22 – Plans

The liquid inside the conical flask was surprisingly unassuming, as was the container itself. Made of plain glass with a skinny neck plugged by a cork, its design wasn’t nearly fancy enough for how powerful she knew it must be.

Saffra asked, “Can you see anything when you [Inspect] it?”

“No,” Jasper said, seeming impressed. “Not even a name. And I can identify potions better than most. One of my teammates is an alchemist.”

Saffra swallowed. It made sense that she couldn’t decipher a name and level from Vivi’s potion, but even an orichalcum couldn’t? Much less one who was familiar with alchemy?

“Open it,” Jasper said. “It’s not an accurate way to measure how strong a potion is, but you can get a feel for its potency by the fumes. The stronger ones leak out mana, sometimes a lot.” He glanced at the man pinned between two rows of seats. “Quickly, now, if you’re considering this. I wouldn’t blame you if you chose not to. Dragons are stingy about their hoard. Even a regular master might not be happy with their apprentice giving away a top-tier potion.”

“She’s not a dragon,” Saffra said. It felt somewhat surreal that she was only mostly sure of that fact.

“Yeah, sure, kid. On with it.”

Saffra hesitated a moment longer before pulling out the cork.

Magic flooded the air, so thick and bright to her senses that she jerked her head and eyes away. The raw vitality of a thousand verdant forests and all the life within gushed in waves out of the glass. She swore the air congealed physically, the mana was so dense.

In a panic, Saffra fumbled the cork back on. Trace amounts of mana stopped leaking out.

Trace amounts?

That was the impression she’d gotten from the fumes?

She shared a wide-eyed look with Jasper, and even he seemed speechless for the first time. His mouth worked a few times.

He said, “She’s definitely a dragon.”

“She’s not a dragon.” Saffra wasn’t convinced anymore, not remotely.

“Well, I reckon it’ll do the job. Decide. We’re not flush with time.”

Saffra looked at him with distress. “What should I do?”

“That potion is liquid starmetal,” he said simply. “Easily level fourteen hundred or above. Probably higher. A genuine relic. Most likely, it was meant for your protection and no one else’s. I don’t know anything about you two though. She’s your master, not mine. How upset would she be?”

“She took me as her apprentice this morning,” Saffra said miserably.

Jasper paused. He patted her on the shoulder. Not unsympathetically, he said, “Decide.”

This wasn’t fair.

She was already on rocky footing with Vivi. While she seemed like the sort of person who cared about keeping people safe, this potion was beyond valuable. It was undoubtedly the most expensive item Saffra had ever held—by orders of magnitude. Quite literally worth its weight in starmetal.

Would Vivi be furious if she used it to heal people who wouldn’t survive otherwise? Angry enough that she would nullify the already tentative apprenticeship, and perhaps seek repayment?

Or retribution? It might be valuable enough to warrant that.

Saffra didn’t get the feeling that Vivi would care much if it were a normal potion, or even an orichalcum-rank potion like Jasper’s, but this flask of liquid might be worth a small castle.

Or literally priceless. It was the sort of miraculous panacea the High King himself would keep on his person.

Why had she given one to her?

She felt sick to her stomach. No matter what happened, whether this potion wasn’t rightfully hers to give away, she couldn’t let people die if she could do something about it.

“How much do I dilute it?” Saffra asked.

Jasper didn’t try to convince her away from her decision. He focused on the practical. Saffra had already wasted enough time. “Estimate high. He’s going to be in bad shape once I pull him out. He’ll need instant healing. Say…nine parts water, one part potion.”

Saffra gaped. “You said a single drop of water might cut it in half.”

“It’s not a science. And you felt it. There’s enough restorative magic in that potion to regrow a forest—several of them. I think that might be too little dilution, but I’m no alchemist, I just know one. Quick, now.” He was already positioning himself in front of the seat.

Saffra fumbled her waterskin off her belt and uncapped it, then uncorked the potion. She had to mute her magical senses so she didn’t go blind. It was indescribable, the feeling of overgrowth that radiated out of the thin neck of the flask.

