The Newt and Demon - Book 7 Chapters 52,53,54

Chapter 52

Interesting Infusions

In Theo’s time as an alchemist, there had been many potions he deemed too dangerous for the general public. He was reminded of a potion that turned a person into a lich, as well as his explosive potions, which would most likely just kill people. Nothing had appeared quite as dangerous as the Call of the Sea potion. Sometimes the system threw errors that prevented him from seeing certain information, but he couldn’t recall a completed potion that didn’t have a visible rarity.

The description of the potion itself was haunting, and the effect was frightening. It would dry a person to the sea. They would be compelled to do so and couldn’t resist, which was hard to imagine. It didn’t mention a way for a person to avoid falling for the potion, and they only needed to look at, drink, smell, or otherwise interact with it for the effect to take hold.

Standing on the shore of the beach, looking out at the rolling waves of Broken Tusk Bay, Theo stood with Tresk, considering the best way to test the potion. Of course, they stood in the Dreamwalk, their own private realm that would keep them safe from the true effects of the potion. At least that’s what the alchemist hoped would happen. If a potion’s effects lingered outside of the Dreamwalk itself, they were in some serious trouble.

“Wanna take a sniff?” Theo asked, smiling down at the diminutive lizard girl.

“Yeah, I’d rather not,” Tresk said, waving him away. A moment later, a man who looked like a suspiciously more muscular version of Fenian appeared before them. He placed his hands on his hips and released an ear-splitting laugh that wasn’t quite right. “Give it to this idiot instead.”

Theo shrugged, summoning an imagined version of the offending potion and handing it over. The fake version of Fenian took it. He pulled the cork and pressed it against his nose. He inhaled hard enough to draw some of the liquid into his lungs and began coughing uncontrollably.

“You couldn’t have made him smarter?” Theo asked.

“This is the authentic version of Fenian,” Tresk said with a shrug. “I see no difference from the real one.”

The imagined version of Fenian doubled over, falling to the ground and spasming for a bit. Once he had cleared the liquid from his lungs, he got a wild look in his eyes. They darted around, as if searching for something, until they finally found the sea. The rolling waves reflected in his eyes as he clawed at the sand, dragging himself toward the beach and into the water. Before anyone could do anything about it, the man was swimming out to sea, and then he went under.

“Well, he’s dead,” Tresk said with a defeated shrug. “So the potion makes you drown yourself. That doesn’t seem very useful.”

“No, I don’t think that’s very useful at all.” Theo took a moment to think about potential uses. Maybe he could infuse a different potion with this effect to create something positive. But as it stood, the potion was confusing.

A standard potion usually had the potion suffix at the end. Only potions that were special and derived from typically rare reagents had the honor of carrying that tag. However, this one came from a fairly mundane reagent. Theo had trouble imagining why this potion, of all the potions he had ever created, was unique.

Naturally, Tresk grew bored with all the postulating and ran off to fight a dragon. That left Theo alone with his thoughts and the sensations driven directly from the Dreamwalk itself. He couldn’t help but reach out and feel it pressing on him. It had sensed his intentions to conduct experiments and was weighing what it would let him get away with. The realm had become something of an arbiter of his time within it, regulating what he could get away with.

Fortunately, the dream realm relented and seemed to send him a mental confirmation of his ability to test some infusion-style potions with this effect. He isolated the Call of the Sea property and considered which potion to attach it to. As always, it seemed best to attach it to healing potions first, as that would give him the best idea of how it would bind.

Theo imagined some infusion equipment and got to work. He would combine this property with the basic healing property and see what the resulting potion would look like. The Dreamwalk didn’t stop him as he set up the equipment. Infusing one side with his mana and pouring essence into the other, it brewed in the mixing chamber. The vapors intermingled and locked together to create a new essence that dripped into a nearby vial, resulting in a swirling mixture of green-blue and light pink colors that moved in bands throughout the flask.

The alchemist brewed the potion, nodding in appreciation as he inspected the results. As he read, his brow furrowed.

[Infused Healing Potion]

[Potion]

Uncommon

Created by: Theo Spencer

Purity: 95%

Seafoam. Depths.

Infusion Array:

[Call of the Sea]

Effect:

Imbibing this potion restores a small amount of health.

The imbiber has a chance to lose sanity if the amount of health restored is under a certain amount.

