The Newt and Demon

In Theo’s time as an alchemist, there had been many potions he deemed too dangerous for the general public. He was reminded of a potion that turned a person into a lich, as well as his explosive potions, which would most likely just kill people. Nothing had appeared quite as dangerous as the Call of the Sea potion. Sometimes the system threw errors that prevented him from seeing certain information, but he couldn’t recall a completed potion that didn’t have a visible rarity.

The description of the potion itself was haunting, and the effect was frightening. It would dry a person to the sea. They would be compelled to do so and couldn’t resist, which was hard to imagine. It didn’t mention a way for a person to avoid falling for the potion, and they only needed to look at, drink, smell, or otherwise interact with it for the effect to take hold.

Standing on the shore of the beach, looking out at the rolling waves of Broken Tusk Bay, Theo stood with Tresk, considering the best way to test the potion. Of course, they stood in the Dreamwalk, their own private realm that would keep them safe from the true effects of the potion. At least that’s what the alchemist hoped would happen. If a potion’s effects lingered outside of the Dreamwalk itself, they were in some serious trouble.

“Wanna take a sniff?” Theo asked, smiling down at the diminutive lizard girl.

“Yeah, I’d rather not,” Tresk said, waving him away. A moment later, a man who looked like a suspiciously more muscular version of Fenian appeared before them. He placed his hands on his hips and released an ear-splitting laugh that wasn’t quite right. “Give it to this idiot instead.”

Theo shrugged, summoning an imagined version of the offending potion and handing it over. The fake version of Fenian took it. He pulled the cork and pressed it against his nose. He inhaled hard enough to draw some of the liquid into his lungs and began coughing uncontrollably.

“You couldn’t have made him smarter?” Theo asked.

“This is the authentic version of Fenian,” Tresk said with a shrug. “I see no difference from the real one.”

The imagined version of Fenian doubled over, falling to the ground and spasming for a bit. Once he had cleared the liquid from his lungs, he got a wild look in his eyes. They darted around, as if searching for something, until they finally found the sea. The rolling waves reflected in his eyes as he clawed at the sand, dragging himself toward the beach and into the water. Before anyone could do anything about it, the man was swimming out to sea, and then he went under.

“No, I don’t think that’s very useful at all.” Theo took a moment to think about potential uses. Maybe he could infuse a different potion with this effect to create something positive. But as it stood, the potion was confusing.

A standard potion usually had the potion suffix at the end. Only potions that were special and derived from typically rare reagents had the honor of carrying that tag. However, this one came from a fairly mundane reagent. Theo had trouble imagining why this potion, of all the potions he had ever created, was unique.

Naturally, Tresk grew bored with all the postulating and ran off to fight a dragon. That left Theo alone with his thoughts and the sensations driven directly from the Dreamwalk itself. He couldn’t help but reach out and feel it pressing on him. It had sensed his intentions to conduct experiments and was weighing what it would let him get away with. The realm had become something of an arbiter of his time within it, regulating what he could get away with.

Fortunately, the dream realm relented and seemed to send him a mental confirmation of his ability to test some infusion-style potions with this effect. He isolated the Call of the Sea property and considered which potion to attach it to. As always, it seemed best to attach it to healing potions first, as that would give him the best idea of how it would bind.

Theo imagined some infusion equipment and got to work. He would combine this property with the basic healing property and see what the resulting potion would look like. The Dreamwalk didn’t stop him as he set up the equipment. Infusing one side with his mana and pouring essence into the other, it brewed in the mixing chamber. The vapors intermingled and locked together to create a new essence that dripped into a nearby vial, resulting in a swirling mixture of green-blue and light pink colors that moved in bands throughout the flask.

The alchemist brewed the potion, nodding in appreciation as he inspected the results. As he read, his brow furrowed.

[Infused Healing Potion]

[Potion]

Uncommon

Created by: Theo Spencer

Purity: 95%

Seafoam. Depths.

Infusion Array:

[Call of the Sea]

Effect:

Imbibing this potion restores a small amount of health.

The imbiber has a chance to lose sanity if the amount of health restored is under a certain amount.

“Only a chance to lose sanity,” Theo said, clicking his tongue as he read the description. It was not a good potion. It was likely one of the worst potions he had ever brewed, both for its effects and side effects. A healing potion that only restored a small amount of health and drove the drinker insane wouldn’t be useful to anybody. Ever.

Yet there was always that one in a million chance that this property would produce something useful. Since the Dreamwalk was being cooperative today, there was no reason not to test these things here. I didn’t have to fear for this potion getting out into the wider world, as it would die when they woke up in the morning. It was the perfect, safe environment for testing.

Theo was mostly on autopilot as he mixed the property with a dexterity potion next. The brewing process was quick, thanks to the Dreamwalk’s willingness to work with him, and he soon held another potion in his hand. It was a swirling mix of green and blue that didn’t agree with any part of itself. When the alchemist inspected the resulting potion, he shook his head.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

[Infused Dexterity Potion]

[Potion]

Rare

Created by: Theo Spencer

Purity: 99%

Surge.

Infusion Array:

[Call of the Sea]

Effect:

Imbibing this potion increases Dexterity by a small amount.

The imbiber has a chance to have part of their body mass turned to sea water.

I wasn’t sure why he continued to make this property work. Maybe it was because the resulting potions were just so terrible that they were funny. As he laughed to himself, reading and rereading the infused dexterity potion, he realized something. Perhaps if he worked with the property rather than against it, it would produce something worthwhile. No doubt the property was aligned with the water element, and there was a single attribute potion that was also aligned with water. Perhaps a Wisdom Potion would fare better.

