What confused me was how I was beginning to see Modessa as a useful tool, rather than simply a target for my animosity—and possibly for my fatal wrath. It left me uneasy.

  Chapter 20 – Purification and Life

  Once we were inside Cassandra’s lab, I quickly realized that it doubled as her apartment. I could appreciate the level of dedication that displayed. She was clearly a woman who cared about her craft.

  I considered using Identify on her, but decided that I knew enough—for now. Doing so seemed a violation of trust, at some level, and I had the feeling that this human had things to teach me.

  “Okay, well, first things first. Not that I don’t believe you, and mostly because I want to understand what I’m working with here, but can you prove that you’re a dragon? Actually, if I’m being honest, I just really want to see a dragon. I’ve loved dragons since I was a little girl. Once I met the dragons and their riders, I was disappointed to discover that they didn’t live up to the legends.”

  I looked around the shop, then snorted. “I’m not here to perform tricks for you, but if I transformed now, this building would be damaged, if not destroyed.”

  Cassandra looked around and seemed to be doing some mental math. “You’re that much bigger than the other dragons?”

  I nodded. “First off, the dragons you are familiar with are domesticated dragons. The system even turned them into a different species. They are all stunted runts compared to me, and I’m not even that old for a dragon—although my bond with Cami has enabled me to grow faster than would normally be possible.”

  “Oh, so Cami really is a dragon rider?”

  “A true dragon rider, nothing like those you’ve met before. Actually, her class was upgraded to the epic version, so she’s a dragon knight now.”

  “Well, I’ll say this for you. You keep some impressive company. A chosen of Miseria, one of her grand priestesses, the wizard who is likely going to become the next headmaster of the university, and that young girl who has both an epic class and a legendary crafting class, from what I understand.”

  I nodded. There was obviously much more that I could tell her, but no matter how much I liked Cassandra, she would have to earn her way in. I knew that Cami had said she’d take care of talking to her about becoming a minion, but I was tempted to bring it up again now. I pushed it aside—that would have to wait.

  “What do we do now?” I asked.

  “Well, I’ll obviously need some of your blood… but not yet.” As Cassandra spoke, she was busy moving things around. She cleared a space on a large workbench and started setting up a series of vials. “I’m going to have to refine and distill this purification potion as much as possible—apart from your blood. Luckily, because of my Pursuit, I was able to learn a great deal about purification even before I became an alchemist.”

  I arched an eyebrow. I was curious about her Pursuit, but I didn’t want to seem too needy. Cassandra didn’t miss my look and laughed, but it wasn’t a mocking laugh. I could now sense more about how humans acted.

  It was like I was seeing in color, whereas before I’d only seen in black and white. While I didn’t necessarily like the way I was struggling with my own internal emotions, I did appreciate the greater awareness I had for those around me. It was difficult to quantify, but I was learning just how useful it could be.

  Cassandra pursed her lips. “Now, don’t be like that. If you want to learn alchemy from me, then you’ll be my apprentice—at least as far as Alchemy goes. And what woman my age doesn’t like having a handsome young man for an apprentice?”

  Then she winked at me. Before, I would have thought that she was behaving like Lisella, but my greater insights now told me that she was simply playing with me. It was an odd form of humor.

  “What about your past helped you with this?” I asked.

  “Good. See? You can ask questions. I have no idea what it’s like for dragons, but that’s how humans learn. Only by admitting what you don’t know can you learn more. That is the definition of growth.”

  Cassandra started humming for a minute as she finished piecing together the various glass tubes that formed a bit of a puzzle on her workbench. “I wasn’t always a professor. Nor was I always an alchemist. I actually started out as a rogue, of sorts. Unlike your friend, Modessa…”

  “She isn’t my friend,” I growled.

  Cassandra shrugged. “Whatever you say. You’re certainly going to a lot of trouble for someone who isn’t a friend.”

  “Debts must be paid,” I allowed.

  She nodded, but didn’t otherwise respond. Instead, she continued her story. “Anyway, I was a rogue of sorts, but rather than focusing on shadow magic, my specialization was poison. It was one of the reasons I was so interested in black dragons. Oh! What color dragon are you?”

  “Blue.”

  “Oh, well, no one can be perfect.”

  “I’ll have you know…” I had intended to correct her about the perfection of blue dragons, but then I saw the small smile on her face. She was just testing me. She was trying to get a rise out of me. I snorted. “Go on.”

  “Well, I struggled to find my way. I was initially an adventurer, but I found myself getting offered very lucrative jobs, which involved assassinating people. I wasn’t always sure that what I was doing was a good thing, but the jobs paid out too much gold to ignore them.”

  I nodded along but didn’t admit how well I understood that drive. Even hearing about gold still caused my heart to beat just a little faster.

