“It’s too silly. And I fear I might have said too much already. We’ll leave it at that.”
Before Kraghtol could answer, Valir stood up, straightened his back and turned to the half-orc, facing away from his father’s portrait, whose eyes pierced into the back of Valir’s head.
“Let’s make an agreement, Kraghtol. I won’t tell anyone your secret if you don’t tell mine. Agreed? See it as a thank you for helping me out today.”
So, hedidknow how to combine those particular two words in succession.
Kraghtol took the outstretched hand that was offered to him, now somewhat smaller than his own, and shook it.
“Agreed. But please don’t call me Kraghtol. It’s Kragh.”
He paused, letting his gaze wander over the damaged furniture in the room.
“About that loan contract…”
Valir followed his eyes and again produced the thinnest of smiles.
“Yes, seeing as my first draft now has ink all over it — and had the wrong name in it, anyway — I will have to redo that another time. But not today. I will tell you if that happens. For now, I am tired and will withdraw to my rooms if you have no more business to discuss.”
Only when Kraghtol was on his way back to the Crafters Quarter, clad in a cloak the noble had lent him, did he notice Valir had used the word ‘if’ — not ‘when’.
Chapter 9
Slipping
Much of that evening lingered in Kraghtol afterwards. For one, there was his shoulder. Judging by the pain and mobility, it was probably just a strain and would heal by itself given two to four weeks of rest. The pain would be constant, but bearable. He had watched Merrick treat enough injuries like that and even had had firsthand experience to know that.
Everything else, however, was not as easy. His mind was back to being just like it had been for most of his life, and by now he had understood that he thought like a half-orc again, not like a human. That alone made it more difficult to fit in, but was far from being the key problem. His body was a whole different mess. It was still winter, so at least he could move outside, wearing a cloak to conceal his changed features, but as soon as he would step inside or interact with anyone more than just a few moments, they would notice something was off about him.
No, before even thinking about going to the classes again, he would have to find a solution for his appearance. And at this point, save fora sudden reappearance of the mysterious patient, experimenting was just the only thing that came to mind. As long as he passed the exams shortly before the spring equinox, he was not required to visit the classes. So, he pretended to have fallen sick and visited the student laboratory in the late evenings to experiment.
He didn’t even know where to start. What he knew about the theoretical aspects of alchemy was that everything was aligned to one of the four elements. But what element stood for “turn this half-orc into a human”? Earth and fire seemed like the least likely candidates, by pure association, while air and water seemed somewhat plausible. Since Kraghtol did not know how to find ingredients that related to air, he settled on water. Water constantly changed shape.
Pouring a large bowl of water, he inspected the ingredients. The student laboratory had everything needed to brew the potion recipes taught in class in abundance, but nothing else. Since there were more recipes ahead in later quarters that Kraghtol did not know about yet, it was a sizeable collection.
Students were generally free to take whatever they needed. The only thing that had to be signed off was Activator powder. There were only a few doses, packaged separately into small paper envelopes with unique numbering. When taking one, Kraghtol had to write down that number on a list, along with the reason for using it and his signature. Instructor Flint had made it perfectly clear that he checked the list every day. And if one envelope was gone without appearing on the list, there would beinvestigations.
The way the dwarf had pronounced the word had been enough reason neither Kraghtol nor any other student felt inclined to test it.Luckily, using the Activator for ‘practicing’ fit his cover story well enough, especially since he couldn’t attend the classes.
Not knowing the first thing about designing recipes, he resorted to grabbing everything he found he associated with water and ‘change’: water lilies, pond algae, a small turtle shell. He would have liked to add tadpoles to the mix, but found none. Even though they would have fit the transformative theme very well, Kraghtol was not too sad about their absence. In the end, he would have to drink the mixture. He went over the rest of the ingredients in his head: water lilies weren’t exactly healthy as far as he knew, but as long as he didn’t ingest too much of them, he would probably be fine. The algae and turtle shell were harmless, as was the water itself. At least whatever he was brewing would not be poisonous before adding the Activator — but that didn’t have to mean anything.
Since heating the mixture would add fire affinity, he resorted to mixing the ingredients just by stirring in the cold bowl with a metal rod. The only exception was the turtle shell. He had to bake it in one oven before grinding it in a mortar, since it was just too hard otherwise. Even then, it proved difficult to do so with one arm only. Finally, he had produced a murky, thin liquid that smelled of stale pond water. Now came the complicated part. He needed to imprint a strong mental image of what he was trying to achieve on the mixture — and hope it was sympathetic enough to accept it.
Kraghtol closed his eyes and concentrated on what he wanted. He tried hard to remember the first time he had seen his human face, up in the clock tower. The eyes, the hair, the body…
What had he done with the potion bottle afterwards? No! He had to focus. Focus on Krasen from Caemdir, onbecominghim. He had experienced the transformation once before; that had to count for something, right? He had felt the sensation of his body shrinking in on itself, of his powerful muscles melting away. His tusks had receded, and his skin cleared like a summer morning. His mind jumped between the different associations he had like a rabbit, unable to sit still for more than a heartbeat. Finally, he sprinkled the Activator over his mixture.
Silent, cold blue flames illuminated the otherwise empty student laboratory and cut hard shadows out of the furniture and Kraghtol himself. When they subsided, all that was left was a significantly smaller amount of a sea-green oily liquid. It never ceased to amaze Kraghtol how different mixtures looked after they had been Activated.
He looked suspiciously at the liquid. It didn’t look like the potion he had used the first time in the slightest, but that was probably to be expected. It was highly unlikely that the old patient had used the exact same materials as Kraghtol had. And it didn’t matter, as long as the effect was about the same. The only problem was that he didn’t know that. For all he knew, the liquid in front of him could be extremely poisonous, killing him in an instant if he drank it. There was only one way to find out.
Carefully, Kraghtol scooped up some of the liquid in a cup and sniffed it. The smell had changed and now had a salty-tangy scent. Kraghtol had heard only stories of the vast ocean. It was supposed to be far outside the borders of Wardenreach, to the west. If it had a smell,it would probably be like this. Gathering all his courage, he downed the cup in one go and prepared for the worst.
A slight nauseous feeling spread through his body, and his stomach was gurgling, while his mouth still tasted the slimy texture of the liquid. Then, suddenly, a tiny blue flame erupted from his left boot, only to disappear as rapidly as it had come. With trembling fingers, he undid the laces and examined his foot.
Only at second glance did he notice the sparse few tiny fish scales that had sprouted on his sole and were disappearing one after another as he watched. There was a transformative effect, but it was all wrong. Where did fish scales come into the equation? At least it had not poisoned him.
Still, his stomach was rebelling enough to call it a night, and he disposed of the results of his experiment cleanly, not to leave a trace. If he wanted to see it from the bright side, he had not failed completely, just… mostly. At the very least, the mixture had donesomethingto his body. He would just have to improve on that.
