The final products of alchemy were typically one singular object.
A fact that John aid to abuse. Possession and its adjacent Skills required that his target be one object, which had caused many design issues in the past. Design issues that Scarlett had solved through creative application of material conditions or enchantnts. Solutions that Delicia saw as a challenge. A challenge that John fully believed she would overco.
What she was doing, he already knew was possible. He had layered several materials himself, to get the Golden Boy model of his Creator Puppet done. However, that was not his area of expertise and Delicia did have more tricks up her sleeve than he did using Create.
What he did not expect was for her to get it done within 24 hours.
“Ta-da!” Delicia declared and gestured at a curtain.
“I think you’re supposed to pull that back while you say that,” John sarcastically comnted, while he had a look around.
Delicia had made herself comfortable in the biggest laboratory at the top of the highest tower of the Alchemy Lab. It was one vast space, filled to the brim with multi-layered glass and tal constructions that filled several square tres each. Each was a monstrosity of connecting tubes and flasks, cylinders and elongated cooling chanisms. Where standard chemistry had the decency to be at least generally modest in the amount of utensils employed for a single production step, alchemy had no such restraint. The liquids, gases, and occasional solids were moving through complicated systems that even John had trouble following.
It got even worse when one considered that every single one of these walls of tal and glass were connected to each other in one form or another. The vast tower chamber was defined by these alchemical constructions spiralling up to the underside of the pointed roof, then coming back down in a pillar of brass, doubtlessly containing many more complicated refinent steps.
That it all ca to a stop with a simple wooden table and a flask getting drip-fed a light purple liquid was equally codic and worrying.
Inside this open laboratory, so segnts had been cornered off for other projects. John saw what was effectively a butcher’s shop, devoid of product but with bloodstains still marking the wood. There was a relatively normal workbench with instrunts that appeared futuristic, especially in the otherwise Middle Age inspired environnt of wooden beams and cobblestone. There was a furnace and a loom, for so reason.
John currently stood in a corner, more isolated than the rest, with various tals and rocks scattered about the tables. At the centre of it all was a mixture of operating table and fra. Outlined by tal were the dinsions of his body.
“You really did a lot over 2 days,” he had to say.
“It helps when you don’t have to sleep and don’t get tired in general,” Delicia chirped, then threw her hands presentingly towards the curtain again. “Ta-da!”
“Again, you have to pull the curtain back as you do that,” John told her.
“Ta-da!”
“Are you just trying to annoy ?”
“What, no, would never.” Delicia waved off repeatedly and, with a giggle, pulled back the white cloth. “I present: Perfect Puppet Mark 1 – Swirls!”
Before John stood a mannequin of tal and rock. It had his dinsions, even the details of his definitions. The origin of the na was apparent in the seven different colours that swirled over the surface, glistening tallically in the artificial light. Brown, green, red, blue, purple, silver and gold, the colours of an elental of each kind and Elentium, all mixed together into a trippy, dense, asymtrical display.
“Does that have any benefits?” John asked and gave the potential puppet an interested squeeze. To his surprise, the tallic outside yielded. It was like he was touching a particularly dense foam cushion. It resud the previous shape swiftly.
“It’s the Swirling Effect, creative I know,” Delicia told him. “When you liquify materials into a dense enough union, they retain their individual visual characteristics upon hardening but share their physical and magical characteristics.” She smiled broadly. “You’re lucky you’re rich. Takes a particular selection of tals with similar magical matrices to make this work. Hmmm… should I tell you how much the liquification costs…?”
“I saw already,” John told her. “I check the Guild Bank balance every day.”
“Psh, paranoid much?”
“Literally one of my foremost character traits,” the Gar responded drily. “Different question – Perfect Puppet Mark 1? How can sothing be perfect and be the first iteration?”
“Hey, you chose the project na!” Delicia stated. “You gonna stand there and be all complain-y when soone else does the work for you?”
“Of all the things to get defensive about,” John humd and cast Creator Puppet. The old Golden Boy was already parked back in his Puppet Room.
The Swirls model ca to life to a dramatic, “IT LIIIIIIIIIVES!” from Delicia, complete with a mad scientist cackle. John did her the favour of taking a few stilted steps off the presentation platform. After the dramatics, he moved about. As expected, there were no issues with moving itself, the Skill made sure of that more than the quality of the body did.
“You did it,” John told the alchemist.
“I did? I an… of course I did!” Delicia had to regain her smugness after hearing the good news. While John kept walking in the new body, she asked, “What part of the goals exactly did I hit? 200% bonus Strength?”
