Chapter Forty-Five
Archenite scales, Taric Root, Charis liver, and fairy ash. This will be the combination that works! Positive vibes amid broken glassware. Despite several failures today, Harmony had saved this batch to use all the insights she’d gained.
Forcing herself on the reaction wasn’t the answer. Neither was using the sickle to siphon off all the ingredients' aggressive agency. Like the council meeting at the Association of Amateur Immortalists, this was a negotiation, but one where she held the power.
Bellwether got the Immortalists' research vault reopened for new research. The notes sealed within were under her purview, yet another thing to look at. Milwep balked at the cost, but once Harmony agreed to use the association funds to refurbish the manor's living quarters, he caved in. Something about a leaky magical chamberpot.
Volunteering a chunk of her own funds had helped smooth over both their reactions to the dent in association resources, as for decades the fund was more sieve than a pool being filled. Both had a fit at the idea of actually holding a fundraiser, inviting all the alumni to a ball. Mostly due to the costs. Lady Coodly had run many; she knew it cost money to raise money. Rigid old bastards. She was going to have to demonstrate the method and put a knife in the idea for later if there was going to be any true revival of the association into anything useful for her.
But, in the same way as she dealt with those folk set in their ways, working with ingredients required a deft touch and open mind. Each of these little monsters wanted some role to play in the spiritual realm when interacting with the soul. In this case, very specifically, Tasha’s. The treatment of the ingredients with the redhead’s personal essence brought reactions she had mapped out. Archenite scales floated, Teric roots pulsed, growing and contracting, and they had synergy and connections she could play with; all without too many conflicts.
Harmony looked at the blue liquid in the beaker. The Tasha attuned purified water was the other change for this round of work. It had cost her most of her volunteer tokens from the Healer’s association to find and then talk to the right person about baking a single target-specific potion. A task that had required a metal barrel filled with the potion solution and an auramancer to attune it to the girl. Adric practically had to kidnap the girl, even if it was for her own good.
To do this, she’d abandoned the idea of a universal way to make half-step potions as an option for these days. She could spend any spare class time after Tasha’s deadline doing that. No, she wanted success, and Medicinaire Fluet had confirmed that targeted potions increased quality for that one person, by only about 10%, but for something like a half-step potion, it would matter. You didn’t clean the whole house when the guests were only visiting the drawing room.
Gareth would have called all these adjustments hedging bets, but Harmony didn’t want to gamble; she wanted to know she’d be successful even at the cost of burning more resources and taking more risks. What she needed was a ringer. The hint of where she could find one hadn’t even been in Bellwether’s section, supposedly about alchemy, but on the page after, a single line. “Curses slide through the soul, body, and mind with ease. Traditional barriers are useless. A legacy of the shattered fables we come from as much as the gods.” At least the true believer had been right about inspiration, even if he’d had her looking in the wrong direction.
She’d played with the initial sample of dead curses from Curie’s class in her spare time, but this experiment required more, and the material processed closer to that of a soul-binding agent. A risk, and when she used it on poorly compatible resources, they’d produced poor-quality success with forty to fifty percent viable half-step potions. Not enough to pass the class or help Tasha, but maybe it was the edge she needed? It didn’t even look much more than a slightly different shade in all her sights than normal soul-binding agents. No active curses remained. It should be safe. So if she used it here with the right ingredients, attuned base, and negotiation…
Getting the samples had been a mess this morning. Starting with the fact that Houte had called out sick. A risky thing when Hexio Curie liked to flunk students, but his unique way of bringing out curses was keeping the woman entertained. Harmony had planned to ambush him about the Iron Prisoner Key mess, and now she’d have to find the time to hunt him down. As much as the third-year primus annoyed her, he was the next best student at taking down curses in the prisoners brought out for the occasion.
Calling the prisoner doomed to fail was putting it nicely; Curie gave them a tough one, and he was dead on arrival. With how rare it was to get a dead body or a living one that was about to die to practice on, Harmony took some risks. Time to see how much she’d screwed up.
Nearly every one of these prisoners had half-step iron bodies. She’d played around in them, living, dead, and dying enough that she felt more than familiar with the monster lurking inside their soul. They tasted like Oorty’s tomb. And with the right ingredients, birthed one into a guaranteed existence.
As the organs failed, Jasper used his temporal magic to try to keep the man alive while the twins chased minor curses with their needles, Harmony abandoned spearing curses with her sickle and grabbed past the almost dead man's heart and into his soul. “Come out, come out wherever you are?” And yanked, while using [Renew Spirit] to boost that monstrous side of his soul that powered the man’s half-step body.
It wasn’t too dissimilar from what she did to Alex as he was sprawled on the student-housing makeshift operating table. Then she’d tried to get his souls more in balance so the two halves could talk. This time, Harmony didn’t care about balance. She actually couldn’t pull it that far out of equilibrium because it was the man’s body, container, and soul. To do this to Alex, it would take but a nudge.
The high-pitched screams shifted to a tinny tone with a hint of static. Blood and muscle turned to metal, as tendons warped to the elastic bands the dungeon monsters had.
The twins jumped back with their needles embedded in metallic flesh.
Jasper stumbled back and threw up.
