Excerpt from Koll of Selevan’s “Alchemica.”

“An alchemist can be many things. Healer, helper, inventor, villain. The mixing of tonics, the brewing of draughts, the creation of magically enhanced potions, all of these things are without notions of good or evil—what does a reagent care for the purpose it is put towards? Yet, it is your hands that create, your mind that intends—your responsibility is not absolved when that flask leaves your hands. Alchemy is more than the product you create, and it is prudent for the aspiring student of the art to remember that there is no such thing as a neutral, uninvolved act.”

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Yenna whirled towards the man, calling forth her dagger and the beginnings of a magical circle. Fight or flight reflex triggered, the mage’s mind agreed at all levels that flight wasn’t possible—that fighting was optimal. She had never been more ready to perform an act of violence, which is why Yenna was so blindsided when the man urged for peace.

“Op! Let’s not do anything hasty now, shall we? I am unarmed, and not a spellcaster like yourself. Your kind has ways of knowing, no?”

The man flicked his arms out wide, open and peaceful, that same apologetic stance weaponised to give Yenna pause. A rational, peace-loving part of her mind chimed in, perhaps he just wants to talk this one out? We needn’t resort to violence, at least not yet.

With a sweep of her magical senses, Yenna could confirm the man had not learned the secret of magic—his magical presence was as dim as all uninitiated, perhaps dimmer than usual. Though there was something, the tiniest flicker of an unusual mass of magic sliding down his body. It was so small that in any other circumstances Yenna would have dismissed it, the magical equivalent of seeing something out of the corner of one’s eye only to find it was nothing but a stray hair. It tumbled down one of the man’s arms and came to rest somewhere around his mid-section, where it promptly vanished into background noise.

“Who are you?” Yenna attempted to sound threatening, her voice shaking. “Where are we?”

“One question at a time, hey?” The yolm gave a jovial chuckle, looking for all the world a good-natured professor meeting an over-eager student. “How about we come into my office, and we can discuss it? Better than standing here in the corridor like we’re about to have a duel.”

For a moment, a tiny fraction of a moment, Yenna agreed. That seems perfectly reasonable, said the part of her that wanted to believe in the goodness of others, why not? My legs are sore, and sitting down would certainly ease the tension.

The moment passed, and all the reasonable concerns filtered back into place. Yenna shook her head, her moment’s hesitation already an admission that the act was working.

“No. N-No, I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere with you, not without an answer.”

The man looked hurt, truly upset at this outcome. Yenna forced herself to assume the worst in him, to face the obvious fact that this blood-soaked yolm likely didn’t have her best interests at heart. All the same, the man gave a sigh and lowered his arms with a small, almost pitiful nod.

“Of course. I shall not force you, nor could I. My name, if it pleases you, is Mulvari. A chemist and doctor by trade.”

Mulvari gave a deep, overwrought bow—bending deep at the waist, one leg turning to cross the other, one arm folded in and the other out to the side, a showman thanking a delighted audience for their appreciation. Yenna was so confused by the entire display that she almost missed the movement of that flickering knot of magic as it travelled down his leg. It put Yenna on edge, but she wasn’t about to attack the man without knowing more. The mage was simply thankful she didn’t have to move her eyes to observe it, her magical sense corresponding to no physical, visible organ. If he’s hiding something, I barely want to give up the game. Best to keep my spell book shut, for now.¹

“And my other question? Where are we?”

Mulvari straightened up, his face a pained grimace. “Well, that’s quite the thing—I’m not entirely sure myself! You see, I’ve never come in or out the front way, always been escorted, you see.”

He gave a small chuckle and a shrug, an expression that said, you understand me, friend! We’re all in the same boat here! In any other circumstances it would have been disarming, but Yenna was somewhere beyond being convinced this man was not her enemy.

“What’s in that room?”

Yenna pointed beyond Mulvari, channelling her sternest Narasanha impression. She glared at him with all the ferocity available to her flimsy, prey-animal form, though Mulvari gave the impression he was mostly just amused.

“Ah! My office. Would you like to come in? I was just about to fetch you and bring you in—as I said, I had just finished up.”

“With your subject.” Yenna shuddered to think what, or who that was. Jiin and Demvya were still somewhere, and for all she knew this man had them locked up for some twisted experiment.

“Yes! Please, come in– oh! I see it now, haha! You’ve got quite the wrong idea, I think!” Mulvari looked down at his apron, all shock and levity on his cheeky grin. His withered lips curled into a charming smile as he chuckled away. “No, no, I haven’t brought any harm to anyone, if that’s what you’re wondering. My work is rather messy though… Perhaps it’s best if I just show you?”

Mulvari turned, heading towards the door behind him. He made a small flick with one of his legs, as though his boot had something stuck to it, or a nervous shiver had passed through. If Yenna hadn’t been looking for it, she would barely have noticed a small glass phial drop from his trouser leg. It was honestly incredible that it barely made a noise, no tink of glass on stone. However, Mulvari made another miniscule motion—he rocked back on his heel and crushed the glass.

