Mist of Shadows
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Traveling Magic Shop Part 6
🕑 Added 2024-03-26 04:09:16 +0000 UTC"Found him," Beth teased as she walked around the corner and spotted Myst walking towards a wooden door with the words 'Alchemy Lab, Invitation Only!' written on a wooden plaque above the door.
"He got further than I thought he would," Amy admitted as they walked over to join him.
"Funny," Myst replied as he turned to look at the girls that were wearing knee length skirts, boots and long sleeve shirts and had their hair pulled back in ponytails. 'Still gorgeous,' he mused as he glanced at the briefcase sized wooden case that Amy was carrying, wondering if it was larger on the inside as it didn't look large enough to carry a bunch of supplies. "You're the one that suggested I head down here while you got dressed and finished sorting the supplies."
"That's because you're worse than an old man with a walker," Amy replied without hesitation, giving him a smile to soften the 'blow' to his ego.
"That's fair," Myst admitted. "Do we have an actual plan?"
"Yep," Amy replied with a grin.
"Are you going to share?" Myst asked as Beth used her amulet to open the door, revealing a lab that looked like a combination of a mad scientist's lab and a modern chemistry lab as the glassware looked like things you'd find in a movie while the rest of it looked like something you'd find in a college chemistry lab, if you ignored the fact that all of the fume hoods that were in use appeared to be glowing green and weren't making noise. 'Safety first,' he mused when he realized that all of the students were wearing goggles, pants or long skirts, shirts and lab coats with a couple of students wearing heavy leather aprons on top of the rest of their safety equipment.
"Grab a lab coat and goggles," a girl with a staff badge on her lab coat ordered as she walked over, wanting to make sure the new people knew the rules.
"No problem," Beth replied as she grabbed three lab coats from the rack and handed one to Myst and Amy.
"Any rules we should be aware of?" Myst asked, having been in enough labs over the years to know that every lab had different rules.
"Rule one, wear the safety equipment," she stated as she pointed towards the rack with lab coats and shelves that held goggles. "Rule two, don't fuck around. Rule three, always turn the fume hoods on, we don't need the fumes mixing and causing an explosion that turns people into bunnies and melts their left arms off."
"That seems like a suspiciously specific example," Beth mused as she finished putting her coat on and grabbed a pair of goggles.
"We lost a couple of tenants a couple of years ago because they 'forgot' to turn on the fume hoods while they were working on a project. I'm still not sure what the bastards were working on or how they managed to fuck things up but the lab was closed for three days while a team from the college cleaned everything up and collected their notes," she complained.
"Were the healers able to fix it?" Amy asked as she worked on putting a pair of goggles on.
"They managed to turn them back into humans but the idiots lost a couple of weeks of memories so they don't have a clue what they were working on," she explained. "Rule four, no eating or drinking in the lab, that includes potions. Rule five, if you're planning on modifying recipes, you need to clear the modifications with a lab tech unless you have a certificate from a competent university and no, we don't accept a certificate from the Miskatonic University without proof that you're currently sane."
"Makes sense," Myst agreed, wondering why the hell anyone would name their university after the lunatics in Lovecraft's world.
"Anything else?" Amy asked as she finished adjusting her goggles.
"You can find a full list on the wall but everything else basically goes back to Rule Two, don't fuck around," the young woman explained. "Now that I've covered the rules, what are you going to be working on?"
"Mana potions, I have a couple of recipes from the shop and a couple of family recipes that I'd like to compare," Amy explained.
"Family recipes? Does anyone in your family have an actual degree in alchemy?" she asked, thinking about some of the family recipes she'd seen over the last couple of years that were suspect at best.
Amy nodded. "My grandmother graduated from the Darkholme School of Eldritch Sorcery, my mother graduated from the local university."
The staff girl relaxed when she realized that her family recipes were probably legit. "Cool. Feel free to use table eight. Just tap the fume hood to start it."
"Kara, can I get you to look at this?" one of the guys that was standing at a table called out.
