The Way Ahead - Chapter 122: Blood is Thicker

Edwin slipped through the crowds, keeping a wary eye out for the guards dotted around every so often. He knew that the Empire had an Identify evolution known as ‘Wanted List,’ that more or less helped them spot rulebreakers, but Rillah or Lefi or whoever it was that had told him didn’t know any details about how it worked. Depending on how it worked, he may or may not have a giant target on his head that he’d ‘broken curfew’ the night before, but there was nothing he could really do about that other than be aware and ready to fly if he needed to.

He wasn’t entirely sure what he was looking for other than the vague hope he happened to spot an Almanac tag related to Niall, but Rillah was somewhere else trying to track down leads as to where the alchemist was set up by talking to people. Inion stuck relatively close to Edwin, by contrast, only slightly floating off the ground as they idly chatted.

“Did you feel that?” Edwin’s head turned on a swivel, trying to narrow down where the sensation had come from.

“The flicker?” the fey confirmed.

Edwin nodded. It had felt like life, but not the clean, plant-like life that was relatively common in Rhothos, but more of a… visceral life. It felt like blood and tissue, pulsing and writhing.

“Yeah. Any idea where it came from?”

“That way? I dunno, it was so fast.”

The area they both thought it had come from was a row of merchant buildings, which meant a small shop underneath a usually wooden apartment. There was only one reason that Edwin could think of for one of the places to have any magic going on whatsoever, but that may have just been the result of several hours looking for someone explicitly associated with blood and viscera.

Looking at the shops, none were obviously potion-related, but the one at the end held a stylized sign of a bundle of herbs and was especially well-made from slightly bluish stone. As they watched, its door swung open to let an imperious-looking human back out onto the street.

“That one.” Edwin muttered, and Inion nodded in agreement.

“That was a lot of medical Skills on him, none of which were his.”

“Wait here,” Edwin told her, “Or not here, but just outside. I’m just going to take a peek, but if things go bad it’ll be a lot better if Niall doesn’t know I have anyone else with me. If you do insist on watching,” he said with a sigh, “At least turn invisible or into water or something? I don’t know, just do your thing.”

She didn’t protest, which Edwin optimistically took as agreement, and he took a deep breath as he walked to the door and gently pushed it open, peeking inside.

The interior wasn’t exactly richly furnished, but it did look to be a moderately comfortable waiting area, with a few chairs and a table. There were two other exits to the room, one to the left a stairway leading up, and the other a curtain-covered archway leading further back into the building.

At the center of it all, cleaning up what probably wasn’t blood but definitely looked like it,was the exact man Edwin was looking for. Niall was significantly better-off than the last time Edwin had seen him, not that it was a high bar, but even before being stuffed into shackles he’d had a somewhat unkempt and wild look to him, but now he was significantly more… refined. He wore high-quality clothing even nicer than Edwin’s, spotless despite very clearly being laboratory clothing, and a vibrant red in color.

His gaze locked onto Edwin. Welp, there went any hope of potentially remaining incognito or unnoticed.

“Alchemist! Come in, speak with me,” the Statuary Alchemist snappily called out as he stood up, tossing the stained rag he’d been dealing with into a woven basket sitting in the corner.

Huh. That seemed way less vitrolic than Edwin would have anticipated. He hesitantly pushed the door the rest of the way open and stepped inside cautiously, mentally reviewing where his lead shot and smoke bombs were as he entered.

“Yes?”

“Did you come to join my research?”

“No?” Edwin asked, confused, “Mostly, I was traveling through, I didn’t really expect to find… well, this here.”

Did Niall not recognize him? Well, it had been a while, Edwin was dressed and carried himself really differently, and he had a completely different Class compared to what he’d had back then, not that Hedge Alchemist and Alchemist-Errant were that different, fundamentally. Actually, it was a bit odd that it had come back around slightly. Or what kind of ‘hedge’ was being used in Hedge Alchemist?

Another time, he scolded himself.

“…suppose you wish to join me, then?” he tuned back into Niall’s offer just in time to miss most of it. Memory filled in that he had been annoyed that his offer to alchemists for a good job outside of the normal Guilds- something of a fledgling guild itself really- but most left instead.

