Brewing Bad Ch. 164-165

Ch. 164 - Achievement Unlocked

After their successful poison test, Heisenburgle came up with a long list of minor improvements that he wanted to make to things, including a disconnect for the hose that had caused him to be drug dozens of feet across the ground. That gave Lucas time, but not a lot of it. 

At this point, he was pretty much waiting for the next opportunity to tempt the dragoness. They were on her timeline now. As soon as she showed him a bit of interest, he’d set up a romantic rendezvous and then end this once and for all. 

How was one supposed to sneak up on a dragon and assassinate it with a lance? How was he going to get her alone without cheating on his fiance? Those were both good questions, but he had the utmost faith that he’d figure out the answers when the time came. For now, he focused on the loose threads he was desperately trying to resolve before that day came. 

One was to keep practicing with his sword as he drove his Fancy Footwork achievement ever higher, closing in on 70%. It might not even give you anything worthwhile, Lucas reminded himself almost every day as he dueled whichever off-duty guards were willing and drilled the way that Sir Milen had taught him. 

While that was true, it was equally likely that his life would soon depend on his skill with a blade almost as much as his skill with alchemy, so no effort was wasted, but the uncertainty of the outcome still weighed on him sometimes. 

Far more often than, though, he worried about his beauty crème efforts. It was a stupid thing to worry about. The last thing Lucas cared about was being handsome, but Divine Potential didn’t care about any of that. It only cared about the average number of his attributes, and right now, they were still too low. 

As it was, with the best potions he had, he could get his physical average up to nearly thirty-seven, which was shocking. Taking appearance out of the equation, he could get his other attributes to an average of thirty-one, which was nearly as obscene, but appearance proved to be the odd one out. Even with Empowered alchemy, the most he could get his Creams of Blemish Removal and Seductive perfumes to was +8, which fell far short of the goal. 

In the end, Lucas was forced to use his intelligence potion just to give himself ideas for how he might overcome this final barrier. That felt like cheating, but only for a moment. As a light headache passed through him as his Improved Elixir of Swift Thought gripped him, he forgot all about such petty concerns as his mind raced with new ideas. 

Lucas was quite sure he’d never get used to the idea of genius in a bottle. Both times he’d taken it, he felt like someone else, which was pleasant at the time but deeply disturbing as an afterthought.

The smarter version of himself focused on one of the many theories that he’d already considered but set aside. The problem was one of time. All of the beauty products he was creating lasted for hours or days, and just like elixirs, all of that strength was spread out over the entire duration. 

Which meant he needed something that was just as short-acting as the rest of his potions. Until now, Lucas had been trapped by the idea that his solutions had to make sense. Why the idea that a potion might make you superhumanly strong for a short period of time might make sense, but a beauty potion didn’t, he couldn’t say. He blamed comic books, or at least he would when the effects wore off. 

Before that point, though, he ransacked Heisenburgle’s water laboratory, setting aside anything with appearance properties before sifting out the best combinations of compatible, three-ingredient mixtures and noting them down. All of them contained fairly toxic compounds like arsenic or mercury, but as he understood it, that was fairly typical. Women had been willing to suffer for beauty since ancient times, so he didn’t think that would change now. 

By the time his superintelligence had been replaced with a bitter aftertaste and a pounding headache, he had a new roadmap, and from there, it only took a night of cooking to achieve some better results. Still, his first version of Potion of Greater Desire was all but undrinkable without using empowered Alchemy. It was plenty strong, and technically speaking, it might not even be lethal, but there was no way he was touching it until he filed down some of the rough edges. 

Potion of Greater Desire (1 dose): +14 Appearance (radiant), +11 poison (dangerous), -5 endurance (toxic), -3 intelligence. Duration: 5 minutes. Inspires narcissism in the imbiber for 24-48 hours. Mildly addictive. 

The thing was a mess, and Lucas was fairly sure he hadn’t crafted such an ugly potion since the time he brewed a strength potion in a helmet so that Hura’gh could set them free. Still, thanks to his abilities, there was a lot for him to work with here. 

Striking: 5% mana - increases appearance bonus by 50%.

