Awaken Online (Book 3.5): Apathy

by Bagwell, Travis

  “A simple illusion spell,” Alma explained calmly, stepping toward the cabin. “There are many applications of water magic. While you have decided to utilize some of its more offensive abilities – there are other utility spells that can have interesting uses. This particular spell wouldn’t prevent someone from stumbling into the structure by accident, but it would deter any curious passerbys. More powerful illusion magic can actually simulate touch, taste, and smell as well.”

  The older woman glanced over her shoulder with a smile. “I have found illusions to be extremely… useful in my occupation.”

  “As an alchemist?” Eliza asked in confusion. Why would someone who brewed potions for a living need to use illusion magic?

  “Ahh, not quite,” Alma replied, an excited smile curling her lips. “I wasn’t sure whether to show you this, but you’ve proven yourself to be far more competent and inventive than my previous apprentice. So, I think we can make an exception.” With that, the older woman pushed open the door to the cabin.

  Inside was an alchemist’s paradise. This wasn’t a quaint cottage – it was a full-fledged laboratory. Stills and burners lined the walls, and glass tubing spiraled through the air in intricate patterns. Along one wall was a series of shelves holding all manner of multi-colored powders and pre-prepared herbs. The facility even had its own furnace. At the back of the lab was a large sheet that looked like it had been draped over a pile of boxes.

  “To answer your original question, I think a more accurate title for my profession would be ‘Royal Poisoner’ – at least once upon a time,” the older woman continued, gesturing around the room. “Nowadays, I still make a fine living selling these poisons up and down the Silver Coast to certain discerning customers.”

  “Wait, what?” Eliza asked, her mind wheeling as she looked at Alma in a new light. “But what about the potions you sell in town?”

  Alma turned her gaze back to Eliza, noting the shock on her face. “Did you think I could afford this entire compound and the rare plants growing in my garden by brewing a few healing potions for the local townsfolk? Cures for the common cold? The occasional love potion? That’s simply a front to deflect suspicion – my real business is selling poisons. Although, traveling into town to set up my stall is becoming such a pain as I get older…”

  As she saw Eliza staring at her blankly, her mind still trying to process this new information, Alma continued, “But this is neither here nor there.” She shuffled across the laboratory and reviewed a row of vials along one wall – each one labeled with a small scroll of paper. “What we need to focus on right now is what type of poison would work best with your new weapons. You may also need to develop something unique to help hunt the stag. You will need to experiment, of course. We can’t be certain what resistances other travelers or animals might have.”

  “H-how should I experiment exactly?” Eliza asked, recalling her encounter with the players with a grimace. She didn’t relish the idea of dying over and over again until she figured out the most effective combination of poisons.

  Alma smiled at her nervous expression, anticipating her concern. “There’s no need to engage in combat to test out your latest concoctions. As I said, I am not one for direct conflict myself. That’s why we have these little beasties…”

  As she finished speaking, Alma tugged at a tarp resting near the back of the laboratory, revealing neat rows of cages lining most of the wall. Inside were what appeared to be normal rabbits, their fur a motley collection of whites, browns, and grays. They shuffled hesitantly in their cages, eyeing Alma and Eliza with placid expressions.

  “The rabbits around town are typically considered level 1 creatures,” Alma explained. “The travelers rarely spare them any attention – likely because they provide little experience. However, as test subjects, they’re excellent. They breed quickly and don’t have any natural resistance to toxins. So, you can determine a poison’s full effect.”

  “Doesn’t that seem… cruel?” Eliza asked, staring at the rabbits.

  Alma nodded in understanding. “Perhaps? But all animals fight for their survival – including humans. A sadist kills for sick enjoyment. We do this because we need to in order to survive and flourish. How is that different from a dragon that eats its prey… or a bear that attacks a player to defend its territory?”