“I don’t know enough about what you’re doing for any real answer to that. Like I said, I just wandered in because I heard rumors about a healer alchemist and wanted to investigate. Really, I didn’t even know how to find you, this was kind of just blind chance,” it was hard to call it luck, given Edwin would much sooner have not stumbled onto Niall this way, but he took what he could get.

“Well! That can most certainly be amended. Come with me, I will show you my workshop and let me persuade you.”

“Okay… lead the way I suppose.” Edwin shrugged, but glanced back outside as he did so. This wasn’t ideal, but if he ran off now then came back later, Niall would have just as much time to prepare as he did. Inion knew where he went, so if he went missing they’d know where to look. He’d also refilled his Overcharge potion set, so even if Niall did recognize him and was just a really good actor, he’d probably be fine. He was, if nothing else, confident in his ability to sucker-punch and run, even if Niall had a squad of minions on-call. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that though.

Niall beckoned Edwin to follow as he passed through the curtains into the next room. Here, most of the architecture was stone, and off to one side an array of cauldrons bubbled over unnaturally steady flames, tended to by an Apprentice Smith who couldn’t have been older than thirteen. The opposite side of the room was conversely occupied by a row of magical plants, most of which Edwin recognized, but talsanenris was conspicuously absent. The third side mostly just had arrays and piles of tools and containers, and the fourth wall had a pen with several… blobs of blood. Slimes, perhaps? The squishy spheroids ranged in size from Edwin’s thumb to his head, but slowly oozed around their respective containers while being stubbornly resistant to Edwin’s attempts to identify them. They had a lot of blood in them, that was certain- though the exact amount really varied- but they didn’t have any individual Almanac entry and didn’t register as a creature to Identify.

Most concerning in the room was the table at the center, however. It was just about the right size for a human to be strapped down on it and dissected. There was even a gutter around the edge for blood or something to drain. Edwin really hoped that he was wrong about its purpose though.

The girl tending the flames looked at Niall as he entered, and with a jerk of his head, she was sent out of the room, slipping past them. Meanwhile, Niall extracted a pair of tall stools from underneath one of the benches and passed Edwin one, while he climbed on the other.

“It’s been quite some time, hasn’t it now?” Niall didn’t turn back to face Edwin, instead picking up and tapping some kind of stick against the countertop.

“So you did recognize me,” he sighed. “What, we’re just going to sit here and talk like we’re friends?”

“I always did love to talk,” Niall replied smoothly. “But you really should hear me out. I might be able to make it worthwhile. I truly have offered a few of our kin a job, some have even accepted. I’d offer you a drink, but I doubt you’d take me up on it.”

“I don’t drink even when I do trust the giver. Anyway, why shouldn’t I just blow you up here and now? Like you said, it’s been a while, and I’ve learned a lot since then.”

He smirked, “Oh, you can try. But it won’t do anything for you. I’m immortal, you know.”

“There’s no way that’s true. You’d have a more impressive Class if nothing else.”

In response, the alchemist grabbed a knife from the counter, dropped his hand onto the wood, and without even flinching cut off his own thumb.

Edwin took a step back. What the heck. Even if- yep, there it was. A Skill blossomed in his hand, budding and growing into a new digit- even with supernatural regeneration, that was still an insane amount of determination, to just chop off his own thumb like that?

Niall tossed the severed digit at Edwin, who deflected it with a quick burst of Unbound Tether. The alchemist raised an eyebrow at the sight, but didn’t comment on it, “Immortal. Stab me if you want, it’ll do nothing. I really should thankful, that you were so weak last we met. Had you killed me back then, well I might have actually died! But now? Oho. You and two other attempted assassinations later, well. Here I am.”

“Here I thought you couldn’t get any physical Skills. What happened to that? Or is this some kind of alchemical effect instead?”

“It is! Isn’t it impressive. While proper Health potions may be tricky, they are most rewarding, and by incorporating the Regeneration attribute, a simple regrowth potion can be amplified with some goil root and blood essence to more vigorously encourage full metabolic regeneration, and once that was taken and its Path rewarded, Alchemic Healing could be upgraded to grant… well, I probably shouldn’t say quite so much.”

“Wait, you can make potions permanent via a Skill? I didn’t know that was possible, that’s kind of impressive.”

Wait, no. That’s how I got Stamina Manipulation.

