The Newt and Demon - Chapter 5.25 - Grinding

A world of worlds spread before Theo. Glass bubbles floated in a green void, each one filled with a tiny world of its own. After Drogramath described his realm, the alchemist was eager to replicate it in the Dreamwalk. It would be a worthy goal to catalog the way the patrons of the heavens formed their realms. He had learned that most created specialized areas, meant only for the strengthening of their masters. That only made him want to keep Tero’gal pure even more.

“This place kinda stinks,” Tresk said, slipping over the surface of a glass bubble. Alex flew above, honking in agreement.

“I think we’re supposed to be in the bubbles.”

“Or maybe Drogramath lied about his realm to throw you off.”

“Maybe. You know what’s funny?”

“What? I love a good joke.”

Theo smiled, turning to his companion. It was hard not to laugh as he told the story. “When he showed up in the temple, he was all bluster. Puffed up like a mad little frogopus. Then I met him in person, and he was like a shy kitten.”

Tresk chuckled politely. She didn’t find the scenario as hilarious as he did. “He wants to pretend that he’s tough while in the heavens. But then you meet him in person, and he’s a little scared nerd.”

Almost every god that Theo had met was friendly enough. He suspected that if he met Zagmon in the heavens, even the Demon God of War would have been pleasant. That might have been a mechanism of the realms themselves, as no patron could assault another without declaring all-out war. The alchemist waved his hand, sending them inside one of the many glass bubbles. Inside were the fields of reagents that Drogramath had planted. As expected, the seeds to fight the undead had been planted in Broken Tusk long ago. Likely by the potioneer himself.

“This place sucks, though. You’re right.” Theo felt dizzy looking up at the glass dome overhead. The other orbs looked distorted, as though viewed through a funhouse mirror. It wasn’t pleasant.

“The only realm we’ve seen that doesn’t stink is Glantheir’s realm. The Realm of Healing? House of Healing? Which is it?”

“The capital is the House of Healing. The world is called the Realm of Healing, but even that is dizzying. There’s this mist that hangs in the air, and the place is far too humid.”

“That’s why our realm will just be a world. Nothing crazy, right?”

Theo couldn’t agree with her more. All members of the Tara’hek were annoyed with the glass world, so they transported themselves to another area. Antalis, the darkened moon above the planet. It was bleak, but the planet was visible below. A little green-blue gem hovering in a void of black.

“I’m going to do alchemy on the moon,” Theo declared.

“I’m gonna fight a dragon on the moon!”

Tresk ran off with Alex, intent on fighting a copy of Pogo the dragon. Theo got to work on his alchemy grinding, summoning stills and plots of land to practice his craft. He would hit Level 27 in his two cores tonight, bringing them one step closer to evening out with his others. His [Toru’aun Mage’s Core] had been crawling along, but he once again neglected it. Sensing that was a bad idea, he added some warding to his list of goals for the night.

It was a good chance to reflect on his mage-style core. The core, given to him by the Queen of Mystery Toru’aun, was weird to start with. It was a modified ward-style mage core, specializing in warding objects instead of generating wards ad hoc. Strangers still, the pieces of the wards he crafted were drawn directly from his alchemy. Theo could take almost any effect from a potion, imbuing an object with that power. When the core hit Level 20, he would gain another valuable ability. If he focused hard, grinding the crap out of the core, he could bring it even to his others quickly enough.

And that might need to happen. No one had answers why his cores had stopped leveling. Even the [Tara’hek Core], which seemed immune to most system-based shenanigans, was stuck at 30. Each of his other cores might need to be 30 to advanced past that mark for all he knew. Or something else was happening. Some other nonsense brought by Khahar and Fenian. While he knew they were toying with the monitor system, he didn’t know the extent of that tampering.

To practice his wards, Theo infused things with simple shielding wards. What he wanted to get better at was the [Linked Wards] skill, which allowed the alchemist to combine two different wards. Like the suffuse potion in alchemy, attaching wards together was hit-or-miss. Some things produced amazing results, while others were mostly useless. Others still were outright dangerous. But the key to working with [Linked Wards] was to understand they operated outside of the standard spellcrafting system. They worked by manually cramming wards together, meaning they required extensive experimentation.

Theo devised a way to help both of his Drogramath cores along. Since the [Alchemy Constructs] ability was shared between both his alchemy and herbalist cores, he got a bit of experience for both when he messed with golems. The only problem he had with golems was the way the willpower requirement rose as the strength of the golem increased. From the Dreamwalk, he couldn’t feel his golem running around in Gronro. But when in the waking world, he could sense the massive draw of will it took from Tero’gal. Distance, strength, and intelligence level were the biggest factors for operating golems.

