Helping a friend, p.36
Helping A Friend, page 36
part #4 of The World Series
Argh!” I heard a frustrated, pissed-off growl come from the hold behind as something metallic bounced off the floor behind us.
“Why are you purposely trying to piss her off?” Fylreh asked glancing over her shoulder worriedly. “I’m not sure if she’s someone you want to be making angry.”
“Nothing motivates a tech more than challenging their ability,” I said smothering the smile that came to my lips as I remembered Hollysharp’s enraged face. “She’ll be impossible to be around if she can actually pull this off, but honestly, I’m more than happy to put up with her shit if she can come up with a way to save our collective asses.”
The filly silently climbed the stairs out of the hold behind me as she thought over what I’d just said. Coming to the galley, I began laying out my ingredients to make up some potions as she leaned forward and spoke quietly into my ear. “If you ever do such a thing to me, I’ll stab you in the dick.” Not letting her threat unnerve me, I looked back at her in disbelief.
“Seriously, who even talks like that,” I complained looking into her unperturbed face. “It’s like … like …” my mouth silently flapped open and closed as I tried to come up with something that was comparable to such a threat.
“Like shooting someone in the tit?” Fylreh asked nonplussed looking away from me as she began working on her gear and preparing to craft additional arrows. She glanced up at me a moment later when I didn’t reply. Giving me a deadpan look, she carefully enunciated each word. “In … the … dick.”
“Not even funny,” I muttered under my breath as I began preparing to make as many potions as I could before the shit hit the fan. I’d bought and collected a crap load of ingredients during our run from Delonshire to Myathlune. Mother Mylbim let me borrow a large pot and made a place for me to work over her fire as I began unpacking and lining up my ingredients and Alchemy kit. She even offered Neysa a hunk of meat and Fylreh a bowl of fruit as we got down to business.
Within minutes I was deep into my crafting. Looking over the recipes, I began measuring out ingredients, trimming leaves from their stalks and grinding the components up in my mortar and pestle, then weighing everything out into carefully separated piles. Faelivrin from the Alchemy Emporium had shown me how to create batches of five healing potions at a time when I trained to become an Alchemist. Now I was taking that same concept and increasing the batch size by eight times its normal amount. Meaning, I should be producing forty potions instead of five. While increasing the recipes’ size had a risk of ruining an entire batch, to be honest as long as the portions of ingredients were correct the process wasn’t any more complex than creating a batch of five potions. Besides, I didn’t have the time to fuck around. I needed as many potions as possible before we were in the middle of the shit once again.
The contents completely filled Mother Mylbim’s pot as I quietly focused on keeping the pot boiling at an even temperature. The entire process reminded me of cooking up the cream for a crème brûlée dessert. The ingredients had to be constantly stirred or they’d start to burn and ruin the resulting potions. While keeping up a steady stirring with one hand, I setup forty test-tube flasks in the wooden holder that came with my Alchemy kit and prepared the funnel that would be needed for pouring. As the color of the mixture turned blood red, I picked up the boiling pot and began pouring the contents into their individual glass vials. My armor only heated up slightly from the hot iron as I balanced the pot on my hip and poured with one hand as I quickly changed out the funnel to fill the glasses. After filling the last tube, I hurriedly began plugging the stoppers in place before the potions could turn from too much air. As the glass vials took on their traditional red glow of a Healing potion, I saw Fylreh’s eyes light up in surprise.
“You made healing potions?” She asked in an awed voice as she put her fletching kit down and picked up one of the still warm glass vials. “I didn’t know potions could be created with such basic items.”
“Pretty cool, huh?” I asked as she came around the table to hover over my shoulder. “When we’re not so short on time, I can teach you if you like.”
“You would share such knowledge with me?” Fylreh asked incredulously. As I turned around to face the filly, I was nearly smothered by her mountainous orbs as she hugged me to her chest in excitement. “Thank you, milord.”
