Chapter 21 : Feel Good Inc. (Patreon)

Mnemon Rhomon, Sorcerer

Realm Year 764, Resplendent Wood

Domain of the Silver-Crowned, An-Teng, Satrapy of the Realm

It was hard to keep track of time while ill with poison. Distantly he was aware of himself, laying upon something soft with inconsistent contact with unknown people, wretching into some container and being fed watery soup and bread, but the specifics of passing time were lost behind the delirium of poison.

If he had access to his normal array of potions, he could simply quaff a general purpose poison neutralizer and recover within an hour. Unfortunately his enemy had used countermagic close enough to the cart to render all of his existent potions completely useless. They wouldn’t do anything but taste gross now.

Gross like the vomit building up in his gut.

He pulled himself over to the side of the bed and put his face above the sturdy basin, expelling his guts again. A retching session that pulled him firmly from the inconsistent sleep he had been getting and into the waking world again. Watery, thankfully tasteless liquid poured out of his mouth into the metal container, keeping him a prisoner of its rim for a few minutes.

“Uhmo… Mister okay…?” A soft voice called out to him with trepidation. Rhomon pulled himself up from his retching to spot a young white-haired girl, who was holding a basket of washed sheets at the entrance of the room. Whatever room this was. 

He gave his best, most-winning smile and a thumbs-up. “I’m recovering.” That statement was followed by another round of retching into the basin he was clinging to for dear life. 

“Ohmo… Uhm. Here are some fresh clothes…” The young girl said, placing the basket down at the foot of the bed and quickly scurrying away. Out the stone doorway and away from his sight. He continued to expel for a few painfully long moments, before shaking his head and pulling away from the sick-smelling container. A nearby handcloth let him wipe his mouth off.

Feeling somewhat better, he gave a cursory examination of the room he was in. He was wearing white cloth and resting under white sheets, sitting in a bed made of cheap looking timber frame and in a room of stone and mortar with a short roof of wooden frame and a small attic storage space. It wasn’t quite a prison chamber, but it was relatively close to such. 

He pushed off the bedsheets, very slowly and carefully, and without looking at the basin of his gut-fluid. He didn’t even want to smell it at the moment. 

He was still feeling the effects of the poisoning, but recovered enough to deal with that himself so long as he could get access to his alchemical supplies. He very deliberately did not think about his talismans at the moment. 

He didn’t need any more pain until after he had recovered from this. 

The fresh sheets contained another set of clothes, mostly off-white cloth of the same type he was currently wearing. He, feeling just a little bit gross, gladly took the opportunity to strip himself of his current wear and slip into something new. 

He was slowly forcing a new shirt over his head when a voice came at the door. “You’ve recovered enough to awaken.” He paused, turning to the voice but blinded by the shirt, and quickly wiggled it the rest of the way on. 

There was a man at the door, strong and old, with white hair and a scarred face. He wasn’t wearing any proper armor, but there was a torc of steel around his neck and bracers of the same around his forearms, and he carried a sword on his belted tunic. He was staring at Rhomon with a blunt suspicion.

“About so, yeah. How are my companions?” Rhomon replied and asked, reaching up to rub the side of his forehead, trying to wash away the headache. 

“Injured and barely conscious. The beast has been rendered entirely blind. The beastman is suffering from an infection. The Dragonblooded has mild injuries still.” The man explained shortly with a frown and squint. “The monk and your grandfather are unharmed, and are in the courtyard.”

Rhomon inhaled with a scrunched face, before forcing a relaxed expression and sighing. “Right. Better than it could’ve been. I’ll get on healing them soon, I suppose.”  

“The wretch called you a necromancer.” The white haired man stated bluntly, with a tone that demanded explanation. “And you commanded those ghosts to fall upon the abominable demons.” His strong hand went to the hilt of his blade, not drawing it yet, but the threat was clear.

Rhomon squinted at the man. “That’s because she’s not very smart.”

