The following night, they made a second batch of Lwynthenl without any issue. It used up Lucas’s second batch of Distilled Moonlight, but even without any attempts to steer the reaction with his Empowered Alchemy, the potion cleanly divided into the toxic bck potion of Greater Communion and the sparkling blue water of life.

  Seeing it for the second time was almost as pretty as seeing it for the first time, and not even Heisenburgle’s suspicious gaze could ruin the magic of that moment as he watched the catalyst reactions twinkle and swirl. Of course, the bad part was he saw that he had options with his new ability even here, but he couldn’t use them, not when the gnome obviously suspected something.

  Potion of Greater Communion (fatal) (1 dose): Poison 30. This potion will kill the imbiber. He will come back to life only by the grace of the Goddess herself if she judges them worthy.

  No Modifications possible.

  Water of Life (pure) (30 doses): Euphoria 20(Overwhelming), poison 1(acid), mana regeneration decreased by 300% for one hour. Increases fertility by 100% for eight hours. It is not addictive if used less than once a month.

  Fecund: 11% mana - increase fertility by 200% for eight hours.

  Potent: 7% mana, +1 Poison - Increase Euphoria by 3.

  Long Lasting: 8% mana, -2 Euphoria - Double the length of the effects.

  Abundant: 10% mana - Increase yields by 33%.

  Lucas didn’t need any of those effects, of course. The shit was already straight rocket fuel. Still, he would have loved to experiment, but that would have to wait. The gnome had already found a way to bring up talents in three separate conversations that night. So, he wasn’t just being suspicious; his suspicions were correct, which meant he either told him the truth or sat on his hands and for now, the tter was a much better choice.

  For now, Lucas concentrated on his fake safety precautions. They’d opened all the windows in the tower to let the fumes escape, and he wore thick leather gloves when he poured off the “waste product” into a waiting metal bucket that had been filled with Charcoal to neutralize it.

  Of course, that waste product was really one of the most powerful potions in existence. It was the Water of Life that was essentially the waste product, however desirable, but Heisenburgle didn’t need to know that.

  It was only after they’d carefully disposed of that viscous bck liquid and closed the windows so things could warm up that Heisenburgle said, “Well, I must say, you have quite the talent for making this stuff. The Prince will be absolutely thrilled that you—”

  “Could you give it a rest already?” Lucas exploded, deciding that was the most normal reaction he could give. “You aren’t being clever or subtle. If you’ve got something to say, then say it.”

  “I don’t know what you mean?” Heisenburgle said in a voice that was the caricature of innocence as he acted wounded.

  “A talent for this, a talent for that,” Lucas sighed. “This is the fourth goddamn time you’ve thrown that word around tonight.”

  “Is it?” Heisenburgle asked sarcastically. “It sounds like a guilty conscience to me.”

  “Does it?” Lucas asked. “If I really had a talent for this stuff, then why would I be messing about with ditch weeds and other simir wastes of time?”

  “Why indeed,” the gnome agreed. “Perhaps the only reason you can make such things work is because of some secret talent.”

  “Unlikely,” Lucas answered dismissively, marveling at how close Heisenburgle was getting to the truth. He might be a pain in the ass, but he was a pretty smart one. “Not everyone has a talent. You know that. I’m just not one of the lucky few.”

  Lucas threw that line out there to muddy the waters, but when he saw the way the gnome flinched, he realized that he might have hit too close to the mark for him. Lucas smiled and seized the opportunity to point the conversation away from him.

  “I mean, you don’t have one either, right?” he asked. When he saw the gnome squirm slightly, he realized he’d missed the mark slightly, and he changed tactics. “Wait, you do, but it’s not compatible with Alchemy, is that it?”

  The gnome was in full retreat now and walked away from Lucas as he babbled, “It is as you said, not everyone is blessed with talents—”

  “But you are!” Lucas insisted as he followed him. He didn’t really care one way or the other, but the surest way to make the alchemist stop looking into Lucas was to make him so uncomfortable about this topic that he never dared to bring it up again. “That’s it, isn’t it? You’re Heisenburgle the Bck because you’re a bck sheep, right? You’ve got some Mage talent or a warrior, and you—”

  “Worse,” he admitted, finally, as he turned to face Lucas. “You are a very clever human to have figured out my disgraceful secret, but then I suppose it is not entirely a secret if you run in rarefied alchemist circles.”

  “Which I never would,” Lucas volunteered.

  “Exactly,” the gnome agreed, “Which means that, like everything else, you are obnoxiously able to figure out complex things all on your own. It is a peculiar talent. Perhaps I should be studying you and not your alchemical techniques.”

  “Nah,” Lucas said with a shake of his head. “Once you report on our success to the Prince, I pn to go back home and rex as much as possible. I have some dragon peppers at home that I—”

  “Do you think they might be an important alchemical ingredient?” the gnome asked.

  “No. Definitely not,” Lucas shook his head. “They are an important culinary ingredient in some hot sauce I was working on, but none of this has anything to do with the point.”

  “You’d waste all your alchemical potential just to make sauce? To eat?” Heisenburgle asked skeptically.

  “Heisenburgle…” Lucas repeated in annoyance.

