Ch 48

I woke up early and had to wait around a bit before it was time to get breakfast from the goblins. I took the opportunity to finish off healing my injuries. Once the goblins had brought breakfast, I went into the training room for my training day since I had fought the day before.

I had learned a lot yesterday despite having had to fight and having been injured. I had learned about several different poisonous herbs and also how to extract and concentrate that poison into a liquid form that was powerful enough to kill with only a small amount.

Today Lilly was looking a bit depressed when I walked in. “What’s with the long face? Are you going to tell me that you can’t train me anymore and I’m going to be stuck here forever?” I was, of course, joking with her but that didn’t mean that I was not concerned as to why she was looking so upset. “No, it’s not that.” She replied slowly before finally looking up and meeting my eyes.

“Today’s lesson is related to yesterday’s lesson but unlike yesterday’s lesson you are not going to like it one bit.” Now feeling a little apprehensive I steeled myself. After learning how to pick locks and break into houses she had instructed me to reverse pickpocket a bunch of merchants. Now that I had learned to make poisons and use them without poisoning myself the next step would obviously be to use them on someone.

“I may not like it, but I will do what I have to do to get what I want.” I said to her after a moment to prepare myself mentally. She looked me in the eyes and saw my resolve. “Ok, then meet me at the abandoned house, I have some preparations to make before we begin.” After that she turned and left the room without saying anything more. Damn, this chick knew how to put a man on edge.

I waited a few moments to let her get ahead and then slipped into my sneaking suit, got my lockpick set ready and slipped out of the arena. It was still early in the morning and almost nobody was out and about yet, so I had an easy time heading to the abandoned house that was quickly becoming Lilly and my base of operation for assassin training. I even managed to pick the lock in under a minute, feeling confidant I headed up to the attic.

It only took half an hour for Lilly to show up, she was carrying a bag which she set on the table next to the alchemical apparati that we had used the day before. Afterwards she began taking things out. First was a number of herbs that I had not seen yesterday, followed by two glass vials full of a clear yellow liquid. After taking out these things she paused for a moment and then took out the small box that I recognized. It had yesterday’s poison samples in it.

Having removed everything from the bag she dropped it to the floor under the table and then turned to look at me. “Yesterday I taught you how to make seven of the most potent poisons that you will encounter and use as an assassin, truly anyone who can survive these would be almost impossible to poison.” After that she paused again. “I need to make a special brew now, please be patient.”

I was unused to this hesitant side that Lilly was showing and so decided to let her do her thing. Moving back, I sat on the bed and prepared to watch her work. I did take a moment to admire her shapely ass shaking a bit as she began grinding up the herbs that she had brought with her today but after that I focused more on what she was doing.

She first combined several herbs together in their powdered form and then mixed them with some distilled water. After this she slowly stirred the mixture until it had formed a paste. She then set the paste, which was a pale green color, aside and began mixing together the last two herbs she had prepared. These went into a small pot which she placed on a stand over five candles to heat. When it came to a simmer, she blew out the candles and then poured in the yellow liquid from the vials.

When she poured the yellow liquid in it took a bit of time as the liquid was thick. When the last of it was in the pot, she stirred it again to blend the contents and then turned to me. “Now we need to wait a bit for that to cool before I add in the other part and then things are going to get a bit tricky. You learned how to move and circulate your energy from Grelf right? You are going to need to use some of that for this.”

I tried to ask her some questions about what it was she was making or what we would be doing with it but she shushed me, turning back to the pot and beginning to stir it again, her eyes focused on the vapors coming from the top of the liquid within. When the last of the vapors had faded, she dumped in the paste she had made and the whole concoction started to bubble before turning a deep shade of red. Finally, once it had settled down again, she turned to me again.

“This brew needs to be keyed to your own energy signature, so this is where you come in. Begin circulating your energy within your body and then once you can feel it properly try to send it out of your hands and into the liquid within the pot.” I looked at her questioningly but decided to do as she said, she was my instructor in all this after all and she would tell me when it was time for me to hear it.

As I circulated my energy, I placed my hands on the pot and began to pulsate it through. As I did the deep red of the liquid started to deepen and change, turning to a maroon, then a deep purple, and then finally to a royal blue. When it reached this color, Lilly told me to stop and then she poured the contents of the pot through a few layers of cloth to filter out the chunks and then the filtered liquid into seven cups that she fished out from a nearby crate.

After this she looked really pained for a moment and then opened the case that held the poisons that I had created. One by one she opened each and dumped each one into a different cup of the concoction that she had created with some little assistance from me. As each poison went into the cups the liquid bubbled a bit and then turned pure white, looking like nothing so much as cups of milk sitting there on the table.

“Now comes the bad part. You are going to have to drink all of these. Unfortunately, in order to become immune, you have to experience the toxins, and this potion does not make it any easier it just keeps it from killing you.” I looked at her aghast, she wanted me to drink all of that poison she had taught me to make after dumping it into that brew? She must be nuts.

“Can’t I just drink them and then drink an antidote over and over again or something? Or maybe take small doses to build my tolerance over time? This really seems a bit severe.” I was now taking slow steps back, trying to think of a way out of ingesting enough poison to kill several teams of horses. “Oh, shut up you big baby, we don’t have time for you to do it the long way, besides, with these poisons even like that you might die. This is the only way.

When she saw that I was still hesitating despite her words she scowled at me. “Fine then, but don’t say I didn’t try this the easy way!” she suddenly burst into a blur of motion, too fast for me to follow with my eyes. In a blink she was on me and I had been tripped and dropped onto my back. No sooner did my back hit the floor than I felt my lips being pried open and a cool liquid pouring down my throat.

I pushed Lilly off of me spitting and gagging, the potion tasted like green tea powder and baking soda. I tried to stand up but all of a sudden, I was very weak, and my vision was going dark. Pain shot through me from my stomach and I felt myself curling into a ball there on the floor. Dimly I heard Lilly say that if I hadn’t been such a baby, I could have been on the bed for this, but it was too late now.