CH846

“Oh yeah, here we go!” Jake yelled while Ben pressed his hands against the doors, preparing to walk through. “Second last tower and second last tower blessing, here we come!”

“Jake, we’re not even doing anything to earn this one,” Amy sighed. “Considering we’re about to be carried through, maybe take it down a notch.”

“Hey, in group projects as long as your name’s on the assignment then that’s all that matters.”

“And you don’t need to remind me how much being grouped with you in school always sucked.”

“Uh, guys?” Ben cut in. “We’re a second away from going in and I know this is supposed to be safe and all but please consider the fact that I had my heart destroyed on my first step in the first floor of the last one and try to be at least a little focused until we’ve actually confirmed things are as safe as they’re supposed to be.”

“Wait, what was that about your heart?” Will asked, each new tidbit that came out of Ben’s mouth only sounding more insane than the last, with his question being brushed off.

“I’ll tell you about it when we’re done the tower,” He said, hoping the other would manage to forget so word wouldn’t get back to Steph about it either. He could only imagine how that would go if he let it and since he didn’t particularly want to be left prostrating on the ground and promising to be a little safer when he had no real intention of holding true to that, the best option had become distraction so not letting anyone else get a word in he threw open the door and stepped inside to see what it held.

His body was instantly tense for it too, a reflexive reaction after the last tower but he didn’t suffer any immediate harm, instead finding what was by all accounts a simple room. A furnace and some tools at one end and a table at the other, a few things placed on it he couldn’t perfectly see from where he stood that he’d examine later, along with a few open boxes lined up against the walls as well as a fountain at the other side of it constantly letting water flow and finishing with a small pedestal waiting in the center of it all that he walked to first.

“Using the ingredients in the room, concoct a general healing potion,” He read aloud, feeling his brow crinkle as he continued. “Place here when complete to be judged.”

“Well hey, that doesn’t sound too bad, does it?” Jake laughed. “We’ve got the guy who made the most important potions in the world, sounds easy peasy.”

“It’s definitely a lot harder than that sounds,” Ben said as he walked around, looking at the rest that was there.

Each box was filled with a fine powder, his material sense telling him what they were thanks to the experience he had with using them out in the world for his own work while the table was more varied, being covered in the dried clippings of what at first looked like thirty different plants, holding two pieces of each along with a single cup and some small spoons as well, but on closer inspection revealed the true trap they held.

“What’s the issue then?” Will asked, feeling his own interest pick up at whatever sort of challenge the room held that the rest of them were blind to and seeing no time limit to go with it, Ben explained.

“The first issue is that a general healing potion is a bit of a misnomer,” He explained. “There are certainly potions in the world that can heal the majority of races but there’s nothing that can heal all of them. I don’t think the gods would intend for me to manage to make some sort of pancrea that doesn’t exist in the outside world so the real intent here has to be to make something that would heal as many people as possible.”

“Okay, that still doesn’t sound terrible.”

“Sure, but we then have the second issue. Limited ingredients. If I’m using the herbs on the table then I only have one chance to get this right. If I treat them the wrong way then I have no way to correct it and this floor is basically done.”

“Do you have to use it all?” Amy asked as she walked over to them. “You’ve got two of each, doesn’t that mean you could at least do the wrong thing with each one once, or are you going to need to use up the full quantity? It’s not like the gods asked for a specific volume of potion.”

“A good point about the volume but as for how much of each ingredient I have, that brings us to the third issue. The table is a trap.”

“What? How?”

“At first glance, it looks like I have thirty herbs to use but that’s wrong, I might have up to sixty. I can already say with certainty that a few of those plants are lookalikes from different species, with some being known to be outright poisonous and others having both medical and toxic uses, along with a few more that are going to be used in the next issue, not this one.”

“Which is?” Thera asked, playing along with the question she knew he wanted to ask because, despite how many issues there supposedly were, she could see Ben was enjoying himself.

At that question though he spread his arms wide, gesturing all around him. “Look around you, alchemy isn’t as simple as absentmindedly tossing things together to get an end product. I’m going to need to powder some of these herbs and I’m going to need bowls for storing them. I’m going to need to make extractions as well to do that too and then I’m going to need to mix the right ratios. Test tubes, beakers, flasks, and more. I’m going to need plenty of tools to do this but do you see any of them around?”

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“…No.”

Now that he’d pointed it out, the amount of equipment was noticeably bare. He’d been given a large scoop that could act as a container if it had to, a few spoons, some tongs, and what looked like a metal tube as well, but none of the obvious stuff any normal alchemist would have needed to take advantage of.

“Exactly. The gods didn’t leave anything here for potion making beyond some raw ingredients and even then, I’m going to have to make some other chemicals first since just water isn’t going to work for a lot of the things I’m going to need to make. You know what they did leave me though? Everything I need to make glass.”