gave a small nod for Arthur to continue, this also gave him a chance to notice the young elf standing next to him. “I would like a few prisoners that are scheduled for execution for my apprentice here to kill. His low level has become a problem when it comes to training.”

Captain Tasius smiled, thankfully it wasn’t an unreasonable request like he was worrying it would be. “Of course, that shouldn’t be all that hard to do. We have plenty of thieves and murderers in the dungeon that have been kept for that exact purpose. I assume this will function as a sort of compensation for your services.”

“Of course, Captain. When exactly should I expect the ingredients and recipes to be delivered to my residence.” Captain Tasius gave a slight smile to this.

“I think you misunderstood what I said. The production of these potions and poisons will need to be done in secret and to keep it that way you will need to do it within this hidden room. We have already cleared out a small area within the dormitory you passed by for your equipment, if need be you can also sleep down here as well.”

Arthur was little surprised by the fact that he would be producing these potions and poisons within the nearby dormitory. He was expecting that he would be able to just do it in his own home like normal, though the Captain did have a point. There was always a chance that what he was doing would be discovered if he just did it out of his own home, he didn’t exactly have excellent locks or guards to keep his home safe.

“Very well, when will I begin with this project for you?”

“I will have all the ingredients and recipes delivered to this location by around this time in two days. There will be a daily quota for you, but it should be all that hard for you to complete in a timely manner. If for whatever reason you can’t get it done in the normal time you will be expected to stay longer to do so, the ingredients we will provide you should last for at least three days worth of potions and poisons. If you do need more just let us know before the end of the day and we will have more delivered as fast as possible.”

********

Like he was promised the next day Arthur was allowed to bring Gaelin to the southern district dungeon where he was given several prisoners who were convicted of various terrible crimes before they were sentenced to death. They consisted of murderers, rapists, and even a few cannibals from some cult that was squashed a few years ago, and they were all here for people like Gaelin who needed levels without risking fighting to the death.

By the time they left Gaelin was a little scared by the experience, but he was also now level four and put those 20 new points towards intelligence, raising it to 30 and his maximum mana to 12. But to experience these changes Gaelin would need to get a proper night's sleep which came several hours later after sharing dinner with Arthur and Calavia who decided to stop by.

“So how was your guys' day today? Mine was terrible, so many people don’t have enough firewood or blankets or winter clothing and instead of going to one of the many places that donate those things to whoever needs them they instead sit there in the cold and freeze. So many people have easily preventable frostbite and other related injuries.”

“That is likely because there is a stigma towards taking things from charity. Most people don’t like being reliant on other people and instead decide to try and stick it out on their own, a good portion of that is due to pride and a feeling of worthlessness when you are forced to accept help.” To the surprise of both Calavia and Arthur it was Gaelin who answered the question. He didn’t look at Calavia as he answered though, giving off the feeling that he might know this from personal experience.

After collecting herself from the surprise Calaval nodded and continued. “Yes, that sounds right. When I recommended one of the nearby temples that does offer such services the people turned away like I recommended contracting a disease. Neither of you answered the question by the way.”

Calavia gave a small jab towards the silence Arthur gave while trying to avoid speaking of the deal he made with Captain Tasius. ‘I can tell her a few things, I just need to keep the Captain out of it and what I am doing for him.’

“Well, I received an offer to create a large amount of alchemical creations for someone for a good amount of recipes that they also want me to create.”

“Can you tell me anything about this person or recipes they want you to make for them?”

“Sorry but no. That was a key component for the deal in question, just about everything regarding the deal needs to be kept secret for security reasons.”

“Are you sure there isn’t anything you can tell me? Not even a tiny little detail?” Calavia asked while leaning over the table with a wide smile showing off her pristine teeth, an attempt at convincing her friend to tell her more that he wasn’t supposed to.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t. It was written into the contract and I will not get what I want if I break it.” Arthur crossed his arms as he spoke to cement his point of not sharing important details. “If all goes well you should hear about it through the news, the people I am working with are likely to announce what is going to happen with what I am helping to provide them with.”

**********

One day later on the third of Moonstone Arthur woke up bright and early and quickly readied himself with a simple breakfast and by dressing himself while he waited for Gaelin to arrive. They agreed the day before that Gaelin would stay inside Arthur’s home for the day while he would go to the southern district barracks and complete the day's order for potions, poisons, and any other alchemical product they asked for.

Eventually after several minutes of waiting Gaelin arrived with a few loud knocks at the door. Arthur quickly rushed to it and opened it before rushing his apprentice inside. “Good thing you got here, I was getting ready to leave without you even arriving.”

