Chapter 15

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The first place we went, as strange as it may sound, was not straight to the possible drow dwelling place, but to one of the city's alchemists. The idea was brought to me by Detmold, who had worked in the alchemist's shop as a teenager. That's why he knew many potions, tinctures and similar nonsense, which are in common use of ordinary citizens of the kingdom.

- We were in the shop of the closest alchemist, so they had come so close to the city. It was not a very visible place, and there were no signs at the entrance to symbolise the activity of the shop. Only the sign on the door helped passersby to realise that the building offered the services of one of the local alchemists. The locals knew this without prompting.

The alchemist we went to first was an oldish man, fifty years old at least, but he might have been older, since he was a mage.

- What about the ingredients, do you need any? - Detmold asked, while I was looking around the shop.

- We can, we can... Let me think for a while, - the old man disappeared inside the corridor behind the shop. From there came creaking noises, apparently he was checking what he even wanted. After a couple of minutes of waiting, he returned. - This is what I need, then, Ginatsev's acids. You don't need to carry much, three flasks of one hundred millilitres will be enough for me. I'll give you thirty marks each.

- Can I buy the flasks from you? - I'm asking an important question. We didn't have any flasks, and Detmold has no money now, so I'll have to buy them. But that's all right, I'll get more from the sale.

- Of course, of course you will. Here they are, three pieces of eight marks each,' a rectangular box filled with various flasks was lifted from under the bench. The alchemist took out three one-hundred-millimetre ones, placing them in front of us.

With a heavy sigh, followed by a slow exhalation that slightly calmed my irritation, I pulled twenty-four marks from my belt pouch, handing them into the wrinkled hands of the cheerful alchemist. After which we left the herb-soaked shop.

Afterwards, we decided to talk to other alchemists. We were able to find two, but after a brief conversation, it turned out that they didn't need the monsters' ingredients. Their properties were too specific and basically useless for the basic consumables they were making money off of.

Parts of monsters can be sold to mages, I mean those who conduct various experiments, or can brew much more rare and complex potions and elixirs. Also they may be needed by witches, in case they need to brew one of the witch potions, but only rare ingredients.

Having sorted out the preparations in town, we headed straight for the vile drow. According to the description of the task, it seemed that they were very close. However, it was not quite so, we had to walk about ten minutes, if you count from the exit of the city.

We didn't speak during the journey, each of us was in his own thoughts. I was thinking about the past experiments with the Elder Blood, conducted together with Hen Gedimdeit in the walls of the academy. Not to say that there were a lot of them, and one could not agree with certainty about the usefulness of the experiments themselves. Such uncertainty was due to the results obtained.

It is worth starting with the difference between the carriers of the activated gene of the Elder Blood and the habitual Istoks of this world. Unlike the latter, I have no difficulties in managing my personal energy reserve, which is always the case with Istoks. Even the rector of the academy himself, more than once faced difficulties in learning, even though he was taught by elves skilled in this matter.

In addition to the ease of mastering his own energy, there was a much more significant point, one could call it basic - inter-world travel. Under the rector's supervision, I managed to open a portal to a completely new world, go through it and come back.

The first world we visited looked like a frozen piece of ice, so we had to cast warming spells on ourselves. We didn't stay there long.

The second one was also uninhabitable, at least as far as human life was concerned, but there were living creatures there. We encountered an elemental. Yeah, we saw a stone thing moving around on its own. And there were a lot of them.

We didn't stop at two attempts. The most difficult part of travelling like this was the exit point. As I realised after sharing my guesses with Gedymdate, all these worlds were different reflections of one. That is, the worlds visited earlier could be parallel worlds, simply put - a multiverse. Such an assumption could explain the fact that I manage to teleport to the planet without choosing the planet when travelling. Not to a satellite, not to the stars or outer space, but to a planet. I believe it was to the same Earth-like point in space where we were at the time of teleportation.

We settled on four attempts. As they say: the first time - chance, the second - coincidence, the third - regularity.... During the fourth attempt, the rector himself tried to reproduce the teleportation, he even asked me to donate a vial of blood, which he used during the experiment, but nothing worked.

In the end, his final decision to continue experimenting with the Elder Blood was to stop trying. According to him, this gene is too complicated to understand, and has a magical source. Hela Gedimdeit remained interested in inter-world travel, but there were problems there as well. He was unable to open a portal to any of them, even the ones we had travelled to. It was as if a wall was blocking the passage, giving no opportunity to enter. In my case, the wall collapsed with ease, immediately rebuilding itself after the portal was cancelled.

For now, he decided to stop trying to teleport. Gedimdeit told me that he would try to replicate the result personally, but without fanaticism due to the peculiarity of the Elder Blood gene.

