The Newt and Demon

Theo turned his attention to the Defense Essence next. As he worked with it, he felt a similarity between the essence and the property he applied to his wards. At least it made sense that a creature like Frank would have ‌the Defense property. It was a very enduring monster he doubted they could kill through normal means.

Compared to the hurricane property, the Defense property was very easy to work with. The essence itself was pale silver and poured into the potion vial with ease. Theo mixed the contents and—owing to the previous potion—took cover when he mixed it. The reaction was very subdued, hardly even bubbling. It smelled like engine grease or rusted metal. He couldn’t tell.

“See, that’s the kind of potion you want to see,” Salire said, nodding with approval. “A useful, easy-to-understand potion.”

She had apparently inspected it before Theo had the chance. He held the potion to the light first, checking the quality and giving his approval. He then inspected the potion itself.

[Defense Potion]

[Potion]

Uncommon

Created by: Theo Spencer

Purity: 95%

Imbibing this potion grants the drinker a reactive shield. This barrier activates when a hit would have normally struck the drinker. The barrier reduces damage taken by 25%.

Effect:

Creates a reactive barrier that reduces damage by 25% for 2 hours.

“That is a very reasonable potion,” Theo said. “We’ve been getting so many weird potions lately, and I wasn’t sure the system had it in us to give us something normal.”

It was interesting to examine the differences in quality between the two potions. Quality was now represented as purity, and the first potion he had crafted that day was 85% pure. This new one was 95%. That was because of the complexity of the property. The more complex or strange a property was, the harder it was to get it pure. There were still some steps they needed to take to make the alchemy process perfect, but it was getting better by the day.

Although the defense potion only reduced damage taken by 25%, it would do so for two hours with no additional actions required by the drinker. He suspected that would place this potion as one of the most important ones that people would use for adventuring. Who wouldn’t like a quarter reduction in the damage they took for two hours? All for the low price of a few silver coins, so long as they were locals to the city.

“This simply makes me concerned about the barricade property,” Salire said. She tapped the side of the flask holding the essence and shook her head. “We had one dud, one great potion. I think that means this last one’s going to be just as bad. I’m getting memories from the Fluff Potion.”

“Well, there’s only one way to find out,” Theo said, grabbing the flask containing the Barricade Essence. He prepared a vial and inspected the essence itself. It was odd how it had a strangely brown tinge. It was almost rust-colored and smelled like freshly cut wood. He wasn’t sure if he had ever seen a reagent that produced three distinct properties like this.

The reaction was controlled, especially compared to the hurricane essence. When it was mixed with the catalyst and the enchanted water, it bubbled for a bit, intensifying the woody smell of the potion. He held it and swirled it, nodding with approval as vapors collected on the side of the vial and evaporated into the air. When the bubbles subsided, the faintly reddish brown color had deepened, becoming something more like stained mahogany.

Salire whistled before he had a chance to inspect the resulting potion. Apparently, she had taken to inspecting it before him and offering her reaction. Theo shook his head and inspected the potion.

[Barricade Potion]

[Potion]

Rare

Created by: Theo Spencer

Purity: 90%

Imbibing this potion surrounds the drinker with orbiting wooden barricades tipped with metal spikes. Enemies who make contact with these barricades will take damage. РÁƝǑ𐌱ÊṤ

Effect:

Summon [Floating Barricades]

“Yeah, why the hell is that one literal?” Theo asked, tapping his foot. More than anything, he was annoyed with the result of the potion. He had expected something that would bolster someone’s defense even further than the Defense Potion.

Salire snorted. Then she released a laugh and continued laughing until she fell over onto the floor of the lab. Theo stared down as she rolled around, cackling. He tried not to show how funny the situation was, but eventually broke and joined her. At least he didn’t end up on the ground.

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“You should have seen your face,” Salire said, wiping tears from her eyes. “You were expecting something that was actually good, and the system was like, ‘Nope, here’s a bunch of floating barricades for you.’”

“Oh yeah?” Theo asked, pressing the potion against his lips. “I’ll do it.”

“Oh gods, please don’t,” Salire begged, clasping her hands together. She actually looked pretty worried. “You don’t know how big those barricades are going to be. They’ll smash the lab up.”

“You’re lucky this lab equipment is so expensive,” Theo said, pulling the potion away from his lips. “We should just destroy most of these potions. The defense one is the only one worth using.”

“What, did you go outside and test the potion?” Salire suggested. “Maybe you’ll find something worthwhile about the barricade one. Just please don’t test the Hurricane Potion.”

“I think I’ll do exactly that,” Theo said, straightening his back and striking the most impressive pose he could manage. “Why don’t you clean up the disgusting stills while I’m gone? That’ll be punishment for laughing at me.”

Salire withdrew cleansing scrub from her inventory and dripped it into the stills. The mess that was left behind was cleared away in an instant. “You’re such a slave driver,” she said dramatically.

Theo smiled to himself as he left the lab. He stepped out onto the roads of the city and then found a quiet place to the east to test the potion. “Rowan,” he said, waiting only a moment before the half-ogre appeared from the shadows. He had his book in his hand. “Could you please test this potion for me?”

