Tabitha found herself atop a bed in an unknown room the next time she opened her eyes. The throbbing pain in her head aside, she quickly discovered that her arms felt like they were on fire if she even slightly moved them. “O-ow, alright, no more of that… but where the heck am I?” Looking around the room, she saw an open window with sun shining through it, a few cabinets full of various items that all looked medicinal in nature, and two more beds on each side of her own. The bed to her left had a sleeping Runa on it with a properly bandaged leg that was given a stiff cast. “If Runa’s here, this must be the doctor’s place? But… how’d I even get here? Last thing I remember is liftin’ my axe to chop that tree up.”

“Joseph brought you here,” answered an older woman now standing in the doorway to the room. She didn’t look as old as Joseph, mainly because her braided hair was still black instead of white like his, but the wrinkles on her face gave Tabitha some indication of her age. “Good morning,” the woman said with a gentle smile.

“Good… mornin’? The old man brought me here?”

The woman wiped her hands against her apron and stepped into the room. “He did. I haven’t seen him look that worried since I was a child. I don’t know what you did to tame him, but it worked.”

It wasn’t common that Tabitha blushed, but something about that managed to redden her cheeks just a little bit as she looked away. “It ain’t like I did anythin’ special. Just put him in his place.”

“Oh? Who would have thought he had that sort of side to him.” The woman a hand over her mouth and laughed. Her laugh was just as soft and gentle as her appearance. “I’m Hanne. And you?”

“The name’s Tabitha.”

“Well, it is a pleasure to meet you, Tabitha.”

“Right back atcha. So uh… ya got any idea what happened to me?”

“It would seem you took longer to return last night than Joseph thought it would take you, so he went out in search of you. He found you slumped over a fallen tree with a branch right next to your head. Rushed you here and could barely even tell me what was wrong from how heavy he was breathing. It was probably the most he’s run in decades.”

“Ah… I’m gonna have to make it up to the old man.”

“I think a safe recovery will be enough for him. Though, I am sure he will pretend otherwise. That being said, how do you feel?”

“Well, my head’s killin’ me and I feel like my arms are gonna fall off if I move them.”

“Alright. Do you have any allergies that you know of?”

“Nope. But I’m not exactly from this world, so I don’t know if there’s anythin’ here I might be allergic to.”

“Oh, good point. Runa told me and some of the others about that last night. Well, I have potions on hand that will stop any allergic reactions if you have one, so it will be fine.”

“Potions? Did ya brew them yourself? You’re an alchemist, right?”

“I did, and I am.”

Tabitha tried to lean up with starry eyes ready to ask her a million and one questions, but her arms refused to be of any help. Though, while trying to sit up, she saw that her own leg got properly bandaged as well. “Darn it. I finally meet a real, genuine alchemist… and my body won’t work with me. This is the worst.”

“Please, take it easy. Between what Runa and Joseph told me, it sounds like you never took a break yesterday and threw yourself into the deep end of things right away.”

“Well… I was excited, alright? I don’t wanna waste any time. If it were up to me, I’d be out there gatherin’ more materials to craft somethin’.”

Hanne sighed and brushed the hair off her forehead before lighting up with an idea. “Oh! If crafting is what interests you so much, would you like if I brew your medicine for you in here?”

Tabitha tried leaning up again with an excited smile only to fall right back down. The pain was so great that all she could get out was a whimpered, “Yes, please, ma’am.”

“Alright. Stay put and I will bring everything in here to show you how it’s done.”

At least Tabitha could still move her hand enough to give Hanne a thumbs-up. Then, when Hanne turned to leave, Tabitha noticed the foxlike tail hanging behind her. It was the only animalistic feature of hers that she could see and made her all the more curious about how different everybody’s bodies were.

A few minutes later and Hanne returned with a rolling table that had an iron pot sitting on top of it with various herbs and vials on the table beside it. “Here’s everything I’ll need,” she said. “We’ll start a muscle relaxer. How does that sound?”

“Yeah, that sounds nice,” Tabitha replied. “By the by, how’s Runa? Looks knocked out over there.”

“Ah. Well, Joseph bringing you here woke her up last night, and then she stayed up as long as possible waiting to see if you were going to wake up and be fine despite my assurances. That girl worries far too much for her own good. She only fell asleep shortly before you woke up.”

“I’ll have to make it up to her. Craft her somethin’ nice.”

“She would love that. Now, are you ready for a lesson on alchemy?”

“Yes, ma’am!”

“Then let us begin.” With that, Hanne brought the table right next to Tabitha’s bed and adjusted it so that it would be low enough for her to see everything without getting up. That allowed Tabitha to see the water within the pot that looked as if it were dyed with blue food coloring. “I’m using a simple base at the moment. Now, for the first ingredient—”

“Wait, a base? Sorry, but you’ll have to start from scratch with me.”

“Oh, that’s no problem. The base is the liquid inside the pot. The process of alchemy doesn’t work unless you have a vessel filled with a liquid that has the Alchemical tag. That is the base. In this case, it is water that has been combined with a river gem that was crushed into a fine powder. The powder was what had the tag. Once you have your base, you can use anything with the Stabilizer tag to stabilize it. That will prevent it from ever being used as a material, instead turning the liquid into a tool.”