“Only a chance to lose sanity,” Theo said, clicking his tongue as he read the description. It was not a good potion. It was likely one of the worst potions he had ever brewed, both for its effects and side effects. A healing potion that only restored a small amount of health and drove the drinker insane wouldn’t be useful to anybody. Ever.

Yet there was always that one in a million chance that this property would produce something useful. Since the Dreamwalk was being cooperative today, there was no reason not to test these things here. I didn’t have to fear for this potion getting out into the wider world, as it would die when they woke up in the morning. It was the perfect, safe environment for testing.

Theo was mostly on autopilot as he mixed the property with a dexterity potion next. The brewing process was quick, thanks to the Dreamwalk’s willingness to work with him, and he soon held another potion in his hand. It was a swirling mix of green and blue that didn’t agree with any part of itself. When the alchemist inspected the resulting potion, he shook his head.

[Infused Dexterity Potion]

[Potion]

Rare

Created by: Theo Spencer

Purity: 99%

Surge.

Infusion Array:

[Call of the Sea]

Effect:

Imbibing this potion increases Dexterity by a small amount.

The imbiber has a chance to have part of their body mass turned to sea water.

I wasn’t sure why he continued to make this property work. Maybe it was because the resulting potions were just so terrible that they were funny. As he laughed to himself, reading and rereading the infused dexterity potion, he realized something. Perhaps if he worked with the property rather than against it, it would produce something worthwhile. No doubt the property was aligned with the water element, and there was a single attribute potion that was also aligned with water. Perhaps a Wisdom Potion would fare better.

Theo got to work on that next, not allowing himself to get excited about the new potion. With two complete failures, he didn’t want to expect anything other than a potion that would fill his lungs with water, or turn his feet to ice cubes. Nothing was out of the question with this weird property. He put the device to work, watching as the two shades of blue combined in the vapor mixing chamber. Perhaps the color should have been a hint, but the alchemist wouldn’t let that stop him from making this new potion.

The Infused Wisdom Potion came together easily. There was almost no reaction as he brewed it. When he added the catalyst to the mix, it bubbled slightly but that was it. All that was left was a potion that sloshed back and forth, even when he hadn’t moved. He inspected the result.

[Infused Wisdom Potion]

[Potion]

Rare

Created by: Theo Spencer

Purity: 99%

The ebb and flow of the sea are at your side. Increase your wisdom and mana regeneration.

Infusion Array:

[Call of the Sea]

Effect:

Depending on the nearest tide, gain increased Wisdom and mana regeneration.

At low tide, gain +10 Wisdom and +0.1 Mana per second. At high tide, gain +50 wisdom and +5 Mana per second.

Theo read the description several times before deciding whether this potion was good. When he realized there wasn’t an addendum that killed the user, he decided it was good. There was actually no downside, and even though the potion shifted with the local tide, there were no negatives. At low tide, it provided +10 wisdom and +0.1 mana per second. It wasn’t even terrible.

Of course, this got Theo thinking about other potions he could combine based on their elemental affinities. He had studied this quite a bit in the past, but he had brought nothing to fruition quite like this. No, this had taken a potion that was outright bad and made it good by leaning on those elemental affinities. He thought of other potions in his arsenal that were closely aligned with water or Wisdom.

Of the many reagents—and their properties—he had access to, only a few called to the alchemist. Living River Water came from a boss which had attacked Broken Tusk. The River Dungeon had also generated the Fald, a fish-like race of monsters that he could harvest the eyeballs of. Both reagents felt tightly aligned with the water element and Theo was eager to test their potions.

Theo set the infusion still to work. His point of entry for this run would be the tunneling potion, which had been incredibly useful before he got his hands on it. His earth source for his core was ready. The process was just about as easy as expected, and before long, he had yet another potion to inspect.

[Infused Tunneling Potion]

[Potion]

Epic

Created by: Theo Spencer

Purity: 90%

Carve the landscape as the sea bites at the cliff.

Infusion Array:

[Call of the Sea]

Effect:

Pouring this potion into sea water brings that water under your command. The amount of water you command depends on the purity of this potion. That water will act as a blade to cut through any naturally-occurring landscape features.