“How much are you going to pay me?” Rowan asked, not even looking up from his book.

“I pay you a salary,” Theo said, holding the potion out for him to take. When the half-ogre refused, he sighed and withdrew a single gold coin from his inventory. It really wasn’t worth the gold coin to test, but who cared?

Rowan drank the potion down and won, smacking his lips and making a face as though he was disgusted. A moment later, four literal wooden barriers appeared from nowhere and began orbiting him. Rowan had a confused look on his face and stared at Theo for help.

“How long is this supposed to last?” Rowan asked.

“Some are between one and five hours,” Theo said, getting closer and holding his hand out. When a barrier orbited, rowing it, it simply passed through his hands. So the barriers themselves wouldn’t affect anything that wasn’t an enemy. “Could you walk over to that tree and get the barricades to slam against it?”

With a shrug, Rowan approached the tree. Sure enough, as he got close enough, the barriers passed through the tree. It was difficult to understand why the system had designed this potion to create literal wooden barriers. It was just something Theo couldn’t understand. But it worked, and it might actually have some uses if it didn’t run into either allies or inanimate objects.

“Let’s go,” Theo said, jerking his head up the road. Rowan followed close behind him, and it didn’t take long to gain the attention of the people walking on the streets. They spotted the floating barriers and giggled or got out of the way. When the crowd got thick towards the city’s center, they could avoid allowing the floating barricades to pass through people. Thankfully, none were hurt. It just floated through them and made them shout in fear.

Before long, the duo was stepping out into the swamp through the western gate. They sloshed through the mud, finding their way deep enough to discover some monsters. The place hadn’t had much monster activity lately, with the dungeons no longer generating the creatures. They were becoming a rare sight, but Theo eventually spotted an ogre snapper in the distance.

“Walk up to that creature and see what happens when the barriers pass through it,” Theo instructed. He folded his arms and watched as Rowan stomped through the mud.

Before the half-ogre even approached the snapper, it rose from the muck and removed its head from its shell. It emitted a low gurgling sound and moved forward with all the speed a swamp turtle could manage. Rowan edged closer until the barriers were only about a foot from the monster. It moved forward, its head eventually coming into range of the orbit. The barricade smashed into the monster’s head and bits of spectral wood fell to the ground.

“That’s an interesting interaction,” Theo said, watching at a safe distance. The turtle stumbled back a few steps. Rowan pressed the advantage, allowing the barricades to smash into the turtle. It eventually retreated into its shell, but the potion still did its work. Repeated hits to the creature’s hard shell. The turtle was driven back from the force of the hits, even if it was tucked safely in its shell. Although the barricades moved slowly, they brought a lot of force to the fight.

“That’s a strange interaction, right?” Rowan shouted back at Theo.

“That’s an extremely strange interaction,” Theo said. “I expected absolutely nothing from this potion, but it seems kind of effective. Could you see any use for combat?”

“Maybe, for other people, but not for me,” Rowan said. “I fight from stealth, so if I had a bunch of barriers around me all the time, it would be hard to stay out of sight.”

And that was very interesting. Most potions, it was pretty easy to tell if they were going to be useful or not, but this one had evaded Theo’s notice. He was certain it would be a dud, but as he watched the barricades slam against the turtle’s shell, he realized it might actually be useful. Eventually, Rowan was able to defeat the turtle without landing a single blow himself. Instead, he let the potion do the work. And he claimed he even got experience for the kill.

Two of the barricades had been destroyed during the attack, but Theo considered that to be an acceptable loss. Since Rowan didn’t lift a finger, there might be a use for these potions for low-level people adding into dungeons or fighting monsters they weren’t prepared to fight. Since the drinker of the potions didn’t need to do a damn thing, it was a power-leveling strategy.

The duo tested the potion, checking what would happen when it expired from running out of barricades, as expected. The effect just went away. There were no detrimental effects after it ran out of orbiting barricades. After that, they headed back to the lab to talk to Salire about it. She was shocked to hear that it did anything more than slam into furniture and ruin buildings.

“Well, good thing I just wasted all that essence,” Salire said, gesturing to the still she had just cleaned.

“Don’t worry about it,” Theo said. “I’ve got plenty of the blubber, more than we’ll ever need. But I wanted to get a run of the potion started again so we can test it with a low-level adventurer.”

“There is a flaw in your plan,” Rowan said with a shrug. “The issue is that we don’t really have many monsters to test this stuff on. It’s going to be hard to get levels for people if we don’t have access to monsters.”

“Fair enough,” Theo said. “I know we’ve discovered some dungeons north of the Alliance, but some of them are corrupted with undead power.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that running undead dungeons isn’t fun,” Rowan said. “You’d be hard-pressed to get veterans to go in there, let alone the newbies.”

Well, there went that idea. It might still be worth investigating, but there were bigger things that concerned Theo for now. Like the reports that were rolling in about the Ocean Dungeon. The alchemist left everything to Salire for now.

“I gotta nuke a dungeon. Be right back,” he said, ducking out of the Newt and Demon.

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