A New Invention

We made it to the weapons booth, but I knew that there wasn't going to be anything that I could use effectively there. I went instead and bought about ten glass vials and two flasks for only five bronze pieces, then I headed to the bookstore. I was looking for a book on potion-making. The older man saw me coming and gave me a friendly wave.

"Looking for more alchemy books?" He asked me.

"Yeah, specifically potion-making books." The man gave me a knowing smile and motioned for me to come to the back with him.

"I thought you might come back, so I ordered some of these from the alchemist school." 'What alchemist school?' The man saw my puzzled expression and explained. "Don't worry, you didn't miss out yet; the alchemist school only takes practitioners that have been practicing for two years." I nodded. 'So that's why Master hasn't told me about it yet.' The shopkeeper picked up a stack of books and carried them over to me.

"Now, I know that you probably can't afford a lot of the ones that I have ordered, but you might have some luck with these cheaper options." I thanked the man and started to look through the small stack of tomes until I found a really small one that I liked. The title was "Basic Combat Potions." I asked the man how much it was, and unfortunately, it was another silver. I had the money, but it would eat up everything I had left. 'We have to start making more money.'

"Do you know of any places that would be good for hunting? I'm looking for places with monsters that are stronger than Hobgoblins, but weaker than Great Goblins." I said this while handing over the money. The man held up a finger, then went and rummaged through some things until he pulled out a book with the word "Beastiary," written across it. He handed me the book, and I asked him how much it would be. I didn't have any more money.

The man waved my question off. "Don't worry about it. Back when this world-first started receiving travelers, this used to be handed out for free. Copies of them are so easy to find I can't make any money off of it anyway." I thanked him for his help, then I took my leave. I slid my glass vials and flasks into their respective slots on my robe, then went to meet up with my friends.

I had been searching for a few minutes when I accidentally bumped into someone.

"Oh, I'm sorr-" The person that I had bumped into turned around to where I could see his face. 'Crap talk about some bad luck.' The person that I'd bumped into was Boro, the giant mean Paladin. The last time I'd seen him, I had basically put a stun gun on him and ran off.

"You!" He said to me in a gruff voice. I turned to run the other way, but the Paladin grabbed me by the collar of my new coat to stop me. "Wait!" I really didn't feel like waiting. "I've been meaning to talk to you!" This part caught my interest. 'Pummel me is more like it.'

"What do you want to talk about?" I said cautiously. The man let go of my coat, and I turned to look at him.

"I had too much to drink that night, and I shouldn't have attacked a weakling like you." 'I'm sorry, what?' I thought to myself.

"Last time I checked, I won that last meeting." He scowled at me.

"You were a sneak, and you know it. In a real battle with me, you wouldn't last a second. This isn't what I wanted to talk to you about though." I rolled my eyes at him.

"Then what do you want?" I asked exasperatedly. The big man blushed and rubbed the back of his head.

"Grace is in your party, isn't she?" I didn't particularly appreciate where this was going. "Is she single?" I wanted to gag. 'Oh my god, that's so gross.' I was picturing Boro being at the house, trying to court our leader. But I stayed calm and didn't let it show across my face.

"I think so... but I don't know if she'd be interested in you." The big man's face got red with anger at that moment, and I figured it was a good as any time to get out of there. I ducked around him and disappeared into the crowd. 'Whew, that was a close one.' I looked around for the group for another couple of minutes and found them waiting for me by the door. I hadn't quite lost Boro, however, and saw him making his way towards me.

"Hey, man, did you find what you were looking for?" Derek asked me. I nodded and then quickly told them that we needed to go.

"Why?" Sarah questioned me. I shook my head.

"No time, let's go!" I grabbed the first hand that I could and had us rush out the door; I could hear Boro's loud voice calling for me over the crowd to stop being such a coward. But I didn't really care as long as I got out of there with my head intact.

"What's going on?" Grace asked. I only needed to say one word.

"Boro." Both Grace and Tims face became slightly pale. "He wants to ask you out." A little green mixed in the Paladins face.

"Ok yeah, it was time to go." Once we made it back to the house, it was time to show each other what we'd gotten. Grace was the first one to pull out her new weapon; it was an exceptionally sharp estoc with a black leather-wrapped pommel and two pieces of steel protruding from each side acting as a handguard.

"It's a lot lighter and more durable than my last one." Grace explained.

The next person was Derek, who unsheathed his new blade. It was a black metal rapier with a twisting metal handguard. Derek was ecstatic with his purchase because it "looked really cool." But it was also a higher quality weapon than the one he'd had before. Laura flourished her new wand at us, which was sleek and black but with a white handle.

Sarah had bought a new bow that had a reddish tint to it, and she had also purchased at least a quiver full of steel arrows, which had a lot more penetrating power than the stone-tipped ones that she had been using before. Tim was happy with the weapon that he already had, so he hadn't felt the need to buy one. Once we were all done showing off our new items, we headed to the back yard to start cooking for dinner. It would have to be swineberries because we didn't have any money to buy food after all of our purchases today.

I started to use the flint and knife to light the fire. 'If we didn't have to spend time looking for firewood, we could be hunting for longer in the day.' Just then, I had an idea; I thought about the only potion-making process that I knew up until now. Specifically, the heating alchemy. I knew that it couldn't produce fire unless fed wood, but it can heat objects like glass or metal.

I grabbed the pan out of the not yet lit fire pit to test my theory. I had to run inside to grab the chalk that Master had included in our bags the other day and began drawing the alchemic figure on the bottom of the pan. I placed it back in the fire pit and activated the sigil. After a few minutes, I could feel the heat coming off of the cast iron pan. I had to focus on controlling the heat and keep it from making the pan red hot.

"Sarah, bring me some swineberries real quick, please." Sarah didn't know what I had been doing, but she figured it was an experiment. She was on her feet and over to the swineberry bush in a flash. After plucking a few, she ran them back over to me, and I dropped them into the pan. The berries started to sizzle immediately; I used intent to lower the temperature of the sigil; that way, I wouldn't burn the berries.

"How are you doing that?" Sarah asked me.

"It's something that I learned for potion making. I only just thought of using it like this, though! Imagine how much time we'll save not having to look for firewood!" Even more, ideas started popping into my head. With this, I could make space heaters or stovetops. I might could even insulate my clothes for the winter! Although when I thought about that one, I remembered that I'd have to constantly be focusing on controlling the heat, so that was probably not a good idea.

I began my planning process for a new tool that I thought my Master would love, while Sarah began making more swineberries on the heated pan. The idea was that if Master could shape some lightweight but durable metal into the shapes of the figures, we could but another piece of metal over it and use that to heat things. It would be like a permanent mobile potion-making station.

The only problem that I had was that I wouldn't be able to pick the gadget up directly after using it. But that turned out not to be a problem. I would just put the cooling sigil on the other side of the small box. I could deactivate the heating process and then use the cooling process to allow me to pick up the box again.

My mind was exploding because my next thought was to put a drawer over the cooling sigil; that way, after the box was cold again, I could use it to store and cool potions that needed that part of the process. I couldn't wait to share my idea with Master, but I had to. It was almost dark, and we would be hunting for most of the week.