Note to self; don’t lick the white berries.

The marble altar felt cool against my skin, the feel of it a stark contrast to the acidic burning that consumed me mere moments before. After laying on the altar for another few minutes, I decided it was time to get up and head back to the lab.

At least this death was a quick one, much better than the black mushrooms which filled my lungs with spores and suffocated me. I trudged back towards the forge, the cold night air causing my skin to prickle.

“Kadia,” turning I saw Darius approaching with a bag slung over his shoulder.

“Darius, hello.”

“Did I just see you leave the altar? What happened?” Darius asked, a look of concern on his face as he reached me.

“I licked a Calacaza berry to test if it was just the flesh which is poisonous or the skin as well.” I admitted, causing the guild leader to gape at me.

“You licked something you knew could be poisonous? Why?” He asked, sounding a mixture of shocked and confused.

“Well, how else am I supposed to find out if the skin is poisonous or if it is just the flesh? I need to know what effect the poison has as well, it burns like acid in case you were wondering.” I informed him.

“Right, acid, got it.” Darius muttered, running a hand through his hair. “You shouldn’t be testing this stuff on yourself, not if it means you might die.”

“Why not? If I die I just reform back on the altar.” I said with a shrug, turning to continue my trek back to the forge.

“Kadia, when your body reforms you sacrifice a part of your power to create the new body. With each death you weaken yourself, if you die too many times at this low level you will permanently damage your core and it will be extremely hard for you to regain any strength. The stronger you are, the more of a power buffer you have around your core to protect it, which means you can die several times before the core is affected. Only a high priest can fix a damaged core and getting a meeting with one is extremely difficult. If you die after you damage the core, it’s even worse. True death is a thing here, die too many times, and you’ll end up needing to create a new avatar. How many times have you died?” Darius asked, looking worried.

“Uh, well,” the first time was the experiment with the fire stone, which exploded when I tried to break it into smaller firestones, then the black mushrooms, and finally this time with the berries. “Three, I’ve died three times. What do you mean by true death?”

“Right, that’s not too bad, and by true death, I mean the death of your avatar's current life cycle. Die enough times that your core shatters, and you’ll end up in Celeste’s domain having to recreate your avatar. If that happens, everything you own will be lost, as Celeste takes it in payment for granting you a new life in the world. In that case, you’ll lose the chance to pick your race and, more often than not, you’ll end up as something less than desirable. I’ve heard if you suffer multiple true deaths, your race gets worse and worse. There’s a bloke running around right now as a goblin who’s had three true deaths.”

“That, er-” I shook my head, not really knowing how to respond to this newfound information.

“Hasn’t Markion taken you out hunting yet? Why didn’t he tell you any of this?”

“Um, no, Markion isn’t here.” I sighed, giving the guild leader a brief explanation of what I knew about our father’s arrest and my conclusion that it had to do with why Marcus was gone.

“I know he came back for a bit while I was dead the first time, because the Minotaur statue moved and he wrote ''Be back soon” in charcoal on the door leading to the stairs. It has been five days since then; honestly he needs to hurry up and come back, I need my stuff made.” I said with a huff, trying not to show how worried I was about what might be happening to Marcus.

“I’m sure he will be back soon.” Darius said, pulling his bag off his shoulder and unbuckling the straps. “While I was away I found some things for you in Mõra, I got these books off some idiot who tried to kill me.”

“Books? What are they about?”

“Barlows Bestiary, Plants and Fungi of Salvia, and the third is called Trismegistus and the Philosophies of Nature. I’ve not heard of the last one before, but the first two have circled the auctions a few times. It was strange, he only had the books, a globe, a strange metal disk and a dagger on him. No armor or any real weapon, he was just wearing cloth robes and actually thought he could rob me. He must have been new,” Darius said, shaking his head with a slight grin. “After he realized how outmatched he was, he dropped his dagger and bag, then bolted off into the forest. The bag didn’t even have any holding enchantments on it.”

Narrowing my eyes, I stared at the cover of the book titled Trismegistus and the Philosophies of nature.

