The Newt and Demon

Theo was excited for a nice, calm morning the next day. He woke and ate a pleasant breakfast at his table, taking his time and watching in amazement as Tresk did the same. Now that she wasn’t so busy with the dungeons, she seemed to have fallen back into her habit of shadowing him for most of the day. Alex lingered outside, doing whatever a dragon goose does, while Sarisa and Rowan ate with them.

Despite his standing invitation, Salire still didn’t feel the need to eat breakfast with him. Perhaps it was just too weird, having breakfast with your boss every morning.

That peaceful breakfast was broken when someone knocked on the door. Opening it, the alchemist found Xol’sa, a smile on his face. He let himself in, finding a place at the table and laying out long sheets of paper, and waiting for Theo to take his seat.

“That’s the look of a man who actually has good news for me, for once,” Theo said, sitting down at his place and picking at his food.

“Of course, I’m done with the tethers and beacons, and I’ve made some decent progress on the negative dungeon. Thanks to Tresk, actually.”

Theo turned, looking at the marshal, who shrugged as though she had done absolutely nothing.

“What can I say?” she asked. “I picked through your memories and saw some computer stuff.”

Xol’sa went on to explain what the dungeon was doing. It was an idea about computers that Theo had heard once on Earth, and Tresk was able to pick through his memories and find it. But the system expected dungeons to always have a positive value. When it went negative, weird things would happen. It was called an undertow, or underflow, or something. Anyway, once it went negative, it started looking in weird spots in the system’s code to populate the dungeon. That resulted in a completely random dungeon. Every aspect of it was random, which was slightly concerning.

“We can have a dungeon that never produces a wave, or a dungeon that produces a wave every second for the rest of eternity,” Xol’sa explained. “The point is that if a dungeon is completely random, we can see anything, and that’s a problem.”

“I thought you said you had good news for me,” Theo said.

“Of course, I do. I have several paths forward that I can take to fix the dungeon. Unfortunately, each one requires us to get to the dungeon’s core.”

This wasn’t good news at all. Theo picked up his food and sipped his tea for a minute as he thought. If they needed to get to the dungeon core, then that meant they had to clear the entire dungeon. He couldn’t remember a time when the adventurers in town had said they cleared the swamp dungeon—maybe back when it was young and he had first arrived.

“I thought the whole problem was that the randomness made it impossible to clear the dungeon,” Theo said.

“A correction,” Tresk said, pointing her finger into the air. “I said it was too dangerous to look for it, but we’re understanding a bit about this particular brand of randomness.”

“That’s the thing,” Xol’sa said. “Once the dungeon goes into the negatives, the randomness it produces is consistent.”

“So it isn’t random,” Theo said.

“No, it’s random upon generation. This means that once it shifts from a positive to a negative number, it creates a set amount of randomness. Those elements remain. Perhaps not forever, but we can’t know yet.”

So it was good news after all. If the dungeon wouldn’t change while people delved into it, then they could map out a course and take the safest route. Dungeons in this world were interesting things. The swamp dungeon was the most clear-cut example; it was a series of floors heading down. Clearing a floor often gave you access to the next one, but Tresk often skipped floors. The dungeon that had been generated as a negative dungeon, on the other hand, was an open field, so it was a different sort of dungeon. But if it remained consistent, they could clear it. They were certain of that.

Theo withdrew two communication crystals from his inventory. “I have a proposal,” he said, placing Fenian and Elrin’s crystals on the table.

“Are we going to call in the big guns?” Tresk asked.

“That’s the plan, anyway. If Tresk links up with either of these two, then they won’t have a problem clearing the dungeon. That’s the idea, anyway.”

“I have no objections,” Tresk said. “Although, I’d rather have stealthers with me.”

The group debated the plan’s specifics for a while, but it seemed straightforward. Shoving more powerful people into the dungeon would work if they could avoid the giant Sky Whale. That seemed to be the biggest threat, along with the wide-open fields. This is why Tresk wanted stealthers to avoid attracting attention from afar. But since the dungeon was not currently producing an immediate threat, they could take time to formulate a plan.

