Chapter 52: Fifty

The potion recipe, ‘Narg’s balls of fire’, was surprisingly easy to create, though I doubted it would be so for an alchemist who lacked the foresight to combine transmutation with alchemy. It was possible, of course, but would be  costly and time-consuming. The recipe clearly expected the alchemist following the instructions to possess the necessary transmutation skills, or to use an orb formation circle. Sadly, Narg didn’t have the foresight to add a copy of said ‘orb formation’ circle into his recipe. 

The Drakus flower petals when rubbed together, produced a liquid which upon contact with air, ignited. A single petal only contained a tiny amount of the flammable substance, which was only enough to produce a few sparks. This meant trying to extract the oil was extremely difficult, as the distilling process needed to be done in such a way that the Drakus oil was not exposed to air. 

Narg’s recipe required filling a clay or glass orb with Drakus flowers, being careful not to press them down too tightly and accidentally press out any oil from the flowers. Then I needed to fill the orb with ethanol, ensuring the liquid was filled to the very top, and there were no air pockets in the orb. This was crucial to the final stage, as once I placed the orbs into the furnace, if there were any air bubbles inside the orb when the alcohol boiled and broke down the petals, it could explode.  

I’d decided to start with glass orbs, as I’d had the most practice with forming glass, but instead of using my previous method of making a jar and reforming it into an orb after filling it. I created a tennis ball sized sphere, forming an opening in the top shaped like a funnel, just as Nargs sketch showed. After filling the orb with the Drakus flower and ethanol, I carefully sealed the orb, smoothing the glass over the opening at the base of the funnel before removing the excess glass. 

Holding the orb up at eye level, I twisted it around, giving the liquid a light shake to ensure there were no air pockets. My muscles were tense with nerves as I stared at the red Drakus flowers swirling around inside the sphere. Images of my tent, the encampment and settlement consumed by a fiery inferno filled my mind. 

“I can’t do this here,” I mumbled, glancing around at the canvas walls of the tent. “I’d never hear the end of it if something happened.” 

Poor Tink is still getting crap about blowing up one of the guild halls. 

Rhythmically tapping my fingers on the work bench, I pondered my options. I could go out into the desert and do it there, but I’d need to take my tent, plus I’m not sure Darius or Victoria will let me go out there alone. 

I need somewhere to work that isn’t as flammable as a tent, if I was in my lab in Caruan I wouldn’t have this issue, as the lab has stone walls. 

That's it, that’s what I need, stone walls. 

Smacking my hand down onto the tabletop, I shot up to my feet. Carefully putting the Drakus orb into my bag, I left the tent, taking a moment to breathe in the cool night air. The sound of laughter, and friendly banter came from the surrounding tents where other teams were camped. In comparison, the tents my team mates occupied were much quieter, though I could hear the sounds of conversation coming from Kip, Pia and Rainy’s tent. 

After picking a spot next to the tent flap, I knelt on the ground. Pressing my hands to the sand, I closed my eyes and focused on not only shifting the sand away to create a sloping tunnel, but hardening it into sandstone. 

It was slow going, and I needed to take frequent breaks to recover my waning mana reserves, but eventually I tunneled deep enough that I felt an explosion would not affect the encampment above. 

I worked through most of the night, expanding my underground lab, shaping the sandstone into benches, and digging out shelving space. Once I was finished with the room, I headed back up the sloping tunnel, reforming the sandstone into stairs as I went. Back outside, I moved around to the back of my tent, and shifted into my smaller four legged form to begin tunneling down again. This time, I shifted the sand behind me as I went, creating a smaller tunnel which would serve as a chimney for my furnace. 

 The furnace I built, was based on sketches in Narg’s recipe was similar to a kiln. With the fire being lit in a lower compartment, separated from the orbs which would be ‘baked’ in the upper compartment at medium heat.

As the sun broke over the horizon, I lit the firestone in the lower section of the furnace, and once the furnace had warmed up, placed my first Drakus orb in the upper compartment. Quickly dashing towards the stairs, I spent an anxious thirty minutes watching for any signs of explosion as the liquid inside the orb was heated. 

Creeping back over to the furnace, I peered inside at the glass orb inside and saw the liquid within had turned to bright orange. When I could no longer see any tinges of red in the sphere, I extinguished the firestone and while I waited for the glass orb to cool enough that I could pull it from the furnace, I began forming more glass spheres.

I’ll wait until after I’ve tested the first Drakus orb before I fill these. I decided as I finished with my tenth orb, and set it onto the work bench, where I’d created a series of dome shaped hollows to hold the glass orbs.   

Another twenty spheres later, and my first Drakus orb, as I’d decided to call them, had cooled enough that I could hold it bare handed. There’s no way I’m going round calling these Narg’s balls of fire, it’s borderline lewd . 

Drakus orb cradled tightly to my chest, I headed out of my lab, and saw Kip standing at the entrance to the tunnel peering down. 

“Ah, well, now that explains it.” He exclaimed upon seeing me.

“Explains what?” I asked, reaching the top of the stairs. 

“Where this tunnel came from, of course. You’ve been studying up on earth magic I take it?” 