Charismatic: 7% mana - decrease appearance bonus by 1 to remove intelligence penalty.

Enduring Beauty: 8% mana - decrease appearance bonus by 2 to remove endurance penalty.

Purify: 9% mana - decrease poison content by half.

Focused: 11% mana - reduce side effects.

Doing all of the above cost him 40% of his mana pool for the day, but Lucas still wasn’t done. While the Improved Potion of Greater Desire was probably enough to do the job now, he was probably never going to make another one, so he went all out. 

Improved Potion of Greater Desire (1 dose): +17 Appearance (radiant), +6 poison (dangerous). Duration: 5 minutes. Inspires limited narcissism in the imbiber for up to six hours. 

Incredibly Striking: 22% mana - increases appearance bonus by 30%.

Extremely Pure: 14% mana - decrease poison content by half.

Bewitching: 39% mana - enables the imbiber to exert limited powers of compulsion on members of the opposite sex.

Lucas used the first two options but skipped the last one. Not only was he out of gas, but it was just plain creepy. The thought had flickered across his mind that it might be useful when it came to dealing with Skylara, but even that seemed wrong, and he decided it was best to leave strange powers like that alone. 

Improved Potion of Ardor (1 dose): +23 Appearance (radiant), +3 poison (dangerous). Duration: 5 minutes. Inspires limited narcissism in the imbiber for up to six hours. 

“Besides, when I do this, the only person that’s likely to be around is Heisenburgle,” Lucas mumbled to himself, “And I’m pretty sure he’s not into me.”

With the hard work done, Lucas had completed the entire set. Theoretically, all he had to do was drink all six of these very expensive potions, pray he didn’t throw up, and then see what happened. This time, he didn’t plan any combat tests or feats of strength. The only battle here was between him and a number. 

However, just to be on the safe side, Lucas decided he’d probably better tell Heisenburgle, just in case. Not everything, of course, but in situations where an overdose was possible, a tripsitter was always a good idea, and Lucas had definitely never tried to mix so many volatile compounds in his own body before. 

Still, when he tried to explain what he aimed to do, the gnome seemed clueless. “You’re going to drink potions to increase numbers?” Heisenburgle asked. “The only number you’re likely to increase if these do what you’ve described is the number of corpses in the cemetery.”

“Listen,” Lucas tried to explain without giving too much away. “When you do your blacksmithing… I mean, engineering, do you have like… goals? Does your talent reward you for accomplishing certain things?”

“Ah, completions and fulfillments,” the gnome answered. “I see. Yes. Sometimes, if I achieve a new level of accuracy, I am awarded with gifts, but except for the temperature of the metal, there’s no numbers involved. Do your alchemy talents involve a great deal of math?”

“Sometimes,” Lucas said, brushing aside the question. He thought it was strange how different his system was from everyone else's, but it wasn’t like Heisenburgle knew anything about that. “The important part is… if I can drink all of these and pass… Well, a critical threshold, then I think I’ll get a reward.”

“Ah,” the gnome nodded finally. “A test of fortitude. I can see how that would be valuable for an alchemist of any stripe. Still, it seems a bit risky. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather wait until Skylara is addressed?”

“Carpe Deim, man!” Lucas answered, ignoring the gnome’s look of consternation. “Early birds and worms and all that. There may not be a tomorrow when we’re done with her, and well… I wanna get this done.”

As he gestured to the set of potions that sat in a rack on Heisenburgle’s desk, he had to admit they looked pretty. They should; there were at least fifty golden dragons in materials right there. That was quite a sum, even for a noble drug addict. For the common man, it represented more than a year's worth of labor.

Individually, all of them were kind of plain. However, lined up next to each other in their own little corked test tubes, each of them looked different to provide for interesting contrasts. Some were brown or red, others were translucent and effervescent. His latest addition gleamed like maple syrup with a touch of quicksilver. 

Heisenburgle eventually agreed to watch his little experiment, but only after Lucas explained what he’d used to make all of his potions. By the time he was done doing that, though, the gnome encouraged him to pray. 

“May Thrazelwick have mercy on you,” he sighed. “There’s at least five different ingredients in your little test that may well kill you.”

