6.23 - Failure Means Progress

Theo and Salire stood out in the land behind the Newt and Demon. The area around the building was becoming crowded, giving them little room to do dangerous experiments. Essence sputtered from the spout on a still, collecting into a flask resting on a table. The alchemist prepared the temporary pressure vessel, which might as well have been held together with duct tape and bubblegum.

“This should be fine,” Theo lied. “Throk had this junk behind his workshop. He never did anything with it.”

“Good thing he hoards all his stuff.” Salire turned the valve on the condenser artifice, sending the distilling Healing Essence into the tank. The condenser stopped sputtering, depositing the last few drops of refined essence into the flask.

Once they had enough vapor inside of the pressure vessel, they cut the flow and swapped from the still as a feeder to another container they had prepared. Thanks to the artifices on the tank, they could siphon vapor from either direction, allowing them to pump in a complimentary Healing Essence vapor they had prepared before starting this experiment. This was the first leg of experimentation that would give them a sense for how viable this was.

“Flip the switch,” Theo said, giving the signal.

Salire set the artifice to pump, allowing the gas to mix in the chamber. They didn’t have to wait long for something to happen. Moments after hitting the switch, the sides of the container bulged. Both Salire and Theo had enough alchemy instincts to hit the ground, shielding their heads from potential shrapnel. While the edges of the copper vessel bulged, they didn’t give way.

Theo edged close to the container, hitting the release valve on the side. Flames belched from the pipe, roaring out with a rush of heat and sound. The alchemist winced, gritting his teeth as the flaming reaction was removed from the tank.

“Nope. That wasn’t it,” he said, checking that he still had eyebrows. Both were still there, despite his expectations. “Mixing essences is a bad idea, even in vapor form. And even when those essences are the same.”

“We’re missing something,” Salire said, inspecting the damage to the tank. “And we’ll need to commission a few more tanks if we want to continue experimentation.”

“Smaller versions, I think,” Theo said, fixing his hair. “Let’s go over the factors that would cause two vapor essences to bind.”

“They’re incompatible. Which means we need a binding agent to force them to work.”

“Like the dilutions. I’m going to Throk’s to commission a few things. We have some left-over Enchanted Bound Dilution, right? How about we vaporize that and use it on a third tier essence. See if we can’t coax a true fourth tier reaction.”

“Well, that just might work.”

Theo scratched his chin, finding himself fidgeting more and more as this problem went unsolved. “I’m almost certain we’re still missing something, though. Okay, this might take longer than expected. I’m gonna go talk to Throk.”

Theo headed out from their testing area, leaving all their equipment there. This wasn’t a problem he could solve in a day like normal, but he had one more advantage to seize. He made his way to Throk’s workshop, finding the marshling missing. An apprentice was there to take his order, though. With the express fee, they could have the devices ready in hours... If Throk was there. He was working on the northern rail line. So things might take a while to get done. Fine. Everything was fine.

“You guys want to come to Tero’gal?” Theo asked, turning to the shadows he expected Sarisa and Rowan to be hiding in.

“Nope,” Sarisa said, emerging from a different shadow. “Hate that place.”

“Yeah, you can go alone. Go brood in the heavens by yourself, you little demon.”

Theo shrugged, activating his Tero’gal Dreampassage skill. He took the normal way, passing over the bridge and landing in his own realm within a few moments. It seemed smoother somehow, but he couldn’t place his finger on it. And the souls of those in the queue didn’t pass his notice as he approached. But they were a problem for another day. He had tea at the cottage, finding the normal assortment of gods minus Drogramath. That wasn’t concerning, but it was annoying.

Khahar pulled him aside before he could jump to another realm, a smile on the cat-dude’s face. “You found Jan,” he said. “What an asshole.”

“How much do you know about old Earth, Yuri?” Theo asked.

“Not as much as I would like. That man has a lot of stories. I’m rather excited.”

“He came with a gun. Did you see the gun?”

“Vaguely. Your shadow barrier is getting stronger by the day. Have you been lifting?”

It exploded like a pipe bomb.

Theo handed a Healing Potion over to Salire as he yanked a bit of metal free from his arm. She removed a similar fragment from her shoulder, shaking her head as she drank the potion.

“Well, that didn’t work.”

“No one said alchemy wasn’t dangerous. On to the next one.”

Different granularities of powder didn’t change the result. Each created a pipe bomb of varying strength. Theo and Salire tried everything they could think of, mixing different concentrations of gasses together, vaporizing other essences or full potions. The apprentice alchemist had a constant stream of testing artifices coming in from the artificer’s workshop, refining the design as they went. The apprentices there weren’t as good as Throk, but they were good enough for the tests.

Theo twisted the latest model shut, releasing the valve to introduce two gasses together. He tossed the device, plugging his ears and waiting for the explosion. At least they had learned to hide behind trees during the explosion. But the result was a sputtering thing, barely registering as a bomb.

“Wait, what just happened?” Theo said, narrowing his eyes to observe the reaction. “Didn’t we try that already?”

Salire checked her notes. “The mixture was... pure alcohol. We tried a bound dilution, and an unbound dilution before.”

“But it still had a reaction.” Theo dug his heel into the soft ground. “Because.... Why?”

“Let’s move on. Perhaps this isn’t the path forward,” Salire said.

“No, something is itching in the back of my head. I can feel it.”

“Wash your hair more often.” Salire gave a cheesy grin.

Theo turned, his thoughts rolling over in his head. He headed to the artificer’s workshop, commissioning a new piece. Salire followed behind him, watching as the alchemist sketched something for the worker to create. They were making the stuff so quickly because the testing tubes only required a few pieces to be slapped on with some artificer skill.

“What do you think?” Theo asked, pointing to the mixing chamber on top of the tube. Two elements could be mixed before being added to the vapor.

“Vaporized alcohol in one, and... what about the other?” Salire asked.

Theo pressed his hand against the second chamber, allowing Drogramathi mana to bubble to the surface. It dripped in. Like most raw mana that wasn’t controlled, or added to a crafting, it became a faint cloud of purple within the chamber.

“Oh! Oh! I see what you’re doing!” Salire shouted, bouncing up and down on the spot. The annoyed marshling pointed to the door. “Let’s go. He’s giving us the stink eye.”

Returning to the field filled with metal shards, Theo added gaseous liquor to the first chamber and pressed a button. They flooded into a smaller holding tank, ready to be introduced to the essence gas. He filled that chamber, pressed another button, and tossed the tube. Just in case.

“No explosion?” Salire asked, poking her head around the tree.

Theo did the same, setting his sight on the tube. “Nothing. Did it really work?”

The pair ran the gas through a condenser, but didn’t get fourth tier essence for their efforts. They went back-and-forth, finally concluding what the missing piece was. Theo cleaned out the testing tube, flooding the main chamber with essence gas. He put more of his mana into the second mixing chamber, and a Bound Dilution into the first. Pushing the first button, he watched as his mana mixed perfectly. His observations of the reactions were limited to whether or not it exploded. Still to unsure of holding the device and not dying, he flushed the mixture into the main chamber and tossed the tube into the field.

“That’s a good sign! Oh! That means your mana is a stabilizing factor!” Salire shouted, jumping around. “Just like modifier essences!”

“Let’s get it into the condenser,” Theo said, retrieving the tube. He extracted the gas into a spiral condenser, watching as it dropped into a flask below. There was too little for the system to give him a prompt, but he was hopeful. “One step closer to proper fourth tier essence.”