Witch Fire

I entered the forest and begun my search for the assigned ingredients. Blood Root was commonly found near small bodies of water, and I knew that there was a stream roughly fifteen minutes out from the cottage. I only had an hour to find both items, though, so if this didn't pay off, I would have much less time to find the Wado.

I didn't know of any other water close by, though, so I had to risk it. I jogged to the stream so that I could save a little time, it didn't take me long to get there, and I got lucky I remembered that the Blood Root looked like a fern with bright red leaves.

I was pleased when I found the plant growing, not two feet from the water. I used my spade to dig up the plant without damaging its roots, for once I was actually pleased that I'd learned this skill first. I had a lot of practice with it, so it was easy to get the plant out.

'Now what did the book say about Wado?' I remembered that it had something to do with sunlight. But did it like sunlight, or did it grow away from sunlight? I started my search around the forest. It was easy to recall what it looked like, so I thought it would be easy to find.

I kept looking, but I couldn't remember where the book said it grew. I was running out of time. I had to be back at Masters cottage in roughly ten minutes now. I decided it would be best to head back and at least have the Blood Root rather than show up with nothing at all.

The thought of Roman coming back with both burned me up, though. 'Oh well, nothing I can do about it now, I guess.' I moved faster through the woods on my way back now that I knew what path I'd taken. I was close to the forest edge now. I could even see the back of the cottage.

That's when I noticed it. There was a small plant growing all along the forest edge. It was Wado, and I felt dumb. I'd been so busy thinking about where to find water for the Blood Root that I didn't notice I'd passed the herb I'd spent most of my time looking for.

I quickly plucked some of the Wado before making my way back to the front door and knocking again to let Master know that I was back. The door opened, and she told me to go to the laboratory. I did as I was asked and saw Roman already sitting there with a smug look on his face.

"What took you so long, loser?" He said as I walked through the door. I scowled at him. 'What is this dudes deal?' I sat down in my chair and chose to ignore him. Master walked in shortly after and gave us both a nod.

"Let's see 'em." She said, talking about the ingredients she'd tasked us with bringing to her. Roman jumped out of his seat to present his ingredients before I could rise out of my seat.

"Here you go, Master." The man placed his items on the table in front of us, then stepped back to allow our Master to view them. She took a mere second to verify if they were indeed the items she had asked for.

"Congratulations..." Roman's face beamed at the praise, but the smile quickly disappeared when the alchemy teacher continued. "Ye are an idiot that didn't take this lesson seriously. Neither of these is the correct ingredient. Ye have Tether Bean and Harrow. Todd yer next."

She snapped at me to get me moving faster, and I did. She took the same amount of time to look at my ingredients.

"Well, at least ye got the right components, but ye shouldn't have taken almost the entire hour. Both of ye know these woods at this point, and the Wado is literally the first thing growing at the edge of the forest. I'm dissapointed." I gulped, afraid that she was going to cancel the rest of the lesson.

"Lucky for ye two, I have a lot of these specific ingredients so I can show ye how to make the potion I had in mind." 'Thank goodness!' I thought to myself. I really needed this right now.

"Today yer goin to learn a potion alchemists call Witch Fire. Everyone else just calls it a mana potion, though. Pedestrian, I know." I knew at this point I had to learn this. A mana potion of high quality is worth a gold piece at least, and a low-quality one is worth a silver.

"Ye are absolutely not te mass produce these. If yeh inflate the market, less talented alchemists without yer flair for combat won't be able to make money, and I expect ye both to be kind to our small community." I hadn't thought of something like that. 'I guess that wouldn't be fair.'

Either way, I was excited about learning this potion; it would help my friends out so much when we were out hunting. Master went on to explain how we would make the Witch Fire potion.

"All potions require specific measurements for its proper completion. I have a small book on conversions, so that if ye need to make a larger batch, again fer personal use. Ye can do so." Master showed us the correct measurements at that point and how to prepare each component to make a higher quality potion. "The next thing ye will need is going to be something ye can choose to tattoo on yerself if ye choose, but ye can also invest in some chalk and only make potions at home. These are intermediate level skills and are usually meant for potion making, although I suppose ye can use 'em for self-defense if ye have te." She drew the two alchemic figures on the floor in chalk.

The new type of drawing was different; instead of a circle with writing all around it, they were shaped like geometrical patterns with other patterns entwined in them.

"They aren't circles," Roman said in a manner that made me wonder if he was asking or telling us. Master sighed and rolled her eyes.

"No, they aren't circles, they are alchemic figures, there is more than one-way te do alchemy. I'll teach ye about it later, pay attention." She had mixed together all of the ingredients into a small glass beaker. She then put the beaker on the top of one of the figures. "Ye'll first need te heat this at ninety degrees for five minutes." She used the formula to make the figure work, and it lit up, not with a bright light like my other skills but more like and electronic stove coming on.

"How will you know it's the right temperature?" I asked.

"Good question! In this case, ye'll be able to tell when the mixture starts to react to the heat by sparklin." Sure enough, a few seconds later, it looked like the mixture was red glitter in a bottle. We waited the five minutes, and Master canceled the heating process. "After it is properly heated. Ye'll want te rapidly cool it. When it reaches the right temperature, it'll change color to purple." She picked up the glass container with a pair of tongs and proceeded to put it on top of the next symbol. A few minutes later, the liquid turned purple.

Master had us practice the drawing of the alchemic patterns as well as the measurements for the potion. Then she allowed us to try making one. It took me a few tries before I got the hang of heating and cooling through alchemic means, but eventually, I had a success and with it, my very first potion. I was disappointed to see that even though he wasn't taking the lesson seriously, Roman actually made a potion on his first try.

"I guess some people just aren't cut out to be alchemists." He sneered at me in the awful weasel-like way that he'd been doing most of the day. I just rolled my eyes at him and continued on with my work. It was getting late in the day by the time the lesson ended, and I had just received a satchel full of the books that we'd used during the lesson.

"How much do I owe you for the books?" I asked Master.

"It was included in the price of the lesson." She then shooed me off of her lawn and sent me home. I was so excited to tell the group that I could now make mana potions. Laura and Tim, I'm sure, would be especially excited seeing as they use the most mana in the group. Derek came in at a close third, but I don't think I'd ever seen him actually run out of mana, which means he wasn't dependant on it to fight.

I came home feeling better than I had since before the Great Goblin incident.