While this one was kind of weird, it once again didn’t have any negative effects. This was enough for Theo to assume his original theory was right. With a volatile property like this, it was important to put it with other essences that shared an alignment. When he did that, it removed the negative effect from the potion and made it interesting. Perhaps not good, but interesting. Infusing the Tunneling Potion had limited its function somewhat, but depending on the amount of sea water it took under its command, it could be more efficient than the base potion.

Another potion derived from water-based elements was the Wake potion. Truth was, Theo had little use for it and had spent almost no time working with the Fald Eyeballs. First, they were nasty. Second, they smelled horribly. But the Dreamwalk was good at muting senses, including smell. So the alchemist got to work on a Potion of Wake combined with the Call of the Sea property. As expected, it went together perfectly, producing a potion that was even-tempered. It bubbled a bit, but nothing to signal that the elements weren’t happy to work together.

Once he had brewed the potion, Theo inspected the results.

[Infused Potion of Wake]

[Potion]

Rare

Created by: Theo Spencer

Purity: 90%

Command the seas themselves.

Infusion Array:

[Call of the Sea]

Effect:

After imbibing this potion, you may command an amount of water around yourself depending on the purity of this potion.

This was like his Water Sorcerer’s Core, except to a smaller scale. Theo didn’t expect it to be better, but for people without his willpower it might be useful. It said nothing about a person being able to breathe underwater. The alchemist giggled to himself as he imagined Tresk surfing atop a wave. The more he thought about it, the more he wanted to see it happen.

“You rang?” Tresk asked, appearing behind him a few moments later.

Theo turned, smiling at the marshling as he extended the potion. “Wanna do some weird stuff?”

“I live for weird stuff!” Tresk shouted, snatching the potion and downing it without question.

Theo watched, ensuring nothing weird happened after she drank it. When she remained mostly solid, they headed for the beach to experiment. Tresk took to the water right away, diving in and swimming until she couldn’t touch the bottom. It took her longer than the alchemist expected to get the hang of the potion, but she eventually surfed around. Just as he had imagined.

With her head poking just over the surface of the water, Tresk rushed through the water like a porpoise on drugs. A lot of drugs. She cackled, soon figuring out how she could jump with the power of the water behind her. A deep wake cut through the bay, a pink marshling heading the charge. Alex settled in next to Theo, watching as the creature had the time of her life.

“Oh, she is going fast,” Alex said.

“Pretty fast,” Theo said, nodding with agreement. Tresk dunked under the water a moment later, skimming the bay’s floor before emerging through the surface. She got a good twenty feet in the air before belly flopping back into the bay. “That looked painful.”

“May I try the potion?” Alex asked.

Theo raised an eyebrow as he looked upon the dragon-goose. She didn’t look seaworthy, but he shrugged anyway. Alex drank the potion happily, gulping it down and licking her beak/maw with a bit too much vigor. Then she stomped over to the water and jumped in.

Whatever ability Alex had to swim as a goose was gone. Completely. The nightmare creature that thrashed around within the bay sank to the bottom. But she imagined herself back on the shore and tried again… and again. Until she finally got it. Then Tresk and Alex thrashed around in the water together.

“At least they’re having fun,” Theo said with a shrug. He downed a potion for himself and jogged to the shore to join them.

Chapter 53

I Like Mushrooms

The sun shone through the window in the manor’s dining room. As it was a spacious thing, drawing light from both the foyer and adjoined kitchen, the light shooting through the windows drew long shafts over the floor. Theo had to think for a moment to remember what they had for dinner last night, realizing after a moment the answer was sitting right in front of him. Literally, since Sarisa and Rowan had served leftovers once again. Smoked wolf meat stew.

“What a creative way to spice things up!” Tresk praised. Not that she tasted anything the way she dumped it down her throat.

“Yes, very smoky,” Theo said, taking another bite of the stew. He knew better than to ask how they had smoked the meat, instead praying someone else had done the job. The brother and sister duo could find some creative ways to prepare food.

Today’s agenda was still in the air. There was a lot of work to do for whatever contest they came up with, but it was far enough away that no work was required of Theo himself. Construction efforts came first, then they would worry about designing the games. But the thing that drew most of the alchemist’s attention was the Swamp Dungeon and the random shard which now rested in the center of the farm.

