Maid with Necromancy

Harmony crumpled up the latest flyer for the Association of Amateur Immortalists. It was the third one promptly distributed before the end of the first week, with her name and class ranking in big bold letters. She’d visited one to skim books that might have knowledge useful for upcoming classes.

There were no other crazy clubs or associations Harmony signed up for. She’d done a quick tour of some to check out their shadows, but left quickly if any offered her a leadership position. Keeping The Warden’s Rest as informal, in that she could show up or leave at her leisure and associate with the chosen nine from many classes had its uses. Ricort Healers Association granted private tutoring in exchange for volunteering at several clinics and hospitals they ran in the city. There she could gather knowledge that would help her hide as a healer. Other than that, she’d tag along if she had free time at one of her dungeon team’s clubs to check out more locations and maintain relationships outside of practice and the occasional tavern. Adric had reported they felt she was a tad aloof.

Understanding Stats for Progression was a lecture class split into two sections; the first half presented a historical or philosophical lesson about those aspects of a soul, and the second introduced a guest lecturer who’d talk about their personal stats and how they used them.

Practical Magicware Effects on Planar Experiences had a sign on the door that read -Off on a Learning Adventure- See you next week.

That left two classes to finish out the first week.

Alchemy - Potions and Concoctions 201 was a rarity in that it came with a book. It was more like a cookbook with recipes than a dense text, but it did have a section on basic principles and procedures she’d read three times. Hugging it to her chest, Harmony rushed off to the Aperture Science Building for it to start.

A skinny, severe-looking man with straight black hair and a withering look glared at the lass of fifteen students who stood in front of their beakers, mortars and pestles, and sets of alchemic ingredients. For what felt like the first time in a long time, the teacher’s attention was not on her.

“If it isn’t Gary Crotter. I’d recommended you not take this class after nearly failing one-oh-one. You will not get special treatment because your mother and I were friends during our first year, before your father intervened.  I’m additionally disappointed you roped your friend Don into joining you.”

“Sorry, Sir, but I am a wizarding alchemist, and this is my path.”

Instructor Verus slammed his hand on the table. “There was no question in my statement. You’re not a wizard, Gary. I certainly wouldn’t count you as an alchemist either. As for the rest of you, you’re either familiar faces or your Advisor’s guaranteed your alchemic skills. For the first five weeks of our class, we will be discussing half-step body improvement potions and how to make them.”

Here was Maekus Von Trell’s thumb on the scale. Potions, other than drinking them, she arrived with no experience. When she’d asked her advisor, he’d told her it was no more complicated than mixing cleaning supplies for a job. Yet here she was with the opportunity to gain knowledge that could tip the balance of power in her little kingdom. Common folk didn’t know of or experience having body types.  Adric admitted that acquiring one was a rare thing to try to help with his poor choice of being the mourned prince. Yet, here you could make them.

“Who here can explain the dangers of taking bad half-step potions, and the differences between man-made and dungeon-gifted ones?”

Verus ignored the pair of Gary and Don, who both had their hands raised, and picked someone else to answer. “Violet Mattingly.”

“Death, crippled progression, deformities, corruption, and persistent incurable itching are risks. Dungeon-given potions have a ninety-five percent success rate when given to people in the prime window of their post-evolution stabilization phase, before a person can gain levels again. Risks increase if given to someone outside the ideal window. Human-crafted potions are dependent on skill, purity, and fit.”

“Correct. And now that you’ve all mastered recognizing the basic precipitation and reaction elements from this book, we will begin exploring using your skills, stats, knowledge, and abilities to craft the simplest half-step type, the half-step Iron body potion. The difficulty will be crafting one with a purity high enough to pass. In six weeks, two of the three rats we test on will need to survive for you to continue on in this class. Survive all the tests after, and in class 301 you’ll get access to the library to help craft a half-step potion from scratch.”

For the benefit of everyone, Instructor Verus performed the base crafting of the half-step iron body potion, sifting rust into purified water, adding the local catalyst of powdered control gems, measured amounts of three soul-binding agents, and swirling gently until sparks of magic bloomed in the flask. Placing his demonstration on a testing stone, the number 17% showed up above it, projected by magic.

“This tool only gives an estimate of its potential success. It is not infallible, as my average is closer to twenty percent for an unmodified potion; all the poor-quality potions students have evaluated with it tend to skew the percentage lower for everyone. If you manage this much while using skills for the first time, I would be shocked. Next week, I’ll talk about how to use your skills to encourage the right reaction to build a better result. Each class, you get the time for three tries.”

