The Alchemist’s Process: A Study in Emerald

The floorboards beneath my desk vibrate with the rhythmic thumping of a minotaur’s dance in the common room below. Even through the heavy oak door of my room at the Pitt, the muffled roars of laughter and the clinking of tankards are inescapable. It’s a far cry from the silent, incense-filled libraries of Golden Bay, but the flickering candle on my bedside table provides enough light for the delicate work ahead.

My kit is spread across the small, scarred vanity. The brass burner hisses softly, competing with the drunken shouting from the street outside. I’ve laid out the components with the precision my father demanded of his quartermasters: the glass alembic, my stained mortar, and the reagents.

“Precision in all things,” I whisper, my own voice sounding thin against the tavern’s din. “The weave is in the weight.”

I start by prepping the base. I take the silver-leafed sage I gathered near the Wood Sower’s grove; it’s hardy, with a natural resistance to rot. I strip the leaves and grind them into a coarse powder, the scent sharp and medicinal. Into the mortar goes the gold-veined moss from Seelia’s temple. This is the catalyst. It’s infused with the goddess’s lingering grace—it called to me even through all the rot that permeated the temple. Even now, just a pinch makes my fingers tingle with a divine power.

I add the powdered reagents I bought from Kragg—bitter root for stability and a dash of ground amber to hold the light. Once the mixture is a fine, uniform dust, I transfer it to the boiling flask. I carefully measure out the purified water we brought back from the shrine. As the water hits the herbs and begins to simmer over the flame, a pale green mist rises, smelling of spring rain and old, deep stone.

I watch the infusion boil, waiting for the exact moment the liquid turns from a murky brown to a clear, shimmering jade. If I pull it too soon, it’s just a bitter tea; too late, and the healing potency burns away into acrid smoke.

When the color is right, I begin the filtration. I pour the hot liquid through a fine silk mesh into a cooling beaker, straining out the dregs of the moss and sage. What remains is a thin, translucent fluid—not a paste, but a true tincture. To make it combat-ready, I add a single drop of refined Acacia Resin to keep the mixture from separating, then stir it with a glass rod until it swirls like a miniature storm in the flask.

I use a small funnel to decant the liquid into two narrow glass vials. They are light, easy to uncork with a single thumb, and the glass is thin enough that I could shatter one against a comrade’s wound in an emergency. Though they might be picking shards of glass from their now fleshly healed wounds for months as their body slowly expels them. Far less than ideal to use one like that.

I seal them with red wax and tuck them into my bandolier. They represent hours of trekking through mud and narrow escapes from death, but as I watch the emerald liquid catch the candlelight, I feel a rare sense of quiet pride. My family sold lives for coin; I am learning to spend my time to save them.