Her hands shaking only slightly, she poured one part to nine of potion into the waterskin. The red liquid swirled orange as it fell, and made a sizzling sound when it hit water.

She capped both containers and shook her waterskin, mixing the substance.

“Ready?” Jasper asked.

Saffra nodded.

With a hard pull, the orichalcum-rank adventurer ripped the seat out of place, freeing the unconscious man. He grabbed him, pulled him over, and dropped him to the ground. The rough handling didn’t matter; either the potion saved him or he was dead anyway.

Jasper stuck a hand out. Saffra handed him the flask, and he uncapped it and poured some into the man’s mouth, massaging his neck to force the liquid down. It was a first-aid technique every adventurer knew, for this exact scenario.

The man’s body had been…broken. Gruesomely enough that Saffra had been struggling to keep her eyes on him. She couldn’t believe he hadn’t died instantly. Even a high-tier potion shouldn’t have been able to help him, not with such an imminently fatal injury.

Yet, even diluted ten times over, and thus probably hundreds of times weaker than its base state, Vivi’s potion had no trouble whatsoever. Saffra watched with morbid fascination as the man’s body fixed itself. It was as unnerving of a sight as the injuries themselves, to be honest. He glowed white and green with pure, overwhelming restorative magic, flesh weaving together and spine snapping together with a noise she would always remember.

He shot up, hacking and gasping, both hands clutching at his chest. Brilliant light leaked from his skin, excess magic flowing out. His head pivoted from side to side, eyes wild—and slightly glowing—trying to understand what had happened.

Jasper looked at the waterskin in his hand, shaking it side to side. Liquid sloshed around.

“Fuck me,” he muttered. “Barely used a swig.”

Meaning her flask was now a miracle solution with at least a dozen more doses inside.

Saffra tried not to think about what even the tiny amount of the potion she’d used was worth. Definitely more money than she would earn in her lifetime. This was a Titled’s emergency potion. Something beyond that.

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A potion taken from a dragon’s hoard, maybe.

She shoved that ridiculous idea away. Lady Vivi wasn’t a dragon.

Right?

…It did explain why her ‘common knowledge’ was so spotty. And why someone so obscenely powerful had shown up out of nowhere.

Saffra was not apprenticed to a dragon.

Jasper patted the man on the shoulder. “No time to explain. Glad to see you’re alright. Go join the others.” He stood, capped the waterskin, and tossed it back to Saffra, who caught it with a fumble.

“Let’s go see who else we can save,” he told her.

***

It was bleak work, picking through the wreckage to find those who needed Vivi’s potion. Saffra took refuge in the fact that, no matter how bloody the experience, and how concerned she was for her tentative apprenticeship status, she was saving lives.

Enough time had passed that the passengers of the Convoy were organizing. Particularly the adventurers. Jasper and Saffra weren’t the only ones working through carriages for the injured.

As Jasper had predicted, there were a few healers, though none above gold rank. Those four individuals had set up near the functioning magical artillery—the other turrets disabled by virtue of being planted into the ground—and they were treating the injured as they came.

When the chaos settled, she had used more than three quarters of the potion. Saffra stared at the flask with dismay sinking low in her stomach. Yes, she’d definitely ended her apprenticeship before it began. An apprentice being a nuisance by forgetting a necklace a city over was one thing, but one burning through tens of thousands of gold without permission was another entirely.

“Worry about it later,” Jasper said. “We’re far from out of this. Let’s meet up with the rest.”

The overturned part of the Convoy had been evacuated, and civilians were boarding the less-damaged section at the back. The adventurers above bronze-rank stood outside in a group of fifty or sixty.

On the way over, Jasper muttered, “Hate being the leader. Not my role at all.” He strode up to the group of adventurers and, despite what he’d said, called out in an authoritative voice, “All eyes on me.”

All eyes did, indeed, turn to him. Bodies too, after they saw who was speaking. In moments, the group’s heated discussions had stilled, and they all looked at Jasper. As a result, at Saffra too. She shrank at their attention.