The phial’s contents reacted violently. It exploded into a cloud of inky black smoke that filled Mulvari’s end of the corridor in an instant. If Yenna hadn’t noticed the glass in the first place, she would have not had time to react before it enveloped her too. All worries of activating magic-sensing traps fell away with the very real threat of an unseen enemy—Yenna’s thoughts accelerated, and she fashioned a countermeasure.

With a twirl of the tip of her dagger, Yenna shot forth a burst of Joy-empowered wind. It cut a hole through the smoke cloud, billowing it around randomly. The move left the corridor slightly hazy, but most of the thick black smoke had been forced into the staircase to the side. Able to see the other end of the corridor once again, Yenna’s eyes widened as she realised Mulvari was gone. There was only one way he could have gone, and all of Yenna’s fears as to the contents of the room flashed through her head—primal instinct urging her to do anything but give chase.

But what if Jiin’s in there? Somehow, this concern blew all other thoughts away with gale-force intensity. There was no way she was going to abandon a friend to whatever kind of monster Mulvari was. At that point the door could have been the jaws of a dragon—Yenna had to go inside, so she would do so without hesitation. Further hesitation, anyway.

Still, Yenna wasn’t a fool, not the sort to charge in blindly. Deciding it best to leave Valkh behind, the mage wove a few more spells into life. Simple, precautionary spells as though she was about to attempt a dangerous experiment, not dive into the dragon’s maw. A field of protective force, a bubble of magical seeing, a readied, semi-blank circle to be converted into any of a number of spells with a few flicks of the wrist. The latter hovered in her left hand, her dagger held in her right. Armed and armoured with the magical equivalent of a lab-coat, microscope and fire extinguisher, Yenna trotted into position to look into the room.

It took a moment for Yenna’s eyes to adjust—the room was darker than the hallway, full of long shadows, but magically active in a way that forced Yenna to manually adjust her sight spell. The flow of magic was disturbed, the froth and foam of too much movement within the pool leaving the pseudo-liquid energy sloshing against the sides of the warded walls. When her pupil dilated enough, allowed in just enough of the meagre light to see what was causing it all, she nearly retched in surprise.

The walls, floor and ceiling were etched and painted with symbols inscribed with great care, the interior surface of the room forming a singular, continuous page of a maddening grimoire. Worse still, Yenna understood just enough of it for her eyes to be dragged across its surface, the mental equivalent of sandpaper scraping through her thoughts as she pieced it together. Binding, controlling, redirecting and focusing, spells for trapping the body as well as influencing the otherwise inviolate soul. There were just enough additions and discrepancies that didn’t add up, just enough mystery that Yenna knew she could piece it together with some work and experimentation, to discover why and how it worked, what it all did. The fact that it all focused around some utterly barbaric devices made it all the worse.

Mulvari was nowhere to be seen, though his ‘office’ laid itself bare with pride—a reflection of Valkh’s research chamber as described by a sadistic demon. The symbols coalesced like coagulated blood around frames of spiked iron, wooden benches deeply stained with untold residue, collections of bottles and beakers bubbling and sparking with unnatural energy. Yenna’s eyes flicked back and forth, seeing every detail, but dancing around the most dreadful sight of all. She forced herself to look.

In the centre of the room, bound to a steel bench and disrobed back to her undergarments, was the unconscious form of Jiin. To Yenna’s slight relief there wasn’t a wound on her, no surgical scars or horrific butchering. Instead, Mulvari had attached an array of wires all over her body. Thin threads of copper wrapped with insulating resin and attached to sticky pads dotted her skin from head to toe, the vast majority stuck over her temple and forehead. All of them traced back to a tall glass cylinder immediately behind her, the contents murky with dark green liquid.

Yenna’s magical sight revealed a darker side of this already horrid sight. The threaded wires carried waves of energy back and forth, between body and glass tank, somehow modified by the magical scrawlings above and below on floor and ceiling. Within the tank glowed an unusual whorl of magical energy, its shape bound into sickening right angles and fractal spirals. It flickered like bottled lightning, searching for a way free of… something. Jiin’s body seemed magically empty, her light guttering as though dampened and deprived of fuel and air, battered by the chaotic backwash of whatever magic was performed in here.

Then, it clicked. If Jiin’s body was so empty, then Demvya couldn’t have been present. Yenna’s eyes flicked towards the tank with dawning realisation. Mulvari had done what some researchers could only dream of—he had forcefully extracted the spirit possessing Jiin, and contained it. A month ago, Yenna might have been impressed by such a feat. Now, she was sickened.

“Marvellous, isn’t she?”

Yenna jumped in surprise as Mulvari’s voice came from right by her ear. Wheeling around, forced into the room by her own shock, she realised that the yolm had been standing immediately beside her the entire time. But, that’s not possible—I would have seen him when I walked in.

“How did you– what have you done to her?” 

The mage attempted to put her fire, her disgust and rage at this affront to nature and science, into her words—all that came out was her bone-chilled fear. Mulvari smiled brightly, clean white teeth dazzling beneath thin, dry lips.