  The older woman met Eliza’s gaze evenly. “Or players that would kill you out of greed?” Alma’s eyes clouded over, and her gaze drifted to a corner of the room. “Sometimes we must make hard decisions to move forward and to protect ourselves – and sometimes those decisions require some collateral damage. In this case, you should be happy that only a few rabbits will need to die. You may have to face decisions in the future with far more dire consequences.”

  Alma drifted into silence, clearly lost in her own thoughts. Eliza could only wonder what had happened in the woman’s past to warrant such a sorrowful expression. Although, with the hints she had dropped regarding her background, Eliza suspected that Alma likely had many regrets. A person didn’t specialize in brewing poisons unless they intended to kill with them.

  “So where should we get started?” Eliza asked, trying to dispel the heavy silence that now hung over the room.

  Alma shook herself and glanced at Eliza. “Do you still have any of the ingredients that you used against the troll?”

  Eliza nodded quickly and moved to an empty table in the center of the room, dumping the contents of her pack on the clear surface. There was an assortment of Caracas Leaf seeds, Mentril Root, and Caper Bark. Alma inspected the ingredients carefully, murmuring to herself. “Good, good. This is a fantastic start – you retained the information in those other textbooks well.”

  Alma turned to Eliza. “I would start with the seeds from the Caracas Leaf. As you are no doubt aware, the leaves are innocuous – causing only mild itching. However, the seeds are special. Properly distilled, they can create a fine oil with paralytic properties.”

  “How long would it last?” Eliza asked, her thoughts racing as she considered the possible applications of a paralyzing poison. That would have been incredibly useful with the bear. If she had been able to freeze the creature in place, she could have taken him out with a few well-placed Ice Bolts.

  “It depends on the concentration and quantity, but it is typically only a few minutes at most – less depending on the creature’s size, metabolism, and the method of transference.” Alma smiled slightly. “As I said, illusions are helpful for this. You can typically have a creature ingest the poison directly – although your mist method may be more effective in a direct conflict.”

  “What about the Mentril Root and Caper Bark?” Eliza asked, nodding along with Alma’s explanation.

  “The root typically creates a wasting sickness. In large enough doses, it can cause death. The bark is often used to create a mild insecticide – which is useful for farmers but less helpful in our present situation. Some poisons and ingredients are only effective against certain types of animals and creatures.

  So, it’s similar to our world, Eliza thought, recalling the many biology and chemistry textbooks that her parents had forced her study.

  “Of course, there are also many combinations of ingredients that can create new, more poisonous variants,” Alma continued. “You can also include animal parts such as blood, bone, flesh, and organs into the concoction to add additional effects – although those materials are much more difficult to come by.”

  Alma turned to Eliza, an excited gleam in her eye. “There are alchemists that spend their entire lives studying poisons and recording the different combinations and effects. The possibilities are nearly endless – as you no doubt witnessed firsthand with the poison you brewed to slay the troll.”

  Alma’s enthusiasm was infectious, and Eliza couldn’t help but feel her heart race as she glanced around the lab with fresh eyes – noting the dozens of vials that lined the shelves along the wall. She was beginning to realize that she had just barely scratched
the surface of her Alchemy and Poison skills, with Alma essentially only covering the basics.

  Her real-world studies had always felt dry and dull. She was just memorizing the work done by others – with little room on the horizon for invention. What was the fun of being an explorer when almost everything had already been mapped out by a dozen generations of scientists and any new invention required access to a full-fledged pharmaceutical laboratory? Yet here she could invent something entirely new.

  The thought was intriguing, and Eliza was already itching to get started, her eyes glancing at the herbs lying on the table in the center of the room. The possibilities were limitless. She just couldn’t decide what she wanted to create first.

  Chapter 15 - Experimental

  Eliza had spent the rest of the day and the entire night in-game in Alma’s secret lab. The hours had passed quickly as she practiced different distillation methods and combinations of basic poisonous ingredients, mixing and matching concentrations and various catalysts to assess their effects on the rabbits.