"Just a second!" the staff girl replied as she handed a clipboard to Amy. "Read and sign, you can leave it on the counter."
Amy glanced over the rather short contract then signed it and handed it to Beth. "I'll get started."
"Cool," Beth replied as she skimmed the contract, not seeing anything questionable in the contract, basically saying that you were responsible for making sure everything was clean before you started. She double checked everything then signed her name on the first empty line and handed the clipboard to Myst.
"Thanks," Myst replied as he started reading the contract, 'By signing this you agreed that the Blackstone Group isn't responsible for ensuring the quality or cleanliness of the lab or the lab equipment, though we will certainly try. You also agree that we're not responsible for random acts of stupidity on your fellow students' part though we'll certainly try to limit it. I understand that breaking the rules can result in legal actions or a visit from the Blackstone Group's combat duelist for particularly flagrant rule violations.'
'Seems pretty typical,' he mused as he checked to make sure there wasn't anything written on the back of the page. He checked the contract with his Upgrade power then signed it when he realized that it was just a mundane contract, putting his name on the next empty line. He set the clipboard on the counter and followed the girls over to the table that was under the glowing green fume hood with a large number 8 printed on the side where Amy was setting things up. "How do we start?"
"We'll start with the recipe that comes in my intro to Alchemy book, it's easy enough that a six year old could make it," Amy replied as she handed him the printed recipe and started filling a cauldron with water from the tap.
Myst stared at the list filled with questionable ingredients. "Add one gallon of water to a cauldron, place it over heat source, once it boils add two pinches of chopped up mint, three drams of moonlight, seven shredded rose petals, one crushed garlic clove and nine splashes of fire water then stir twenty seven and a half times?"
"Easy enough," Beth said as she worked on getting the ingredients ready.
"Right, how much is a pinch? Or a dram? Do you need full sized rose petals? Does the size of the garlic clove matter? What counts as a splash?" Myst asked, wondering if this was how some of the Gryffindors felt when they stepped into potions and Snape just tossed them at a cauldron.
"A pinch is a pinch," Amy replied with a shrug. "A dram is a unit of measurement for weight. I'm pretty sure the recipe would say if they wanted small rose petals and I'm not sure on the garlic clove, it shouldn't matter enough to ruin the recipe."
"This isn't science, this is cooking," Myst grumbled as he watched Beth pull a vial of sparkling dust out of Amy's briefcase and start carefully weighing it with an old fashioned scale. "What is that?"
"Powdered moonlight," Beth replied.
"How do they powder moonlight?" Myst asked, wondering if someone had managed to turn moonlight into a physical dust or if it was another name for some type of ground up gemstone.
"No clue," Beth admitted. "We'll probably learn that in one of the advanced classes."
"Hopefully," Myst mused as he opened the alchemy book, curious if he could find an actual description of their units of measurement.
Amy grinned as she worked on measuring the liquid fire into a glass container, thinking about her mother's rants on the same subject. "Relax, unlike enchanting, mixing potions is more science than art, you don't need to know where the ingredients come from, you just have to follow the directions."
"I don't think that's as reassuring as you think it is," Myst told her, glad that his upgrade ability would let him make sure the potions were safe before he drank them.
"How about, I haven't turned anyone purple in years?" Amy asked, thinking about the time one of her potions had turned the family dog purple when she'd been first learning alchemy from her grandmother.
"How much are the professional potions?" Myst asked, only half joking.
Amy shrugged. "About double what I spent on the supplies and we'll probably get fifty potions out of the supplies that I bought."
"Why are they so expensive?" Myst asked, surprised that there was that much of a markup.
"The guild tests each batch and they hire professionals. The professional potions are also guaranteed to have a certain quality and they use a more expensive recipe that results in faster mana absorption, dropping the time you need to absorb the mana from a minute for the basic potion to a couple of seconds with the combat grade potions the shops sell," Amy explained.
"I'm guessing the low grade potions don't have enough of a market?" Myst asked.