[Recall] combined the best practices of the book with the precise movements of the instructor as Harmony made her first pass. She linked those memories to [Style and Grace] and [Poise and Bearing] to create a more accurate mimicry of Varus, by only focusing on the movement and not magically influencing the outcome.

10% was disappointing.

“Your movements were near flawless, [Mimicry] or [Body Doubling]?” Verus asked as he monitored all the results.

“I combine movement and memory skills.”

The curt nod held some approval. “What you failed to account for was residual movement in the fluid coming up through the vibrations on the floor. It needs to be absolutely still as the ferric essence is sifted into the water at an even pace to get full coverage. There is also a timing element because if you don’t complete it quickly enough, everything will settle and not be paired up properly; that was my fault, as I was a touch slower than normal. Got to work the rust off in more ways than one for the first week of class.”

The tip was more than enough to improve on her second attempt. Not that she could stop the students from experimenting with so much vigor that their vibrations shook the table slightly.  

With a pop, Don’s flask exploded. As if expecting it, a containment bubble encapsulated the mess as Verus marched with a snarl to the student’s table.

It was a good example of how you could overdo it with skills.

Stilling the water was only one part of the problem to solve. Both [Final Silence] and [Cold Touch] had stilling properties, but [Final Silence] could magically blunt any activation, and [Cold Touch] could change the outcome, as temperature often played a factor, which aligned with what she had managed to read before arriving at class. The way Don’s potion steamed during the pop, he might have been trying to add energy for better results.

The amount of effort to achieve stillness against the slight yet constant agitations in the room would be too much. It was better to focus on achieving the goal rather than the problem, to focus on the reason why stillness was useful.  Tossing the powered ferric essence into the air, [Dust] latched on and got to work.

She’d always hated working with liquids, as it was easier to gather the dust in a room than deal with what could be considered mud. The amount of energy to pull particulates around in dirty water was taxing, but there was a trick for creating even dispersion in liquid: you had to maintain control as you guided the particles into the water. Instructor Verus stated that she needed even distribution with no settling, and that could be achieved even if the water was moving a little in the flask.

Getting the powered control gem catalyst to do the same thing was a problem since she couldn’t release [Dust] to take over the new powder. [Stride Before The Fall] had potential, but that wasn’t a card she wanted to share liberally.  Even powered, the gem shards were grainy; a slight application of [Disintegrate] made them finer, but only a portion in case it had a less desired effect.  Harmony poured it in the way she’d seen Verus do it earlier.  Next, went in the soul-binding agents; the necromantic part of her ached to interact with those a smidge, but too many modifications would taint the progress of figuring out what improved the results. Around her, other students were making those kinds of mistakes. Don’s wasn’t the only accident that needed cleanup.

Soul sight showed a level of interaction as the quasi-fluidic substance matched with the catalyst and parts of the suspended rust. Magic sparked, and Harmony worked on understanding why they merged into the fluid and a new state of existence in one case but not others.  The process continued, but slowed in the potion. She maintained the diffusion and watched as the two specs, ferric and crystal, fuse in the liquid as the soul-binding agents nudged it away to the point where [Dust] no longer had control of a particle.

Other students were onto their third and final one as Harmony waited for that feeling of completion to end. There would be no time to craft a third one for the class. The strain of maintaining her skill finally gave out from exhaustion. It was like she’d cleaned a whole manor filled with dirty slobs.  [Renew Spirit] soothed it some, but it would be useless the rest of the day.

Harmony took her result to the grading station, 32%.

“Looks like we have a well-tutored Tertiary, students. I want you all to note how much longer it took her to get this result. During each class, you’ll have time to technically make three rudimentary potions. Actually getting a usable one will take all the time you have. Usually, it’s the second or third week when I get to make this point in my lessons, congratulations, student White.”

He set her up. All she did was listen to his advice. While a teacher should set up students for success, setting her on the path to be an example felt underhanded. He could have simply given this information to students.

Gary and Don abandoned their last disaster of a potion to approach. “Interested in being the brainy girl, willing to help two hapless wizards at this crazy, magical school get better at potions?”

Harmony started with a glare that was going to be followed by a nope.

“I’ll pay,” Gary added.

The trips into Oorty’s tomb hit a limit on earnings the last two nights, and recovery sleep was needed. Instead of no, she asked, “How much?”

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