“Can I see the other items? The globe and metal disk?” I asked, getting a nod from the guild leader who proceeded to remove an Orrery and Astrolabe from his bag.

The Orrery was made of bronze and was set on a short stand, unlike the gold one Trismegistus carried, which was set atop a staff.

“This is an Orrery,” I mused, staring at the Orrery Darius held out for me. “A device used to depict the solar system. See here; it shows Kaledon’s solar system has nine planets, one sun and two moons.”

“What is an Orrery used for?” he asked, peering at the Orrery with interest.

“I do not know if it has a special use here, but they were historically used in Astrology and Alchemy to track the position of the planets, sun, and moon. The other device you have is an Astrolabe, the markings around the edges are measurements used to help Astrologists with various calculations.”

“Alchemist can use them?”

I nodded, brows furrowing. “Darius, the man who attacked you, was he an old man with a long beard, wearing a robe with alchemic symbols embroidered onto the sleeves and hem?” I questioned, unconsciously chewing on the nail of my thumb.

“He was, why?” He asked.

“Well, while you were gone I sort of met Trismegistus the god of Alchemy, Astrology and Transmutation.” I said, giving a rough overview of my meeting with the god and admitting to him that the god had taken my grimoire.

“Ah, I see, so you think this Trismegistus may have been the man I encountered? Well, that is possible. Typically, that kind of situation is what we refer to as a special encounter. I suspect his intent was that you receive these items as I was alone when I met him and have no use for them myself.” Darius concluded, and I nodded in agreement, otherwise why else would Darius have received those items in such a manner.

As we entered the forge, Darius stopped so abruptly that I almost crashed into him.

“Wh-hat is he wearing?” The guild leader gasped out, choked laughter spilling from his lips as he walked over to the Minotaur statue sitting against a wall, which had been dressed in a frilly nightgown and bonnet.

“Noctus came by the night before last and was concerned Markion’s statue would be cold in just his loincloth.” I informed him matter-of-factly, struggling to keep a straight face.

“The makeup?” He wheezed, leaning down to inspect the Minotaurs bright red lips and charcoal lined eyes.

“Oh, that was me. Jezebel and two of the seamstress apprentices in the guild requested I try to make some better cosmetics for them, and I used Markion as my tester. It was fun, Yuki and Tink helped as well.” I snickered, admiring the Minotaur’s clown like appearance.

“It’s, ahem, definitely an improvement.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, leading the way up to the lab, and unlocking the door with my guild token.

I had begun locking the lab and the door at the bottom of the stairs even when I was inside in order to dissuade the guild members who seem to continually interrupt my work with requests for tinctures and salves. To combat this, I supplied Bron with the tinctures and salves I had on hand each morning and each evening he would provide me a list of what was sold for my accounting book, while depositing the coin into my guild account when he did his nightly banking for the guild.

Letting out a low whistle, Darius looked around the lab with an awed expression, and I smiled seeing his reaction.

“This place has changed a lot; it definitely looks like what I’d imagine an alchemy lab should be.” He observed, looking at the racks of drying herbs hanging over our heads.

“Here, let me show you the things I’ve made.” I placed the books down on a bench and Darius did the same with the Orrery, Astrolabe, a plain-looking backpack and an ornate dagger with inscriptions on the blade and hilt.

“The items were in this bag and he dropped the dagger as well, so there must be a reason why. I suggest consulting with Noctus as to any enchantment they have. The bag appeared normal to me, and doesn’t have a holding enchantment, but maybe it isn’t active or has an enchantment that isn’t noticeable.” He suggested.

I nodded, examining the Astrolabe with interest.

“Kadia, is that crow stirring a wisp core into a bowl of water?” Darius asked with wide eyes.

“Yup, his name is Zosimos. The water needs to be kept cold to help the condensing process when distilling.” I told him, glancing at the crow who held a wisp core in his beak, swirling it through the water, the retort receiving flask sat in.

“I guess it’s not the strangest thing I’ve seen,” Darius muttered before asking, “Zosimos?”

