-- Bay --

I watched Violet enter into the alchemy guild workshop we were sharing to do our monthly quota of potions. She looked exhausted as she set down a couple of bags of ingredients that looked familiar.

"Did you grab the salve one too?" I asked.

"Yeah. Did you see how much the ingredients are?" Violet said exasperated.

I chuckled having seen the prices earlier. They had almost doubled in price due to some shortage, "Yeah, it would be cheaper to gather our own ingredients."

"You mean gather ten herbs." Violet belted out a big laugh at the idea.

"Yeah." I laughed then thought aloud, "Is that why that quest is always there?"

Violet stopped laughing after hearing my response, and with a faraway look, "Our life is a game at this point isn't it?"

I let out my own long sigh, "We've been going so hard for so long I haven't had time to let it sink in."

Violet shook her head, "I don't like this."

"Then make something else," I said pointing to the recipe book in the back.

"No not the alchemy stuff." She said exasperated, "This whole situation."

"Then why go along with it?"

"I don't know. It was happening anyway...so it seemed like a good idea at the moment. Now...now I just don't know."

I stared at Violet not knowing what to say. The silence stretched on and I probably waited too long but I still walked up and gave Violet a big hug. "I don't know how this will pan out, but hey we'll look out for each other. And we'll lookout for any story tropes maybe we can use them to make life easier." I said while patting her back.

"Yeah what would you guys do without your healer." She said self-mockingly.

I pulled back staring her face to face and sternly told her, "It's not about that and you know it. We need you as you."

Violet sniffed holding back tears, "Thanks I needed that. It just got to me."

I shrugged, "Happens. Just know I'm here for you." I began to move back to my desk I was preparing to make a salve and had just got everything set up.

"Same. I'm here if you need to talk to me."

"Yeah."

"You ready to make these salves," She asked trying to cheer herself up.

I looked over my bench and nodded, "Yeah."

Violet joined me over at the worktable. I grabbed one of the green herbs she brought over and began to crush them in my mortar. The salve needed the herbs ruptured it would absorb the energy easier that way. My arm was getting tired from the crushing. Why can't I just use a juicer?

I crushed and ground the herb into a paste so that the real alchemy can begin. Power began to flow from all around, forming into a funnel, streaming, and condensing into the bowl.

I was shocked at the amount of power I was able to pull on. A few months ago I would have never believed I would have been able to keep it under control, now even this amount I barely felt any strain as I condense the power into a liquid to fill the basin.

Once the two liquids reached the top, I begin to use my power to stir them constantly adding more and more power into the mixture. Slowly the paste liquefies and begins to combine with the energy.

Now we add the catalyst, a shock of crystallized power. I dropped the crystal in and as I watched the liquid turned from green to red, then to a deeper crimson signifying my success. The mixture would become a balm when cooled, but right now it was still a liquid.

Ok, why is it so dark? I thought as I put it into one of my waiting jars. I turned around and watched as violet worked on her salve and noticed hers was a deep crimson as well.

"Do you know why it's so dark?" I asked.

"No. This is weird. Mine are usually a bright red." Violet said as she lowered herself to smell the salve.

I watched and let out a "Hmmm."

Violet seemed to get an idea as she asked me, "You got a level measuring thingy?"

I rolled my eyes, "A power evaluator? Yes, there's one here." I looked around the room locating it and pointing to something that looked like a scale, "Over there."

Violet grabbed the scale and I took my balm placing it on the scale. We were both shocked by the results.

"Shit I made a high healing balm"

"No fucking way!" Violet said in disbelief, "I thought that required a ton of expensive ingredients."

"I don't know..." I froze realizing what was different, "No, wait I think I do know."

"What?" Violet asked.

I told Violet my thought, "Those recipes are for people with low power to create high healing balms. I bet the other ingredients amplify and condense more power."

Violet looked confused at first, "But why...oh we leveled up."

"Do you think if we used the normal ingredients it would make a more powerful version?" I asked while contemplating the discovery.

"No idea, but I don't have the money to try," Violet admitted.

I put the jar down with a sigh, "Same, but how much is this worth?"

"Ten-times the normal amount," Violet said confidently.

"A full silver nice." I said then turned to my healer friend to ask, "How much do the high-quality salves heal?

"They fix deep wounds, and will actually have a regenerative effect if you put some on during or before a fight." She explained.

"Who has time to think of that before a fight?"

Violet shrugged, "I do feel bad though for the people who need to use these."

"Why?" If it heals quickly and you don't need to focus on it why not?

Violet shivered, "It feels like acid on your skin. Sure it heals pretty quickly, but it takes longer than a healer and it hurts. A lot."

I let out an awkward chuckle, "Glad we have you."

