It quickly became evident that both of the Sturmgandrs had been pushed too far. Dissatisfied but also altogether unsurprised, Zel grumbled: “Well, we could still ride them, but it would be a tremendously stupid thing to do. Let’s just settle down for now and I’ll get to taking them apart.”

And so, they did just that; lacking the local material to scavenge for a campfire, they instead made use of lightgems for visibility and a small, portable Ignis burner for cooking. Several hours passed, during which Jorfr put his shamanistic skills to use following the Smoke Witch’s guidelines for creating doses of her improved Vitae Elixir for Victor and Zelsys.

Zel, with Zef’s aid, methodically broke down the two machines, salvaging their engines, Thunderchargers, and various undamaged parts so they could be reassembled later. She took particular care stripping the upholstery. By the end of it, only skeletal, stress-damaged frames were left, worthy of burial in this place, while the beating hearts of these steel steeds were safely squared away in Fog Storage.

“So you plan to have new Sturmgandrs built in Borea for the trip back, or…?” came a query from the redhead.

“More or less, yeah,” Zel affirmed. “They came with all the blueprints and everything. Considering that the hardest to source parts survived, it shouldn’t be too much of an issue to have new chassis made.”

“...What about the wheels? Aren’t the cores of those made from some weird alchemical polymer?” Vic asked.

“No way, they’d explode at high speeds if that were the case. The cores are specially treated Sturmgandr leather and the grip surfaces are a cold-iron mesh. I’m sure Borea has beasts with hides of sufficient strength.”

“I could name half a dozen such beasts from memory,” Jorfr chuckled.

“The hardest parts to replace, I think, will be the suspension springs… How’s the elixir going?”

“Coming along, just… Not used to this method, a bit too alchemical,” the Borean reassured, grinding a piece of dried bark alongside some other spices in a mortar and pestle while a pot full of diluted False Drake blood slowly heated on the burner. Several small piles of other, already-crushed spices were laid out by his side in wooden bowls, two brass cups next to them. “Some of the spices are almost familiar, as if they were arcane siblings of plants that grow in the Arctic Oasis... And there’s something else. In the book, I mean; a recipe for “long-lasting” Vitae elixir.”

“...As in shelf-stable?”

“Mrrhm. At least by Vitae elixir standards. It demands high-grade ingredients and equally high-grade stabilizing seals, but as far as I can tell it seems to make sense. Book says to stick it in time-dilated Fog Storage and not take it out until you need it.”

“So the stabilizers work on similar principles as Ozmir’s.”

Zefaris cut in, sitting down by the burner: “Or his stabilizers work on similar principles to the Witch’s, if she is as old as it seems. Her soul was fucked, by the way. I barely got a glimpse of it when she got mad and it felt like having sulphur smoke blasted into my eyes.”

“Won’t hurt to try, then… Once we have the time. A stockpile of Vitae elixir will be one hell of an ace in the hole. Wonder if we could apply that to Fivefold Philter…”

While this exchange went on, Vic sat still, absent-mindedly staring into the burner’s small, pale blue flames as he cradled his staff in his lap. Noticing this, Zel pulled her copy of the Itrian shrine-maiden scroll out of storage.

“Hey, catch,” she grabbed his attention before tossing it to him. Catching it took both his hands, and his reaction time was clearly dulled by his self-inflicted spiritual overexertion. It was a relief nonetheless; she’d expected him to fumble it altogether, and as such had thrown it as lightly as she could.

Having finished crushing up the Witch’s spices, he poured the mortar’s contents in and began muttering an incantation in Borean over the liquid as it took to violent bubbling. Zel would’ve questioned why he was using Borean when the Smoke Witch obviously didn’t write the incantation in the tongue, but she had learned that using one’s own native tongue is often better for certain types of incantations, while mystical, barely-understood languages helped focus one’s thoughts for other cases.

While Vic slowly unfurled the scroll and retrieved writing materials from his Tablet, Zef took to her compulsion of meticulously cleaning her guns and Zel just watched as Jorfr prepared the elixir. The drake’s purple blood churned and swirled in the pot, turning to a slimy, jelly-like substance, seemingly convulsing under the heat as the ritual progressed. For a good couple minutes it looked like a living thing writhing in unimaginable agony and slowly changing colour to the iconic fleshy red shade of Vitae, until he added the third and final lot of spices and stirred them in; within less than a minute of this step, the brew churned and bubbled and emitted an unsettlingly lifelike screech of escaping steam… And turned to opaque, intensely pleasant-smelling liquid.

Still chanting the incantation, Jorfr quickly took the pot and poured its contents into the brass cups before setting it aside and letting out a sigh of relief.

“...I like my method better,” he uttered, handing the cups to Vic and Zel in either hand. “Don’t have to fight the elixir while making it.”

Looking up from his notes, the redhead took the drink and cautiously sipped the piping-hot liquid. A facetious utterance followed: “I like this one better. Don’t have to fight the elixir while drinking it.”

Jorfr emitted a bear-like rumble of annoyance, pulling the pot off the burner and rinsing it out with diluted alkahest before storing it away. A small puddle of molten dirt and pebbles formed where he dumped the solution, quickly solidifying into a lump of geopolymer as the alkahest evaporated. Instead of cooking from scratch, they warmed up the sealed-up meal kits from Ozmir, which had by this point gone cold even with time dilation at play.