Theo held Elrin’s crystal and squeezed it tightly. He felt the familiar haptic buzz in his mind, but the man didn’t answer. When he tried again, he received the same effect. Sighing, he placed it back on the table and picked up the other crystal.

“Theo, my dear alchemist,” Fenian said, his voice honey-sweet.

“What do you need?” Theo asked, sensing the familiar sweetness as a call for help, rather than anything else.

“I’ll remind you that you called me,” Fenian said. “But it’s interesting that you know I need something. Are you watching me right now?”

“Maybe I am,” Theo said. “What are you doing? What do you need from me that’s so important?”

“Just a few minor supplies,” Fenian said. “Nothing you can’t provide without much effort. Mainly, I’ll need the help of your artificer and maybe a blacksmith. I’ll be in town in a few days, so we’ll talk about it then. What do you need?”

“I need you to clear a dungeon,” Theo said, “a negative dungeon.”

“What kind of dungeon?” Fenian asked. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a negative dungeon.”

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If the elf understood the strange dungeon he would be facing, he seemed to grow more excited as details emerged. More surprisingly, he had something else to add.

“Now, if you promise not to be mad,” Fenian said, “I can bring some backup. Some real heavy hitters in the world that I think we’ll desperately need if the dungeon is as bad as you say.”

Theo sighed. Which one of their enemies had Fenian made up with? “Okay, who is it?”

“Oh, lovely. Jan and Twist have become very close friends recently, after we fought Elrin, that is.”

Theo blinked a few times. “Whatever,” he said. “Stranger things have happened.” He didn’t remember either man directly attacking Broken Tusk. The only reason he was upset that either had left was that he had more questions to ask. With the end of the world coming, it seemed he didn’t have much time for enemies, but plenty of time for allies.

“Sounds good. Keep me updated,” Theo said. A moment later, Fenian cut the connection without saying anything more.

That was more than a little weird. Fenian was normally excited to help with most projects around town, but his schedule was normally a bit more packed. Theo had to take a moment to think things over to see if he’d missed something important. Elrin’s arrival and Fenian’s recent adventures weren’t a coincidence. The pair had some kind of history, and the idea that Twist and Jann could also have been involved was curious.

“So I don’t need to do anything, do I?” Theo asked, dismissing the other thoughts from his head. “Fenian said he was coming with some heavy hitters that I’ll need to clear with the town, but you should have a small team ready to go into the dungeon with you, Tresk.”

“Oh, goody. I get to run around with the super high-level guys and pretend that I can pull my weight.”

Of course, Tresk could pull her weight. She could draw on Theo’s attributes to make herself far stronger than before. He knew she could do it; she could keep up with them. The thing that concerned him most about all of this was the throne cores and how they hadn’t reacted to the negative dungeon. That meant that the dungeon was within the bounds of the system, and there was nothing they could do to use their cheats to help.

Theo excused himself from the table as Xol’sa and Tresk discussed specifics. There were some interesting projects back at the lab that he wanted to attend to. The streets of the town were busier than normal today. People went about their business, but a noticeable influx of folks had clogged the streets and made the local businesses far busier than usual. Anyone who wanted to stay for the end-of-the-world party had to sign one of the town’s contracts. The alchemists wondered how far their magic could go to protect them, but if that failed, they did have walls bristling with guns and an army of golems ready to strike at any time.

The scent within the lab was noticeable. Salire must have already started working on the fermented properties they planned to test. The potions they created from the pitch, expanded, and fluff properties might not have been useful, but he was eager to see what they could add to his potions as modifiers.

“Things are getting pretty busy out there, aren’t they?”

“Yeah, so I have a feeling it’s only going to get worse,” Salire said, turning around. She had been leaning over the table, working on a series of restorative potions when he had entered. They might be interested in pushing alchemy further to test how each facet worked, but they still needed to create standard healing potions.