“It’s the least I can do, Fylreh.” I said pushing the excited filly back to arm’s length. If I focused on that now, I definitely wouldn’t get anything done. It took a second to kick-start my brain. I wasn’t sure what turned me on more. The face full of cleavage or how she called me milord. Shaking my head to clear away the hormones clouding my thoughts, I quickly got back to work.
Fylreh stayed at my back watching me work as I explained the process of what I was doing and why. Working steadily, I began preparing the Silverthorn leaves for the batch of Lesser Mana potions I wanted to create next. Grinding up the materials, I used my Fire magic to quickly bring the second pot of water to a boil and began mixing in the powder as the filly prepared the next batch of glass vials. As the mixture took on the royal blue hue of a Lesser Mana potion, I quickly lifted the pot out of the fire and began pouring the mixture in the waiting vials with the centauride’s help.
With both mixtures finished, I began the process of combining the two different potions into a new concoction. The entire time Fylreh never left my side as she intently watched me work trying to learn as much of the process as she could. With her help, I quickly ground up the required Marigold and then combined the forty healing and mana potions into the pot. As the mixture came to a boil, I added the ground Marigold while constantly stirring the boiling concoction. Slowly the mixture began to combine into the new recipe I’d learned as a bright purple glow came from the pot. Quickly pouring out the contents into the glass vials that Fylreh had setup, I chortled happily as I saw the results in my system menu.
Congratulations, you have created forty Rejuvenation Potions. Restores 180 to 200 health and 680 to 720 mana over 10 seconds.
The filly’s spare arrows were forgotten as she joined me in crafting the potions I’d prepped the ingredients for earlier. At the time, I’d thought the potions of swimming and water breathing had been there simply for people to use for skilling up their Alchemy, but were otherwise a waste of time and money. Now, I was happy to have any edge I could get. If everything truly went south, maybe these potions would give us enough of an edge to pull our asses out of the fire.
It was about then that I realized we had visitors. Looking up, my mouth unconsciously dropped open in shocked surprise as I saw Zinn. She’d cleaned up and gotten dressed like I’d asked. Now she was standing by the doorway along with Tavon and Alanah watching the two of us work. Her honey blonde locks cascaded down to her shoulders and around her delicate Half-Elf ears as she cocked her head to the side with a playful smile on her full lips at the stunned look on my face.
What had brought me up short wasn’t so much her incredible beauty but her choice of clothing.
Zinn wore the same general type of boots that Neristhana had picked up in town. You know, the ones that just covered the tops of the feet instead of a normal full boot like I wore. In her case though, the brown boots came all the way up to the top of her upper thighs. The loose baby doll dress she wore was made from soft gray leather with a low-cut cleavage that made your eyes want to pop out of your head. White leather glove-like sleeves wrapped around her middle fingers with a tie and came to a stop above her elbows where they strapped in place. Like a cherry atop a chocolate sundae, the whole outfit was topped with a gray half-cloak that fell from her shoulders.
One look at her and you’d have sworn she’d just walked out of a Frederick's of Hollywood lingerie catalog. While it was distracting as hell and reminiscent of what you’d expect from a traditional Dungeons and Dragons video game character, I understood why she dressed the way she did. The outfit was straight-up misdirection. If you didn’t stare where she was obviously directing your eyes, you suddenly started to notice small things like her equipment belt, the slim rapier like sword and long dagger strapped to her hip. You know, things like that. Although, the true key to her outfit lay with the Djembe style, hand drum that was slung over her shoulder. Similar to Ayda, she was a fighting bard. That knowledge helped to get my hormones under control as I greeted my companions.
“Good to see you back to your ole self, Zinn,” I said giving her a wry grin.
“Excuse me milord,” Zinn said with a slight curtsey. “May we be of assistance?”
“I don’t know. Do you have any spells that could speed up our work?” I casually asked once again back to my normal self. While I was somewhat surprised at my initial reaction to the young girl, I figured it was an aspect of her magic. Once I realized that, her tantalizing beauty held no sway over me.