“It is! I believe that it is an important step in the development of true life, but I am thus far incapable of properly instantiating the System into a subject before it is brought to life, so it grows more complicated.”

Yeah, that does sound tricky. Well, what if…” Edwin shook his head, pulling himself back on-topic before he really got off-topic. “You were supposed to be executed. What happened to that?”

“Ah, you know a guy who knows a guy. Then I got the magistrate in on it and I didn’t even have to live in a broken-down tower! I was technically executed, but you know, a bit of a fall never hurt me. They ask questions, I make a potion, they want more, and I provide. Everyone wins. Once they saw what I could do, they were almost falling over themselves trying to get on my good side.”

“But the Empire? You hate it, or was that just a ruse?”

“You think that’s gone anywhere?” Niall’s easygoing behavior dropped away for a moment as he slammed a fist into the table before he regained his composure, “No. I still hate them all, they’re all dead to me, but they can be just so… useful. And far more competent than the dunderheads I used to employ. A personal alchemist, after all, is so terribly useful, particularly one as talented as I. As you can see, I recently perfected my process to create blood oozes, and so long as I keep it fed, I can use it as a pre-processed blood source, and it serves as a marvelous basis for potions. I believe with a few changes I might be able to properly become a full potion, and if I could them make it replicate? Could you imagine? Potion slimes! Create incredibly challenging brews once then never again.”

“Okay, that is actually kind of cool.”

“It is! It is most wonderful. Of course, because someone destroyed all of my notes, I have had to spend a fair amount of time rebuilding my knowledge. Now, that wasn’t too terribly difficult, mind you. Every city has its own set of castoffs and layabouts who will never amount to anything if I didn’t give them purpose. Some even survive. Did you know, if you’re careful enough, you can put blood back into a person?”

“Blood transfusions? Yeah. You need to be careful though, there’s some nasty diseases which can be spread by blood contact, and if their blood types are different that’s just asking for trouble.”

“I’m no fool, I wasn’t about to mix different bloods, at least outside of a test.”

“No, no. Not like you’re imagining. Not like… avior and humans- though I imagine that’s pretty likely to not go well anyway- I mean just different humans can have different types of blood, depending on some… stuff, it’s too complicated for the moment to explain, and why am I telling you all of this again?”

“Because you are like me, a true man of the brew. You seek knowledge and mastery above all else, and you cannot help yourself but seek it in a vain hope it will grant you strength.”

This was, Edwin decided, one of the weirdest conversations he’d ever had, and it wasn’t helped by him keeping Flight half-activated and ready to rush through the door if it went badly.

“You don’t have strength. Not true strength, not the kind which I have and can grant you. You’re still too happy in your own little bubble, having never lost, never suffered. But I can still sense the ruthlessness that could blossom ready to be tended. Oh, you who’s willing to cut up your own friends for parts. I at least never did that.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t would you?” he spread his arms in a ‘look at me’ gesture.

“I knew you for all of three days, and then it turned out you murdered people,” Edwin protested. “That’s not the same as backstabbing an actual friend. Speaking of which, I can’t help but notice you’re missing your minions. Did they end up under your knife?”

“You!” Niall held himself back for some reason, but he’d grabbed a dagger and began brandishing it at Edwin, who readied a lead shot pellet. “You don’t get to talk about them.”

“Weren’t you just calling them dunderheads?”

“You. Don’t Talk. About. Them.”

“Okay, okay,” Edwin hastily retreated. “Sorry. So… still working on making proper life?” he threw out a potential distraction for the alchemist to latch onto, and it worked startlingly well.

“Yes! I am so extraordinarily close I can nigh sense it. Blood is such a wondrous ingredient, one I can truly never get enough for. The blood oozes are just the next step, but I hope I’ll . Soon, I think I might be able to move onto proper reanimation, then creation!”

“Nice, nice. So… how are you replacing your prior, ah, ‘resupplies.’”

“Oh, that? Ha! I have no need to prey upon the chance traveler anymore. I’m a fully sponsored alchemist, sullying my hands with the unpleasantries of resupplying is beyond me.”

Yeah, Edwin didn’t buy it. He was a bio-alchemist, that would require a lot of test subjects if nothing else. Probably from the ‘vagrants’ he’d mentioned previously… yeah, definitely the vagrants. Or maybe they were just his guinea pigs? Caught, had a potion shoved down their throat, and tossed back out? He could hope.