Heisenburgle got an emergency emetic ready just in case Lucas needed to puke, but Lucas was pretty sure he could handle the puking all on his own. Once that was done, he started to drink them, one at a time. 

The first, for obvious reasons, was his Improved Elixir of the Earth Hardened Body. He knew it well. He’d had it before, and he needed to drink it before strength or agility so he didn’t accidentally hurt himself. In this case, though, he also needed to drink it first because it was the strongest. 

The potion should have increased his ability to 39, but instead, as a result of Maximum Alchemical Potential 2, he was stopped short at 37. That’s okay, he told himself. I planned for that. Everything should still work out, I hope. 

Next up was the Improved Elixir of Divine Grace, which increased his agility to 36, followed by Improved Monstrous Potion of Greater Strength, which increased his strength to 35. 

So far, everything was going as planned. Though Heisenburgle’s increasingly worried looks were starting to weigh on Lucas’ mind, he felt great. Really, he’d probably never felt better. There was more than a little poison swimming around in his system now, but he could handle a lot more than that. 

Things only became more complicated when he quaffed Improved Elixir of Swift Thought and realized he’d made one small but easily correctable math error. While he had no interest in being any more attractive when he used his Improved Potion of Ardor that would bring his appearance attribute to thirty-three, which was just shy of the threshold for Lucas to achieve Maximum Alchemical Potential 3, he did like the idea of getting that achievement as well.

While normal Lucas might not have made the decision that followed, big-brained Lucas decided it was the best possible plan and instantly spent four advancement points, reducing him to seventeen and increasing his appearance to twelve. It wasn’t a big change, but now, when he drank the potion, it gave him the achievement, increasing the maximum limit on his endurance by one. 

Maximum Alchemical Potential 3: 3/3 increase three attributes to 35+, the maximum for any single mortal attribute. Your attribute maximum has been increased to 38. To achieve Maximum Alchemical Potential 4, increase any four attributes to 35+. 

While that was impressive, and part of Lucas wished that he could do the same thing for intelligence and soul, those ability scores were much too low. 

It’s not the priority right now, Lucas told himself, brushing aside the idea that he might be able to get his intelligence high enough if he made himself a series of potions that boosted intelligence as a side effect of their main effect. Divine Potential comes first. Everything else comes later. 

Lucas saved the Improved Elixir of Haunting Epiphany for last, but only because it was the one that worried him the most. While he could describe what it felt like to be smarter or stronger, the idea of being more soulful baffled him almost as much as the idea that a potion could make him more handsome. 

Focus, man, he told himself. It’s magic. It doesn’t have to make sense. You just have to do it.

With that thought, he chugged the final potion, feeling his stomach churn slightly. This time, there was no nausea. Just a vague sense of warming and deepening. Honestly, it didn’t feel too much different than a mana potion.

At least, that was the case until he turned to tell Heisenburgle the good news. Then, everything whited out as he saw the message he’d been hoping for. 

Congratulations. Divine Potential Achieved! You have gained 500 experience points! You have achieved level 10! 

Ch. 165 - Divine Potential 

For a moment, Lucas was lost in the light, and he was certain he’d fucked up big time. As he staggered back, though, everything began to fade back in view, and he saw the laboratory fading in around him, along with Heisenburgle’s familiar silhouette. 

“Of course, it's you,” a familiar voice grumbled. “Who else would it be but you?”

Lucas was about to give Heisenburgle the snark he deserved. He only stopped himself from doing so when he realized the gnome standing before him wasn’t Heisenburgle. It was Thrazelwick. 

Motherfucker, Lucas cursed silently as he looked around. This wasn’t Heisenburgle, and this wasn’t Heisenburgle’s lab. It was somewhere vastly more complicated. 

Lucas immediately tried to bring up his status to view the results of the achievement, but it didn’t work. Something about where he was blocked that mental call and the way that Thrazelwick smiled slightly at the attempt made it clear that the God had seen him try and fail to do just that. 

Last time, he almost destroyed your soul by accident, Lucas reminded himself. He can literally read you like a book if he wants to. 