  The results had been astounding. She has found toxins that completely or partially paralyzed the small creatures, slowed their movements, caused wasting damage over time, and reduced their base statistics. The combinations were nearly endless, and, if it weren’t for the morning sun peaking over the horizon and streaming in through the laboratory’s windows, she might have kept going for the rest of the day.

  However, there was also a limit to what she could accomplish in the lab. The rabbits weren’t terrible test subjects, but she wasn’t certain how some of the poisons would translate to a much larger creature – such as a bear or an adult human. She would also need to assess how the poisons would perform in combat. At her current skill level, some of the toxins weren’t capable of killing even the level 1 rabbits, much less something more resilient. She would likely need to use her Ice Bolt and Cold Grasp to compensate.

  Which explained why Eliza was now walking carefully through the forest, having spent the last hour navigating the hunting trail leading away from Alma’s compound. The trees now towered above her, the whisper of a breeze gently rustling the leaves overhead as insects chirped happily nearby.

  The walk would have almost been picturesque if Eliza wasn’t planning to painfully poison and then kill an innocent forest creature. Well, not completely innocent, she corrected herself. The last bear had tried to kill her, after all.

  With that macabre thought, Eliza decided to take a quick break. She ducked down next to a tree, carefully scanning the area around herself before opening her pack. She had learned her lesson with the bear and the players – determined not to be caught unprepared again. She had also left most of her money and valuable equipment at Alma’s compound just in case, taking only a few of her poisons. If another player looted her corpse, they were likely in for a startling surprise when they found dozens of novice vials filled with various poisons.

  Speaking of which, she quickly decided she should inventory her supplies. She was beginning to get close to the same place where she had encountered the bear a few days before. Lifting the lid of her pack, she peeked inside and identified the handful of new poisons she had created.

  Paralyzing Poison

  This concoction was created by a novice alchemist with the help of an instructor. While the toxin does not cause any immediate harm to the recipient, it will paralyze them for a short time.

  Quality: C

  Damage: NA

  Effects: Paralysis for 30 seconds.

  Durability: 1/1

  Wasting Poison

  This concoction was created by a novice alchemist with the help of an instructor. This poison applies a damage over time effect to the target, causing them to suffer damage each second for the duration of the poison.

  Quality: C

  Damage: 20/second for 10 seconds.

  Effects: NA

  Durability: 1/1

  Numbing Poison

  This concoction was created by a novice alchemist with the help of an instructor. This poison weakens a target, reducing its statistics and damage for a time.

  Quality: C

  Damage: NA

  Effects: 10% reduction to target’s statistics for 60 seconds.

  Durability: 1/1

  Her current poisons weren’t a marvel by any stretch of the imagination, but they were far better than her initial attempts the night before. For example, she had barely managed to get the paralysis duration over five seconds on her first few tries. It had taken her nearly an hour to figure out that she needed to grind the seeds more finely before distilling the oil. She had been kicking herself on that one once she’d figured it out.

  The silver lining was that her crafting abilities had increased considerably – which no doubt had something to do with the hours she had spent reading in-game textbooks and experimenting in the laboratory. She was nowhere near Alma’s level of skill yet, but she was still happy with her progress.

  x3 Skill Rank Up: Poisons

  Skill Level: Beginner Level 4

  Effect: 2.5% chance to add a second random poison effect.

  x1 Skill Rank Up: Herbalism

  Skill Level: Beginner Level 9

  Effect: Allows the player to harvest more difficult or dangerous plants. 4.5% chance for double ingredients.

  x2 Skill Rank Up: Alchemy

  Skill Level: Intermediate Level 1

  Effect 1: Increases success chance of crafting potions and potion potency by 11%.

  Effect 2: Reduces ingredient consumption by 1%.

