As the storm just magically manifested into existence, getting a “What the fuck!” from me, someone appeared in the sky. A figure of a man made of a blackish gas. Glowing red eyes looked right at me, delivering a shock of chills. I tried to scan the potential monster, but nothing happened. Cheetara, on my shoulder, suddenly hissed at the thing in the sky, before returning to a growl. Wolverine probably would’ve barked viciously if he were present.
“You do not belong here,” he said, his voice sounding surprisingly like any male my age. Suddenly, the fog man in the sky vanished, leaving behind an echo of ominous last words. “Flee, or you may just end up poisoned like the rest of the cattle.”
The presence of the gas monster was gone, as if it never existed. Soaked in the rain, I raced to catch up with Milia and Mandi, who hurried into the potion shop at the first crackle of thunder. Milia loved the rain but didn’t want to get her clothes wet. Sadly, I had the worst news for her. That thing’s words—I was certain no one else could see it, but he said something quite alarming.
When I burst into the potion competitor’s shop, I addressed the owner.
“Do you have antidote potions?”
“No, do I look like an alchemist to you?” the tired-looking older woman asked. She yelled at her two kids, each seeming to be five years old. “Stop rattling those pots! Wanda’s rippling rear.”
I explained the situation to Milia and Mandi aloud.
“Something… in the sky?” Milia asked, confused. The potion maker lady, Lindia, also wondered what kind of drugs I took before entering.
“What do you mean poison?” Lindia said. “Are you well in the head?”
I seriously didn’t have time for disbelief. “Am I the type to just run in here and make up a crazy tale out of my damn ass? I’m telling you what the thing in the sky said. Whether it’s true or not, I haven’t a fucking clue. Jesus, fuck, I’ve got to get back to the camp.”
Kelvin’s voice burst from the ring. “Nate! Something’s happening. Oh bloody Wanda, it’s miasma. Everyone needs to get out of town.”
Despite the sudden dire situation, I took the time to stare at the potion lady who accused me of being crazy. “When someone tries to warn you people, maybe listen. Now, I need to use your lab.”
Milia started talking to Kelvin, getting as many details of the situation as possible. Mandi looked terrified. Cheetara hopped onto her shoulder, comforting her. Opal shuddered and hid in the teenager’s hair.
“No one goes near my lab…” She paused, seeming to shake herself. “You won’t be able to create a cure for everyone in the town.”
“Where’s Wolverine?” I asked Mandi while following Lindia, blood cold. If something happened to my wolf…
“Kelvin said the miasma’s coming from a jail area. The same place where they kept the boy from earlier, the one who attempted to flirt with the party.”
“The Silvus guy, I think that was his name,” I replied. “What does he have to do with anythin—” My lips stopped yapping as the realization hit me and a brief blaze of raw anger danced through my blood. “He didn’t… All for some random encounter with strangers that were minding their own… He got himself tossed into jail for causing trouble multiple times according to the guard, not because of us. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back. And for that, this fucking dumbass says the Peace Spawner’s name.”
Lindia fainted.
“Goddammit, we don’t have time for this,” I said, then took a deep breath, collected my thoughts, and allowed the plan to flow through me. “Okay, I’ve heard of miasma before in my worl—homeland. It’s poisonous gas, right?”
“How would I phrase this…? Both yes and no,” Milia said. “It’s similar in a sense, as it is poison and curable. It is a mix of demonic mana, dark mana, and some may say evil itself. It originates from hallows, so we’ll never truly know what it is, except something not to touch.”
“Tell Kelvin to round up the others,” I said. “We’ve got to get the fuck out of here. Back to the camp.”
I poured healing potion into Lindia’s mouth as well as a little energy potion, which jolted the plump older woman to awake.
“Get your kids, follow us,” I said. “We’re getting the hell out of town.”
She thankfully didn’t put up any argument and we rushed out into the storm. It was only wind and lightning, red lightning, with no rain whatsoever.
Suddenly a lightning bolt struck the ground in front of me, causing Lindia to scream. A skeletal giant hand lurched at me.
[Divine Quest. Level: Emergency! Save the town from the Peace Spawner’s culling. This is considered a BOSS fight. Reward: Unknown. Will depend on performance…]
[This quest is mandatory and cannot be refused. Should you leave these people to die, it will result in consequences no human could live or die with.]
[Peace Spawner’s Culling. People poisoned: 20,000. People dead: 0. People cured: 0. Hellspawn left: 7.]
[You have been ensnared!]
That was so much to take in and honestly, the ensnarement stopping me from moving helped me more than it harmed. I read the entirety of the prompt while Milia and Cheetara fought the skeletal arm.
“Mandi, I need you to be brave,” I said to the nervous girl. “But don’t try to fly. There’s lightning.”