“Transmutation.” I corrected, squinting as my eyes adjusted to the bright light of the midday desert sun.

“Really? You can do this kind of thing with Transmutation?” 

“Transmutation is the art of manipulating physical matter, I simply manipulated the sand to move, and compress into sandstone.” 

“Ain’t nothing simple about it.” Kip snorted, eyeing the tunnel. “What were you doing down there, anyway?” 

“I needed a safe non flammable place to work.” 

“Mind if I take a peek below?” 

“You can look, but please don’t touch anything. It is also best that you always check with me before entering my workspace, as many things I work with can be dangerous.” I told him, and gestured for him to follow as I turned to walk back down the stairs. 

“Understandable.” He agreed. 

After a very brief tour of the room I’d built, we returned above ground, this time finding Pia near the tunnel entrance. The faun had been sent by Victoria to find out why Kip was taking so long to fetch me for the morning meal. Once Pia found out about the lab, she also wanted a tour, as did Victoria and Rainy once they learnt of the underground lab. 

“This is so cool,” Pia admired, running her hands over the sandstone walls. 

“Darius told me that many of the Kemet settlements have underground homes, and I didn’t want to accidentally set my tent on fire.” I told her, feeling both proud and a little embarrassed by all the praise the team was giving me over the lab. 

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I didn’t think it was that impressive, considering the raiders encountered on my first night in the desert had dug out a large hideout with dozens of different tunnels.  

“Speaking of fire,” Kip drawled, rubbing his hands together with a grin. “Lets find somewhere to test Foxy’s burning balls.” 

“I’ll give you burning balls if you keep calling it that.” 

“Ooh, foxy, how d'you know I liked…” 

“Kip.” Victoria growled, causing the Dwarf to snap his mouth shut and put on a look of feigned innocence. 

Twenty minutes later, we reached a spot far enough away from the settlement that I felt it was safe to test the Drakus orb. The recipe didn’t really go into detail about the effectiveness of the orbs, so I wasn’t willing to risk the chance of things going completely awry. Pia suggested waiting to test the orb in the dungeon, but if the orb did work, then I wanted the rest of the day to create more before we entered the dungeon this afternoon. 

“Can I throw it? Can I, can I?” Pia begged as Kip finished setting up our target, which was a wooden stake wearing a set of the dwarfs old clothes, stuffed with dried leaves that Rainy provided.

The dwarf had insisted we make a proper target to burn, as simply throwing the orb at the sand was unlikely to achieve much. 

“Go ahead,” I said with a shrug. 

I’d been going to suggest Victoria throw it, as the target was a good distance away, and while I was sure I could hit it with a dart, throwing a weighted glass orb would be a lot more difficult. At least if one of them threw it, I wouldn’t be embarrassing myself by throwing short of the target. 

Taking a few steps back, Pia swung her arm around a few times and narrowed her eyes as she stared at the target, tilting her head side to side. 

“Get on with it.” Kip goaded, crossing his arms over his chest. 

Whoosh. 

The orange-colored orb went flying, impacting right into the scarecrows chest, the thin glass of the orb shattered, and flames roared to life. The fire was explosive, and disappointingly short-lived. 

Mr. scarecrow would survive it seemed, as the ‘ball of fire’ only left him suffering from some minor burn marks. 

“Well, that was..” Pia murmured, staring at the scarecrow in disappointment. 

“Damn Foxy, with how antsy and cautious you were acting, I was expecting something a little more exciting. Victoria’s curry burns more than that did.” Kip said, shaking his head. 

Cheeks burning with embarrassment, I flung a hand towards the scarecrow, sending one of my own fireballs to slam against its chest. I kept my focus on the fire, fueling it with my magic until it consumed the scarecrow in a raging tower of flames.  

“Thats more like it.” Pia cheered, pumping a fist in the air. 

Once I felt the scarecrow was at a point that it would keep burning on its own, I pulled back my connection to the fire, and stared at the flames in front of me in silence. 

How can I improve the fire balls? 

“Are you alright Kadia?” Rainy asked softly, and I nodded only half paying attention, as I pondered over incorporating sulfur into the fire balls. 

 “Kip wasn’t trying to be mean with what he said, he just doesn’t realize the things he says can be hurtful.” 

“Huh?” 

As those words penetrated my mind, I turned to look at the Dryad who was giving me a gentle smile. The other three members of the team were all crowding around the scarecrow, holding sticks into the fire with white globs on the end. 

“I wasn’t offended, and he was right about Victoria’s curry. I was worried it would burn a hole in my tongue last night.” I assured the pink-haired woman, who didn’t look convinced. 

“I’m not upset, I was just lost in thought. I’m trying to come up with a way to improve the fire balls. Trust me, if I was upset, he’d be the one burning.” 

“Good,” Rainy said with a smile. “If he gives you any grief, you just need to kick him around a little. It’s the only way he learns.” 

“I know the type.” I informed her, lips twitching. 

“Rainy, Kadia, get your butts over here or you’ll miss out on the s’mores.” Pia shouted, and I furrowed my brows in confusion. 

Where did they get marshmallows in the desert?