Novel Full Chapter 2091 Ingredient Ponderance
Chapter 2091: Chapter 2091 Ingredient Ponderance
— Kat —
Appoline put down the last of the papers with a frown. “I have no idea what nonsense my family has managed to cook up. I came into this expecting that they’d stolen some of my work and spread it with flowers… but I think they might have found something else. The plants certainly aren’t something they’re capable of making. Perhaps they got them from the Diggers? Hmmmm…”
“R-really?” asked Tweedle. “The poison seemed to constantly change when we examined it and was rather potent. I didn’t think anyone else could create something like that…”
“Ah, that’s because it ISN’T the same potion. The method used to spread it around is ingenious and the main reason it looks all to be the same. There are a few major potions mixed in, but it isn’t just the one. That’s what makes me more certain that it isn’t simply my own work, either stolen and repurposed or all mixed together.
“Well, there is a slight possibility of the second for some of the more serious things… but that makes me wonder what happened to my lab in that case. The whole thing was an attempt to frame me… of that I still feel confident… but if they didn’t use my potions in this mess would they really leave them behind?” mumbled Appoline.
“That’s all well and good,” cut in Steel, reminding everyone that he was still in the tent. “What I’d like to know is, can you reverse whatever this is? The effects on the few people caught in it, or on the land. Perhaps something to cleanse the space?”
Appoline nodded slowly. “That… well it depends how much time you want me to spend on this. If you’re footing the bill for the ingredients I think I can make something that forces all the poison in the air to clump up again. From there you can simply remove the clumps and the air will be clear… but it won’t do much for the stuff that’s gotten into the plants or ground.
“If you want me to counter that? It will be a much larger job and honestly I’d still recommended cleaning the air first. Probably cheaper and less to counteract… but I’ll need samples from all over the quarantined area to work on the differences. There is also the places where they mix which might cause more issues… it’s not going to be an easy thing is what I’m saying.”
“What? No miracle solutions from the wonder alchemist?” sneered Fred.
Appoline looked him over with a raised eyebrow. “I’m not a god. I can’t fix something without time to investigate. This information is nice but it’s not complete to my standards nor is it consistent. If you just wanted me to remove the poison, I could do that in a week… but that wasn’t what I was asked. I was asked to cleanse things, which implies leaving them in close to original condition.
“It’s easy to make a potion that rips certain substances from everything. Much harder to keep your plants intact after using it on something like that. Depending on how it interacts with wood and stone, might also knock down quite a few houses and relying on such a brute force method probably won’t be cheap either. Still, it’s something I could do,”
Steel shook his head, “The plants we can probably write off but not the buildings. There’s far too many of them and destroying a large section of the city would be a pain.”
“Well, you could always cut open a hole in the dome for a bit,” suggested Appoline with a shrug.
Steel glared at her for the suggestion. “I’m not even sure we CAN cut through it… but even if we could that would just dump the poison out nearby. In fact… it’d probably just freeze and drop back down onto us wouldn’t it?”
Appoline made a ’so-so’ gesture. “Some of the poisons in the air aren’t so responsive to the temperature… but you are correct a few of them would simply fall back down before melting and becoming a problem once again.” Appoline shook her head. “So, permission to start with gathering it all up?”
“What would you need?” asked Steel.
Appoline rattled off the names of various ingredients Kat didn’t recognise. Tweedle seemed surprised by some of them, and Fred remained dismissive. “That’s enough for… perhaps ten batches of the potion? Ten cauldrons full that is. I can’t be certain how well they’ll clean things up before testing at least some of them out but unless you want me to just make the one the ingredient rations don’t divide all that well between less.”
“Why not? Just divide the ingredients properly?” laughed Fred.
Appoline glared, “One of the main ingredients is a tenth of a snatcher plant’s fruit and it’s a massive pain to store those things if you don’t keep them in their original state. It’s easier to just buy the whole thing and have me prep it then pay through the nose for a pre-sliced one assuming you even can. They’re not used for much so I don’t know if anyone will have any ready this time of year…”
“What makes them hard to store?” asked Steel.
“Well, the fruit isn’t really a fruit, it’s just called that. It’s a rather large pumpkin sized growth that explodes into a huge number of seeds. Removing the whole thing isn’t too bad but cutting into it tends to make it explode. I need everything, the seeds inside, the skin, and the lining as well. Something that’s usually lost when the thing erupts. There aren’t too many people capable of slicing them properly, and even then… well there just isn’t much of a point. I however DO possess such a skill, so there’s no need to find them pre-sliced like a less skilled alchemist might,” explained Appoline.
“Who is likely to have them?” asked Steel, cutting off whatever Fred was about to say.
“Well… my family might have one or two, the Haleblooms probably have one… um… this was an old woman that liked to grow them for some reason but she was like, old, old and I don’t quite remember her name. Or if she ever actually gave it to me. She lived…” Appoline frowned and turned to the entrance of the tent. Or rather the quarantine zone. “HMmm… I think she lives just outside of the quarantine on the left side? It would be cutting it close and as I said, not sure if she’s still alive.”
“Do you know why she grew them?” asked Steel.
Appoline shrugged, “No idea, like none at all. They are a massive pain to grow, even though they produce massive amounts of seeds hardly any take even if you plant them in what seem to be optimal conditions. When they explode it’s pretty loud and violent, which was something her neighbours hated. Um… the explosion can ruin a lot of other plants so you can’t keep them near anything important but they don’t grow if there isn’t any other plantlife around so that’s another pain point… oh and they’re not worth much because people just don’t use them.
“I think I know… three potion recipes? No, four recipes that use them without counting the one I’m about to make and they’re all pretty useless. There are just other more effective variations of most things. The only thing it’s really useful for is stuff like this where you want to extract other potions and things… but on a smaller scale there are better ingredients. This is to help it spread then come back together,” explained Appoline.
“Fascinating,” chimed Tweedle with a big smile on her face. When Kat looked over at the exclamation, she could see that the little dwarf had been copying down everything Appoline had said so far. It wasn’t really note taking so much as it was transcribing. Bit odd but I suppose if this is your idol and you can write fast enough to keep up with her speaking… there’s no reason not to. Hmm… though I do wonder if she’s noting every word down for a different reason.
Steel was looking over the ingredients once again before shaking his head and sighing. “I’ll see if I can get these ingredients. Are there any substitutes possible? And which ones are likely to be hard to gather?”
“Well, what I’ve given you is a list of things I’m mostly sure I need, plus a bit extra. While the snatcher fruit is almost certainly necessary not everything else is. I’m making a best guess and for something like this? Where it’s more modification then true invention? I’d give it good odds I take three or less attempts to get the exact combination right. If there’s anything at all you can’t find I’ll work around it… except for… hmmm…
“The snatcher fruit, the slime leavings which I know are common… and perhaps those fish lungs, though of the ’most essential’ the gulper fish lungs are the least important. I’m sure we have a farm of them somewhere… though if we need a large amount of them we could be in trouble…”