The only thing he asked was that I contact him if I ever managed to find a parallel world with intelligent life forms that looked like humans, or were humans at all. In the past four attempts, we've never come across one. Given the blind travelling, it's not a given that we'll ever come across any. At least the visited worlds are 'stored' in possible exit points. Each of them had some kind of magical coordinates, allowing us to navigate in the visited ones.

Teleporting to parallel worlds is a dangerous business in itself. I don't know what kind of planet the next transfer will send me to. I should prepare for such an action wisely, create different artefacts and so on.... Or find some 'volunteers' willing to pioneer it. It's even easier that way.

By the way, as for my Blink, the very spell created on the basis of teleportation, it became available thanks to the Elder Blood gene. The gene itself increases all interactions with space by an order of magnitude, including simple teleportation. We'll have to try other interactions with space in the future.

- Look,' Detmold snapped me out of my musings, shifting my attention to the bridge over the river. - There's still a little bit left, I think they should be behind that bridge.

- Yeah, don't get in right away, let's see how many of them there are.

Luckily for us, the drowning men were there. No one wanted to waste so much time, especially since I'd spent a lot of money on the flasks, and it's not certain that they'd buy them back from me for the same price.

We hid behind a tree, so that we wouldn't be spotted by the drowning men, who didn't keep much of an eye on the area, and began to look at the shore. There were four of them, water monsters digging at something on the ground while one of them stood in the water.

- How are we going to deal with them? - Detmold asked an important question. We had no experience in killing creatures. Magic was taught in a hothouse, and I'd only swung my sword in front of witches and my own illusion, created for sparring.

- I had some ideas, but they might seem dangerous at first glance. I was counting on my own insurance in the form of a few useful spells. - I'll go out to them alone first. I'll stand close to our hiding place, and then as they approach, you can help me with a spell. Two on you, two on me.

- Oh, all right, you got some dangerous ideas, mate, dangerous ideas.

I unsheathed the sword given to me by Vesemir, not silver, just an ordinary sword, but of good quality and comfortable with the right balance. I stepped out into the open, but stopped near the hidden Detmold. I immediately applied the Sign of Quen, a simple witch's sigil based on the element of earth. It enveloped me in a faintly visible film that could withstand a single blow with a two-handed sword from a human.

It didn't take long for the drow to rush towards me, muttering something and immediately rushing towards me while trying to surround me. They had some sense, considering their constant nastiness in the form of dragging away fishermen and many others who chose the wrong time to be near rivers and lakes.

I use my foresight to recognise the jerk of the nearest one, dodge to the side, and, making a slight half-turn towards him, swing my sword with both hands. The blade went straight through the neck, separating the head from the rest of the body. Droplets of the unpleasant creature's blood landed on my clothes. My gaze stopped on the monster's head, which fell to the ground, which could have been a big mistake for me, but my foresight worked again, allowing me to dodge the sharp claws again without any problems.

A stalagmite flew next to me from the right side, hitting one of the drow exactly in the chest. It was a spell called Stone Spike, using the element of earth in it. The support from Detmold was timely, by this point the remaining one had also reached me. But I didn't dwell on him, deciding to deal with the past that I had dodged earlier. I left the second one to Detmold, shifting so that it would be easier to hit.

Sensing the danger, the monster did not mindlessly jump on me. On the contrary, it decided to run back towards the water, which I planned to interfere with.

- Tuiw gala! - Elvish words spread along the riverbank, followed by the effect of the spell I had cast.

A sturdy stalk grew under the drowning man's foot, binding his right leg, causing him to fall to the ground. At the same moment, the last monster was killed by another of Detmold's spells. He used a simple kind of magic that was effective against such creatures.

Not paying attention to the others, I went to finish off the fallen drow, but the unexpected happened: the monster with a pierced chest, which had been lying on the ground earlier, rose up sharply and decided to slash me with its claws.

Once again, I was saved by a vision of the future. I shifted slightly to the side, letting the monster moving by inertia pass by, and as it started to get up again, I pointed my hand at its head. The fingers spread out to the side, and from the centre of the palm, straight into the drow's head, a stream of fire - an improved version of Igni - erupted.

The monster's muzzle was fried. The last of the four fell dead.

The one I'd tied with the stem had managed to get out, and was about to dive into the water, but he was hit by a stalagmite.

As there was no more danger, Detmold came up to me.

- Ha, it was easier than I expected, - he began to decant the Ginaceous acid into flasks. - How you only manage to dodge at the last moment, I was beginning to imagine your treatment when you got caught.

- Reaction,' I mumbled at his questioning. I didn't get hit in the end, didn't even get hit by Quen, that's definitely a plus. - But you're right, it wasn't hard. All that was left was to go back to the old man and offload those flasks to him.