“Personally, I thought it was just as much a chance to get back at the Empire as a legitimate need for materials.”

“Well, there is that, but I… hmm. No, I don’t need to tell you that.”

“What, you don’t want to explain your evil plan to me? I can’t tempt you into a monologue wherein you tell me your secret weakness or whatever?”

“No, no, I don’t think so. Though I resent the suggestion this is my evil plan. I have not done, nor will I do, anything unwarranted.”

“Yeah, I’m not buying it.”

“That is not my concern,” Niall dismissed, then looked up and past Edwin, “Ah. It took them long enough.”

Without barely even a glance, Edwin jumped out of the way. Dangit, he wasn’t paranoid enough. In the doorway to the workshop, a pair of armored guards stood menacingly, the full weight of an intimidation Skill pressing on Edwin’s consciousness.

“Master alchemist, you sent for us?”

“Yes,” he replied, “That man there? He threatened me. Get him below, and next time leave a man with me. What if he’d been attempting to kill me or my assistants? That was far too long.”

Edwin jetted across the floor away from the guards, as he assessed his options. There was a window in the wall above the plants, a door in the far corner, and of course guards in the near corner. He just didn’t know where pretty much anything was, and how likely he’d be to get either stuck or trapped while exploring another route from this room.

“Outlaw. Come with us.”

Edwin backed away, knocking over his stool, “Yeah, how about no. I’m pretty sure that… something, something I’m an adventurer, something something, I have rights?”

Unsurprisingly, his heartfelt and deeply moving speech did nothing to sway the guards and one reached for a coil of rope hanging from his belt. Before he could draw it, however, Edwin blasted Unbound Tether at the guy as hard as he could, pushing them apart as he darted for the far doorway.

It was, unfortunately, not an exit, but instead a stairwell leading down. That probably wasn’t where Edwin wanted to go, but the guards were right behind him and he didn’t have many alternatives yet.

If nothing else I get to see what’s down here.

He jetted down the staircase, the spiral nature of it barely an impedance to magical flight, but he didn’t need to go down very far before it opened up to a dingy… well, dungeon. There were two distinct portions of the room, one half a cross between torture room and research lab, a horribly bloodstained table with shackles built directly into the structure standing in the middle of it all, and the other larger portion a cell.

There were about a dozen people imprisoned there, all clad in simple shifts that couldn’t be called rags because they were all in one piece. They weren’t chained up or anything, but some had their eyes closed while leaning against the walls, others were sitting in place staring into nothing behind the bars. None reacted to his presence.

From what he could see, there weren’t any especially interesting Classes present among them. The majority were some variation of ‘Beggar’ or had the ‘Homeless’ appellation, a couple were actual classed Outlaws, a couple Bandits, and one Wandering Peddler. Outlaws and Adventurers, Edwin’s intuition whispered.

It made a certain level of sense. Just like Edwin had been completely in his legal right to go after and kill Niall and his posse the first time they’d met, Outlaws had no legal protections whatsoever. In fact, getting rid of unwanted elements was probably seen as a good thing by the powers that be. They all looked to be in good enough condition, but a couple were decidedly emaciated and underfed.

Edwin’s thoughts instinctively detached from his emotions, a tiny thread idly wondering how people with the Eating skill could starve before being mercilessly crushed. The fact Niall was holding prisoners for bio-alchemical experiments wasn’t a surprise, and he refused to let himself freak out about it. He’d practiced for this sort of thing, and as much as his mind kept throwing half-formed snarky thoughts at him about that fact, he needed to focus unless he wanted to join them.

He jetted into the center of the room, ‘standing’ lightly near the dissection table, and waited for the guards to come at him. One did, moments later, his rope in-hand and bright with some Skill. It looked like a subdual ability of some sort, perhaps some kind of Arrest Skill? It was reminiscent of the authority-type Skills they used sometimes, perhaps it was an alternate evolution?

That wasn’t what was important now, though.

In some ways, Edwin had cornered himself, yes. However, he also had far more room to move down here, and that was exceptionally important. He didn’t have time to hold anything back either, this would need to go fast and hard.

