D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad - Chapter 2094 Bottling Magic Part 3

Chapter 2094: Chapter 2094 Bottling Magic Part 3

— Kat —

Appoline immediately got back to work on the potions. The cauldron was quickly cleaned but the things she removed from the cauldron were stored in their own jars, perhaps with the idea that they might be useful in the future. Once everything was clean Appoline got started on the next round brewing. The potion started off the same but the ingredients went in with a different order and a few of them were swapped out entirely.

When they started to approach the ending the potion took shape in a rather weird way. Instead of sucking itself into the centre it now sat pressed against the bottom of the cauldron, even going so far as to leave a layer of pure water bubbling away on top of it. “What the fuck?” mumbled Tweedle.

“Yeah this is not at all what I planned… how did it end up like this?” considered Appoline.

“What? Can’t even understand your own brewing?” sneered Fred.

Appoline turned an unimpressed gaze over to the idiot and asked, “Alright, how many potions have you developed from scratch? Actually no. How many recipes have you changed in more than small ways? No little optimisations,”

“What… err… dozens easily,” said Fred slightly uncertain. It was also a lie.

“I’ve created hundreds of unique potions. Not alterations, though I’ve done that too. I’ve created over a thousand unique potions in my lifetime. The fact that you think I don’t understand my brewing? It’s ridiculous,” stabbed Appoline, her words like daggers thrown at Fred. Notably, unlike the idiot, she wasn’t lying.

Fred flushed and looked away slightly but still managed to ask, “If that’s the case then we don’t you understand how your potion ended up like that?”

Appoline sighed, “Just because I don’t understand immediately doesn’t mean I don’t have some guesses I can make, nor that I can’t puzzle it out. Though yes I am surprised. I used ingredients intended to further strengthen the wind aspects in the potion in an attempt to make it both more likely to float and more likely to grasp at things from the air. This… might clean out the water supply? Maybe?”

Tweedle, deciding she was interested, broached the question. “What do you think caused the issue?”

“Hmmm… I may have used too many roots its creation. While I did add ingredients aligned with the wind they weren’t always the parts that float. That was intentional as I didn’t simply want the potion to disperse and refused to reform. That would just add more gunk to the air. Still… yes I’ll seal this for the moment and we can test it on a contaminated water source later. If I remember correctly there should be quite a few heavily poisoned ponds correct? Where the plants were?” said Appoline.

Kat nodded along as Appoline started to bottle the potion. She had to remove the water first, and simply siphoned that into a nearby bucket before using a few potion bottles to store the stuff at the bottom. It was really weird. It seemed to resist going into the bottle until a certain, luckily small, percentage ended up inside and then the rest immediately flowed inside.

“How come the potion doesn’t react to being put in those glass bottles?” asked Kat.

“They’re a bit special. A lot of potions work just fine in glass bottles, for some reason it contains the magic well, keeping it locked inside without absorbing it like if they were say… wooden barrels. Though sometimes you need special glass or enchanted stuff. These are just normal glass though,” explained Appoline.

“Fair enough,” accepted Kat with a shrug.

Once the bottles were finished being filled Appoline placed them on one of the emptier tables and got started on her third attempt. As it was being brewed it quickly looked to be the most promising potion so far. The inside looked like a tornado with colour being constantly sucked into the middle, there was a thick, dark blue orb that was nearly black that greedily ate in the colour as Appoline dropped new ingredients into the cauldron.

Everyone seemed excited… except Appoline. “Another failure,” she sighed.

“Wait what? But this seems… like exactly what we want?” said Tweedle, now unsure. She obviously didn’t want to counter what Appoline had said, but she also wanted to believe in her idols skill and this LOOKED great.

“Too obsessed with water this one,” sighed Appoline. “Another one that’s probably only good for cleaning up water. While I admit it does LOOK impressive and it’s close, I don’t think it can maintain its function above the water. Watch,” Appoline reached into the water with a glowing hand, ignoring the fact it was boiling to touch the orb inside the cauldron. It jiggle and threatened to destabilise somewhat but Appoline was clearly keeping it one piece.

That was until it reached the surface. As soon as the water dripped away it followed suit, immediately dispersing into an almost ink like consistency as it fell back into the water. As it did so, the scattered droplets started to attract each other, spinning around and ending up in a ring of blue looking ink. Appoline poke it a bit and it started to wobble, one wave ran around the outside, then it became two, three, four, and then it collapsed back into an orb with barely any warning. “Still excellent for the water though. And while it is a failure, I can tell I’m closer,”

Fred raised an eyebrow as if to ask ’Really?’ but he’d been burned plenty of times already and apparently Appoline’s statement wasn’t quite so outrageous. So nothing interrupted Appoline when she got started on the next round of potions. Kat could almost recognise the ingredients going in this time. She could tell that there were a few other ’core’ ingredients other then the true core. Ones that had made it in every time, and for the first time one of them was getting swapped out.

Kat was interested as the potion changed colour, then started to gain odd ripples. It seemed like it was trying to pull things to the centre, only for it to give up halfway and go silent for a bit as Appoline stirred the cauldron. This repeated a few times, and didn’t get any more violent even as the potion finished brewing.

Kat almost thought it was a failure, but Appoline had a big smile on her face. “This is the one. Well, it could perhaps use a bit more refinement, but I think this is the one!” cheered Appoline. Tweedle was making furious notes, scribbling rapidly across her notepad eyes gleaming.

Fred… he actually had a real question this time. There was still a little scorn in his voice but he was actually trying to ask something real. “What makes you so certain? It doesn’t seem as… unique as the last few.”

“Ah, but that’s why. You see, it’s not QUITE ready to suck everything up, but that’s perfect! Remember, we want to throw this into the air. Though… hmm… glass potion bottles that shatter in midair aren’t exactly standard. I might need to think about how to work this out but… archer person! Um… Kat id you ever tell me her name?” Appoline looked over at Kat with a shrug.

“I… maybe?” Kat could figure it out but she didn’t have time to double check all of her memories. Kat was going with probably. Kat glanced, deliberately, over to Hedera who was quite visible now the tent wasn’t up anymore. “Her name is Hedera,”

“Good. In that case, we can bottle this one up and have her shoot it in midair, that should work for this first batch as a test,” explained Appoline.

“Yeah I can do it,” sighed Hedera, a touch annoyed at Appoline for just assuming she would… though the faith that she could was nice. Even if it wasn’t a hard shot considering the tiny distances.

Appoline swiftly bottled the potions and they made their way over to the invisible wall keeping the poison in… only for Appoline to remember that her recent experiment was still there. Concentrated poison that had been sucked up pooled at the edge of the barrier. “Ah… let’s move off to the side a bit,” mumbled Appoline.

It didn’t take long to move a bit off to the side, Appoline readied herself, arm low so that she could lob the potion high. She glanced at Hedera and made a slight gesture upwards with her head that Hedera seemed to get because she nodded back. Appoline stepped forward, making sure her arm was just inside the space, and threw.

Hedera stepped inside, fired, and stepped immediately back out. Faster even than Appoline who acted before her. When the arrow made contact the glass bottle shattered, sending the stuff inside everywhere. There was another moment where it almost felt like it failed, but Kat had more faith this time.

Instead, after a few moments there was a scream. The spot where the glass had shattered sucked in the nearby poison deeply, it looked like a sea urchin, spikes of poison were gathering an condensing along the spikes length as they were funnelled to centre, making an awful noise all the way, but the air was clearing.