Chapter 2: Chapter One

The luminous gaze of the moon looked down on me as I walked a path that had almost been overgrown and the sound of the wind whistled throughout the pine forest as I got closer to the ritual site. I could hear the various whispers already as the eight elders stood in the clearing ahead dressed in flowing gray silk robes that hung down to their ankles and black hoods embroidered with silver that covered all but their lower mouths and matching white beards that came down to their navel.

The candlelight surrounding the carefully drawn eight-pointed star drawn in the ground cast the men in a wraith-like light, I entered the domain, and silence fell. They turned their heads toward me as I crossed over the star’s boundary and took my place in the center, almost simultaneously the men pulled out varying magician’s tools and rose them into the sky right as the moon seemed to reach its apex over my position.

Hushed and commanding whispers came from their mouths as they made arcane patterns in the air, the focus of their magician’s tools started to glow along with the chalk around me as the chanting became more fierce. I gazed up at the moon as the whispers started to become shouts and yet I could hear almost nothing as some type of force started to come downward almost like it was from the moon itself, drowning out the surrounding noise.

I felt the pressure rain down on me as my knees started to buckle and the air started to become hard to breathe, the energy in the air was palpable and I could feel it flowing over me like a running river. All outside noise was muted at this point and I was trying my hardest to not pass out under the extreme pressure that now had come to rest directly above me. Miraculously I managed to raise my hand and reach for the epicenter of the pressure above me, it was like pushing back a crumbling mountain as my knees finally gave out and my nose started to bleed as I still reached for the force above me.

My hand wrapped around a small part of the invisible force slowly pulling it to the ground beside me, trying my hardest to drop it slowly to not kill myself, yet blood began to fill my mouth and tears streaked down my face. The voices started to return the closer my heavy hand came to the ground, not losing focus; I ignored the fact the voices were hollering at this point and finally my hand touched the ground, and when I opened it there was a perfectly, translucent forest-green orb – almost like a marble – about the same diameter as my thumb’s length, resting in my palm.

A sigh of relief escaped my lips and the robed elders quickly left their spots and rushed to the center as I collapsed on the ground clutching the orb against my heart, looking back up once more at the moon, smiling as my vision faded into nothing.

A pungent, onion-like smell wafted into my nose as I slowly opened my eyes and felt something wet rubbing across my forehead. I forced open my eyes to see my grandfather looking back at me with a solemn expression rubbing the cerulean salve across my face and for the first time, I saw the shock on his face as he nearly stumbled out of bed seeing my eyes open.

Then for another first time his steel-gray eyes – the only things not scarred by the passing of time – welled up with tears of joy, as he pulled me up from the wool blankets burying his face in my shoulder stifling his sobs.

“My boy, my sweet boy,” he stammered, trying to return to his calm demeanor, “You actually did it, son,” he said with pride. I recalled what had happened as I shook hazy thoughts from my head.

For a moment I felt weightless as I look around me and notice instead of the smoothed-out dirt floor and thatch roof, the floor was layered with a fine pearlescent blue carpet that stretched across the floor into a separate room around the corner, and the walls were a smoothed out silver-gray stone brick that was polished so well it might as well be a mirror, and the roof was made out of a fine tan colored wooden planks with a spiraling staircase that faded up into the attic. I stood up gently and noticed despite the near emptiness of the room with only a trunk at the foot of the bed, a nearly black dark wood desk on the opposite side of this room that had crimson curtains that danced in the slight breeze above it, everything was very… expensive.

Then I saw it, a deep purple banner hung by the heavy-looking oak door, with a gold eight-pointed star sewn into it with an ever-watching eye in the center of the star. I knew that I was on the Alchemists’ Isle. There was a knock at the door before a muffled voice said something before swinging the door wide open.

There stood a lanky, elderly man dressed in midnight black robes and a tall hat with a crooked point near the top, his gray beard was unruly and resembled a storm cloud that was more than exaggerated by his stark white skin, and seemingly to enhance the strangeness his face was very sharp and his nose almost gave him the appearance of a hawk, the only thing that contrasted with this image was the soft, and wide baby-blue eyes that looked on as if they had seen a great display of wonder.

My grandfather stood up from the bed and looked at the man, “Do I need to leave already, Headmaster Sorrows?” His voice returned to matching his brutish, stone-faced appearance, no longer containing the emotion from before.

“I am afraid so Richard I have already broken a custom by bringing you here, even I can’t stand to face the judgment of the Eight Point Alchemy heads alone,”

My grandfather’s face turned towards me once more as he opened his lips trying to say some comforting words, but the only thing that came out was mumbled breaths that made his bushy white mustache bounce. I rose and wrapped my arms around him telling him, “I am going to be okay,”

“I know you will Walter,” he said softly, pushing himself away from me, before suddenly tossing a bag to me.

“Remember home Walter,” he smirked before his features began to fade before my eyes as the alchemist in black began to whisper as he pulled out a gnarled, steel rod with a fat red gemstone embedded like a cane topper.

You are reading story Potions, Poison, and Pumpkins at novel35.com

The alchemist placed his magician’s tool underneath his cloak once more as he turned his gaze back to me with a warm smile, “Hello Walter Meadows, my name is Edgar Sorrows, I am the headmaster of this fine academy and would like you to personally come along with me to see where you’ll be working till you can perform your Homunculi Ritual.

The headmaster led me along to the outer corridors where I saw a long hallway with a series of similar doors such as the room I was staying in that eventually opened up into a large dining hall with many hanging chandeliers and candles illuminating the area.

“As you could imagine this is where both the students and staff dine, I hope you don't mind that our choices can get quite slim when it comes to deliveries, but I do attempt to make orders for the very best of food, especially those buttery and savory orange gourds that come from your home continent, what were they called again?”

“Pumpkins?”

“Pumpkins! What a delightful word!” He exclaimed with joy as we walked around the enormous hearth in the center of the dining hall.

“Mr. Sorrows?” I ask nervously.

“Yes, Walt? You don’t mind if I call you Walt do you?”

“N-no sir, I wanted to ask how come you don’t have an Ordieris accent? You are from the main continent of Gothica right?”

He thoughtfully stroked his beard as he pondered over the question, “I am surprised you noticed that, but your grandfather did say you were always quite sharp. I am from the Continent, even from the Empire of Orderia as you rightly guessed, however, my little hamlet I called home was quite isolated and had been under the rule of the neighboring kingdom of Eitagloire for several hundred years only coming under the fold of the Empire in the past thirty years.”

Noticing that we had somehow walked into another room, Headmaster Sorrows had stopped his rant upon coming across a simple cobbled room with only a four-point star – not unlike a compass – engraved into the rock, with interlocking circles entwining themselves at their points.

Headmaster Sorrows’ face became very solemn as he looked at the circle, “Already? how …”

He whipped around and faced me, “I am sorry, the tour is over, we need to prepare you for the Homunculi ritual.”

“Wait… what?! How much time do I have to prepare?!”

“Within a week from now.”

You can find story with these keywords: Potions, Poison, and Pumpkins, Read Potions, Poison, and Pumpkins, Potions, Poison, and Pumpkins novel, Potions, Poison, and Pumpkins book, Potions, Poison, and Pumpkins story, Potions, Poison, and Pumpkins full, Potions, Poison, and Pumpkins Latest Chapter