Amy shook her head. "You'd still have to hire professionals because of regulations and run the tests so you're looking at something that would cost three quarters as much as the combat potions and most people aren't going to pay that much when they can brew it themselves for a fraction of the cost or buy the better version for just a little bit more."
"I can't say I blame them," Myst mused, figuring most people could drop the cost by growing their own supplies or at least the mint, garlic, and roses as he wasn't sure how hard the rest of the ingredients were to collect.
"I can't really blame the guilds for wanting to make sure everything is safe, screwing up health potions can cause some horrible side effects," Beth said, thinking about some of the stories she'd heard over the years of bad health potions.
"Makes sense," Myst agreed as he watched Beth toss a clove of garlic into a mortar and start crushing it with the pestle, making a mental note to check every potion with his Upgrade ability before he drank them.
0o0o0
"Bottoms up," Amy teased as she handed Myst one of the freshly brewed mana potions as they walked out of the alchemy lab.
Beth shook her head. "We should have tested one of them."
"It's a mana potion, this isn't the first time I've made them," Amy assured her.
Myst used his upgrade ability to check the greenish potion. "It's fine, it boosts mana regeneration four hundred and fifty seven percent for fifty seven seconds."
"I wasn't expecting your detection ability to be that precise, that would let me refine the recipes and figure out exactly what I need to change in each recipe," Amy mused, growing excited at the idea that she'd be able to figure out the perfect recipe.
"That's bullshit, you realize that, right?" Beth asked, knowing that the guild would pay a lot of money for the ability to instantly identify a potion's exact qualities.
"I'm aware," Myst replied as he popped the cork. He drank the greenish potion that tasted like garlic with a faint minty aftertaste that quickly turned unpleasant as the rest of the flavors overpowered the mint. "I've tasted worse but the taste needs some work."
"And that's the other reason a lot of people tweak the recipe," Amy admitted.
Myst scraped his tongue on his teeth a couple of times in a futile attempt to get the taste off his tongue then spent his available mana to boost his natural mana regeneration when he noticed his available mana quickly climbing towards his maximum. "That's going to take some getting used to."
"You get used to it," Beth lied, not even bothering to hide her smile or the fact that she was lying.
"Liar," Myst replied as they started walking back toward the lobby.
"Now and then," Beth replied with amusement.
"Can I bribe you to check the rest of the potions so I can take notes?" Amy asked hopefully.
"Sure," Myst replied as he spent his available mana to increase his natural mana pool's maximum, finding it cheaper than the mana pool that came from his warlock deal or his total available mana pool. 'It's probably cheaper because the pool I get from being a warlock is larger. Does this mean increasing my strength would be easier if I had something that boosted strength?'
'It's worth a shot once I boost it to the point I don't feel like a cripple,' he mused as he paid the mana to boost his current strength a couple of points, causing him to stand up a bit straighter now that just holding himself upright wasn't a struggle. 'I'm going to need a couple of potions but I should have everything fixed in a couple of hours, then it's just a matter of finding my classes and dealing with six classes without going insane. Maybe Ron had the right idea, toss in a couple of classes that don't matter every quarter.'
'No, any sentence that starts with Ron was right needs to be reevaluated,' Myst told himself as he followed the girls. He spent some mana on increasing his stamina regeneration then dropped the rest into increasing his mana regeneration, knowing the potion would boost it, giving him more mana to use to increase his abilities.
0o0o0
"And so Myst used the power of Alchemy to break his curse and they had a party," Lyanna told Rose, glad that the next couple of pictures just showed Myst and the girls were tame compared to the rather lurid descriptions about Myst having sex with the girls just about everywhere in the apartment once he'd fixed his health issues.
"You skipped a couple of pages and you didn't do the voices," Rose complained.
Lyanna scrunched up her face, doing her best not to start laughing at the adorable glare Rose was giving her. "That's because he was kissing his roommates, do you really want to read about mushy stuff?"
"No," Harry complained.
"Yes," Rose replied without hesitation.