Theo got to work on that next, not allowing himself to get excited about the new potion. With two complete failures, he didn’t want to expect anything other than a potion that would fill his lungs with water, or turn his feet to ice cubes. Nothing was out of the question with this weird property. He put the device to work, watching as the two shades of blue combined in the vapor mixing chamber. Perhaps the color should have been a hint, but the alchemist wouldn’t let that stop him from making this new potion.

The Infused Wisdom Potion came together easily. There was almost no reaction as he brewed it. When he added the catalyst to the mix, it bubbled slightly but that was it. All that was left was a potion that sloshed back and forth, even when he hadn’t moved. He inspected the result.

[Infused Wisdom Potion]

[Potion]

Rare

Created by: Theo Spencer

Purity: 99%

The ebb and flow of the sea are at your side. Increase your wisdom and mana regeneration.

Infusion Array:

[Call of the Sea]

Effect:

Depending on the nearest tide, gain increased Wisdom and mana regeneration.

At low tide, gain +10 Wisdom and +0.1 Mana per second. At high tide, gain +50 wisdom and +5 Mana per second.

Theo read the description several times before deciding whether this potion was good. When he realized there wasn’t an addendum that killed the user, he decided it was good. There was actually no downside, and even though the potion shifted with the local tide, there were no negatives. At low tide, it provided +10 wisdom and +0.1 mana per second. It wasn’t even terrible.

Of course, this got Theo thinking about other potions he could combine based on their elemental affinities. He had studied this quite a bit in the past, but he had brought nothing to fruition quite like this. No, this had taken a potion that was outright bad and made it good by leaning on those elemental affinities. He thought of other potions in his arsenal that were closely aligned with water or Wisdom.

Of the many reagents—and their properties—he had access to, only a few called to the alchemist. Living River Water came from a boss which had attacked Broken Tusk. The River Dungeon had also generated the Fald, a fish-like race of monsters that he could harvest the eyeballs of. Both reagents felt tightly aligned with the water element and Theo was eager to test their potions.

Theo set the infusion still to work. His point of entry for this run would be the tunneling potion, which had been incredibly useful before he got his hands on it. His earth source for his core was ready. The process was just about as easy as expected, and before long, he had yet another potion to inspect.

[Infused Tunneling Potion]

[Potion]

Epic

Created by: Theo Spencer

Purity: 90%

Carve the landscape as the sea bites at the cliff.

Infusion Array:

[Call of the Sea]

Effect:

Pouring this potion into sea water brings that water under your command. The amount of water you command depends on the purity of this potion. That water will act as a blade to cut through any naturally-occurring landscape features.

While this one was kind of weird, it once again didn’t have any negative effects. This was enough for Theo to assume his original theory was right. With a volatile property like this, it was important to put it with other essences that shared an alignment. When he did that, it removed the negative effect from the potion and made it interesting. Perhaps not good, but interesting. Infusing the Tunneling Potion had limited its function somewhat, but depending on the amount of sea water it took under its command, it could be more efficient than the base potion.

Another potion derived from water-based elements was the Wake potion. Truth was, Theo had little use for it and had spent almost no time working with the Fald Eyeballs. First, they were nasty. Second, they smelled horribly. But the Dreamwalk was good at muting senses, including smell. So the alchemist got to work on a Potion of Wake combined with the Call of the Sea property. As expected, it went together perfectly, producing a potion that was even-tempered. It bubbled a bit, but nothing to signal that the elements weren’t happy to work together.

Once he had brewed the potion, Theo inspected the results.

[Infused Potion of Wake]

[Potion]

Rare

Created by: Theo Spencer

Purity: 90%

Command the seas themselves.

Infusion Array:

[Call of the Sea]

Effect:

After imbibing this potion, you may command an amount of water around yourself depending on the purity of this potion.

This was like his Water Sorcerer’s Core, except to a smaller scale. Theo didn’t expect it to be better, but for people without his willpower it might be useful. It said nothing about a person being able to breathe underwater. The alchemist giggled to himself as he imagined Tresk surfing atop a wave. The more he thought about it, the more he wanted to see it happen.

“You rang?” Tresk asked, appearing behind him a few moments later.

Theo turned, smiling at the marshling as he extended the potion. “Wanna do some weird stuff?”

“I live for weird stuff!” Tresk shouted, snatching the potion and downing it without question.

Theo watched, ensuring nothing weird happened after she drank it. When she remained mostly solid, they headed for the beach to experiment. Tresk took to the water right away, diving in and swimming until she couldn’t touch the bottom. It took her longer than the alchemist expected to get the hang of the potion, but she eventually surfed around. Just as he had imagined.

With her head poking just over the surface of the water, Tresk rushed through the water like a porpoise on drugs. A lot of drugs. She cackled, soon figuring out how she could jump with the power of the water behind her. A deep wake cut through the bay, a pink marshling heading the charge. Alex settled in next to Theo, watching as the creature had the time of her life.

“Oh, she is going fast,” Alex said.

“Pretty fast,” Theo said, nodding with agreement. Tresk dunked under the water a moment later, skimming the bay’s floor before emerging through the surface. She got a good twenty feet in the air before belly flopping back into the bay. “That looked painful.”

“May I try the potion?” Alex asked.

Theo raised an eyebrow as he looked upon the dragon-goose. She didn’t look seaworthy, but he shrugged anyway. Alex drank the potion happily, gulping it down and licking her beak/maw with a bit too much vigor. Then she stomped over to the water and jumped in.

Whatever ability Alex had to swim as a goose was gone. Completely. The nightmare creature that thrashed around within the bay sank to the bottom. But she imagined herself back on the shore and tried again… and again. Until she finally got it. Then Tresk and Alex thrashed around in the water together.

“At least they’re having fun,” Theo said with a shrug. He downed a potion for himself and jogged to the shore to join them.