Elrin had deposited that shard just in time to save the last dungeon, much to the delight of the local adventurers. They could now maintain their access to an instanced dungeon, gaining levels and loot as much as they wanted. Theo was happy to finally have a singular dungeon. If enough adventurers ran that dungeon, monster waves would become a thing of the past. Local monster waves, that was.

Monster waves from afar were still a threat. After the dragon had emerged from the dungeon in the north, Theo couldn’t predict what would happen. Yet Gronro had yet to report anything significant from that direction. No monster waves, no negative boss monsters… It was all too confusing, and the alchemist didn’t know if their current preparation was enough to keep future threats at bay.

All these thoughts made Theo want to accomplish a few things today. The construction of the arena was far enough off that he didn’t have to worry about it. So, he would make his first stop to talk to Salire at the Newt and Demon. He would then meet up later with Tresk to discuss the dungeon with Xol’sa. But for now, he had some information to relay to his apprentice.

The lab was a mixture of scents that were all quite familiar to the alchemist. Some potions were brewing somewhere within the lab, and a lazy-looking half-ogre manned the counter on the first floor. He barely offered a grunt as Theo ascended the stairs, finding Salire on the third floor. She was working over some stills and looked up to offer him a tired smile when he entered.

“Perhaps it’s about time you get your own apprentice,” Theo said, approaching the stills to inspect what she was working on today. As expected, it was a mixture of attribute potions.

“I’m not sure I would be okay with that,” Salire said. She moved between each still, ensuring the lids were clamped on tightly. Crouching down, she peered through the clear glass flasks to check their contents. She nodded with approval for each one, and then stood to shake her head at the alchemist. “If I lose control of what I’m doing here, then I’m uncertain what I’m actually doing with my life.”

“That’s a bit too deep for 8 in the morning,” Theo said, although he didn’t actually know if it was 8. It could have been 9 for all he knew. “Just think about it. Even if it’s a lab assistant to help you get things going, it might help take some of the stress off you, especially since I don’t help at all.”

“Yes, you are suspiciously bad at helping me with this junk, aren’t you?” Salire said with a wide grin. Poking fun at her boss was always a great way for her to improve her mood. “For now, I’m fine, but normally when you come here, you have something to assign me. So, what is it?”

Salire was keeping a running list of the strange potions Theo came up with. He wanted her to add a few to a more restricted section of the book. Perhaps he was finally at a point where he could trust her with these dangerous recipes. It’s not as though he expected her to go blabbing about the potion that would force a person to drown themselves to everyone who asked, but he still felt oddly guarded about it, even if he couldn’t explain why.

“The Wisdom potion might be pretty useful,” Salire said, making a note of it in her ever-expanding book. “But that’s hard to say. We might need to find a form that gives more consistent results.”

The pair went back and forth on possible applications for something like this. It was hard to say what the adventures of the town wanted, especially with so few of them holding mage-style classes. Instead, Theo was happy just to have it added to the book, and they could figure out what to do with it later. He spent a brief time going over what the lab’s production was at and sneaked in a conversation about what Salire wanted from an apprentice.

“I’ll handpick them, of course,” Theo said with a haughty shrug. He dusted his shoulders off and gave her a wink. “I’d like to think I’m the best at determining what makes a good alchemist.”

“Unfortunately, you’re not the best at determining what makes an outstanding employee,” Salire said, shaking her head. “So you can leave it to me. I don’t mind if you want to interview them before they start, but I want to be the one who does the picking.”

Theo smiled, clapping a hand on her shoulder. “We can do that. Just let me know when you have somebody.”

Once everything was settled at the lab, Theo headed out. He truly had no plans to spend more time there and favored his new position as a researcher rather than a grunt worker. The alchemist could get down to it if he needed to, but discovering new combinations of potions in the function of reagents was far more interesting to him at the moment. He still had the matter of creating his own form of magic to convince his mage’s core to move away from ward-based magic, but that would come another day.

Xol’sa’s portal shimmered in the center of the city. It was always hilarious to see it thrumming away right next to the statue that depicted him in such an indignant way. It always made Theo smile when he passed by it, and this time was no different. He felt the familiar wave of cold wash over him as he stepped through, appearing at the foot of the massive wizard’s tower in the swamp.