There was a briefly humored chuckle from beyond the doorway that was quickly silenced. Rhomon raised brow at it before shaking his head and trying to ignore the urge to lay down and do nothing with this toxin in his system. “I uh… What do you know about ghosts already? Do you know how Hun and Po souls work?”

“I do.” 

“Right so- The Hungry Ghosts, as lingering Po souls, are more or less just sophisticated spirit-animals. It's a bit harder to do, but you can call and control them with the same type of thaumaturgical rites one uses for animals.” He waved his hand around. “They…” He paused and lingered over the basin, staying very still and quiet as he restrained the urge to vomit. After a few moments he was able to pull back and finish his explanation. “That’s not actual proper Necromancy. Proper Necromancy can do significantly more than that, with greater ease.”

The man slowly nodded in response to that, showing that he understood what Rhomon was describing. “And why did this demon summoner attack you?” 

“Fuck if I know.” Rhomon grumbled, before pausing and raising a hand. “Apologies. If I had to guess…” He closed his eye and thought hard through the headache. “She had a small cohort of demons, an endless bandolier of poisoned knives, and was practiced with countermagic. That implies… An assassin who specializes in sorcerers?” 

He paused, licking his teeth. “Disable their spells, demons to distract their bodyguards or bound spirits, then knives to cripple and hinder the sorcerer- it's not a bad strategy if you’re willing to debase yourself by consorting with demons.”

His confidence and health was returning the longer he spent awake. “Maybe she’s a local figure? You’d know better than I. I’m from the Blessed Isle.” He shook his head and finished the thought, nodding at the white-haired man.

“She is unknown to us.” 

“...You killed her, right?” He asked after a moment of hesitation. 

The white haired man’s expression was stormy. “She slipped away with some injuries.”

Rhomon quietly cursed, holding his forehead in pain before forcibly releasing it. He sat quietly on the foot of the bed, trying to think of the ramifications for a few moments before pushing it aside. He wasn’t going to get any planning done while ill.

“I’d like to request the use of your alchemist’s lab, and my supplies.” He nodded and tapped his forehead. “I need to rid myself of this lingering poison, and rid my companions of their injuries.”

“We will be watching you.”

“That’s fine.”

—

“Rhomon, you’re up.” The monk called from the open doorway leading into the laboratory. A pair of women with white hair, one old and one young, stood in the lab with him, watching his every move and process. 

“Barely.” Rhomon grumbled, boiling a little pot to remove excess water from the slurry of poison-neutralizing substance that his mentor taught to him. It was the most effective, least-obstructive cure to bodily toxins that he was aware of. 

It was essentially hot alcoholic charcoal. He reached over to turn a knob in the side of the little cauldron, making the bottom of the container pour out and into a glass, leaving him with a clear smoky fluid that wafted with steam. He dipped his finger into it to test the temperature, then nodded and drank it back in one go. 

“What was that?”

“Toxin neutralizer." Rhomon explained, smacking his lips and ignoring the heat in his mouth and throat. It spread quickly down into his chest and from there out into his limbs, giving him a somewhat feverish warmth as the combination of ingredients attacked lingering toxins and contained them safely, ready to be purged from the body next time he needed to pee. 

He turned to the watching women and pointed at the remaining gunk in his little cauldron. “The rest of this is a potent fertilizer, do you want it?” The old woman shook her head with a squint, and he nodded calmly, starting the process of scraping it out into a sturdy clay pot and sealing it with a sturdy cord. 

He might use it to grow chili peppers or something. “How are the others?” He asked the monk as he finished washing out the pot and filling it with a fresh batch of water. From there he pulled out two particular vials, each containing about five ounces, shook them around and added them to the pot to slowly boil. 

He stood up and walked over to open a window. 

“Bollock is barely alive and blinded-”

“Bollock?” Rhomon asked with furrowed brows, walking back to the heating pot. All he had to do was boil off the excess water now. Each of those two vials were a special poison of slightly different properties, each of which was worth many times their weight in jade. 