A golem made of wood lumbered around in the distance. Theo studied his creation, looking up from a boiling still to note the strengths of the [Wood Golem]. Alex sensed the creature’s affinity for nature before he did. The creature was somewhere between a stone golem and a plant golem. It had an aptitude for combat, and for caring for plants. The alchemist destroyed that golem, moving on to see how far he could push the definition of ‘golem.’

Theo’s next test was to create golems made of various rare metals. Both Drogramathi Iron and Tworgnothi Copper worked, but the Dreamwalk buckled slightly at the creation of both. The more rare the material, the harder it was to keep the creation together. He moved on, working his stills as he stretched his mind to create more. The system absolutely refused to allow him a golem made entirely out of water. It did allow him to create a golem made entirely out of flowers, and another made of blades of grass. They were labeled as [Grass Golem] and [Flower Golem], but seemed to work exactly like a [Plant Golem].

The limit on organic material was plants. Theo shook his head, looking at the pile of wolf corpses he had jammed a containment core into. “Should’ve guessed,” he said, moving on.

The interesting part of that experiment was the resulting [Bone Golem]. It was a horrid mass of bones that Theo dismissed as quickly as he could. He continued working throughout the night, trying to push himself to get as many levels as possible, and learn as much about the golems as he could. He managed to hit 27 in his alchemy, herbalist, and personal level. The alchemist also got level 18 for his Toru’aun core. Not too shabby for the night.

Going with his current theme of trying to get Intelligence to 30, Theo placed his free point there. It brought him to 28. While a lot of his Intelligence points came from bonuses on his cores, he would be happy enough when the modified score was 30. Then he had to figure out where to put his other free points. It was a good idea to go wide, rather than focusing on a single thing. Dexterity was likely his next pick.

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The Dreamwalk seemed to end in a snap. Theo’s eyes snapped open in the realm world, blinking away sleep and adjusting to the dawn light outside. The scent of freshly cooked food drifted upstairs, driving the alchemist to rise faster than he wanted to. Tresk was already bolting down the stairs, leaving him to stretch for long moments with Alex before heading down. The goose honked, signaling her need to move around. Theo agreed. Unless he got moving, he’d stay in bed for far too long.

Sarisa and Rowan had created more delights with their growing skills. Theo enjoyed his breakfast, but his mind lingered on the underworld just below the town. With the day’s schedule seeming tame enough, he made plans with his assistants to head down to chat with the dragon. Right after he sorted another batch of [Greater Hallow the Soil] for the clean-up effort. The good news on that front was that the various measures he had installed in Gronro were working. The barrier around the town had stopped the tide of corruption entirely. Combined with the potions and his wandering golem, things were looking up.

After finishing his breakfast, Theo headed over to the lab to chat with Salire about their production levels. Since she was enjoying the use of three stills, the alchemist kept that the way it was. After checking how much essence they had produced, he was satisfied that they could reduce the amount of [Greater Hallow the Soil] they were already producing. That was based on the idea of beating the corruption back over the long-term, though.

“Of course, the real problem,” Theo said, sighing as he leaned over a table. “Is that we’re putting a lot of stock in Sulvan.”

Salire was wearing a different floral dress today. This one had puffy sleeves and she had taken to wearing a leather apron over it to keep it safe. She had others that were damaged from exposure to alchemy reagents or simply the fumes. “I think we’re spreading our efforts wide enough not to care. Not like anyone else is helping us with the undead.”

Theo grunted, nodding. He wanted to be mad at the other nations for not helping them with the undead corruption. But the alchemist felt partially responsible for the entire fiasco. His closeness to Fenian, and the result of the elf’s adventures left him feeling like a party to the release of the undead. No matter how many times people told him, he still felt at fault.

“I’m gonna go see the dragon today,” Theo said, shaking off his guilt as quickly as it came. “Who doesn’t like dragons?”

“Just about no one I’ve talked to. Folks are scared to go down there. Not just because of the dragon, but the rock people.”

“Damn Russian rock folk,” Theo said, shaking his fist in the air. “Let’s get these reactions done, then set up the stills for the day. Can you cart the completed potions we have over to Alise after I go?”

“Yup!”

Theo and Salire worked on kicking off reactions first. They burned through their stock of essences, setting up more barrels of the brewing potion. It would take a few days for them to finish brewing here, and that would be fine. Without a way to distribute the potion, it was best just to stock up for now. Once Throk had finished his weird flying platform, they could do tests to see how effective of a dispersal method it was. Until then, they were keeping the corruption back and waiting for Glantheir’s play to pan out.

With everything set up, Theo headed out to meet with Sarisa. Rowan was already lurking somewhere in the shadows, and popped out when he exited the building. Both were mildly excited to see the underground area again. As they passed through the mine, folks gave compliments about the new upgrades. Theo smiled the entire way, finding a random miner to help lead them to the underground passage. The mine had become such a webwork of confusing tunnels, it was easy to get lost.

