The Newt and Demon

Killing Death seemed like a goofy plan. Theo wasn’t onboard with it, but he wouldn’t vote against it if the others wanted to go through with the plan. The logistics of such a plan were bad enough. If one were to consider the implications and how this might put them out with the gods, things got even worse. But as always, Khahar had a plan that went too deep to have been thought up on the spot. The alchemist didn’t believe Death was the target of this plan originally, but it was a contingency. Then there was the vote of the gods he needed to bring along his landmass.

The group met for a few hours on Fenian’s new planet, which he had named Erradon—although he wouldn’t explain where he had come up with the name or why he settled on that one. Theo was happy to dismiss the god business. Thankfully, there were steps Khahar had to take to make the plan work. After reassurances that nothing they were doing was against the rules, the alchemist departed, depositing the various groups where they wanted to go.

“Why didn’t you make a planet with buildings already on it?” Theo asked as he and Tresk landed back home. The ground rumbled as Alex took a few steps forward.

“I wanted a blank slate,” Tresk said, wiping her hands through the air as though revealing some pristine vision.

All Theo could see was the endless swamp of her planet. But Broken Tusk had been built from the same concept. Why not an entire world for a swamp. Screw it. With the end of the world in sight, there was no one to tell them how to make their planets. Tero’gal, Tol’bak, Khahak, and Erradon were now four Throneworlds strong. Their position with the system was cemented. And they were planning to kill a god. Well, unseat one. But still.

“Should we get some food?” Theo asked. “Maybe head over to the tavern for once?”

“Sure,” Tresk said, nodding down the street. Both Sarisa and Rowan were approaching. They had seen Tresk and Theo appear as they lingered by the manor. “Let’s bring those chuckleheads along. Just gotta feed Alex first.”

Theo nodded, meeting up with Sarisa and Rowan. They looked slightly bored, but otherwise content with the current arrangement. “Dinner?”

“If that means we don’t need to cook,” Sarisa said, clapping with excitement. “Then, yes!”

“Is he still sleeping in the garden?” Theo asked.

“Sometimes. Depends on how sensitive he is,” Sarisa said, giving her brother a playful punch in the arm.

“Tresk visits me every single night if I use the baby version of the Dreamwalk,” Rowan said. He certainly looked tired.

After Tresk put Alex down in her stable for the night, the group headed for the Marsh Wolf Tavern. It was packed, as always. But Xam had done a few things to relieve the long wait times for tables. Leveling the building and creating expansions went a long way to help with that. Increasing the number of servers and even hiring another cook helped even more. It didn’t help that traders enjoyed using the tavern while they were in town to have a nice bed to sleep in. That only increased how packed the place was.

The group settled in at the private booth. Theo’s eyes lingered on the small nesting box Xam had built for Alex. The goose-dragon wouldn’t have a chance of fitting in there now. She wasn’t likely to fit into any part of the building, and it was only getting worse. Before long, she wouldn’t even fit in her own barn. A sad story, but that was the life of a dragon-goose.

Before long, a server came and set four plates on the table. It was a take on a Broken Tusk classic. The standard wolf meat stew had been reduced down from thick broth to a goopy gravy. That was poured over straight, flat noodles and garnished with green vegetation and shredded cheese. The entire pile was topped with a glob of white cream.

“Her dishes are getting more complex,” Theo said, mixing the food before him. Tresk did the same. When it was all mixed up, he watched in horror as she… ate like a normal person. “Are you okay?”

“Better than ever. Why?”

“You haven’t tipped the entire plate into your open gob,” Theo said. “Are you sure you don’t have a fever or something?”

“I’m fine.” Tresk slapped Theo’s hand away as he went to press it against her forehead. “Just trying some new things, ya know?”

“But why?”

Tresk shrugged. “Alex is evolving, isn’t she? Maybe I gotta evolve a little bit.”

“Just a bit though,” Sarisa said with a smile. “We don’t want you changing too much you little scamp.”

“I am pretty scampish, aren’t I?” Tresk asked with a giggle.

“How about this plan of ours?” Theo asked, trying not to grumble. It was hard. “Think it’ll work?”

“You saw Fenian’s eyes when Khahar mentioned it, right? He even promised to drop his assassination plan on Balkor’s Shadow. That guy wants Kuzan dead like no one else on the planet.” Tresk let out a heavy sigh, forking a few more noodles and hunks of wolf meat. “If we can direct his energy in a constructive way, we good.”

“Seems like a big change,” Rowan grumbled, eyes locked on Tresk.

“Our personalities bleed into each other,” Theo explained. “Tresk constantly fights it, but sometimes she slips.”

“It goes both ways,” Tresk said, narrowing her eyes at Theo. “I’ve seen you go full marshling mode before.”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“More like full goblin mode,” Sarisa muttered.

“Unseating Kuzan isn’t going to be easy, though. The plan is based on Khahar’s silly theory. Who wouldn’t want to be a god?” Tresk asked.

“We’ll see,” Theo said. “We have our part to play, and we need to stick to it. I’ve spread myself too thin in the past, and I’m looking to correct that. We’re all evolving.”

Theo didn’t want to talk about their plan much. Not because he was afraid someone would overhear. The Seal in place between the heavens and the mortal world was firmly in place. But he was serious about sticking to their roles. Too many times he had stretched himself over many projects, trying to be everything for everyone. If there was one thing he learned about his time in Broken Tusk, it was the importance of others. Even with his cheat powers, the town would crumble without the efforts of many people.