Theo didn’t need to ask if she had prepared the modifier essences; he could see three flasks sitting on the table near the window. Salire had cracked that window, allowing a warm breeze to blow through. It might have been this world’s version of autumn, but the weather hadn’t done much but calm down slightly. At least the intense summer heat was gone. They didn’t call it the Season of Fire for nothing.

“What do you say we test these modifier properties?” Theo asks, approaching the table and selecting the Pitch modifier essence first.

“Most bomb-based essences don’t mix well with standard potions,” Salire said. “Maybe we should combine this with a standard bomb to see how it works.”

Theo couldn’t help but smile. She had come a long way from being his assistant, someone happy to be a shopkeeper. Now she had ascended to a knowledgeable alchemist. If one took the modifier system at face value, they would assume the pitch modifier would mix with anything. But she was right; one would have trouble mixing it with standard potions if it took it all. A bomb-based potion was the best idea.

Ario rummaged through their storage, finding a Basic Firebomb to test. He transferred the bomb to a larger vial, one that could contain both the bomb’s liquid and the modifier, before introducing a few drops of the modifier. The reaction was tepid, which was a good sign, so he poured the entire thing in. Then it bubbled and produced an amount of smoke as the swirling orange liquid of the bomb mixed with the dark, cloudy pitch modifier.

“Stable reactions are good, right?” Salire asked, chuckling to herself.

Theo simply nodded, keeping an eye on the reaction to make sure it didn’t go overboard. But everything went well before long. The potion was done brewing, despite the fact that he was mixing a modifier from the new system and a potion from the old system. As expected, the resulting purity was quite low, but it was stable enough not to explode in his hands. He inspected the resulting item.

[Basic Firebomb]

[Pitch]

[Bomb] [Modified Bomb]

Common

Created by: Theo Spencer

Purity: 72%

Shatter against a surface to release flames that stick to the target.

Effect (Modified):

A sticky tar-like substance adheres to the target, lingering for twice the time but dealing half damage.

This was a very balanced effect from the modifier. Sometimes modifiers would change the way a potion worked entirely, but this one just altered the length of the damage-over-time effect while reducing the damage. It wasn’t a good or bad potion; it was just a different application. This kind of potion would be perfect to fight against a troll, since trolls often regenerate their health over time. Applying a potion like this would ensure that the regenerative effect was minimal.

“That’s shockingly good,” Salire said, looking at it. “I was expecting something far worse, but... can’t be mad about that, can we?”

“No, let’s check out the Expand property next. That’s the one that I think might be the most useful for other potions.”

To get an idea of what a normal modifier would do to a potion, Theo often used it on his standard healing potions. This would be no different, and he had several of the new potions to work with. He selected a standard healing potion, withdrawing the expand modifier and transferring both to a new vial. The reaction was very pleasant; there were no strange things going on, so he was happy about that.

The light pink of the potion shifted, becoming paler as the essences mixed together. Both he and Salire leaned in to inspect the effects of this potion.

[Healing Potion]

[Expand]n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

[Potion] [Modified Potion]

Rare

Created by: Belgar

Purity: 90%

A healing potion. Drink to restore health.

Effect (Modified):

A healing aura emits from your body, restoring 30 health over 15 seconds to all those within 100 paces.

This was a weird one. It was hard to tell if it was good or bad. It took the normal 75 health that the Tier 2 potion healed and reduced it to 30. But it didn’t have a target limit on how many people it would heal. Unfortunately, it also didn’t specify whether it healed only allies, or allies and enemies. Theo saw this as an interesting thing, though. If it took the standard effect of a potion like this and turned it into an aura, that would be amazing for other potions, like attribute potions.

“This one might be a winner,” Salire said, rubbing her hands together.

The more Theo thought about it, the more he realized that it was indeed an amazing potion, and applying it to others might change the way they performed group combat. He went from mildly interested to excited.

“I want to test this on other potions. I really do. But first, we really need to see what the Fluff property provides.”