The energy within the swamp felt slightly different. It was as though something was missing, and Theo couldn’t deny that it affected him. There was no longer the strange intermingling of heavenly energies in the swamp. Instead, it felt like the regular background flash of power that should have been there all along. Only now did he realize that the thick, godly energy that had suffused the air since he arrived in this world was wrong, and what he was experiencing now was right. It was going to take some getting used to.

If he had to pick one word to describe it, it would be “clean,” as though the air itself had been scrubbed of this foreign energy and made right once again. He made his way up the floors of the tavern in the tower, passing by the familiar magical devices and finding Zarali on the second floor. She was lounging with a book and offered barely a half wave as he moved past. The sound of Tresk arguing with Xol’sa came from the top floor of the tower, and the alchemist was happy to see them in a heated debate.

Arguing with Tresk was like arguing with a brick wall. There was absolutely no point to it.

Tresk seized the wizard by his robes and pulled him down to her level. “I don’t care what it takes. I want to portal directly into the dungeon’s core. I want infinite resets. I want to fight waves of monsters that would make you crap your pants.”

Xol’sa looked up to Theo as though the alchemist could help him. “Could you tell the lizard that she wants the impossible?” he asked.

“I could tell her, but she won’t even listen to me,” Theo said. “Tresk, if you want to fight more monsters, just fly Alex north and find dungeons there. I’m sure they’re untamed and filled with level 100 monsters.”

Tresk released Xol’sa’s robe and turned to Theo, shaking her head. “Those dungeons are harder to find than you think,” she said. “I saw one releasing a monster wave, but the monsters weren’t going anywhere logical. They were just wandering around. And it was only level 10.”

“Anyway, would you care to hear what I’ve learned about the dungeon and the interaction of the energies from the shard?” Xol’sa asked, folding his arms as though Tresk’s presence there was slightly annoying. At least he had a half-smile on his face, revealing that he thought it was at least a little amusing.

“Teach me, Mr. Wizard,” Theo said, leaning against the wall and looking down at the marshy soil below.

“We made some assumptions when the shard appeared. Based on our observations of how the dungeons worked before, we knew they were drawing energy from the heavenly realms. When we introduced the elves to the town, they began releasing void energy. That energy was absorbed by the dungeons, and it transformed them negatively. Now we’re observing the dungeon as it has that negative energy purged, but something interesting is happening.”

“The shard is also purging the heavenly energy from the dungeon,” Theo guessed.

“That’s right. Not only is the void energy being removed, but so is all the other heavenly energy. This means we’re left with something very strange—something that I haven’t experienced for most of my life. We’re looking at pure energy. If you think about the way mana has alignments to elemental factors, energy is the same.”

Energy was easiest to explain as the raw form of mana. It permeated the air and acted as the raw ingredient to create mana. This was the same substance that condensed to create dungeons, monsters, and so on. If this was pure energy, that meant there would be pure mana. It was an interesting concept to consider, but Theo wasn’t knowledgeable enough in the ways of a mage to understand the full impact, so he deferred to his expert.

“What kind of impact are we talking about here?” Theo asked. “Anything negative?”

“Those negative aspects could be considered as things like buildings or people who previously relied on aligned mana no longer getting it. That could cause them to revert to a previous state,” Jamie said with a half-hearted shrug. “But I don’t believe there’s anything we are unprepared for.”

“And the dungeon?” Theo asked. “What kind of changes are we seeing?”

“More and stronger monsters,” Tresk said, stepping in. “That pure energy is the perfect food for the dungeon.”

“Stronger? Maybe,” Xol’sa said, scratching his chin. “Think of it more as the energy being more diversified. When Drogramath’s energy dominated the area, we found swamp-themed monsters. Since the dungeon has the ‘swamp’ title, it will continue to do so, only with less variance.”

“Basically, we’ll see normal monsters,” Theo said with a shrug. “Someone boil it down for me. Good thing or bad thing.”

“Good thing,” Xol’sa said. “The types of monsters and how strong they are represent one facet of the dungeon. But remember my special core?”

“His super special core,” Tresk said. “Dungeon Engineer.”

“Right. That one.” Xol’sa cleared his throat. “The pure energy provides a better base for me to use my core. Meaning I can take greater control over the dungeon. More instances, more control over how many monsters per instance, and so on.”

Theo saw that as an absolute win. “Which means we’ll have a ton of happy adventurers.”