A moment ago, he’d been in Heisenburgle’s office. There had been bookshelves on two sides, a desk, some windows, and a wall with a door. Where he stood now was still an office of sorts, with a gnome, a desk, and bookshelves, but there were no walls. Instead, they were on a platform overlooking a vast factory floor filled with vats and assembly lines. While it was almost exactly opposite of Lwyn’s throne room, there was no denying that it suited the gnomish god. 

Lucas took in all of that at a glance. He could guess what had happened, mostly, he just couldn’t understand why exactly. 

“I take it I’m not dead?” he said finally. 

The gnome nodded, looking displeased to see him. “You are very much alive, though I can fix that if you like.”

No angels then, Lucas decided. Probably no Lwyn either. It’s just me and the little guy. 

Lucas tried to go for the soft approach. “After all that work I put into brewing those potions, you don’t seem happy to see me, Thrazelwick. Why is that?”

“Because that is not! How that boundary is supposed to be crossed!” the gnome insisted. “You can’t treat everything as a numbers game! The achievement you unlocked is supposed to be the result of decades of hard work and good decisions, and you just crossed in with a couple of weeks of work.”

“I wasn’t aware I was breaking any rules,” Lucas said, not quite apologizing, even if he was sure that was what the gnomish god wanted. “I’m just doing what you wanted me to do. I’m testing the bounds of alchemy with my science and—”

“Science. Bah!” the Thrazelwick answered, throwing up his hands and turning away as he walked to the railing to survey his tiny industrial empire. “The bounds don’t need to be pushed. Don’t you understand? I’ve got thousands of the honored dead everyday testing to make sure that my potion recipes are perfect in every way. Do you understand? Efficient, safe, and practical!”

And poisonous, usually, Lucas added mentally. He didn’t say that, of course, but that didn’t make it any less true. Instead, he said, “Well, if you’ve been keeping tabs on me, surely you see some value in my process.”

“What makes you think I’ve been keeping tabs on you?” the diminutive god answered. 

“Why wouldn’t you be?” Lucas said, deciding not to throw Heisenburgle under the bus with his own deity. The alchemist had mentioned Thrazelwick asking after Lucas, but Lucas doubted very much he was supposed to know that. “I’m probably the most dangerous world you’ve unleashed on the world in at least a century, right?”

“Three centuries, in point of fact,” Thrazelwick answered. “And you should know I’ve already told my peers that you might be too dangerous to continue. Your experiments have been very… disruptive.”

“And yet here I am,” Lucas answered. “Though, I’m not quite sure what I’m doing here. Perhaps you could—”

“Every god has their own way to make sure the best of their followers are destined for higher purposes,” the gnome answered as he walked over to his desk and fished a scroll out of a drawer. “Mine is to let the nature of genius take its course, and this in no way counts as genius. It’s pure brute force!”

The God of Alchemy unrolled the scroll on his desk. He wasn’t sure quite what he’d expected to see, but what he found was a list of all his recent experiments, noting ingredients, amounts, batches, and even empowered effects. He was definitely being watched. 

“So?” Lucas retorted. “This is good work. None of your gnomes would have ever made these discoveries for you.”

“Perhaps they are discoveries that should not be made then,” the gnome answered cryptically. 

“You tell me, man,” Lucas answered. Keeping his cool was easier with double his usual intelligence, but he could only take so much of someone half his height talking down to him.”I conducted experiments and got results. Now, I’m here to find out why. What was the point?”

Thrazelwick sighed heavily, trying to put off whatever he was about to say next, which seemed like a good sign to Lucas. “That you have come this far means that you may be destined for greater things.”

The words sounded nice, but they said nothing, so Lucas didn’t comment. He just stood there quietly until the gnomish god continued. 

“Though your soul is a little on the weak side, there’s certainly an argument to be made that you should indeed be given some kind of godhood in time,” the gnome sighed. “Though I, for one, would argue for the God of Troublemakers, or perhaps blunderers.”

Lucas liked the sound of that, but only until he thought about it a little. While the idea of becoming a God was cool, he had no wish to be separated from the world just yet, and all the Gods he’d met so far dwelled very far away from the mortal world. 