Okay, so first step will be Overcharge. Full-body, I think, then Longstride and hope that the guard isn’t fast enough to grab me…

His strategizing was cut short as the guard snapped out his rope, the cord uncoiling and stretching out towards Edwin like a hungry snake.

Overcharge! He activated the Skill, but it was just a bit too slow, and the rope snared his arm before the Skill could reach that far, interrupting his power-up and leaving his right arm far too fragile for his liking. So, instead of using Longstrider to get past the man, Edwin braced himself and launched the Skill in such a way that he collided directly with the guard.

CLANG

Edwin dropped out of stretched space having accomplished precisely nothing more than making the guard take a half-step back.

“Stand down, or I will begin to use force.” the guard warned Edwin.

“Yeah, like I’d let myself end up behind those bars,” he retorted, mind racing. The rope on his right arm continued to tighten, binding more and more of the limb in its skill-blocking effect. Hmmm.

A quick study of the binding made it look like it wasn’t much more than just a normal rope. Oh sure, it was as supernaturally strong as most of the goods here, but that wouldn’t stop it from burning.The guard grabbed Edwin’s other wrist, but empowered by Overcharge as it was, it was less fight-ending and more just inconvenient. He was able to wrestle it until his hand was directly in front of the guard’s face, the cold metal holding his fist just inches from the guard’s hyper-focused expression. Clearly, it wasn’t easy for him.

Fey’s Caress.

His hand instantly became metal, and when combined with Overcharge, Edwin’s mere flick of his finger was enough to break his opponent’s concentration, and he wrenched his hand free, bringing it around to the rope- still suppressing Skill usage in his right arm- and tapping it.

Infused Firestarting.

The rope didn’t burst entirely into flames, but that was alright. What mattered was that the bit of rope between Edwin’s hand and the guard’s hand did, and it spread from there enough for him to snap it.

As soon as the cord and its Skill fell away, his arm was flooded with mana, bringing it to the same level of strength as the rest of him. Now, the guard almost looked like he was moving in slow motion, and he could easily step back, re-orient, and Longstride his way to the stairs.

Well, into the stairs, but thanks to Overcharge he barely even felt the high-speed collision into the stonework, and thanks to Flight he didn’t even need to reorient himself.

Edwin flew up the stairs even faster than he’d descended, bursting into the workroom and bowling over Niall in the process. The alchemist went flying into the center workbench, cursing loudly for the guard to get back in here. A moment later, the armored figure did just that, now accompanied by two more guards. With no time to waste, Edwin withdrew a knife from his belt and-

His entire body screamed in agony as Overcharge expired. He dropped to the ground as using Flight suddenly felt more like driving knives into his back than a relaxing midair suspension, but he was close enough to Niall to drive the dagger into the man’s chest, more on instinct than anything.

The sensation was… not pleasant, but Edwin was running on pure adrenaline and barely even let himself notice it, shoving disgust away to be dealt with later.

He gritted his teeth, knowing what he needed to do but not looking forward to it, and he called on his magic once more. It felt like he was injecting fire into his veins, but he needed to…

Overcharge.

His entire body felt like it was on fire, but the rest of the world sharpened back into perfect clarity.

The closest guard was coming at him with a sword- that was bad.

There were footsteps from the stairs behind him- also not good.

Niall didn’t seem to be particularly bothered by the dagger stuck up to its hilt in his gut- not great, but less immediately worrying.

There was a tiny window in the far wall made of several small panes of glass- that was workable.

Edwin’s hands fished out a smoke bomb, flicking it into the floor below. Instantly, the entire room became impossible to see through, but he already knew where he was heading.

A wild sword swing hit Edwin’s thigh as he jetted through the air, cutting through Overcharge’s protection like it wasn’t even there, and his Health immediately went to work patching it up.

He barely even felt the glass as it shattered around him, his body barreling through the tiny gap only large enough because of his incredible Flexibility.

Smoke billowed from the workshop as Edwin fled into the sky, Unbound Tether pushing him further and further….

The pain redoubled as Overcharge stopped, cutting Edwin off from his magic temporarily. He kept flying through the air, simple momentum sending him on a long arc.

Overcharge, he numbly reactivated the Skill.

The encroaching darkness retreated.

Wind whistled past his ears.

He began to plummet from the sky.

Thud.