The joke thankfully did the trick, breaking some of the tension, and she rolled her eyes, before a small smile curled across her face.
[You are no longer ensnared.]
The red snake-shaped mana that wrapped itself around me vanished and I walked toward the skeleton Milia just brutally sliced into ribbons with her katana.
[Enemy Analysis.]
[Forming Skeleton Monstrosity. Type: Hellspawn. Rank: Void. Affinity: Darkness. Super Hostile. Miasma monster.]
[Receiving update…]
[Peace Spawner’s Culling. People poisoned: 21,000. People dead: 0. People cured: 0. Hellspawn left: 6.]
[Your disciples are doing a very good job helping out with the effort.]
“Good shit, you two,” I told Milia and the kitten, then turned to Lindia. “Come on, let’s get moving.”
“You… you’re magicians. The kitten just used m—”
“Let’s go. We don’t have time for this,” I said. “Think about your kids.”
Cheetara hopped onto my shoulder, and I took off, Milia and Mandi following. Lindia hesitated at first, but one glance at her kids pushed the potion maker into motion, determination manifesting in that gaze as I needed it to. Panicked shouting and other noises raged in the background. It looked as if it was ten o’clock at night, despite being in the middle of the afternoon.
“Mother,” said her little girl, who was probably actually a little older than five, but what did I know? “What’s happening?”
“We must flee town,” she replied and said nothing else. Her little boy only frowned.
“There are still six hellspawn left in town,” I told Milia. She nodded.
“So that’s what I’m sensing,” the dryad replied.
[Receiving update…]
[Peace Spawner’s Culling. People poisoned: 26,000. People dead: 0. People cured: 0. Hellspawn left: 6.]
[Warning! You are needed. Warning! You are needed. Warning! Danger!]
System, no pressure. Because there are totally no other potion makers that know about miasma and could help out with the situation, I thought sarcastically with enough bitterness to compete even with a goddamn lemon.
“You know, I’m starting to think that maybe the Peace Spawner’s a bigger dick than I gave him credit for,” I said.
“Really now,” Milia said sarcastically. “I wonder what could’ve given you that idea.”
I gave her a sad grin.
As we drew closer to the gates, two guards blocked our path.
“What are you up to?”
“Are you blind? Do you not see and hear the town is in—”
The sense of danger struck, and I caught the guard’s hand. Lindia yelped in surprise. That became a scream as the guard shimmered brightly, changing into a monster within a second. I pulled my hand away as if I touched a full-blasted stove.
Green scaly skin, sharp teeth, glowing red eyes, and black mist oozing from its mouth. They were humanoid reptilian creatures.
[Enemy Analysis.]
[Reptide Monstrosity. Type: Hellspawn. Rank: Void. Affinity: Darkness. Super Hostile. Miasma monster.]
It screeched at me demonically. The second monster leapt backward, as if intending to watch his buddy take us out by himself. A flurry of Mandi’s runes homed onto the creature. It roared as magic and electricity circled it.
Milia’s vines pulled the second reptide forward, causing it to fall to its face. I blew its head off with a dragon magic burst. Lindia’s kids were whimpering and crying softly.
“You’ll be alright,” I told them.
I was wrong. The reptides we thought we killed suddenly reformed from a puddle of black goo that wasn’t there a moment ago. They merged into one.
[Mini-boss battle begin!]
I wasted no time tossing a steam bomb fight into their faces.
“Take Lindia and her kids to the camp, now!” I urged Milia. The dryad wasted no time, pulling them by vine, Cheetara on her shoulder. “Mandi, go with them. Don’t argue.”
Unfortunately, the moment the redhead tried to run, the reptide teleported in front of her. Or at least moved so fast that not even my eyes could track it.
“And where do you think you’re going, little female human?”
It tried to backhand her, but Mandi ducked, and Opal tossed a rune onto its large eye. Instead of electricity, flames spawned into existence. The miasma monster roared, but before it could run my apprentice down and tear her to pieces, I spun-kicked the fucker into a building. The large gaping hole revealed two screaming elf kids running out.
“I’m not taking credit for that hole,” I said. “The fee I’m charging will be deducted from the balance.”
I pulled a summoning potion from my storage ring and poured some onto the ground. “You should be halfway gone by now, Mandi.”
“But—”
“Now!” I snapped. The redhead thankfully took off running toward the camp, Opal on her shoulder. “Aku, I hope you’re ready for battle.”
Aku emerged from the summoning in his massive dragon form and let out a powerful roar. The people that saw him probably wondered if they were dreaming or under the influence of the best ‘stuff’ they’d ever had.
The reptide burst from the wreckage, blurring in front of me, only to be met with a bright white burst of fire from my dragon summon. My hunch seemed to be spot on as the monster roared in utter agony.