“Exactly right,” Xol’sa said. “We’ll have a powerful training ground. It’ll be a lot of fun.”

Theo was getting more excited about their single dungeon by the moment. It was going from “pretty cool” to “totally rad” by the second. When the other dungeons started acting up the first time, things got complicated and annoying. Now with only one dungeon, everything would be well-controlled. And if Xol’sa could create multiple instances, that was even better. They wouldn’t need to worry about scheduling conflicts and other boring administrative stuff like that.

“Correct me if I’m getting the wrong impression, but this is exciting,” Theo said. “Feels like we’re returning to form.”

“You should be excited,” Xol’sa said with the scholarly air he always had. “But my concerns drift to the north… yet again. Once I’m done working on the Swamp Dungeon I’d like to talk about expectations to clear dungeons afar. Or an equally useful solution from that Elrin fellow.”

“There’s something about the balance of world-level magic he has to worry about with the shards,” Theo said. “That gives us time to have our end of the world games and all that, but it means dungeons around the world are going to act up.”

“We can’t police the entire world, dude,” Tresk said. “Best we can do is worry about the region.”

“I mean, you’re not wrong,” Theo said with a shrug. “Our current plan is… what? Hope the dungeons in the north don’t  generate monsters that can fly?”

Xol’sa shrugged. “That’s the plan from what I understand. Only nearby dungeons should truly be affected by the void energy. And now that energy will be absorbed by the nearby shard. So, this shouldn’t be a long-term problem.”

“Yet I feel a lizard at my side itching to explore the dungeons which might have been affected. I mean, consider the idea that the dungeons north of the region were being maintained by Qavell. There’s some solid evidence we should be managing them now,” Theo said. “The question becomes: do we deal with the monsters they spawn, or manage them before they create those monsters?”

“Ah, yes. Preventative or reactionary. An excellent question that only our esteemed leader can answer,” Xol’sa said.

Theo grumbled, eventually shrugging. If he had to deal with the dungeons to the north, he could at least take the victory for the Swamp Dungeon. That fact made up for the junk he’d have to deal with otherwise, so he was happy.

“You should tour the underground defenses while you’re at it,” Xol’sa said, smiling to himself. “They’ve done a great job bolstering that place. The dragon and rock-folk might be gone, but has been built in their place is… Frightening.”

“More guns than you can shake a Fire Salamander at,” Tresk clarified, banishing away Theo’s confusion.

The selfish thought of an alchemist entered Theo’s mind. There were a ton of great mushrooms in the underground area. A trip down there would result in some mushrooms which were both delicious and great reagents. So long as he played it cool…

“I like mushrooms,” Theo blurted out.

“Underground adventure time?” Tresk asked, bouncing with excitement. “Let’s go!”

Chapter 54

Exploring Underground

The underground section of the city had been a place Theo long-neglected. The resources weren’t as bountiful as he had first expected, and the dangers were many. Before heading down into the underground caverns, Theo first met with the miners to see how their work was going. Without the aligned nuggets for them to mine, they were left to go deep in search of the mythril. For once, there wasn't some weird underground threat prepared to attack the mines and eat all the miners. That was an improvement in the alchemist’s book.

After receiving a brief tour of the new mining complex, Theo made his way down to the caverns with Tresk. They passed by the spot where they had first found Alex and descended to get his first look at Bal’gon in a long time. As expected, little had changed in terms of the size or complexity of the small town itself. From what he understood, it had no residents other than the adventurers staying there to battle whatever monsters would rise from the deep. However, the most significant difference to notice was the endless sprawl of magically powered towers on the wall. They bristled with energy. Lightning, ice, and fire towers all mingled together to create a wall of death.

"What do you think about my town?" Rowan asked, emerging from the shadows behind Theo and releasing an ear-splitting laugh that seemed uncharacteristic.

“Did Throk work his magic here?” Theo asked as they approached the town.

Between each tower upon the wall was a tube made of copper. It was connected to every mote port on each weapon, and it didn't take a genius to figure out what they did. They would feed a constant supply of power to each tower, ensuring that they would never stop firing.

"Just a few things," Rowan said with a shrug. They passed under an open gate, finding the empty town before them. Theo always paused when he looked upon the plinth where the dragon once sat. He couldn't help but think about what had happened to that dragon, where it had gone, or why it had been there. These were questions beyond his answering, and Khahar didn't seem willing to share this part of his plan.