The child murderer didn’t exactly change into one of Oorty’s Tomb guards. Skills and curses still ran through his body. Though those dependent on flesh withered in the new hostile environment, a few curses thrived, interestingly. The effect had disrupted whatever restraints Curie had on him, so he thrashed but not in the get out and try to escape way. He suffocated slowly from the shift, as he still had a brain, but nothing was feeding it. One metal man without a brain was better than one with?
That created an unacceptable situation for collecting samples. “Back!” She ordered as she dented the man’s chest, pressing into his soul and heart.
The reversion was less pretty. With all the curses, the body barely knew what to return to, creating more of a mottled lump of whistling twisted flesh than a man. That’s bad. Watching the direction the transformation continued toward, based on how the container, soul, and internal structures folded together as it hit the man’s outward appearance, would create an even more unacceptable image she’d be associated with. Nope. Harmony cut off the man’s head, ending it.
“What in all the forbidden acts was that!” Jasper screamed, his voice hoarse from throwing up.
Hexio Curie, who looked more active and aware than Harmony had ever seen, stepped beside her, helping shield the mess from the other students who’d only caught glimpses. “Student White was trying to save his life with extreme measures. She showed the kind of inspired inspiration I look for every year when accepting students into this class. She called upon the man’s own defenses to help save him in a way I’ve never seen before. And I must say I’ve been lenient with this quarter’s class. You all knew the risk when signing up. Jasper, your time in my class has come to an end. Luxin and Lumin, your time has come as well. You’re all welcome to try again next quarter, but know the dedication required of you. Curses are our ancestors' nightmares, the things that broke our home realities.”
Jasper pulled off his blood and puke-stained jacket and threw it on the ground, and stomped out. He’d actually been her best shot at tracking down Houte, but it probably wasn’t best to approach him now. The twins gave a little bow, looking more relieved than anything, and shuffled out.
That had left Harmony alone with Curie. “Harmony, Harmony, Harmony, is this what a revivalist is? If I live long enough. You might be able to save my life.”
Before, she only had the madwoman’s slight interest, but now Harmony knew she had Curie’s full attention. What to say? What to do? [Poise and Bearing] kept a calm face. [Keen Investigative Awareness] never was able to get a good read on the woman. “May you live a hundred more years.”
That created an awkwardly long time stand through, as the Hexologist laughed at that, but it allowed Harmony to think about what she’d learned from the session. Standing patiently while people were being ridiculous was a well-trained skill after all. If she could do it when a shirtless Tyler, back when he was a bit tubbier, got on a rant about his newest acquisition, she could do it now. The monsters were real, and she’d probably messed Alex up a smidge. Both were valuable bits of information.
“I have to go take some notes. Go clean up this mess.” Curie finished after she ended her laughter.
If she hadn’t learned that the lab kept track of the mass that went in the furnace, Harmony would have been tempted to steal some pieces. There were allowances for the copious fluid loss, so she was able to collect the samples she needed before she’d finished with disposal.
And all of that experience led her to the here and now of making the Tasha her half-step potion. Reverting to the textbook method of ordering based on alchemical density, Harmony added the ingredients to the attuned solution. Each of these had been used in failures, allowing her to piece together more of what was needed. The scales dissolved into ribbons of thready metal, but the longest ones slipped past the soul barrier to be incorporated. She needed to manipulate the metal in each scale to extrude out as one long thread. [Manipulate Dead] worked hard there. The roots needed to have their cells filled like a sponge until they burst. [Disintegrate] weakened barriers. The liver processed the ash, and it was the combination that made it through.
A dash of the personalized soul-binding agent milked from the woman herself. “Olivia, Bailey, Trixie,” Harmony muttered more of the names she’d learned while gathering the stuff to honor Tasha, because this was necromancy and she could start that bloody dialog with the spirit of the ingredients.
With [Shadowed Graves], she allowed the fears to guide their desires as she muttered with a hint of authority. “You’ll make her fly. You’ll make her see. She’ll get the body that was meant to be.” It felt like she was as mad as Curie, chanting a spell, but like at the negotiating table, being silent got you nothing. Perhaps there was a method to the hexologist's madness as well? The curse-cured soul-binding agent went in last.
“You can ashing do it. I’m guaranteed.” Harmony extended that layer of control of reality she’d cultivated around her through the potion. It also let the materials into her domain, which was risky, but she was in charge.
Sparks started to fly, and the flask rattled in her hand. A monster was forming. [Cold Touch] and the Authority of who she was and the space she occupied with her class and profession reached out. “Heel.” She ordered. The liquid turned into a silvery shade of green. [Analyze] showed the results.
A potion assured to give Tasha Wainright a unique body type.
Congratulations! You’ve earned the title: Uniques II
Your mistakes are more likely to be unrepeatable successes - upgradable.
Doing it once didn’t get you a title, but creating two unique items did? And who makes mistakes on purpose? This wasn’t a mistake; she'd had a solid goal with a solid plan and accomplished it. With a slow breath, Harmony let go of the frustration. Questioning how you saw the world when it was presented to you was madness, be it in your choice, status, or announcements like this. And she’d had her fill of mad today. This was a victory. She’d done it and with a day to spare.
One short trip later. Tasha stared at the potion sitting on the table that Harmony had brought for her. “You seriously have to be wrecking insane to expect me to drink that!”