For what he was about to do, however, they were free. “I need about a gallon of clean water, can you retrieve such for me?” He asked the women. The old woman nodded sharply and gestured at the young woman, who ran off and towards the back. 

“Siata decided the Ram Lizard needed a name.” The monk explained with a slightly amused quirk of his lips. The amusement fell moments later. “Shuri is only barely awake. He’s fighting off an infection in at least two places, and his torso is in shambles. He won’t recover on his own.”

“I’ll fix it.” Rhomon waved off with a sigh, sitting back in front of the boiling cauldron.

“You’ll fix it? His flesh is lacerated to the bone along the limbs, and there are holes in his gut.” The monk gestured with a furrow to his brow.

“I know I don’t seem very impressive, but I’m a rather good alchemist.” Rhomon smiled and waggled his brows. 

The monk didn’t reply, simply crossing his arms, leaning back against the doorframe, and watching him as he worked. The young woman returned with the requested water in a metal pail, setting it next to him and quickly scurrying back.

“Thank you.” He smiled and nodded gratefully. The young woman smiled back briefly, before glancing to her unimpressed elder and quickly flattening out her expression again. Rhomon took the metal pail and raised it to his lips.

And over the course of about a minute, chugged about half the pail before setting it down again and sighing, feeling bloated. 

“...So what are you doing?” Brahm asked with raised brow. 

“There were two types of creature that were made in the first age, the Beasts of Resplendent Liquids, and the Harvester of Poison. Their bodies were sorcerous refinements of a type of lizard from the east that eats a poisonous plant and secretes a defensive mucus of the same type.” Rhomon began his explanation while monitoring the boiling pot of two poisons.

“There might’ve been other creatures designed with this utility, I’m not sure, but those two were both living breweries.” Rhomon waved one hand widely about to emphasize their grandness. “They could eat base material and then expel refined material- most of the Beasts of Resplendent Liquid that survive to this day are in the possession of the Guild, and they consume opium and piss heroin. But there’s a pair owned by the Realm that produce age-staving cordials instead.”

“The Harvester of Poisons was a refinement of this idea, capable of wandering around, eating any poisons it found and adding it to his internal ‘library’ of samples, to be secreted at a later date at will. While I studied in the Heptagram, I made an order for blood samples from both such creatures, and with them and a sample from the original creature I refined a mutative potion.”

He gestured at the boiling cauldron. “It doesn’t last longer than a few days, but the ingredients that the potion is made from can last years, so I keep it in that form and brew it when needed.” 

He held up a hand, palm facing outwards. “Don’t touch me for the next hour or so, alright? You’ll poison yourself.” With that he pulled the cauldron off the little stovetop, then turned a nozzle on the side with a cup held beneath. A noxious green, translucent liquid poured out, which he promptly downed.

He held very still while the potion went to work, rapidly rearranging his cells, organs, and internal chemistries to the pattern of refined essence contained within the draught. 

“What does this potion do- ohmo.” A young, feminine voice that he assumed to be the younger woman asked, before shutting herself up. 

He swished his tongue around in his mouth, before slowly reaching over and flipping his open notebook to a particular entry. The twin poisons of the potion he just ingested. 

“For the next hour…” He began with a smirk, concentrating on their formulae and reaching deep within, accessing reserves of his internal essence and shoving it in the direction of his salivary glands, arranged into particular shape and form by his will. A little sweat of concentration built on his brow. 

He leaned forwards and held his tongue out over one of the glass vials, drooling out a translucent lavender fluid. He drooled until the vial was full, then capped the vial and set it aside. Another moment of concentration, another push of his internal energies, and a different poison accumulated in his mouth.

He drooled a noxious, opaque green fluid into the second vial, until it was full, then set it aside. Those two always needed to be first, so he didn’t run out of energy and render himself incapable of making any more later.

“For the next hour, my body is a splendid factory.” Rhomon tilted his head back and smirked at the white-haired woman. “A brewery that turns my essence into any potion that I know well enough to replicate.” 