Rowan explained how things had been going down here. It truly wasn't a full-time job for the man, barely taking up any of his time during the day. The underground town instead stood as a passive defense against whatever lurked in the deep places of the world, and those things weren't willing to attack since they were always killed. The sapient creatures that called this place home had learned long ago to stop attacking, and even the monsters grew wise. Now, Bal’gon stood as a silent sentinel, rarely visited and rarely attacked.

"The good news is," Rowan said, cutting himself off to kick in the door of the local tavern, "we have a lot of booze down here. Most of it is left over from the rock guys."

Theo had never seen alcohol in the hands of a half-ogre. This was a good thing, but whatever made Rowan happy was fine with him. This project had been shunted off to Rowan because the alchemist simply didn't want to deal with it; one town was enough for him. However, after ensuring everything looked in order, he was satisfied with the progress of the town.

Although the underground town was in a wide cavern with access to several off-shooting passageways, it still looked quite defensible. Whenever the defenders attempted to collapse one of those adjoining paths, they were inevitably cleared by the underground locals, so they had stopped trying. Instead, the uneasy truce that settled into the air brought peace to the caves. Theo didn't care for the haunting howl of the wind that swept through the caverns, but there was a kind of peaceful stillness he enjoyed while standing upon those walls.

“Could you help me look for something?” Theo asked, turning to Tresk and placing a hand on her shoulder. “The Dragon Talon Mushroom is an excellent source of the suffuse property, and we can never have enough of that.”

“Is that the one that looks like a dragon's talon?” Tress asked with a wink. “Yeah, I think I can manage that. Where do they normally grow?”

“Literally everywhere,” Theo said with a shrug, “but look for anything else that’s alchemically significant. Assume that any mushroom you encounter has some sort of properties and alert me when you find it.”

The small contingent of adventurers that had been stationed in the town fanned out, securing the area, although Theo was certain he wouldn't need their help. As long as he wasn't defending someone else, he could take care of himself, especially with the arsenal of potions resting in his inventory. They got to work, easily finding the mushrooms they were looking for, along with a few others he hadn’t expected. The alchemist was primarily there to collect those mushrooms, but it was a good chance to inspect the adjoining passageways.

"I'll have to experiment with this one later," Theo said, holding up a floppy mushroom as he approached the mouth of one passageway. He stuck his head inside, breathing in the deep scent of earth and rotting vegetation. “What’s down this path?”

Tresk hopped over, jumped into the entrance, and took a deep breath. She coughed, hacked, and almost vomited. "I don't know, but it's stinky. The defenders rarely push into the passageways. They prefer letting the monsters come out this way so they can take advantage of the towers.”

“Does Rowan really run this place by himself?” Theo asked.

"I don't really know if you could call it running a town, though. He kind of just comes down here every few days and yells at people."

Rowan was weird like that, but at least the town was defended. Theo could spot no damage on the walls, and all the weapons were functioning perfectly. He was standing right at the mouth of a cavern that had once been flooded with monsters and denizens who called the deep places of the world home. So the fact that they were gone was a good thing to him, and he thought Rowan deserved a gold star.

“Anything else you need to do down here?” Tresk asked, smacking Theo on the butt.

Theo peered down the passageway, thinking about what he wanted to do with his day. He had found a few reagent mushrooms he hadn’t worked with before, but the lab would be busy for now. Perhaps Tresk would get the adventure she so craved. The alchemist was interested in training his new danger sense, and the best way to do that was to get into danger. Since Alex had begun growing larger, she couldn't fit down in the caverns. That meant she was stuck in the mines above, which gave both Theo and Tresk an easy way out if they got into too much trouble.

"How about we go on a little adventure?" Theo said, smiling to himself. He didn't need to look over to see that the marshling was grinning widely.

“Are you sure?” Tresk asked. “You might hurt your dainty little self.”

"Come on before I change my mind," Theo said, leading the way into the cavern. Tresk followed closely behind, keeping pace as they delved into the stinky passage. The alchemist didn't want to use a foresight potion, instead favoring the effects of his newest ability. It simply wouldn't grow if he didn't use it. He had his enchanted throwing daggers at the ready, should the need arise.