“I got a little caught up with the neighbors, somehow one of them found out I am working as an apprentice alchemist and decided they needed to have an excessive long conversation regarding ethics and why testing potions on her children was a bad thing. If I wasn’t such a nice person I might have been tempted to do exactly what she told me not to.”

“Wow, that sounds a little heartless. But that is quite understandable, some people think they know better than you despite having zero experience on the matter. Those tend to be the people that get mad when things don’t go exactly their way as well.” Arthur could emphasize with what Gaelin was going through, many people for whatever reason think that alchemists are one second away from breaking every single law devised to keep unsafe practices from happening, such as reckless human experimentation to name just the most well known law.

“When you buy your own house people tend to calm down quite a bit, I think it is because when you are able to spend a lot of money on something like a house without taking out a loan it means you have a lot of money and can fight off any baseless accusations.”

“So I just need enough money to buy myself a home and most ignorant people will leave me alone? That can’t come soon enough.” Gaelin smiled to himself as he imagined his neighbors who regularly bother him because of his profession just staying away from him.

“That is a good summary of what I said, but don’t think that will come easy. This one house alone ended up costing me ten gold coins, there are of course smaller options that have a smaller price tag but those are still really expensive as well. You would be better off renting a room in a decent tavern or inn and investing in better equipment and ingredients for the time being.”

While Arthur spoke he handed Gaelin a bottle that contained a yellowish powder. “That is full of spark powder, if for whatever reason the fire starts to dim and you can’t get it going well, dump that on it and it should burn for around ten minutes on its own. Use that ten minutes to get the fire going better, use small pieces of wood like sticks and thin pieces to actually get a proper fire going before you add big pieces that burn for a while.”

Gaelin looked at the small bottle within his hands with a bit of surprise, the powder within didn’t look that special but what Arthur just told him had large implications. Something like this would be great for starting a fire during the winter when it gets really cold out, he personally knew just how bad things could get during a midnight snow storm.

“Ok, I will keep an eye on the fire at all times sir.”

Arthur smiled before opening the door and walking outside. Suddenly Gaelin was alone with thoughts and memories that he wanted to leave behind himself, he quickly locked the door and walked into the alchemy room to try and push the memories away with work. Today he had a new potion that he wanted to try out, it wasn’t magical in any way but he suspected that its effects would make it valuable to everyone and perhaps even enough to charge a little extra.

*********

Around twenty minutes later Arthur found himself in the hidden room under the southern district barracks, he was currently in the repurposed dormitory with a large wooden table that held his alchemy equipment. To the side was a list of the potions that Captain Tasius wanted him to make along with each recipe in question. The ingredients were within a few large boxes that were kept under the tables, most of the ingredients Arthur didn’t recognize as they looked like they came from animals rather than plants, but thankfully there was a list that detailed each ingredient and how to properly handle it.

‘And at the top of the list is twenty bottles of blind leaf poison with each bottle containing 450 milliliters of the poison.’ Arthur looked at the recipe, it was written down on an older piece of parchment and had a few smudged scribbles along the outsides of the page.

The recipe itself looked easy enough, to start Arthur needed to ground up one of the few plants within the ingredients he had predictably called the blind leaf. The leaf was a deep sickly green color with an almost black outline and had an uneasy smell that made Arthur question if it was safe to even do so. The leather gloves that he was provided with were according to the instructions enough to keep him safe, but to be extra safe he kept it as far from his face as possible.

With the leaves in the mortar Arthur used a pestle to grind up the bad smelling leaves until he had a fine paste, following the instructions he conjured up a bowl and scraped the paste into it. Next in the recipe was a quarter pound of something called rat dog flesh. The flesh was a whitish pink color and was stiff like a day old corpse, the recipe required Arthur to cut it up into little pieces and mash it until it was something called a puree. When that was achieved after several horrible minutes he dumped it into the earth bowl with the leaf paste and began to mix it together.

With a nice terrible smelling mixture Arthur left the bowl to the side and began the next step that involved a few new ingredients. Two new ingredients to be exact, and those were ectoplasm and minotaur nails. Quickly placing the two within the mortar and pestle Arthur grinded the nails separately until they were a fine powder and added the two new ingredients into the bowl before giving it another mix until it was all one large thing that almost looked like a meat based dinner if you excluded the smell.

With the hard part out of the way Arthur brough his retort over and picked a small piece off and dropped it inside before adding some water and began distilling the poison properly into one of the bottles he was provided.