  “Fine,” the gnome said, dropping it. “I will share with you my shameful secret, but it is imperative that you share this with no one. Even if it might be common knowledge to some people, I have no wish for word about these embarrassing facts to spread further.”

  “I… Hmmmm, okay,” Lucas agreed. “I’m listening.”

  “It is easier to show than tell,” Heisenburgle said, grabbing his cloak. “Bottle that mixture and meet me in the main hall.”

  Lucas nodded and did what the gnome asked, then ran down the steps two at a time, getting down to the ground floor even before the gnome had quite reached the main hall. That whole time, though, he was wondering what it was that Heisenburgle was going to show him.

  Lucas had very little information on the talents of others. He knew that his own talent system was very different from everyone else's because he came from another world, but aside from that, he really didn’t know anything. He knew that Danaria could talk to birds or possess them and that his tailor made a living as a man who could telekinetically fling about poisoned needles. He suspected the man could do more than that, but he’d only got a glimpse at his scroll, and honestly, he didn’t really want to know.

  What the gnome could do might be anything. Maybe he’s like a level six werewolf or some shit? Lucas wondered with a smirk. Of course, an actual werewolf was unlikely, given that he’d worked with the man on the night of the full moon on a number of occasions already. Still, it had to be something weird for him to be so ashamed of it.

  Still, it was anyone’s guess as the two of them walked out into the snowy night toward one of the outer annexes that was not attached to the main building. Lucas figured that the gnome was doing so for privacy since he feared spies. Instead, though, they walked into the main bcksmith building, which had plenty of people working day and night.

  Lucas said nothing, and instead, he let the man talk. “As you know, some nights I am not in the b,” the gnome said slowly like he was about to come out of the closet. “Those nights, I am almost always here, in Bckgate’s Smithy.”

  “Okay,” Lucas said, unsure of what he was supposed to be reading into this. “Makes sense. I figure you come here for custom armatures and equipment. Just like the gssblower’s hut, right?”

  “Oh, how I wish that were the case,” the gnome sighed as he took them past the main forges to a locked room at the end. “I… well, there are many that might be proud to have my talent. For a time, even I was. I thought that I might be able to use it to push the bounds of Alchemy, but that was not to be.”

  The room they entered was dark enough that before Heisenburgle closed the door, he lit a ntern. While he did that, though, he kept talking. “I learned the error of my ways when I was young… Not much older than you, really. Still, the damage was done.”

  “What damage?” Lucas asked. “You’re the Prince’s right-hand man. You run this whole facility. What could be more important than that?”

  “For a human kingdom? Pah! It's true that it is hardly an awful fate, but the project we have been working on together has been the only interesting thing I’ve worked on alchemically in years,” the gnome insisted. “I would trade the lowest chair at a proper gnomish alchemy academy, but what use would they have for a tinkerer like me?”

  As the gnome panned the light around, Lucas saw any number of interesting objects. There was armor that looked like the love child of a deep sea diving suit and full pte mail, a number of strange and unconventional weapons, and even a mostly complete metal horse.

  “So Heisenburgle the Bck is Heisenburgle the Bck… Smith?” Lucas ventured, keeping all the mockery out of his voice. It wasn’t hard. Though he could see why the gnome might hate that, he thought that was kind of cool.

  “Put quite succinctly,” the gnome agreed with a sigh. “To someone else, it might have been a blessing, but I have only ever found it to be a curse.”

  “How is it a curse to make something like this?” Lucas asked, gesturing to the horse. “Does it work?”

  “The hyperquadabutor?” the gnome asked. “For a short time. The only problem is in its regution. It only goes faster and faster until it runs out of fuel. I’d hoped to find a better alchemical repcement than mp oil, but… Well, it’s all a dead end now, isn’t it? What need have we to sy a dragon if she’s perfectly happy to be bribed by your Lwynthenl?”

  “Well, I think it’s badass,” Lucas said. “I don’t see why you’d be ashamed by engineering.”

  “Because it does nothing to further my path along the one true path of alchemy!” Heisenburgle insisted pintively.

  “Yeah, well, you’re the one that’s always trying to tell me everything is alchemy,” Lucas answered with a shrug. “Did you really mean everything but turning metal ore into awesome metal horses is alchemy?”

  Heisenburgle shook his head. He looked like he was about to address Lucas’ point for a moment, but instead, he just stood there silently for a moment and told Lucas about some of the more interesting engineering projects they’d worked on in case Skyra needed to be taken out. Lucas didn’t force the issue. As much as he might have wanted to dig deeper into the point, he wasn’t in the mood to kick a man when he was down. Still, he came away from the conversation wondering how it was that Heisenburgle could feel that way about the things he’d done or the things that his men were working on even now.

  It sounded like he was capable of doing just what Lucas could do with potions, but with metal. He could see the exact temperatures things were heated to, and he could gauge the thickness of parts as if his eye was a micrometer. He probably had other powers, too, but Lucas didn’t want to get too interested or show enough insight to bring the conversation full circle to where it had started.

  Still, when they were finally done and went to breakfast, Lucas’ estimation of the gnome had gone up by quite a bit. That wasn’t hard, of course, since his opinion of the alchemist had been so low, but he thought the other projects that Bckgate had been working on were very cool, even if they were never going to have to kill Skyra, thanks to his hard work.