“Well, I’m not in any hurry to die just yet,” Lucas answered. “While being the God of Roguish, Goodlooking Chemists certainly has an appeal. Maybe we could put that off for a while. I've got some things to do and—”

“Oh, you thought that making a few potions would make yourself a god overnight?” the gnome chortled. “How very bold. This is but the first test! There are still quests to perform, deeds to do, and…”

The gnome kept talking, extolling item after item about the road to divinity, as he called it, but Lucas largely tuned it out as he inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. For just a moment, he’d worried he was about to fuck up his life even more by suddenly ducking out on everyone at the last minute before taking care of business with Skylara. 

“So I don’t get anything for all this then?” Lucas asked. “Just a quest to get more quests?” 

“Nothing?” Thrazelwick snorted. “If by nothing you mean the blessing and attention of the Gods as a whole, then yes, you get absolutely nothing.” With a wave of his head, a pop-up appeared in Lucas’ vision.

Divine Potential Achieved! +3 to all attributes. 

Lucas did some quick math and realized that meant that right now, four of his six attributes were pinned at the absolute cap of thirty-eight he was working with. It didn’t seem like that much of a boost, but considering it would have cost him more than thirty advancement points to purchase himself, it was large enough to make him wonder what the catch was. 

So he asked. “Look, I appreciate that,” Lucas answered. “But what’s the catch here?”

“There is no catch,” the gnomish god grumbled. “Much as I might dislike it. You might not have earned it, but you have reached a threshold few ever will. Now, we shall see what you make of the opportunity.”

 Unearned my ass, Lucas thought. While he had probably taken a shortcut no one was expecting, and he’d been given access to reagents for free, he’d been working on this for weeks, and he doubted that many other people would have been able to bridge the gap he had. 

“So what happens next?” Lucas asked. He immediately regretted it when the God of Alchemy’s first response was to smile smugly. 

“That will be decided by your betters,” Thrazelwick answered. “Any other questions?”

Lucas ignored the gnome’s harsh words and looked past him to the factory that squirmed and squealed beyond them. “What are the rest of those guys doing? Testing your recipes?”

“Mostly,” the gnome answered. “Some are testing new ideas that aren’t ready for release yet.”

Lucas smirked at that. He’d been about to tease the god for earlier declaring no new ideas were necessary, but Thrazelwick seemed to smell it and, with a wave of his hand, sent Lucas tumbling away into the light.  

“You will hear from us again when your next task is decided upon,” the gnome answered distantly as Lucas fell toward his body. 

As soon as Lucas had returned to the real world, even before he reassured Heisenburgle he was fine, he checked his status. There, he found everything as he expected. His stats were still superhuman, which, of course, made sense because no time had passed. Still, he took a moment to appreciate them and consider Thrazelwick’s words. 

Name: Lucas Sharpe

Class: Magical Chemist  

Level: 10

Agility: 16 (38)

Endurance: 17 (38)

Appearance 15 (38)

Intelligence: 17 (29)

Strength: 14 (38)

Soul: 13 (22)

Health: 100%

Mana: 19%

Status Effect: Blessed by the Gods. 

Imbued Equipment: Ring of Vanishing (Fine Quality)

You have 20 unspent advancement points. Please use them to increase your ability scores or gain feats/perks.

When he told Heisenburgle he was fine, the gnome snapped, “Of course you’re fine. You're standin’ right there! I’m just standing back so you don’t fall on me!”

Lucas smiled at that. While he was reasonably sure he’d feel like shit afterward, and he’d almost certainly miss how fiendishly clever he was in the moment, he was pretty sure the worse was over. He hadn’t expected to be confronted by a god all over again, but in retrospect, it made a strange sort of sense. If Lwyn meddled in the affairs of mortals, then why wouldn’t Thrazelwick? Why wouldn’t all of them? 

The stronger Lucas got, the more this seemed like a sort of Greek pantheon thing just waiting to happen. He had no idea if this Zeus liked to screw around on his wife the way the one on Earth did, but if he was going to get involved, to even the smallest degree, in their affairs, then it was well past time that he learned all he could about them.

He quickly decided not to tell Heisenburgle about the results of his experiment. The less he knew about Lucas playing footsie with his God, the better.