“Can anythin’ have those tags?”

“Not anything, but you might be surprised by what you find with the tags. Anything that does have them can be broken down in one form or another to mix with a liquid to create a base for alchemy.”

“Got it. Does the vessel matter at all?”

“Only as much as any crafting tool does. If you use a pot, for example, that has a tag which boosts the quality of anything crafted using it, then that will affect the final product. This pot doesn’t have any tags, but I do have a cauldron in the other room with a few different tags stacked onto it.”

“Got it. Alright, what’s next?”

Hanne picked up what looked to Tabitha like a sprig of rosemary. “This is pricklestem. It has a bitter taste, but it is great for a nighttime tea when you want some help falling asleep. It relaxes the body.” She dropped the sprig of pricklestem into the pot before moving on to the next ingredient, a vial with what looked like thick blood in it. “Sap from a bleeding pine. This can paralyze somebody on its own, so be careful to never consume it by itself. In this case, it will strengthen the effect of the pricklestem. Its Paralytic I tag will combine with the pricklestem’s Relaxing II tag to make the Numbing Agent tag. Next is silk from a pine crawler, but I am only using this for its Duration II tag. And finally, we have the venom from a variant of the pine crawler, the spitting vine crawler.”

“There’s venom in it?”

“There is, but don’t worry. I’m using this to affect its application process. I have already removed the harmful tags from it. Adding this will only make it so that the medicine can be applied by rubbing it into your skin. Spitting vine crawlers attack their prey by spitting venom onto them while blending in with the trees they sit on, and the venom gets absorbed through the skin. If you drink this medicine, it will affect your entire body and potentially harm your vulnerable organs. By mixing the venom into it, it gains the Absorbable tag which will let your skin absorb it, and I will only apply it over your muscles.”

“Well, I’ll be. That’s a lot of tag mixin’.”

“That is more or less the purpose of alchemy. There is no path as capable as the Alchemist path when it comes to mixing tags from all sorts of sources together. Alchemists are part of nearly every crafting-related business you’ll find in the cities. Blacksmiths partner with Alchemists, as do Chefs and Engineers. There is not a single crafting path out there that cannot be elevated to even greater heights by working with an Alchemist.”

“Ah… gettin’ me all excited now!”

Hanne smiled and poured the venom into the pot. “Once everything is inside, you take your mixing stick and mix it all together until you see it begin to glow. That’s the base getting to work. At that point, you can stop stirring because the base will mix everything together on its own and produce your final product.”

Surely enough, as soon as the liquid within the pot began to glow, Hanne pulled her brewing stick out and let Tabitha watch as the liquid within swirled around all on its own. The liquid swirled faster and faster, creating a whirlpool in the center of the pot, while glowing brighter and bright before coming to a stop. Both the swirling and glowing stopped as a thick, red liquid rose to the top of the liquid.

“Whatever you create will always float to the top of the base,” Hanne explained as she grabbed an empty vial and a ladle. Using the ladle, she skimmed the red liquid off from the top of the base and poured it into the vial. Enough was made to fill three separate vials. “Now, let me add notes to the description, and then I will apply it.”

“Oh, right,” Tabitha said. “I forgot to ask the old man about that. I saw the items he made had notes on them. How do ya add notes?”

“It’s a skill. Once you have crafted enough items, you will be able to add notes to them and they will also say who crafted them. The highest rank of that skill will even let you rename items.”

“Got it.”

Once Hanne was done editing the information for the potion, she took a dry cloth and poured some of the new potion onto it. She then wiped the potion across both of Tabitha’s arms, targeting her muscles.

The effect kicked in almost instantly. Tabitha couldn’t really feel her arms anymore, but she could still move them a tiny bit. Nowhere near as easily as normal, though. “Oh… I’m in love already. Tell me somethin’. This potion… does it work for cramps?”

Hanne smiled and winked. “Why do you think I made so much of it? I’m saving some for myself.”

“Nice. Can ya hand me one of those vials? I wanna try analyzin’ it.”

Hanne nodded and handed over the half-full vial she just used for Tabitha.

Item Information

Name

Numbing Potion

A potion made to numb the body.

Note: “Plain Water Base, Pricklestem, Bleeding Pine Sap, Pine Crawler Silk, Spitting Pine Crawler Venom.”

Creator: Hanne Hencke

Rarity

C

Quality

82

Element

Water

Bonus Tags

[Absorbable]

[Bitter I]

[Duration II]

[Numbing Agent]

“Nice,” Tabitha said again.

“Next, I will give you something for your head,” Hanne said.

“Wait!”

“Yes? Is something the matter?”

“Let me do it. I might barely be able to move my arms, but I can move them without wantin’ to die now. Can I make it?”

“Well, I don’t see why not. But you will have to follow my specific instructions so that you do not waste any of my materials. Understand?”

“Yes, ma’am! I don’t mind followin’ orders when it comes to learnin’ how to craft!”

Tabitha might have been disappointed in herself for failing the previous night, but any feelings of disappointment were utterly drowned out by the excitement she felt from getting to actually perform alchemy in real life. And with what Hanne told her about alchemy being used with all other forms of crafting, Tabitha was already imagining how she might be able to combine it with whatever blacksmithing she learns from Joseph.