Dinner was nice. Theo was surprised with each bite Tresk took, showing her immense restraint. She was trying to calm herself down, taking things one step at a time rather than rushing through to her goal. Dinner gave way to light conversation and lingering footsteps toward the bathhouse. Instead of making their way straight to bed, the group instead went for a soak in the hot water. Lowering himself up to his nose, the alchemist watched as everyone relaxed. With a few conversations springing up here and there, the group enjoyed the refreshing waters. Once everyone was too tired to soak, they went to bed for the night. Even Rowan slept inside, although Tresk giggled ominously before they retired.

###

Breakfast the next morning was normal. What came after wasn’t. Tresk ran off like she normally did—although the way she ate breakfast was anything but normal. She once again ate like a normal person. After vanishing for only a few minutes, she returned to catch up to Theo making his way from the manor to the lab. Alex landed on the road, stomping along as they walked.

“So, what is this?” Theo asked, gesturing to Tresk.

“What?” Tresk asked, looking down at herself. “Do I have goose crap on me?”

“No, you’re just coming along… For what?”

“Just hanging out,” Tresk answered, waving him away.

“Just chilling,” Alex added.

Theo nodded, although he couldn’t sense either of their intentions. But it would only be a lie to himself if he said he didn’t enjoy their company. Any time a member of the Tara’hek was near, he felt a sense of calm. Even at a distance he could sense that comforting sensation, but when Tresk or Alex was near, the effect increased significantly. The alchemist could feel that she was hiding nothing. A genuine sense of wanting to be close to her soul bonded partner flooded through her, although she hid the source.

“So, what are you working on today?” Tresk asked.

Theo gestured to the equipment piled outside of the Newt and Demon, shaking his head. Throk never disappointed when it came to matters of whipping together artifices in such a short time. He suspected the artificer had repurposed some old stuff, but if it worked it worked. “Looks like we have some new equipment to test. Looks like the door is unlocked, so I’m gonna bet Salire is working on the new Reforge Mind potions.”

“Which means what?” Tresk asked. “Can I help?”

“You can run to the temple and check on how the resting space elf is doing,” Theo said. “Once he’s awake, we can work on the other guys.”

“I’m on it, boss,” Tresk said, saluting and spinning on the spot. She dashed away, followed closely behind by Alex.

“Huh,” Theo said, entering the lab as he watched the marshling depart. It was a strange but welcome turn of events. The alchemist made his way up the stairs. “Hey, Salire… Any progress?”

As expected, Salire was on the third floor working on some potions. From the aroma, Theo suspected she was working on the Reforge Mind potions. The ones she was working on smelled less offensive, holding almost a floral scent.

“Oh! I was just working on these,” Salire said, turning and holding a potion for Theo to see. “All by myself like a big girl. I faked the third tier using the Suffuse Potion. As you suspected, we had a few issues to work out. Mana infusion did well to suppress our problem with low quality.”

“Excellent,” Theo said, holding the potion in his hand. He gave it a swirl, nodding with approval.

[Greater Reforge Mind]

[Potion]

Epic

Created by: Salire Hogrush

Purity: 90%

Imbibing this potion reforges a mortal’s mind. The process is extremely painful, but all illness, damage, mental fatigue, etc are scoured clean.

“Look at that. An extremely important potion crafted by Salire Hogrush,” Theo said, holding it up to the light with a smile. “90% and you didn’t even break a sweat.”

Salire’s cheeks went redder than they normally were. “You did most of the work.”

Theo shrugged. Not really. If Salire wanted, she could do the entire process by herself. It would take a lot longer for her, though. Her mana control had come a long way, but it wasn’t fine enough to get the quality needed to brew third tier potions. He would try not to lie to her about it, discouraging her away from practicing, but the alchemist suspected it would take years without cheats to get where she needed to be.

“Since you started, we’ve always laid the groundwork together,” Theo said. “I can’t predict what Tero’gal will want from us when we finally live there permanently. No idea if it lets me keep all my cheated attributes. So I want to make sure I’m sharp on the skill-based portions of alchemy.”

“So, do you think the Greater Reforge Mind potion I crafted will work?” Salire asked.

Theo leaned over the table, looking at the potion. It seemed fine to him. A higher grade was good enough, but this one was also of a higher purity than the first one they made. Normally, when a potion jumped a tier it lost quality. The alchemist didn’t have much data to back that up, but he observed it once so that’s what he was going with.

“It should work. We know it’ll work better than the other one we threw together, anyway.”

“Right. So, how many should I make? I’ve already got about fifty of them, because… Well, they’re hard to work with.” Salire looked slightly ashamed at that. “Feels like I should have more.”

“Just do another run,” Theo said, thinking about the new equipment Throk had delivered. “I don’t think we can handle many space elves, anyway. There’s no reason to be worried about only creating fifty of the strongest potions I’ve ever seen. That’s a lot of potions.”

Salire clicked her tongue. “I guess you’re right. I need to stop comparing our new output with our old output.”

“Especially with potions like this. When you have this many steps to go through, you have to accept some loss along the way. Speaking of, where did you lose most of the essence?”

“Some while distilling the essence itself, and some during the mixing process.”

Theo nodded. The reagents he provided her were infused with his mana, meaning they should have been almost perfect for the task. “Well, we’re still happy.”

Tresk burst through the door, skidding to a stop. “Elf is awake!” she shouted. “Gotta come see the elf!”

Theo smiled at Salire. “Guess we’re going to see the elf. Perfect timing, Tresk.”

“I always have perfect timing.”