“Fuck, I don’t have time to waste here,” I said. “Aku, finish it. It’s a hellspawn. I trust you know how to get rid of a reptide.”
“It’s dead already,” Aku boomed.
I stopped running and, sure enough, he was right. Aku turned that thing into ashes in one shot. He… was significantly stronger than before.
“Good shit! Could you deal with any other hellspawn? I have to make potions capable of curing miasma.”
“To do so, make sure your Dao of Creation is connected to your mixture,” Aku said. Before I could ask him for more details, he took off into the sky, landing on the far side of town moments later, his distant roar filling the air, dancing with the thunderstorm.
I blurred back to the camp. To my relief, Milia and Lindia had the cauldrons out and ready. Milia had an area of ingredients prepared too, some I didn’t recognize. I assumed Lindia had tricks and ideas of her own.
[Receiving update…]
[Peace Spawner’s Culling. People poisoned: 32,000. People dead: 0. People cured: 0. Hellspawn left: 3.]
[Warning! You are needed.]
[Poison Creating and Antidote Kit. Item rank: BB. Item quality: Amazing. Create up to A-ranked antidotes and up to C-ranked minor poisons. No, you don’t have to be a malicious poison user, but can turn a profit. Perhaps you may be able to create something new or useful, but don’t try to introduce pesticides. Alchemists have already done it.]
The number of people succumbing to poison pushed me into motion. How people were not dead yet had to be the result of the disciples, Wolverine, and Harmony putting in some work. If they weren’t, they’d be at the camp already. The prompt kept me relieved, honestly. It meant none of my apprentices had died.
Thankfully, the antidote kit was quite easy to use and even Lindia happened to be familiar with something similar to it.
“Shit, where’s Alexander?” I asked, feeling dread. The kid had magic, but he wasn’t ready for hellspawn. Honestly, I didn’t know what void-ranked monsters meant, but figured they could be a range of A through SS. Well, I had a hunch, but hoped to be wrong.
Fuck, I was in a state of turmoil with the notifications, afraid of suddenly seeing thousands dead, that I began making mistakes, dropping things. Lindia snapped at me twice, though cowered back every time I looked at her, remembering the terror of magicians.
“You have to collect yourself, Nate,” Milia said. “I’ll go find Alexander.”
“I’ll help,” Mandi said. “I refuse to be useless. I’ll fly in this storm if I must.”
“Don’t be foolish, girl,” Lindia said before I could open my mouth. “The situation is only as we know it. Don’t be so quick to throw your life away. He said you were an apprentice. Well, act like one. Watch and learn this recipe. Then prepare to deliver it. One day you may be forced to make this on your own, perhaps for yourself or a friend.”
Mandi deflated, but she knew the older woman was right. I withdrew something from my storage ring, something I remembered I had, and should’ve consumed before starting.
[Potion of Clarity. Consuming a medium bottle of this will clear your mind and increase the chances of you gaining insight. Warning: this is a highly valuable potion. Magicians will likely do whatever it takes to extract this recipe from you.]
The potion delivered the cooling I desperately needed. It also helped me to remember that I had to use my Dao of Creation onto the mixtures, which I quickly did, even on Lindia’s cauldrons.
Her kids continued to stare anxiously out the window, eyes locked onto the strange storm of red lightning.
Mandi began to help, passing me ingredients, helping with temperature control, and then as a team, we bottled as many potions as possible.
“They will only need a sip or hell, a splash on them,” I said.
“What did you do?” Lindia asked, puzzled. “You… This quality. And that light on your wrist. What are you?”
“Just a potion maker,” I told her. “And it feels good to have a fellow potion maker helping us out.” I patted Mandi on the shoulder. “Good work, kid. You don’t have to always be a hero. Sometimes being a team player is all it takes to prevent yourself from doing more harm than good. Now the hard part begins. We’ll have to go back out there and serve the people. Lindia, you stay back with your kids, of course. The golems of the camp will protect you.”
Lindia hesitated before speaking. “I… I really wish I could help.”
“You’ve done way more than I could ever ask,” I said as I hurried out, antidotes in my storage ring. Plenty were in Mandi’s storage ring as well. “We need to find Harmony and the others and offload some to them as well. It’s going to take as many people as possible to help thirty thousand.”
“Th… thirty thousand?” Mandi scoffed. “That’s impossible, Nate.”
“I’ve got a few ideas,” I said, twirling a potion of steam blast in my hand. “But I’ll need as many people as possible outside.”
[Insight gained.]
[The path to saving them all rages within you…]
A giant red lightning bolt struck just ahead of me. That number increased, until hundreds rained down. They were slower than normal lightning but blasted any building or structure into pieces.
They struck awfully close, some just barely missing me and the redheaded teenager at my side.
“You know, if I hadn’t seen the black fog thing in the sky, I would’ve wondered when and where I pissed off God.”
