D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad - Chapter 2026 Secret Poisons Part 2
Chapter 2026: Chapter 2026 Secret Poisons Part 2
— Kat —
Kat and Lily went from room to room investigating. Appoline had dozens of the things. They were all roughly the same size but it felt like too much for a normal person. Most rooms started to blend together. Some basic space for ingredient prep, a device or two used in specific alchemical processes, and some liquid ingredients stored in the room. Lily was sure they consisted of the various common alchemical bases… or at least the ones Appoline commonly used. Lily had a feeling that they were more poison attuned then standard. Though perhaps not completely.
That was something Lily didn’t quite understand yet. Was a healing potion medicine? For ’Medicine in any other dose is a poison’ but alchemy and magic tended to run on the conceptual instead. Conceptually, a poison and a medicine were diametrically opposed but linked. It was likely possible to make a healing potion of some kind with a poisonous base… but was that how most people managed it?
Lily was unsure and the desire to go back to the room filled with notes and alchemy books grew stronger. [I guess I know what I want to ask Thyme for when we win. A bunch of books on magic and alchemy and probably enchanting too.]
*From my understanding, most people spend a lifetime, or at least a mortal one, focused on just one crafting discipline. Sometimes just a SPECIFIC part of that crafting discipline… and you want a bunch of info from two? Plus your magical affinities? Doesn’t that seem like a lot?*
[Yes… but it’s also something that I have those lifetimes to do. I also just want to check out the basics in them all. Well, not my personal magic but you know what I mean. The idea is to find which one I’m the best at, and focus on that. Though… knowing the basics would be useful for stuff like this as well.]
*Think I should pick one up?*
[I mean… probably at some point but I’m not going to rush you. I enjoy learning, it’s fun for me. It might be fun for you to… let’s just say, get into blacksmithing but I know you don’t share the same love of learning.]
*Right, but I DO love spending time with you. So maybe we can-* Kat’s train of thought was cut off as they entered the next room. It was the potion storage room… but calling it that didn’t do it justice. The moment Kat’s gaze entered into the room, she could almost understand why someone would want to create thousands of deadly poisons.
Inside the room potions were placed on various racks. For more common things they were at a slight angle and set against the wall so you could simply grab the potions from their spot and another would fill their place. Others, more singular examples, were held aloft in a stack of potions reaching all the way up to the ceiling. Some had multiple copies of themselves all in a line, but others were singular existences.
While that was all fascinating from a technical level, and admiration for the sheer number of bottles stored in this room was one thing… that wasn’t all. Even ignoring the fact this room wasn’t like the others. It was no small storage room. It extended FAR into the distance making Kat wonder if it was larger then every other room put together. It also, contained a shocking amount of beauty.
The various potion bottles almost all glowed. Appoline had set it up so that the ones that needed the dark were surrounded by potions that glowed on their own. Putting out different intensities of light all on their own. There was one particularly fascinating bottle that looked like it contained blue bubbles that glowed against a dark purple liquid that would occasionally mix together creating a bright yellow before dispersing back into one of the two other colours.
Another bottle looked like the it contained liquid gemstones. It was set close to the wall and had a light set directly behind it, allowing for the shapes to dance along the adjacent bottles. There were actually a few colours of this one. A blue, a red, and a purple. But only those three and they were all STUNNING to view. Later on in the hall was a black liquid with sparkles that made it look like someone had stolen and bottled the night sky. Another was still bubbling even though it was sealed and aware from a source of heat… and those bubbles were little skulls that rose up.
It showed that, for all that alchemy liked to wear the same lab coats and facemasks as a chemist and pretend it was a very rigid science… it was an artform. Even poisons could be beautiful and creating such varied things was the work of a lifetime. Kat wondered how long it had taken Appoline to make all of these… or if she even had at all.
*Do we… just leave?*
[Why?]
*I don’t know if we can find anything useful here. None of it is labelled and… it sort of feels wrong to even think about disturbing these. Sure, she has some potions that are organised by the dozens alongside the singular creations… but I think, even if she is evil, I feel kind of bad being in here you know?*
[Yeah it’s weird but I do agree with you. Let’s just… maybe come back if we have time? I have no idea where I’d even start when it comes to trying to figure out what potions here would be useful. Either to us, or as evidence.]
Kat and Lily left the storage room and checked through a few other potion making rooms before coming across something else interesting. It was one of the more standard rooms but what was useful was that Appoline had left a letter out next to the potion setup. The pair made their way over swiftly and started to read.
“I just need to get this out of my mind or I’m going to SCREAM. Sugerplum continues to be the most infuriating genius of this generation. They have amazing skills and working together I’m sure we could make unthinkable potions. Their ability to create potions that enact esoteric consequences on their targets is phenomenal. While I’m unsure about some of them, like the one for turning sapients into ducks temporarily…
Other make me wonder if they even know what they’re doing or of it’s all just fools luck. Take my recent investigations into the ’Hair Change’ potion and my current frustrations as examples. This is a potion that, as Sugarplum intended it, swaps the colour of the your hair. That’s how they described it…
But that is MASSIVELY downplaying the complexity of this potion. It specifically only targets the hair on the head. Not anywhere else. Not the arms. Not sensitive areas. Not eyebrows and eyelashes. Though with that last one there is a slight variation you can add to include them.
Which is what sent me down is ridiculous rabbit hole. Sugarplum has created a potion capable of completely changing the appearance of someone else. A few tweaks to the formula that I barely understand and you can look like a whole other person. Granted, the heights need to be similar, but that’s hardly a limitation at all when considering this is being sold to me as GLORIFIED HAIR DYE!
Because. No. This doesn’t DYE the hair a certain colour. It REPLACES YOUR HAIR with that same colour. It is in fact PERMANENT unless you take the antidote. Something Sugarplum failed to mention in their initial letters. With how easy it was for me to reverse engineer a full body changing potion from this, I can only conclude they started with it because I still don’t quite understand half of the steps needed to create such a thing.
I simply cannot understand what Sugarplums goal is. Nor their true skill level. One moment they seem like a full and the next they casually drop this off not a week after their previous breakthrough. Sure I made similarly large leaps in alchemy when I was an apprentice but I was simply creating poisons with unique ingredients not completely altering a person FOR A JOKE.
The temptation to put some contact poison on the next letter I send to Sugarplum continues to climb. Of course doing such a thing would rob the world of an alchemic genius and I am loathe to remove such a force from the world. If only they made more sense! Are they some ancient master making fun of me? Is this some sort of test? Are they attempting to sway me from my path of poison? I simply do not. Cannot know at this point. Even that one in person meeting we had clarified nothing.
So now I’m left wondering what to do with the potion. Both versions. I’ve already used a few doses for test runs to help with my… other ’projects’ but do I want to share the more advanced version? Is that something I’m comfortable with? It seems like far too much attention and it’s a pain in my ass to make. I’d hate to be forced by the guild or the family to make more of them.
Perhaps-”
Whatever was meant to be written after the ’perhaps’ was missing. The pen was gently resting besides the note where Appoline had left it. *Well. This complicates matters.*
