A thick red scar ran from his left ear to the corner of his mouth. Each jarring step on his mending leg was a meditation on his guilt.
Trenn used a carved bone knife Almitad had given him to gather the reagents on Mara's meticulously scripted list. The blade was adorned with a humming rune and kept a razor-sharp edge.
After filling his satchel, as he returned to Doctor Norennald’s tent in the refugee camp, he stopped at the edge of the busy, broken dam. Beaver Kin workers paused as he passed. Scowls formed on their furry faces, only to soften, their expressions warring with a confusion they couldn’t place. A muttered curse would begin, then die in their throats, replaced by a stiff, formal nod.
He could feel it—the subtle, cloying pull of his own magic smoothing the edges of their hate. It wasn't forgiveness. It was a theft. He wished they would spit at him. He wished they would scream. Their forced civility was a brand of shame, and he hated himself for it.
The constant, immense roar of the water hemorrhaging from the dam resonated in his chest. He stood and gathered his senses. Closing his eyes, he reached inward, seeking the pure, resonant frequency of his soul, the path to the Sound Element Yradone had shown him. He used the wall of sound as a focus for his Sonar Spell.
He tracked squirrels dancing through the trees, spiralling their trunks. A bird is building a nest. He followed the narrow corridors of an ant colony and found its queen.
He breathed in, and breathed out.
But the horrors of the Wayrest lurked in the corners of his mind. Phantom smoke, thick with the stench of burning fat and fear, obscured his thoughts.
“…your fault…”
He accepted the intrusive thought and released it.
“...your fire…”
He breathed in, and out. Let it go.
“...our lives…”
“STOP!” he screamed at one of the spiraling squirrels, causing it to freeze dead in its tracks.
The word shattered in his throat. Overloaded static erupted behind his eyes. His crutches clattered away as he collapsed. A warm trickle of blood wept from his nose, tracing a path to his lip.
They’re all dead… because of me.
The alchemist's tent was a world of bubbling beakers and the earthy scent of drying herbs. Mara’s fingers fumbled with a kelpander, a fruit the size of a grain of rice. A low growl of frustration rumbled in her chest as she tried to peel its delicate skin away from the flesh.
"Patience, Fox Kin."
The voice was a gravelly baritone, weathered as river stone. Doctor Norennald, a Grey Fur with a chipped front tooth, didn't look up from the mortar he was working. "The peel must be whole. You rush the skinning, you get sludge fit only for sealing leaky barrels."
A sudden clang from the neighboring blacksmith made her ears twitch. Mara pulled her hand back, her vulpine jaw tight.
"Be still," Norennald grunted, his voice a lesson in control. "You’re not in the Mana Forest anymore. Our reagents are mundane. Our arcana is technique,” he continued, without looking away from his work.
“Welcome to the mainland. There are no mana-infused reagents here." He gestured with his chin at the bubbling concoction over a controlled flame. "Watch the color. Healing Potions require a slow, deliberate heat. When it turns the shade of spring moss, add the peels. Not a moment sooner."
She nodded, forcing her attention back to the task. For weeks, this had been her life. Norennald had taken her on as an apprentice, his pride in "real" alchemy a constant, grating lecture. She absorbed his lessons, learning the precise grinding needed for shale-root, the exact temperature to render lake-lily oil, the minutiae of peeling miniature fruits.
As the liquid in the heated beaker shifted to a vibrant green, she carefully added the kelpander peels. The mixture hissed and thickened, the scent of honey and pine filling the tent.
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"Yes," Norennald said, sniffing the air with a critical nose. He peered into the beaker. "Now let it cool before you filter." He moved to his drying herbs and selected a few reagents. "While it rests, the next lesson." He set a bowl of grey, gravelly powder on the table, a corked vial containing a single, curved raptor talon, and a sealed clay pot.
"The Healing Potion is for mending," he said, tapping the simmering beaker. "But when they're not gathering their strength, a warrior is meant to break things."
He uncorked the vial and dropped the talon into his mortar. "This," he began, the pestle grinding the talon into a fine powder with a sound like scraping bone, "is the Giant Pill. It nearly doubles the muscle mass of the one who eats it. The skeleton grows, the skin hardens." He looked at Mara, who was rapidly scribing notes in Trenn's alchemy book. "The precise effect on an individual will vary. For creatures like us, humanoid mammals, it grants a few feet of height and ten minutes of brute force... followed by an agonizing, near instantaneous return to your normal size."
His beady black eyes held a flicker of something sharp. "On a Giant, however... like a Giant Piranha, or a Giant Rat, the effect can last for hours, and the pain of their return to normal size is nullified. Their bodies are more… complementary to the change."