  “Anyway, eventually, I learned that some of the jobs I had taken on resulted in the deaths of innocent people. I found that I couldn’t live with that. I ended up taking my leave from the adventuring life and instead took up Alchemistry.”

  I frowned, then realized that this Alchemistry and Alchemy were one and the same.

  “It became my crafting class and was a natural fit. I was already experienced at dealing with various poisons in their powder, liquid, cream, and other forms. It turned out that Alchemistry wasn’t that different. At first, I tried to avoid working with poisons, but eventually, after leveling up some more and learning a variety of healing and cleansing potions, I started researching poisons as not just an adventurer, but also as an alchemist.

  “This led to me going back to adventuring where I earned the title, Liquid Death. My foes didn’t always die the fastest, but they always died… and it was rarely pleasant. After reaching level twenty, though, I left that world behind and came here to teach.”

  “Why are you telling me all of this?” I asked.

  “Getting to know one another will make it easier for you to learn from me. And I can’t help but suspect that you may be in the position of having to make difficult decisions.”

  I nodded.

  Then she said, “Now come here and I’ll show you how to extract the most life essence out of crimson berries.”

  At some point, the others brought Modessa into the lab, but I was too busy learning to look up. I found it truly fascinating. Cassandra took simple ingredients— crimson berries, creeping moss, even slime residue—and processed each of them. She used heat, cold, physical pressure, and most interesting to me, electrical current which she generated with a magical item that held a charge. Each technique was meant to draw something more out of the ingredients.

  After half an hour of this, she had a base concoction simmering in a small glass beaker. She looked at me and smiled. “You have potential, but don’t let that go to your head. Now is the time for us to add the dragon blood.”

  I nodded and, with a simple flexing of my will, I transformed my right hand into a dragon claw. The transformation seemed to go even faster than before and had been effortless. I had been working on shapeshifting off and on, but I believed the evolution of my mind made the process more intuitive, almost instinctive.

  At first, I had worried about this part of the process, because shape changing didn’t just make my body look like a human, it made my body into a human body—and that would include human blood. But with my expanded mind, I understood that I could control the shape of this body at a much finer level than before.

  I cut my left arm open at the wrist, where humans had veins, careful to avoid the tendons that controlled my hand. The positioning of such critical structures in such a vulnerable place seemed to be something of a design flaw, but then again, this was a squishy human body we were talking about, rather than the perfection of a dragon. My claw easily worked through my flesh, even with my enhanced durability, but I was careful to control the flow of blood.

  Even after this short time working with Cassandra, I could tell that she didn’t suffer fools lightly. And to her, fools meant anyone who made an unnecessary mess or wasted any precious ingredients.

  Cassandra gasped as brilliant green blood leaked out of my vein rather than the red that would have been natural for a human. I had managed to change the blood within this body to dragon blood, but even as I struggled to control my shape, I realized that I would only be able to maintain this change for a short time.

  The dragon blood within my veins was too powerful for this human body and it was eating me alive from the inside. The only reason that I didn’t immediately collapse was because of my monk skill, which negated poisons, combined with the draconic poison resistance which I had gained from the hatchlings.

  When I finished, Cassandra nodded in approval as I captured every drop of my blood in the vial before allowing my natural healing to close up the wound. I followed that with a quick Regeneration spell and then held the vial up for her approval as I had allowed my blood to return to the human blood which worked for this body.

  Cassandra grabbed the vial, holding it close and examining it. I felt a tingle of magic as she used some ability related to her class. I assumed this was a class specific identification ability, targeting alchemical ingredients.

  “This is pure beyond anything I’ve seen. When I used Determine Potency, it looked like little fireworks were exploding inside the liquid. This should do amazing things.”

  When Cassandra went to mix the blood in, she told me that I could only watch at this stage. She said this was where everything had to be perfect. I watched and admired how she once again refined my blood, getting the most out of it that was possible. She used a process to chill the blood before using her mana to draw out whatever it was she needed from it. I only understood a small portion of what she was doing, even with my ability to see magic. Strangely, rather than this frustrating me, I felt even more excited.

  When she added in the condensed dragon blood, the entire potion became clear. She heated and stirred it and then rapidly cooled it by drawing the heat out of it with magic.

  Without any hesitation, Cassandra walked over to Modessa and knelt next to the fading rogue. Before the opportunity was gone, I cast Identify on the potion.

  Potion of Draconic Cleansing - (epic level)

  This potion uses dragon blood to turn the normal potion of cleansing into a near legendary level solution which can remove almost any taint.

  She propped Modessa’s head up as Galbrecht held one of her hands before tipping the potion into her open mouth. Modessa coughed, and I felt the oddest itching sensation. I was struck by the sudden urge to scratch my back against the wall.

