Chapter 2

Floris made his way back to his room after helping his grandmother clean the house from his failed experiment. He was mentally exhausted. The potion he'd been researching had taken its toll on both his patience and his collection of resources. All of his useful herbs had been used up in the failed experiments, including his chest of reserves, leaving him with only the scraps of the less useful ingredients he didn't really know why he kept around.

"Just keep trying. You're getting closer. It can't be much longer now..." He thought as he stepped inside his room.

Floris' room was the largest room in the house. It needed to be in order for him to house and store all of his resources and test subjects. In the corner to the left of the doorway was his bed, which was little more than wooden planks, some straw to use as cushioning, and a wolf fur he used as a blanket. To the right of his bed were several hooks on the wall and a chest he used to store his clothing and armor. He kept his personal belongings somewhat out of the way from the rest of his stuff.

While his room was definitely the largest, it was also the most cluttered. Most of the other rooms were relatively empty, but Floris' room was an alchemist's dream room. Along the far wall, he had chests lined up, each one containing a specific set of herbs and other resources; he had them color coated so he didn't get them mixed up. Chests made of a lighter colored wood were where he stored herbs with healing or medicinal uses. Plants such as Aloe Vera or Lavender were stored in these chests. Darker colored chests were where he stored dangerous plants such as Nightshade and other plants he used to make poisons. However, he also had chests on a shelf above the others where he stored other alchemical ingredients ranging from wolf teeth, bird beaks, insects, internal organs, skins, and other unmentionables. Any animal he hunted or killed was put to good use. Nothing was ever wasted and even the bones of certain animals were often used in his experiments.

In the center of the room was a large table where mountains of journals of varying thickness were piled on top of one another. Papers lay scattered all over the table, with several of them being nailed to the table. Chests of varying sizes surrounded the table, each one completely stacked of journals and books he had used in the past. Each and every journal had the ingredients used of every potion Floris had ever made. The journals were color coated as to what types of potions or poisons were made, while other journals were used to keep track of failed experiments, or had notes on how his swamp rats reacted to certain potions or poisons he used on them. A journal didn't last very long for Floris. As the village healer, he was always experimenting with new plant combinations and how his rats reacted to what he had created. A journal would rarely last longer than a month, which was why he stocked up on them when the trade wagon came along once every four to five months.

Along the final wall was where Floris did most of his experiments and housed his captured animals. He had built a desk that runs all along the wall and holds his alchemical tools and the cages to his rats, snakes, frogs, and his collection of insects. His swamp rats were his most prized of his animal collection. Swamp rats were a rare species of rat that were highly intelligent and functioned similarly to humans. However, because of their high intellect, they were next to impossible to catch unless one knew how to trap them. But the trap would only work one time since the rats never fall for the same trick twice. To spare himself the trouble of having to deal with that in the future, Floris bred the rats and used the older or the sick rats as the unfortunate victims of his experiments. Sometimes a rat would survive what it was used for, but they were usually fed to the snakes he housed.

Floris had a collection of four highly dangerous, extremely aggressive, and very poisonous snakes. Each one was specifically collected for the sole purpose of alchemical research. The Rainbow Snake was the second most venomous snake in his possession, but also the most unique and beautiful. The venom he milked from this snake usually went into his poisons. He had tested the poison on numerous animals when hunting and it had proven strong enough to take down a Swamp Boar with just a single arrow. However, the poison made from the snake could only be used for killing since the venom infected the meat. The most venomous snake Floris had was an infant Slithering Tree Serpent. These snakes were rare but never stopped growing. Males of this species were known to reach one-hundred feet in length and big enough to swallow a deer in one bite. They were as dangerous as they were rare, but they had extremely long life spans. By the time the one Floris has is a full adult, Floris and the villagers would be long gone into the next life. Poisons made from this snake were strictly meant for killing, but it was very uncommon for Floris to milk this particular snake. More than anything, he had collected it just to keep it from harming any of the villagers. Cures for this snake's venom were hard to make and the herbs needed were not only rare, but they were aggressive also. Some spewed highly toxic fumes or spores into the air, others were overgrown death traps similar to a Venus Flytrap that had grown so big, they needed animals larger than insects. The largest of these plants being able to swallow a deer whole.

Above the desk were papers nailed all over the wall. Notes ranging from ideas for future experiments to traps for other animals, as well as notes written down for the more successful potions or poisons, or quick reminders of potions he commonly made for illnesses or contacts with animals the villagers might have had. Every inch of space in his room was used for some sort of medicinal or scientific purpose.

Even though Floris was still relatively young, he was the only one in the village who knew how to read or write. His mentor, the former village healer, taught Floris most of what he knew before his passing six years ago. Since then, Floris has taken his mentor's unfinished experiments and perfected them by also adding in his own little touch on each experiment. While Floris learned a lot from his former mentor, his mentor knew that his time was short and focused on teaching Floris safer ways of conducting alchemical experiments and giving him all his journals to read over. Floris has since advanced far beyond what his former teacher was like and the villagers now call him the best alchemist in the history of the swamp.

With his work done for the day and still a few hours of darkness before the sun came up, Floris wrote down the herbs and ingredients used for the last potion in his open journal, then collapsed face first on his bed and let sleep take him.