He added a pinch of a dried, grey herb—crushed golem-ivy—and then carefully opened the clay pot. The smell of old blood filled the tent.
"And a single drop of coagulated blood," he said, using a glass pipette to draw a bead from the pot. "Ichor would multiply the effect, of course. The aftershock, however, would be enough to kill a… lesser person." His gaze flicked to Mara, the implication hanging in the air. He added the blood to the mixture, which began to smoke, a foul vapor rising from the stone bowl.
He pushed the mortar toward her. "The ingredients are rare, but the preparation is simple. Grind."
Mara did not move immediately. Her quill scratched against a fresh page of Trenn's book, her elegant script filling the space with detailed notes on the Giant Pill. The void left by her unbinding from the Mana Forest was slowly being filled with knowledge.
The ruined forge rang with the rhythmic clang of a hammer on hot metal. Zeen worked the anvil, a crew of adoring Beaver Kin teens scurrying to obey his commands, working bellows and fetching tongs. His grief had been forged into a new, sharp-edged purpose.
He was determined to lead by example. Ezy would see what he’d forged. She would be motivated, either by pride or jealousy. It didn’t matter.
Trenn, now walking with a carved wooden cane, approached the forge, a suspicious glint in his eyes. "Starting a thieves' guild, Zeen?" he said, looking at the devoted Beaver Kin youths.
Zeen let out a short, humorless laugh, turning from the anvil. He plunged his hand into a bulging sack he kept on his back, and held up a handful of uncut rubies and diamonds.
"Profiteering? You think so low of me?” he said, with mock horror. “Trenn, I could buy this entire refugee camp. This," he said, his voice cracking with a raw emotion he couldn't conceal, "this isn't about money. This is about paying a debt."
He turned back to his work and continued: “If the kids learn a few tricks while helping out, that’s just a bonus.”
A younger Beaver Kin looked up at Trenn, with a complex expression, something between fear and acceptance, written in their eyes. They held a piece of searing metal steady with a pair of tongs, while Zeen started to carefully shape it with a hammer.
It was a piece of metal salvaged from Gil's oven, being reforged into a barrel and a clockwork firing mechanism.
“I’m going to need the Gem-Croc’s tooth, and the cut emerald it gave you.” Trenn looked down at the little gnome, quizzical.
"I’m done fleeing, Trenn. I’m not going to be sidelined, either,” he said, as his apprentice turned the forged piece of metal to give him a better angle. “The musket I’m making, primed with the correct materials, will be a perfect canvas for Almitad’s enchantments and runes," he said, whipping sweat from his forehead.
“I already discussed it with her,” he said as he continued hammering the red-hot piece of Gil’s oven. “She’s going to turn it into a weapon to avenge everyone’s death.”
A functional iron hook replaced her right hand. A simple leather eyepatch covered the ruin of her right eye. The catatonic stillness was gone, burned away and replaced by a manic, creative fire.
“The Spider-House. It moves on reanimated bones. Is there a way to create a skeleton that doesn’t need a Mana Bloom, or a Ritual Chamber, to move?”
Almitad, who sat across from her with Trenn, gave a slow, considering nod. "Of course. That’s the basis of reanimation. A necromancy spell, locked into a cadaver with runes,” she said without hesitation.
“But a creature like the Giant Spider? No. It’s… too big. Too much articulation. You’d need an immense Mana Source and an incredibly powerful Necromancer to create a permanent undead of that magnitude.”
“That’s fine. I need something smaller. About five to six feet high. Wide enough for me to enter its thoracic cage,” Ezy said with a flat voice.
Almitad chuckled. “You mean like a Beaver Kin’s bones?” Ezy and Trenn shifted uncomfortably. “Of course, I could do that. The undead would follow my will, and I could will it to follow yours,” she said, standing up, dusting her robes.
“I have the remains of a few exorcists in Spider-House. One in particular… A large Beaver Kin male. His body is mostly intact. He was… beheaded… by the One-Eye’s tail. I know he would be proud if his remains were used to fight the monster who murdered so many of his people."
A deep unease settled over Trenn’s features. Ezy ignored his discomfort, her one eye gleaming with pure, pragmatic fire. Almitad’s serene gaze shifted to him.
"His service is not over, Trenn. His bones will protect the living. In our way, it is a greater honor than being interred in the cold earth."
"Beaver Kin are wide and tall,” Ezy said, as if considering the proportions of a new vehicle. “The thoracic cage will be perfect for my cockpit. I just need to build a wooden frame for my seat, and some plating… I’ll have a basic Stomper in no time…” She paused, thinking for a moment.
“I’m calling it the Scrapper."
Author's Note:
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Mara: The Alchemist
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Zeen: The Vengeful Gunsmith
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Ezy: The Necro-Mechanic
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