“I believe I have a Sea shanty that just might help,” Zinn replied cheerfully. Making her way over to a nearby table, she sat down and hiked up her leather baby doll to her hips as she slid the smaller half of the Djembe hand drum between her muscular thighs preparing to play as Tavon and Alanah looked at me expectantly. Rolling my eyes at the little minx’s show, I waved the two of them over and began explaining the process as the young bard struck a catchy tune about a drunken sailor. Immediately, my HUD lit up with a buff.
Drunken Gnomeling Sea Shanty - All allies within range of song feel awake and are more productive, receiving the effect of being well rested. Crafters receive a 20% increase in production. Increases Spirit and Intelligence by +1.
I grinned as I read the name. Obviously, the spell’s stats were similar to Ayda’s Song of Vitality but with a distinctive style that better fit aboard a sailing ship at sea. Once again we got to work as I found myself singing the chorus along with everyone else ‘what shall we do with the drunken gnomeling, what shall we do with the drunken gnomeling early in the morning’ as Zinn sang her catchy tune while we worked through the repetitive process of boiling water and ingredients. Before I knew it, Fylreh was doing more and more of the actual Alchemy needed to create the potions. It was surprisingly intimate as our hands and shoulders brushed against one another as we worked, even with Tavon and Alanah helping in the process.
The first batch of forty was a dark brown, soup-like potion that reminded me of mud in a glass. The potion’s actual name was Barkskin. It gave the user or drinker an increase in armor defense by 400 and 7% resistances to elemental damage by temporarily making the users skin as resistant as tree bark. Don’t ask me how it tasted because I wasn’t about to try it until I was in a seriously bad life and death situation.
Next came an emerald green potion named Haste. This one I was especially excited about. Unfortunately, it took Swiftweed which I had yet to find growing naturally in the wild. While I’d bought the entire supply from Delonshire, it was barely enough to make three of the potions. The buff it gave was an increase to movement and attack speed by 50% for 60 seconds. I wanted to try it out so badly just to see how it felt like to move at super speed. I figured it had to be something like playing Unreal Tournament Forever at 150% speed. You know, where everything just blurs past as you race through the levels blasting anything in your path. While not ‘Flash fast’ it still sounded super cool. Even so, I didn’t dare play around with the potions while we were in such dire straits as I tucked them away in my Bonereaver Goreplate belt’s quick slots.
Pulling out the Silverfern I’d purchased back in Delonshire, I had enough to make five of my new Healing Potions. These weren’t the Lesser Healing Potions I’d made earlier, but an upgrade that restored between 920 to 1000 points of health. They also required lead vials, which was the next upgrade of container after glass vials. I had enough ingredients to make five of the Healing Potions. One of which immediately went to Fylreh. Holding the potion reverently in her hands, the filly’s bright eyes studied my face as she silently tucked the lead vial into her quick access belt with a smile before we got back to work.
At some time during our work, Ayda had come down to join us and began singing in conjunction with Zinn. Together their combined magic noticeably increased the speed we were producing potions at as the buff now showed a 50% increase in production and a +3 to Spirit and Intelligence. Surprisingly enough, Ayda didn’t pull out her lute, but was just using her natural voice as she sang to add to the magic. During that time, Fylreh, Tavon and Alanah had all received a system message stating that they’d acquired the skill of Alchemy and were now learning the potions we were making as we sang and hummed along with the music. The more voices added into the tune just made the shanty that much better.
The Swimming potion we started on next was somewhat interesting. The Pond Lilies were quite common and created an Aquamarine potion that increased swimming speed by 100% for two minutes. I did a batch of forty of them to use up all of the material I had on hand. Basically they were a weaker version of the Haste Potions and were only useable while in water. Maybe they’d help if we had to board one of the triremes or were knocked into the water during a battle.
The last potions we ended up churning out were the Water Breathing potions. Yes, I know I had a Water Breathing ring. I’d actually made sure I was wearing it ever since we’d come under attack by the Sea Orcs. While that meant I was covered, it didn’t help anyone else in the raid so I figured I’d make up what I had ingredient wise. Not that the ingredients were hard to find. The potion was made from simple brownish-green seaweed which you could literally scoop out of the water. It was a decent buff that gave the ‘water breathing’ ability for up to an hour.
