Chapter 192: Chapter 191 – No, I Don’t Want to do Alchemy

 

Courtney nods and swings her backpack off onto the ground. “Now I won’t be bringing out the biggest item. Jason over there. Oh right introductions, the human is named Jason if I didn’t clue you into that. My name is Courtney and the rabbitkin goes by Rosha. Anyway, as I was saying Jason has a set of armor in his pack. We picked it up off of a wight. Good quality undead gear which we should probably wait for an auction house or a collector though it is local so you would know better. Besides that, he also has some alchemy ingredients that he grew himself.”

Then Courtney opens up her pack and pulls out one of the spare bottles of the redeath rose essential oil. “This though is the one I am more unsure about. For a time we traveled through an area with redeath rose slugs. Jason had the skill for it and the knowledge, so he harvested roses whenever there was a plant with multiple buds. He was careful not to affect the balance there so you don’t have to worry about that. Then he distilled them into this.”

Peter takes a closer look at the bottle and uses some form of identification skill. With a nod, he pulls out a small booklet from his back pocket and pages through it. And pages through it some more as he continues to look, turning more pages than the book should be able to fit.

Eventually Peter finds what he is looking for and nods. “Okay, don’t sell it here. It looks like some of the local tribes frown on people making their own. While it sounds like you harvested responsibly, they probably wouldn’t believe that. They take it very seriously as apparently a couple decades ago the last generation spent a good bit of cash to import some. There was quite the undead problem back then. Though I wasn’t in the area at the time, so I can’t confirm this. It hasn’t completely gotten rid of the problem, but on this side we didn’t put too many people into the effort. Only the bare minimum, so there are less undead to deal with in general.

“Anway, just wait until you reach the bamboo city George pointed you towards. Even if the quality is just normal, someone should want it. A bottle like this should sell for a gold, if only because the people over here are touchy about people having any at all.” And he turns to Jason, “so are you planning on learning alchemy? There are a few decent master alchemists in the place you are heading.”

Jason shakes his head, “I just grow and harvest the stuff. Alchemy is an interesting subject, but if I was to learn any crafting discipline, it would be related to Energy. If only because otherwise getting anything that would work for me will cost an arm and a leg.”

Peter squints at him for a moment. “I guess you do use Energy. Fair enough on that then, though I think you’re missing out. It looks like you have the basics down already, even if you don’t have a skill for it.”

Jason denies it again, “yes, I know a bit about alchemy. No, I don’t want to touch it. There are reasons, but mostly I just do not want to mess with it. I will keep puttering around with my garden and growing things, even going as far as to make stuff like this but that’s it. I don’t know how it is here, but to me alchemy is the poorest rich occupation. Failure after failure sinking your money while only the people at the top of the field really make any decent amount of cash. As an adventurer I won’t likely be in any place long enough to truly perfect it and even growing my own ingredients it would just lose me money.”

Peter sighs, “I can see you’ve thought about it some and you aren’t entirely wrong. Though there is always a demand for basic recovery potions!”

Jason scoffs, “and get trapped in that grind? If there is any potion that trains the skill less than the basic healing potion I don’t know what it is. Almost every variation of it with nearly every ingredient has been tried and perfected. The only thing that stops people from automating the creation of them is you need a sapient to be involved or it fails.”

Peter shrugs, “well, I tried. My alchemist friends are always looking for new blood. Anyway, let’s head to the general store so you guys can sell your loot. Even if it isn’t a lot, I know how nice it is to turn all that weight into money after a lengthy trip. Do you have any guess on how much you’re going to make?”

Courtney takes a moment to think it over and nods as the group walks toward the waystation. “Undead don’t have the best drops and we ended up eating a lot of the plant drops. Overall, I expect each of us to earn about a gold. Which saying it out loud really feels bad. Those little bottles are worth that much! If it wasn’t for the armor, we would have really lost out on this trip.”

With a grin Peter waves his hand, “such is the life of people like us! You kill all the monsters only to find out they aren’t worth it. You gather odd plants only to find everyone in the next town has a small garden of them. You pick through the remains of a millennium old civilization only to find the results only worth coppers and even then only to collectors. Still, sometimes, just on occasion, you find treasure. Me? I found a husband!” And he gives Jason a sly elbow and a wink. Rosha just sighs while Courtney rolls her eyes. Though over all he lightened the mood so the trip to the store doesn’t drag on.