"Thanks, and not to mention you don't want to use them on broken bones."

After a second it hit me, "Heals wrong?"

"It can. Then we have to break and reset bones." She said matter of factly.

I stared down at the expensive salve when another idea occurred to me, "Hey if we can make this. What about power crystals?

Violet practically teleported to my side, "Do you have any of the catalysts?"

I took a step back before I said, "I can get some."

My mind was reeling the entire time it took me to run out and purchase the crystal cores needed to make power crystals.

"If this works the same as the salve then this should be highly condensed, and we can make around five silvers per crystal," Violet said excitedly.

I looked over at Violet's excitement and asked, "Do you want to do the honors?"

Violet reached out to grab a catalyst before dropping her hand and shaking her head, "My crystals don't turn out that great honestly."

I grabbed one of the cores and move to the center of the room, and sit on the ground cross-legged. Creating a power crystal in theory was a lot simpler it just required a large amount of power. The challenge came in holding its shape, and not letting it explode. I opened myself up pulling as much power through me as I could. All too soon I had enough to start condensing it into liquid and guided into the center of the core. Slowly carefully, I pushed the energy in following its crystalline structure inside the core. More and more I pushed and the core began to grow and form, little bolts of lighting flowing through it. For the first time ever, I started to feel some pushback from the crystal. I was shocked, every other time I had done this I never felt pushed back, in fact, it normally had its own suction after a while.

Dumbly, I thought it was just a side effect of the amount of power so I pushed harder. Until I hit a wall, and the flow began to stop. Out of curiosity, I shoved hard, and the wall seemed to break, as a ton of power shot into the crystal. Suddenly the core exploded in size and its shape ran out of my control as it grew spikes and became a star in my hand, piercing through my flesh.

I screamed, "Fuck!!!"

"What happened?" Violet asked in a panic.

I took a deep breath, "I was an idiot." I turned to Violet giving her big puppy dog eyes, "Help."

Violet grabbed the outside of both my hands and looked into my eyes, "This is going to hurt."

"Just be quick," I whined.

"Ok on" yank she immediately pulled my hands apart drawing another scream from me. I heard a tinkling sound as the crystal hit the floor. Violet was already working on healing the holes in my hands.

I let out a pitiful whimper, as I felt the fire of Violet healing my hands. It only took a minute for her to fix the damage, leaving no trace of what happened. That was except for the giant star on the floor covered in my blood.

I looked down at it, "Is that what I made?"

Violet let out a long whistle, "Yeah. It was really dark blue before it popped like popcorn."

"Is it an energy crystal though?" I asked not really sure what to make of it.

Violet scratched her head, "Little big for that."

"It might still be a crystal." I guessed.

Violet pricked her finger when she touched it, "sharp as blight though" She looked around the room before setting her eyes on a glove and picked up the crystal before moving it out of the way and asked me, "Do you want to try again?"

"Yeah." I let out a long sigh as I grabbed another core, "I know where I fucked up."

"Oh?" Violet raised an eyebrow skeptically.

Instead of explaining I got to work. 10 minutes later I was the holder of a near-black energy crystal. I could feel the power radiating off it in my hand.

Violet could feel it too, "That is a dangerous crystal."

"I think I might explode if I ate this," I said as I stared warily at it.

"Can we even sell it?" She asked.

I stared at it trying to think, "Maybe, but we are going to need to find a balance, and now that I'm thinking on it. We probably need to practice fighting." There was too much we didn't know about ourselves since we leveled up so fast.

Violet said what I was thinking, "So much to do."

I was examining the black crystal still wondering if we could sell it, "How many do we need to make?"

Violet turned thoughtful, "If we do high quality...I think it's only fifty? Else somewhere around five hundred." She stopped to look at me, "How much of your power did it take to make the first salve."

I thought back to making the healing cream, "I didn't even feel fatigued or strained so maybe five or ten percent. I'm not sure."

"About the same for me."

"So fifty," I asked

Violet nodded, "Yeah fifty."

"Or more." I added, "You know make some gold."

"Let's see how we feel," Violet said tentatively.

Then a blue screen appeared in front of both of us.

"I step from the shadows to challenge this city, come catch me. In the light. Before I return to the shadows"

The city will have 5 minutes to gather its forces in the center of the city, to catch the shadow who has initiated this challenge.

The city will have twenty-four hours to catch the shadow and foil its objectives.

Succeed and you will be rewarded, fail and stew in the knowledge an entire city couldn't stop a single shadow.

"Well, this is neat," Violet commented after reading the screen.

I looked over to her, "Do you want to try and catch him?"

Violet thought for a minute before answering, "Nah. It's probably some test they have to pass." She paused before adding, "Though if you see him pass by feel free to grab him."