“Zosimos of Panopolis was an Egyptian alchemist in the late third century and was accredited with making one of the first definitions of alchemy. He authored the ‘Cheirokmeta’, the oldest known collection of books on alchemy, and is considered the father of Alchemy.” I explained, leading the guild leader to the upstairs storage area.

“So far, I’ve made everything in the Potioneer’s guide to basic salves and tinctures. Which is all stored here above the storage room. There are bulk batches of everything and Bron keeps a supply in the kitchen, which he sells. Guild members bring their own containers and can fill them from the barrels.” I informed Darius, showing him the barrels of tincture and the smaller barrels with salves.

“Excellent idea, cuts down the cost of buying a continual supply of vials and salve jars.” The guild leader commented.

“Exactly, and it keeps them away from my lab. It was a nightmare, with guild members constantly banging on my door or simply walking in. Luckily, Noctus took care of that and declared my lab off limits. He has been talking about setting up a stall in the courtyard, because even Bron is getting a little sick of people tramping into his kitchen.”

“I will speak with both on the matter, it sounds like a good idea if the demand for supply is there.”

Leading Darius back down the stairs, I showed him into the storage room where I’d managed to fill almost half the shelves.

“Starting here on the left, we have cosmetics. I can’t make fine powders yet, but I did create stained paper and balms which can be applied as lipstick or eye color, as well as an eyeliner with charcoal and oil. I’ve traded some jars for clothing, and this is the excess.” I explained, pointing to the different palm-sized clay containers that were stacked up on the shelf.

“Next, we have the herbal teas, I’ve four which are being supplied to the guild and another I’m still working on. Starting at this tin, we have an antioxidant tea, revitalizing tea, a pain relief tea and this one is a mix of all three, which is very popular with the guild as a hangover cure. I’ve also mixed together a few more teas which had no notable effect beyond tasting nice, those recipes have been passed on to Bron. I also ended up creating a few different alcoholic beverages by infusing plants into vodka, so I passed those onto him as well. The cat's tongue vodka was rather nice,” I trailed off reminiscing about the deliciously tart concoction I’d accidentally made when mixing cat tongue fruit with vodka.

“You’ve certainly been busy,” Darius noted as I began showing him the next set of jars which contained my attempts at recreating the ‘Sunny days’ salve for Noctus.

“Not really, I’ve been stuck working on things that don’t require much processing due to a lack of tools. I tried to commission the smiths to make some, but they refused. They really don’t like Markion apparently,” I grumbled, remembering the less than pleasant encounter I’d had with the dwarf who claimed he was the guild Forge master.

“Noctus and Bron both tried to coax them into helping, but they said they’d only do it in exchange for one of Markion’s fire stones. I told them no, because it isn’t worth dealing with the fallout with my brother, plus I already blew up one of my own fire stones, so if I gave them one I’d have none left.”

“You blew up a fire stone? How did you manage to blow up a Fire stone?” Darius asked aghast.

“Uh, well, you see, I wanted to try breaking it into smaller pieces to make smaller firestones that I could use as burners. I used Markion’s forging hammer to smash it, and it went boom.” I concluded with a shrug. “Trust me, that was tame compared to what happened when I tried making gunpowder.”

“You managed to find saltpeter?” Darius enquired, voice sounding strained.

“Yup, turns out Calidus knew about saltpeter and how to make it already. He’s been using it as fertilizer at the farm. I’ve got a few jars of saltpeter and a failed black powder mix in the cabinet. I’ve also got something rather interesting I created with the fragmented Firestone.” I informed him, pointing to the shelves which had been enclosed with lockable doors.

“Please tell me that what’s in there is all there is and that you didn’t leave Tink unsupervised with any.” He pleaded, breathing a sigh of relief when I nodded.

“Noctus said she wasn’t allowed to experiment with it until you returned.”

“Thank fuck for that, or else there wouldn’t even be a guild hall for me to return to.”

“I’m sure it wouldn’t be that bad,” I defended. The guild leader gave me a deadpan look in response.

“We used to have four guild halls, Tink’s the reason we now have three.”

“Oh.”