“You will find the subject—both subjects, actually!—quite healthy indeed. I was supposed to simply remove the passenger in your man here, take away the claws so to speak,” Mulvari flexed his own sharp claws with a childish giggle, “But the word had the foresight to allow me to prepare for this.”

With a sweep of his hand, Mulvari gestured towards his handiwork as though expecting applause, praise, curious questions—an academic showing his life’s work. Yenna recognised the motion, the unspoken expectation of niceties and polite queries. The juxtaposition in her mind, of safe academic halls and this horrid torture chamber, sickened Yenna deeply. A moment passed, and Mulvari deflated, sad and apologetic once more.

“I suppose it was too much for you to ask to understand. I’m sorry, so sorry. I wouldn’t have done it, not really, not if I wasn’t made to—but the opportunity came up, so…!” Mulvari waved a hand once more, suddenly exasperated at having to excuse himself. “Anyway, I really hate to do this, but I must inspect you as well—that knife of yours is quite the piece of work. Conjured metal? Much finer than off-the-cuff magecraft could produce, that’s for sure.”

Mulvari moved forward as though to take the knife from Yenna. The mage took another step back, torn between pointing the sharp piece of metal at the man or completing a spell to knock him out of commission. The man reacted simply by backing away, raising his hands in mock defense. The exasperated, slightly apologetic laughter managed to irk Yenna—Mulvari didn’t respect her as a threat, or even acknowledge the situation in the same way as her at all. The man seemed convinced they were simply having a conversation in the corridor of a university, gone somewhat awkward by Yenna’s uncalled-for standoff-ish nature.

An inner voice called for a show of power, to cow him into submission, but the way Mulvari acted left Yenna wary. He really didn’t seem threatened at all, and everything was going his way. Mulvari’s smoke-bomb trick left Yenna with no choice but to follow him into the chamber, and his sudden appearance had even put his body between Yenna and the door. With a blink of surprise Yenna noticed that Mulvari had even managed to shut and bolt the door, though she hadn’t seen him so much as put his hands out of sight.

Yenna bit her lip, her eyes flicking towards Jiin’s unconscious form, to the tank that seemed to bind Demvya. I don’t know how to fix them, I don’t know what he’s done to them. I need him to put them back—I need to… I need to force him!

“Alright, M-Mulvari.” Yenna wet her lips, still holding her dagger and spell-circle before her like a shield. “I’ll… I’ll submit to your inspection. As long as you wake Jiin, and release Demvya.”

“Oh, those were their names! I never got a chance to ask.” Mulvari shrugged. “Thank you for that, it makes certain processes so much easier. But may I ask you, why are you lying to me?”

Yenna’s body stiffened, hairs standing on end as tension flooded every muscle in her body.

“I’m not,” she lied.

“Your aptitude for magic far exceeds your skill at deceit, mage. Or… witch?”

Yenna gave another twitch of surprise—How could he know that? Or…

The look on Mulvari’s face said it all. He hadn’t known, merely a guess. Yenna had just confirmed it for him.

“Witch, then. Hm-hmm! I would love to compare notes—please, put those down, I’m not going to hurt you! We can just talk.” Mulvari took one step forward, calm steps, the slow approach one might take to avoid startling a wild animal. Yenna almost did what she was told.

“N-no. No!” Yenna barked louder than she expected, her voice echoing across the stone walls. “Stay back! I have fought beasts, elementals, and a monster far greater than whatever you are! You will put those two back to how you found them, or I shall… shall be forced to use violence!”

Mulvari stepped back as ordered, but not far enough for Yenna’s liking. She could feel her emotions coming to the surface, threatening an overflow. The crackle of dark lightning between her knuckles, a product of Pride dark-tinged to fear. Embers of crimson Wroth danced around Yenna’s hair, and her skin hardened with Certainty. Elemental imbalance, all poured to one side of the colour wheel. Yenna bristled, prey backed into a corner and ready to fight with teeth and nails and spines. The stalwart defender, left at the back of the herd to buy the others time to escape, eager to live but happy to go down swinging.

Through it all, Mulvari maintained that disgusting attempt at civility—no more worried about the wrath of a mage-turned-witch than he would be about some choice words by an academic peer he held no respect or interest in. He sighed, flapped his arms in an overwrought shrug, settled his over-long clawed fingers against his hips with disappointment.

“If that really is the only language you’ll understand, it may be prudent for me to… accommodate. So? Fight or flight, little kesh? Which reaction will you show me?”

Two glass vials fell from Mulvari’s hands with a small flick, shattering against the floor simultaneously. Yenna saw the man’s face twist into a malicious smirk for just a moment, before the world vanished in coloured smoke.

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¹ - A somewhat mage-specific phrase. Akin to the concept of keeping one’s cards close to one’s chest, it means not to reveal any secret tricks or spells one may have prepared. In some cases this is quite as literal as the card-related example—mages preparing for duels would often go to great lengths to look inside their opponents’ spell books for information, with many keeping their tomes and grimoires locked away and supervised to prevent the untimely spilling of information.