  With a sigh, Eliza pulled up her map. She could see that she was now a decent distance from Alma’s compound and maybe thirty minutes from where she had encountered the Grizzly Bear. She had intentionally avoided heading south to the lake where she had discovered the Silver Stag. She didn’t yet have her wands or any way to kill the stag, so it seemed rather pointless to confront any other players that might be hunting the beast.

  However, she was still in a dangerous area, and she needed to be cautious. Eliza pulled out a Dexterity Potion that she had brewed the night before and kept the bottle in hand. She would need the extra speed and stealth that the potion afforded if she encountered a creature. To err on the side of caution, she also placed a vial containing the Paralyzing Poison in her pocket where it was within easy reach.

  With her preparations in place, Eliza pulled herself to her feet and continued down the path. She walked slowly, keeping a tree beside her at all times and scanning the area further down the path before she proceeded. As she turned a bend in the road, she caught sight of the bushes moving ahead. Eliza immediately pressed herself against a tree, downing the Dexterity Potion in a single gulp and trying her best to keep out of sight.

  A moment later, a large grizzly stumbled out of the bushes about 20 yards ahead of her position, the animal snorting and huffing softly as it searched the forest floor. Eliza breathed a sigh of relief when she realized the creature hadn’t detected her – at least not yet. This was a perfect opportunity to test her poisons.

  Moving quickly, she crouched beside the tree, placing her Paralyzing Poison on the ground and unstoppering the vial carefully. Her heart was racing, and her fingers trembled slightly as she fiddled with the simple cork lid. She forced herself to take a deep breath, which helped calm her nerves – if only slightly.

  It’s just a game, she reminded herself. You’ll be fine. Even if the bear decides to tear open your throat and make a snack of your cooling corpse.

  Okay, that wasn’t helping. Maybe she should just focus on her preparations.

  With the poison ready, Eliza began to cast Obscuring Mist. Her fingers twined through the gestures of the spell as she whispered the requisite words, trying to keep her voice as low as possible. The bear’s ears twitched slightly, but it gave no other sign that it had detected her presence as a globe of water began to coalesce in front of the mage.

  As soon as the orb stabilized, Eliza grabbed the poison and sprinkled its contents over the orb
, the yellow substance slowly staining the sphere of water. Alma had said she only needed to use a few drops for smaller creatures, but the bear was huge. After emptying half of the vial onto the orb, Eliza glanced at the bear one last time, noting the way its bulk shifted as it lumbered across the forest floor.

  Nope, we’re going all in, she abruptly decided, draining the remainder of the vial of poison as the orb before her began to glow a brilliant yellow.

  She moved to set down the now empty bottle and missed her mark, the glass vessel tinkling gently as it scraped against the base of the tree beside her. Eliza immediately glanced up and saw the bear was staring in her direction, a low growl vibrating its throat.

  Shit, shit, shit, she thought.

  As the bear began moving toward her, its lumbering paws gouging at the dirt and vegetation of the forest floor, Eliza desperately tried to complete her Obscuring Mist spell. Her fingers fumbled through the final gestures a few times as she watched the bear closing in, sniffing at the air in great huffing snorts. It was nearly upon her now.

  The bear caught sight of her only a moment later, its eyes filled with deadly intent and a roar erupting from its throat as it barreled toward her position. At the same time, she finished casting the spell. The orb in front of Eliza exploded outward in an expanding golden mist that curled and coiled around her frame and billowed out toward the bear. Focusing as best she could, Eliza tried to direct the tendrils of moisture – ordering her mist to encircle the bear’s head.

  The vapor responded sluggishly, moving much too slowly for her comfort as she saw the bear charging the last few yards toward her position. As the beast entered the yellow fog, it billowed and swirled around the bear. The creature huffed slightly, the vapor sucked in through its nose. The poison didn’t seem to have any immediate effect and Eliza stumbled back, terror settling heavily in her stomach. Her eyes darting around as she looked for somewhere to run – anywhere that might offer some protection.