I wasn’t really sure how helpful the potions would turn out to be. Seriously, if we lost the Wind Dancer, it might be worth just dying and respawning instead of trying to hike back to land under the water. To be honest, that sounded like a nightmare and a half. Who knows what you’d run into at the bottom of the straight in a game like this. After making up the first batch of the brownish-green potion, I was especially happy about my water breathing ring, since I wasn’t about to guzzle down the pond-scum looking potion that I’d just created. If anyone in the raid were forced to survive off of these, I’m sure I’d never hear the end to the complaining about the foul taste.
I silently laughed at my joke as I did the fourth batch of forty potions. It was about then that I noticed the ship was really rolling. As Fylreh and I completed the last batch, the rollercoaster feeling began to grow as the flat-bottom ship floundered through the rough waves. That was also when I realized that both Fylreh and Tavon had all four of their legs splayed out to keep their balance while Alanah was doing her best to secure the glass vials as I poured braced between the bench and the tabletop. We were just stoppering up the potions when I received a message from Thomas.
“I hope you’re done with whatever it is you’ve been working on, because the shit’s about to get real up here.”
“Alrighty then, I’m on my way up,” I replied. Quickly, I began cleaning up my equipment as Fylreh packed away her gear. Handing over the majority of the Swimming, Water Breathing and Barkskin potions to my helpers, I spoke quickly.
“Please hand these out to everyone while I see what’s going on with the storm and the Sea Orcs,” I said while helping pack the glass vials away in Fylreh’s saddle bags. “Tavon and Alanah, keep below deck during the attack and do your best to stay safe.”
“Yes, milord,” both youngers said as I turned to the filly. “Fylreh, find me once you’re done passing the potions out. Zinn-“
“I’m going to help Ayda when the battle starts up, milord.” Zinn said happily hugging the older woman’s shoulder as they both began to excitedly talk about their music and magic.
Looking back at the two youngsters, I frowned seeing the looks on their faces. Somehow, I just knew they weren’t going to stay below deck now after Zinn’s comment. Running an herb stained hand over my face, I looked back at the filly and sighed. “Please come find me on deck when you’re done.”
“Yes, milord,” Fylreh replied, unsuccessfully biting back the knowing smile that came to her lips as I took off for the upper decks.
‘By the dark, I didn’t need this shit now!’ I thought sourly. The rolling of the ship seemed to be getting worse as I was forced to brace myself against the wall several times while climbing to the top deck. As soon as I climbed up the last step, a massive wave washed over the prow of the Wind Dancer as Ianfalcon kept the ship facing into the teeth of the storm. Although the size of the waves looked massive as the ship crashed down into the trough before climbing up the next wave to the crest, they were probably only fifteen to twenty feet above sea level. Still, before I’d crossed a quarter of the deck, I was soaked to the bone.
Stopping for a moment near the stern of the ship, I studied the pursuit. It looked like the plan I’d come up with was working. Trailing behind the ship a little more than three football lengths away were the first group of three triremes that we’d fought earlier, while about another two football field lengths behind them were the second group of four triremes that had blocked our escape. It didn’t make sense how the ships were catching up to us in the brutal storm. Especially the three ships with the damaged sails, since the rowers barely seemed to be catching the water with their oars in the rough seas.
“Glad to see you could join us,” Thomas shouted out as I came to a stop by the group of people huddled around the ship’s wheel in their cloaks.
“Where the hell have you been, Lord Slacker?” Kenzie asked, yelling to be heard over the roar of the waves. “You’ve been gone for almost two hours.” Instead of offering up an excuse, I passed out some of the potions I’d tucked away.
“Holy shit,” the rogue exclaimed as she read through the potions’ descriptions. “So okay, maybe you weren’t just making out in some dark closet with your little filly.” Thomas smacked Kenzie in the arm as he shouted out.