“Oh, hey,” a friendly voice said as Theo moved through the final passage. He turned, spotting Igor the rock-person.

“Just hanging out in a tunnel all day?” Theo asked, slapping his hand against the hard shoulder of the rock-person.

“All day. Every day,” Igor said, his rocky face twisting into something close to a smile. “Mind if I escort you?”

“Please, do.”

Theo was confident that whatever brainwashing Khahar had done on the rock-folk was absolute. Betrayal down here wouldn’t come from the rock-dudes or the dragon, but the other races that called this underworld home. The group walked over the rocky landscape. The alchemist and his companions found it hard for their minds to adjust to this new realm. Glowing mushrooms glowed overhead, giving the impression of stars glittering in the sky. They spotted the Nameless City in the distance before long and plunged into the bustle.

There was always a ring of reverence around Pogo, the dragon that inhabited this place. Her scales seemed to shift colors, depending on the light that shone down from those mushrooms. The crystal lamps the people in the town used for light cast her in a shade of green, while the local fauna shone over her body as though she were the color of bronze. She lifted her head, snorting lazily as she spotted the party.

“Hello, archduke. Can I help you?”

“I was just checking in,” Theo said with a shrug. “I know my people have been trying to strike a trade deal, but haven’t had luck.”

“That is their fault, not mine. I cannot help you.”

The ancient dragon cared little about things from the surface. And the rock-people weren’t much better. They seemed content down here, only serving as eternal sentinels to Broken Tusk. But the alchemist had noticed the presence of other races. People who might need what was grown on the surface. While the underground area was already notable for the Tworgnothi Copper, there could be more stuff down here. Theo was always proactive about securing supplies.

But as Theo looked at the sleepy gaze of the dragon, he realized something important. There was a dragon guarding the underground entrance to his town. If there were other races down here who wanted to trade, they were likely hostile.

“Beyond your town, how safe is it?”

“Not very.”

Theo clicked his tongue. “These tunnels go throughout the world, right? How far is the nearest friendly civilization?”

“Not far, but the deep elves are between us and them.”

“I’m guessing these elves aren’t cool?”

“They’re the opposite of cool. They’re mean-spirited creatures that make war as often as they can.”

Theo had seen a few pale elves in the Nameless City. But he could sense Pogo’s annoyance with him today. For whatever reason, she had dropped her matronly attitude and acted more like the silent guardian. The alchemist bid farewell to her, then headed off to explore the town some more. The dragon breathed a sigh of relief when he left, leaving him feeling as though she were hiding something. He shook it off, and found a rock-person shop.

Unsurprisingly, the rock-folk sold a variety of supplies for adventurers. The most interesting thing they sold was a map of the underground area. Thankfully, they accepted surface money. Which was the same as underground money, since the system generated most of the coins in the world. The alchemist made his way to the local tavern, sitting down with Sarisa and Rowan. While none of them were hungry, they ordered drinks to ease the mind of the barman.

“This stuff is gross,” Rowan said, looking down at the mushroom-based alcohol before him.

“We’re just being polite,” Theo said, unfurling the map. “Don’t drink it. Look at this, though. A hand-drawn map with… damn, that’s a lot of factions.”

Instead of presenting strongholds of power, all unified under one banner, the map was a mess. The map only included the areas of the Southlands Alliance, including the ranges to the west and north. In that small pocket of underground land, there were hundreds of independent factions. Deep elves, deep lizard-folk, and other deep variations of surface dwellers were all represented there. No two towns or cities shared the same faction.

“I can’t read this,” Rowan said, squinting at the map.

“Yeah, Khahar’s idea of humor. The language of the underground is Russian. Ha-ha. Funny,” Theo said, shaking his head. He pointed at each of the strongholds, reading out the names of the factions. “Each one is different. The maker of the map listed if the people were friendly, but it gets better.”

A section at the bottom of the map had a funny little part. It dated the map, stating that it was about a season old. In that time, a fair number of these factions would have fallen with new ones taking their place. Politically, it was an absolute nightmare. The only reason they could rise and fall so quickly was through [Kingdom Cores]. That small note on the map explained how factions would capture the cores, passing them around to build new ‘kingdoms.’

“The underground might be doomed,” Theo said, shaking his head. “We can’t establish a relationship with a nation that is gone next season.”

“That wouldn’t be good for business,” Sarisa said. “We should also be concerned that the dragon may fall one day.”

“Leaving Broken Tusk wide open to attack,” Rowan grunted. He sipped his drink reflexively, then spat it back into the cup. “Ugh.”

A single eye had lingered on Theo since the group came into the bar. Under a mask of stone, a one-eyed deep elf watched the alchemist and his companions. The man stood, walking to stand near the group’s table.

“Strangers,” he said in almost perfect Qavelli. “I have news from the north. If you’re interested.”