"Funny thing about these caves is we don't really know how far they go," Tresk said, leading the way down the passage. She held a lantern high, scanning around to search for monsters.

"You know what's funny?" Theo asked. "I don't have a potion that gives us night vision. We really need a night vision potion."

"Well, if you were going to find a reagent that gave night vision anywhere, it would be down in the dark, right?" Tresk asked.

"Sometimes the properties on reagents don’t make sense,” Theo said. He paused, stopping and turning to narrow his eyes at the shadows. “Rowan, you really should stay behind.”

Both Rowan and Sarisa appeared. “What?” he asked. “We’re your body guards.”

Theo stifled a laugh. He had formed the plan in his mind and gained the mental approval of Tresk. However, he hadn't bothered to ask those who couldn't use a psychic form of communication if the plan was a good idea. After chuckling about it for a bit, he sent both Rowan and Sarisa back to the small underground town. He would meet them on the surface.

When the duo continued their trek through the caves, Theo couldn't help but think about how that connection had grown stronger in recent times. It wasn't just the different abilities the bond unlocked. In fact, their newest ability was just a bunch of question marks that had given them no explanation. After hitting level 40, the ability had appeared and done absolutely nothing after that. He felt no closer to revealing what it did, and yet he sensed the connection grow stronger.

The line between newt and demon blurred with each passing day, and Theo couldn't tell if it was a good thing or not.

Theo blinked as they moved beyond an intersection. The path split into four sloping tunnels. A sense of danger flashed through his mind. Focusing on that flash of insight, he watched as the stones to his left burst free from the wall. His body moved with the impossible speed afforded by his Dexterity. Moving in a wide arc, his arm chopped through the air.

The worm-like monster fumbled its attack completely. Theo’s strike hit it in the body, sending it slamming hard against the ground. Tresk’s daggers were out, but the threat was already gone.

“Worm monsters,” Theo said with a grunt.

“Ew. Look at the teeth,” Tresk said, gagging. “Why does it stink so bad?”

Inspecting the monster, the alchemist couldn’t find anything alchemically significant. “Have you seen these things before?” he asked, looking up at Tresk.

“Maybe. All worms look the same.”

Theo grunted a response. It really did just look like a two-foot-long worm with some weird teeth at the front. The monster seemed designed to chew through rock. If it was a natural creature or something that came from a dungeon was beyond him. But the alchemist wouldn’t enjoy running into these things without his predictive powers. Turning back to his companion, he gestured to the various tunnels. “Which one?”

“We’ll pick at random… That one,” Tresk said, pointing at a tunnel.

Theo and Tresk headed down ‘that one’ right away. As expected, the monsters were waiting just outside of Bal’gon’s range. They might have feared the cavern and the town itself, but held no such reservations about the tunnels. Good thing both members of the party were strong enough to dispatch whatever worms wanted to come calling. But it wasn’t the worms they were worried about.

Tresk crouched, falling into the shadows as she approached a corner. Theo scampered behind her, poking his head around the wall of stone. She had heard something and was currently sneaking around like a goblin. The alchemist did his best to sneak, but he wasn’t as good at it as her.

The threat wasn’t as close as Theo had expected. Tresk led the way for about an hour, moving through the caves as though she knew where the enemy was. It took the alchemist a while to remember she had a lot of experience using a Tracker’s Core.

“What are those?” Theo asked as he settled in behind a rock. Before him stretched a large open area covered with an unfamiliar glowing moss-like fungus. Creatures lurked around the far side of the wide-open room but he couldn’t make them out.

“Kobolds,” Tresk said. “Nasty little things. They smell like crap.”

Instead of getting closer, Theo looked at the monsters through Tresk’s eyes. He gained some knowledge of them in doing so, leeching the information from her mind. They were diminutive lizard-rat things with patchy skin mottled between scales and fur. They had rat tails, tattered clothes, and rusted weapons. Most importantly, they were technically monsters, not sapient creatures. Tresk didn’t know if there were sapient versions of the creatures.

“You think there’s a dungeon nearby?” Theo asked.

“Dunno. Might just be monsters created with ambient mana,” Tresk said. “Or migrants from afar. We don’t know how far these tunnels go.”

Stirring the hornet’s nest wasn’t something Theo was interested in on paper. But clearing the tunnels out wasn’t a bad idea. There was nothing wrong with a small adventure.