It was an innovation that master Bhagwei had to help him through the initial steps of, but the rewards were more than worth the effort and experimentation that were required. As far as he was aware, no one else in the Heptagram actually knew he could do this. Only himself and his teacher. 

There was a slightly awed silence in the laboratory as he flipped his notebook to another page, referenced his notes on the topic, and shoved essence towards the next pattern of liquid essence. 

“...You’re going to make our companions drink your drool?” Brahm asked with a vaguely disgusted note in his voice. 

“I’m aware of how gross it is. Do you want them to heal fast or not?” Rhomon asked through a mouthful of reddish regenerative draught, giving the monk an annoyed squint. “If so- don’t tell them they’re drinking spit.”

“I’ll have to take care to not be injured around you.” The monk sassed him as he drooled into a glass jar. 

Rhomon rolled his eye.

—

“Oh, Grandson!”

Rhomon briefly paused in his approach of his allies, raising a brow at the old deranged fire dragon. Swan Dragon was smiling in a fatherly manner, sitting next to the ram lizard and gently rubbing its side in calming patterns. Siata was there sitting next to Shuri, who was given a cot near the injured ram lizard, and looked equally pained and hurt.

Why Shuri was put in the same building as the ram lizard, he didn’t know. Maybe anti-beastman sentiment among the Silver Crowned? 

“Grandfather, Siata, Shuri.” Rhomon greeted, walking forwards with a glass jar full of reddish fluid.

“You certainly took your time waking up, cousin!” Siata smirked with a note of worry in his voice. He was bandaged as well, but looked significantly less injured than the other two. The perks of being a dragonblooded, an exalted champion that was more durable than the average human and healed faster too. 

“Apologies, I had to brew an antitoxin and a healing draught.” He wiggled the glass jar in one hand, kneeling down next to the blinded ram lizard. Scores of injuries littered its armored head and all across the front of its body, all of which were technically his fault for commanding it to fight the blood apes. “Sorry it took me awhile, bud.” He muttered, patting the big lizard gently.

The lizard sniffed his palms before huffing and shifting forwards to gently headbutt his palm. Rhomon smiled before looking at the critically injured Shuri, who looked at him with bleary eyes. “Pay attention Shuri, you’ll need to do this next alright?”

Shuri made a noise that might’ve been words, but Rhomon couldn’t understand. Rhomon used his hands to force the ram lizard’s mouth open and poured half the draught in. “Drink.” He muttered an occult order. 

The ram lizard, unable to resist his sorcerous command, drank the entire offered portion. Rhomon waited a bit, letting the effects of the potion do their work in the ram lizard’s system. After a few long moments, he rubbed its forehead and gave another command. 

“Heal Yourself.” 

The way the healing draught worked was less restorative and more mutative. It mutated the subject, granting them the regenerative power found in several animals and refined sharply, lasting about an hour. The Ram Lizard had no natural way to heal faster, but with its temporary mutation…

The ram lizard grew still, then its damaged scales began to bulge and fall away like leaves. Scars in its face and along its neck began to hiss and seal shut. Horribly damaged, destroyed eyeballs forced their way out of its sockets, leaving new eyeballs to roll into place and blink in confusion.

Nearly a minute of hissing, steaming flesh later and the ram lizard was left laying in a pile of discarded, damaged body parts. A significant liveliness overcame it as it pushed its way up, sniffing at the lost components and blinking with brand new eyes.  The new eyes were slightly off, not quite grown back the same due to the mutative origin of the healing.

“...Cousin… what did you do…?” Siata asked with wonderment.

“I’m an alchemist too, did you forget? A pretty good one at that.” Rhomon smirked before wiggling the rest of the glass jar at the wide-eyed Shuri. “Your turn, Shuri. Focus all your will on healing once the potion takes effect, okay?” 

The bed-ridden snake nodded dumbly.

The ram lizard started headbutting Brahm in celebration.