  At first, nothing happened. But within thirty seconds, color started returning to Modessa’s face, and I could sense as the eldritch power broke down and dissipated.

  I couldn’t help myself, going over and kneeling down on the opposite side of Modessa from Galbrecht. I leaned down and whispered into her ear. “Now a part of me is always going to be in you.”

  Interlude 6 - Soul Weight

  Cami watched as the potion worked its magic on Modessa. She breathed a sigh of relief. She wasn’t able to see magic in the same way that Nico was, but her senses were still heightened. She knew that whatever had been affecting the rogue was more than just a physical ailment.

  Perhaps it was her new crafting class, but she could sense the sickness which had been injected into Modessa, eating away at the woman’s soul. It was a foulness that she knew her mentor would rather die than experience. There had even been a moment before Nico revealed himself, when Cami had considered thrusting her dagger into Modessa to end the woman’s suffering.

  She was glad that it hadn’t come to that. Even thinking about it now made her sick to her stomach. There were some things that it was hard to come back from and killing a friend—even a mercy killing—would have been something that would have stained her own soul.

  The interesting thing now, though, was that she saw the way that Modessa’s soul was being restored. It was still scarred, though. Cami could only shake her head as she wondered what it would take to recover from damage like that.

  She felt a hand on her shoulder. Turning, Cami saw Cassandra standing behind her. The older woman said, “We should talk.”

  Cami looked back at Modessa. She was being restored moment by moment, but Nico was whispering something in her ear while she was cradled against Galbrecht. “Okay, but I want to be here when Modessa is ready to talk,” the young woman said.

  “Of course, child. I just need to know a few things.” As Cassandra spoke, she pulled Cami over to the far side of the lab.

  “Such as?”

  “Oh, he’s rubbing off on you, is he?” Cassandra asked with a wink.

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Just that I’d heard you are usually quite the respectful young student. Yet, here you are speaking to a senior professor without referring to me by title or with more than a modicum of respect. Even if you’ve lost your manners, child, aren’t you afraid of my power? Usually, that is enough to leave students quaking in their boots.”

  Before she knew what she was saying, Cami spouted, “Power comes out of the mouth of a dragon.” Then she shook her head. “I’m sorry. Sometimes my bond with Nico is like that.”

  She paused, eyeing the Master Alchemist. “But, should I fear you? I thought you were here to help us. And if I shouldn’t fear you, then what’s the need for formality? You are a level twenty adventurer and a level twenty Master Alchemist. I’ve checked up on you. But I’m also the first dragon knight here in a long time. Wouldn’t we be considered equals?”

  Cami was almost horrified by the words coming out of her mouth. Almost… they were true after all, but it wasn’t how she normally acted. She decided the best thing to do would be to stop talking any more than necessary until she figured out what was going on with her. Perhaps it was connected to Nico’s evolution—he had sure been acting strangely.

  “I need to know more about your companion, but for now, I’ll be satisfied with knowing more about what he meant by minions.”

  Cami nodded. She took a deep breath to get herself under control. That much she could answer, at least. Although for some reason she had to resist the urge to rub her hands together as she thought about how useful a minion, a Master Alchemist, could be.

  ___________________________

  Galbrecht held Modessa in his arms. He felt the life returning to her body, yet where there should be joy there was only turmoil. It wasn’t about her recovery—that thrilled him. He was afraid that he had waited half a lifetime to admit his feelings for her and then, after having done so, to almost lose her… well., losing her would have been unbearable.

  But no, the turmoil inside of him went much deeper. It was in his soul, in that spot where he now felt a constant connection to Miseria. He held his love in his arms, but his mind focused inward.

  Communion of the Chosen

  Suddenly, Galbrecht could no longer feel the stone floor against his legs or the warmth of Modessa in his arms. All physical sensation had disappeared. He found himself sitting in a white room. No, it would have been wrong to call it a room. There were no walls. There was just a sense that everything faded away into nothing a short distance away.

  What he could focus on, though, was a small table and the two chairs at it. Sitting in one of the chairs was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. She was just… well, there were no words for it. She looked like… well, no, he couldn’t describe her like that, either. She was simply beauty incarnate.

  He fell to his knees. “My goddess.”

  “Yes, my Chosen. You have invoked your power to speak with me. I do wish it could have been under better circumstances, though.”

  “I don’t understand, my goddess.” He kept his eyes down. She wasn’t a physical being, but some habits weren’t easy to shake.

  “Oh, do stand up. Actually, come here and sit down. I prepared a table and two chairs because I wanted you to have a frame of reference for this and for today only, I want us to talk like friends.”