"You're outvoted, two to one," Lyanna said as she quickly skimmed the next couple of pages that talked about Myst's Dimensionalism class, wanting to make sure it was fit for children. She frowned and quickly flipped the page when she saw a picture of a fat man fucking a demon girl. 'Yeah, I'm not explaining that the teacher is a pervert and just summons demons so he can fuck them,' she thought as she flipped through the next couple of pages, not showing the children as they'd gotten a bit graphic.
"Not fair," Rose complained.
"There was a lot of tickling and some kissing, not exactly what you'd expect from a knight on his best behavior," Lyanna teased, blurting out the first thing that came to her.
"He's not a knight, he's a wizard," Harry argued.
"Fair," Lyanna agreed as she tried to figure out how to sum up the rest of the story in a way that was remotely child friendly as Myst had spent most of his time exploring the city when he wasn't in classes or having sex with Amy and Beth. "Let's see, his Dimensionalism class involves teleporting objects and warping space."
"Myst is better, he does the voices," Rose pointed out.
"Tell you what, I'll finish reading the story myself then Myst can read the rest of the story to you when he gets back, how's that?" Lyanna asked, jumping at the chance to toss him under the wagon and let him come up with a nice way to explain his adventures.
"Let's go watch the card games," Harry suggested, wanting to get back to watching the card games if she was just going to skip entire sections of the book.
"Okay," Rose agreed, knowing Myst would tell the story better.
"Sorry," Lyanna offered as the children left, not sure how to dance around the fact that just about all of Myst's classes and activities involved sex or adult subjects in some fashion. She smiled as she flipped back to the start of the section she'd skipped and went back to reading about his misadventures with his Curses class.
0o0o0
"Ooh!" Lyanna blurted out when she got through the pages talking about Myst's classes and saw a picture of Amy kissing a naked girl that could have been her younger sister under a sprig of mistletoe that also had her hand on her sister's behind. 'Naughty girl, hopefully Myst figured out how to share memories,' she thought as she read about Amy fucking her younger sister on her desk while everyone watched during the holidays.
She enjoyed reading the rest of the chapter then quickly read through the rest of the story, finding herself remembering some of her own lessons from school. "He took his last final and spent the weekend with the girls…" she trailed off as Myst reappeared, dressed just the way he'd left but looking a bit younger, more muscular and carrying a leather book bag. "How was it?"
"Better than I was expecting," Myst replied with a smile, relieved that everything had worked out and that he wasn't trapped in a book. "The teachers were fantastic and the warlock pact came with a decent amount of talent."
"Do you still have your powers?" Lyanna asked.
Myst sighed in relief when he checked his abilities with his Upgrade power and found everything where it should be. "Everything's fine. Where are Rose and Harry?"
"I wasn't doing the voices and I was skipping pages so they left," Lyanna admitted.
"How much did you catch?" Myst asked, not surprised that she'd had to skip a couple of pages here and there since the town was basically straight out of a hentai.
Lyanna handed him the book. "Enough to know that your roommates were perverts."
"Without a doubt," Myst replied with a pleased smile as he skimmed through the book, curious which adventures and classes it had covered.
"Mother is wondering where you've been," Eddard said as he walked over.
Lyanna turned to look at her brother. "I've been reading."
"We're going to be late if we don't hurry," he said.
"I'll see you around," Lyanna told Myst then turned and left with her brother.
"Have fun," Myst told her, wondering if she'd be back before they left for the tournament so that he could spend another year learning magic with Amy and Beth. He quickly skimmed over the rest of the book then went to check on the main room, trying to come up with ways to explain his adventures that wouldn't disgust the children.
Comments
Mist of Shadows
I wanted to set things up for his magic before I got back to playing shop keeper.
Kirsendarken
Thanks for the chapter! As much as the school diversion was interesting, I'm kinda glad we're returning to the shop for a bit. I haven't had much luck finding good shopkeeper stories (any recs you might have would be appreciated :) ) and I was getting worried that that part of the story was being put aside. Should have known better then to doubt the Mist!
