Never Waste a Potion

After they more or less agreed on the new pay, the old mage went back to work. Jess was already imagining what his future might look like.

Marin knew he was an ordinary man who couldn't cast spells and wasn't especially good at fighting. Surely he wouldn't send Jess on anything too dangerous.

Ridiculous jobs like sneaking into an orc camp or capturing a baby black dragon would probably go to other mages, trainee mages, or mercenaries.

Jess would most likely just deliver letters and carry things. Otherwise, Marin wouldn't be paying him only ten silver a month.

At noon, Jess should have started brewing his potion right away. Instead, curiosity drew him outside to look at the stables.

The Wizard's Sanctum stables stood against the city wall outside the western gate. Looking north across the paddock, he could see the sea beyond the edge of the cliff.

Several young people who looked like mages were gathered beneath a wizard's tower on the cliff. Even from this distance he could faintly hear them talking and laughing.

The horses in the stable looked healthy and beautiful. Most were chestnut or black, with a few spotted ones mixed in. Their coats shone, their chests were broad, and the muscles in their legs stood out.

What could he say? The Mage Quarter had money. Even its horses looked rich.

Jess remembered visiting the horse farm in Eastvale when he'd gone there. That farm was much bigger, but its horses somehow seemed less lively than these.

Eastvale Logging Camp supplied warhorses to Stormwind's knights. Its horses should have been stronger and better trained than those at the Wizard's Sanctum.

Jess guessed the recent war was to blame. Many of the strongest warhorses had died in battle, while others had been hurt too badly to stay. A lot of those left behind were probably second-rate packhorses.

As he approached, several horses that didn't recognize his scent snorted uneasily. They certainly had plenty of energy.

When would he have a horse of his own? He'd need not just enough money to buy one but a steady income for food, care, and all the other expenses. His house would need a stable, too. The more he thought about it, the more his head hurt.

A job paying ten silver a month certainly wouldn't be enough.

Then he remembered that Gred had once ridden a gryphon. Suddenly horses didn't seem so impressive.

And then he thought about his top-level game characters, who'd ridden kodos, dinosaurs, a guardian's head, drakes, and phoenixes. What was a horse compared with all that?

Feeling miserable, Jess returned to the alchemy room and opened the package he'd brought. Looking at the small amount of material he'd nearly died collecting made the gap between his dreams and reality feel even bigger.

He sat in a chair and stared into space for a while. Lately, he seemed to be getting upset about not having some special power far too often.

Maybe he'd just suffered a little too much recently and met too many people stronger than him. It had left him feeling bitter.

Still, he did have one unusual advantage: he knew things that would happen in the future. It was the only advantage he had, and he needed to use it well.

That thought gave him some energy again.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

He prepared the cauldron and poured in clean spring water, then slowly sprinkled grave moss into it. The awful smell brought back his miserable experience in the tomb.

He took out the little bag of crushed Evil Claw and poured it into his boss's mortar. While the water heated, he started grinding it with the pestle.

The recipe said the Evil Claw needed to be ground as finely as possible. Since it would only be added at the last step, Jess planned to keep grinding it throughout the whole brewing process.

Before long, the water began to roll. It had turned pale purple. He had no idea why green grave moss turned the water purple when boiled, but at least the recipe had been right.

A strange, fishy smell rose from the cauldron. It wasn't like the smell in the tomb. This one... he'd smelled it somewhere before.

Right. In the basement of the Slaughtered Lamb. It was the smell of shadow energy. Was that purple color the color of shadow energy, too?

He stirred the mixture gently with a spoon while checking the time on his pocket watch. Twenty minutes later, when the water had darkened, he poured in the powdered Kingsblood.

Grinding Kingsblood was much easier than grinding Evil Claw. The herb dried out on its own and crumbled into tiny pieces with hardly any effort.

After he put out the fire, he saw the hot mixture was starting to turn clear.

Things seemed to be going more smoothly than he'd expected. It almost felt like following a cooking tutorial from a short video. There was something strangely satisfying about seeing every step turn out exactly as the instructions said.

While the liquid settled, he stepped outside the alchemy room for some air.

By now he was covered in sweat. His shirt was soaked through, and he looked as though he'd just climbed out of a pool. Passersby kept sneaking sideways glances at him.

But he no longer cared about his clothes. These background-character mages would all be small fry in the future. Once he made his Shadow Protection Potion, once he learned warlock magic...

Hadn't it been a little too long?

He turned and hurried back into the alchemy room. The liquid was already half-transparent. He quickly lit the fire again and brought it back to a boil.

The final step: add the powdered Evil Claw.

The sickening smell from before had almost disappeared. Now the mixture gave off a fishy odor that wasn't especially unpleasant. After he turned off the fire, it was still steaming, but it looked almost exactly as the recipe described.

He took a tiny taste with the stirring spoon. It was a little sour. That probably meant it had worked.

Jess filled seven lead bottles he'd bought earlier, pouring until the last drop was gone. Then he sealed them one by one and put them into a bag.

He couldn't wait until the next day. By evening, he'd brought one bottle to the entrance of the Slaughtered Lamb.

The barbarian-looking bartender, Zarei Mohr, was still there. The tavern looked as lifeless as ever.

Jess drank the entire bottle in one gulp. Maybe he'd swallowed it too quickly. The sour, spicy liquid burned all the way down his throat and into his stomach. He leaned against the wall and waited for the fierce dizziness to pass.

At least that matched what the recipe said would happen. For his first attempt at brewing a potion, he'd probably done all right. Luckily it was a simplified recipe, suited to a beginner alchemist.

He didn't want the people inside to find out he'd taken a potion, so he hid the empty bottle in the flower bed below the tavern steps. Only then did he go in and approach the bartender.

"I'm back, Mr. Mohr."

Zarei glanced sideways at him while wiping a table. "What'll you drink? Mead, malt, dwarven ale, dark wine."

"You don't remember me?"

"Ah... you're that kid." Zarei chuckled. "The one who passed out at my bar. Jess, right? Now I remember. I even gave you an extra silver coin."

"I passed out here?" Jess tried to remember that day. Come to think of it, he couldn't recall how he'd gotten from the basement to the garden outside.

"I had two people throw you out," Zarei said. "Don't blame me. You were lying around and getting in the way of my business."

You call this business? Jess thought.

"Bad timing today, though," Zarei Mohr went on. "They've already gone home."

Jess could hardly believe his ears. "What? Your people aren't in the basement?"

Zarei frowned. "Keep your voice down."

"Sorry." Jess leaned closer to the bar. "I really need two silver coins."

"Nothing I can do about that," Zarei said. "They don't live in my basement. Of course they go home at night."

Jess lowered his voice. "Tell me where they live. Mr. Erlan or Ms. Surena, either one. As long as they're willing to test spells on me, I can take less money."

Zarei shook his head helplessly. "Erlan lives on a farm outside Goldshire. Surena... lives in Old Town. Are you sure you want to go?"

Jess felt there might be a chance. "Give me Ms. Surena's address. I can't get to Goldshire tonight."

"Maybe it's none of my business, but I'm warning you." Zarei took out a note and wrote on it as he spoke. "Surena isn't a woman someone like you should get close to. If she wants to pay you to test spells, take the money and leave. Don't get involved in anything else."

Jess snatched the note, ran straight out the tavern door, and headed for the edge of the Mage Quarter. He was in no mood to worry about that now.