“I never set such a ludicrous goal,” the Gar protested. “Let’s see, you upped base Endurance by 250, increased the percentage buff from 25% to 40%, upped Physical Resistance from 40% to 60% and created a new Attribute that gives 100 flat Strength.”
Delicia clicked her tongue. “Flat? That’s a failure then.”
“I think the system itself won’t allow you to give the Creator Puppet a scaling bonus to Strength or Agility. Would be odd if you could do sothing that’s usually enabled by a Perk. Also 100 flat is pretty damn good.”
“Psh, pretty damn good, like that’s good enough.” Delicia crossed her arms. It only now occurred to John how simultaneously fitting and absurd she looked, a big-boobed maid in a rustic alchemy lab. “I didn’t do what I set out to do, so that’s a failure. Easy as that.”
“Well, whatever motivates you to keep on working,” John said, personally pleased with this outco.
For the purposes of Inkaryl alone, getting this upgraded body had not been strictly necessary. Usually, a better Creator Puppet was only reflected in it being better defensively. Strength and Agility were tied to his ntal Stats, so he could have tried wielding Inkaryl with a puppet made from plain rock, if he so desired.
The reason why John wanted to get a better body regardless of whether or not there was a Strength upgrade involved was the obvious one. If he was capable of having a second body capable of wielding a powerful weapon, that body needed to be capable of surviving the frontlines.
“Failure or not, want to see if it can lift the mace?” John asked.
“Oh boy, do I!” Delicia exclaid.
“Then co along.” John and his new Creator Puppet led the way outside. They walked all the way to the Alchemy Testing Site west of the lab. It was largely unused, so the greenery was intact, contrary to what depictions on a map may suggest. With Delicia in charge, it was only a matter of ti until one matched the other though.
John and Delicia stopped at the edge of the clearing, while the Swirls Model continued for a couple more tres. Then, the Gar extended the hand of his puppet body. He made sure the thumb pointed to the ground. Last thing he wanted was the weight to tear him down. Following an impulse, the hand closed.
An interplay of instrunts underlined a small choir of angelic voices accompanied the appearance of the mace. Streaks of elental light wove together into the long grip of the weapon, dulled into light grey once consolidated. Upwards, it ended in a thorn with six corners. Downwards, it extended for much further, until spreading out into the head of the weapon.
A central chunk of carefully shaped Astrotium was the heart to which six jagged blades were bound. Each of them shone in the prismatic colour of Fusional alloys. With a sound like a tal heart beating, the blades spread outwards, anchored to a ring located where the grip transitioned into the head of the weapon. Like the jaw of a sea monster closing, the blades suddenly snapped back into place, now each the colour corresponding to one of the six elents.
John slowly turned the Creator Puppet’s hand. He smiled in place of his third body and swung the mace. Inkaryl chid and sung, screeching like an excited violin, as it cut through the air. The swing was steady. The mace lay heavy in the puppet’s hand, but he could wield it. All it took was about three tis the strength of his original body.
Concentrating, John tried to get the weapon to shift elental alignnt. The blades did spread out, remained like that for a few seconds, then snapped back into place, without changing. ‘Well, that was to be expected,’ the Gar thought. To change his soul type actively had been a part of Arkeidos’ Innate Ability.
In other words, Inkaryl was just an impressive mace at the mont.
But what a mace it was.
The creator puppet dropped the weapon to the floor. The six points sunk into the dirt like they had once sunk into John’s back. It remained there, upright, while John got ready to leave. “You’re just going to leave it out here?” Delicia asked.
“It’ll always co to or any of my bodies when I ask,” John responded. “Plus, you want to try and lift it?”
“Nah, I’m good,” Delicia assured. “But soone else could get here and put it in a sealed box or sothing like that?”
“It smashed through the barrier between Kingdoms, I’m fairly certain there’s nothing in this world that can keep from it,” John responded as they walked away. “Now I would invite you to the actual testing, but I’m not sure if a Raid is the place for you.”
“Is there a watcher’s area for those?”
“Not in the current arena,” John told her. In the Twisted City and the Valley of Thunder and Stone, there had at least been the potential for an outside onlooker to exist. In the Music Library, there was no potential for this. The entire shop beca the arena, with no space to stand outside the battlefield.
“Bah, I’ll just use your mory as a replacent later then.”
_____________________________________________________________________________
It was several office hours later that John managed to drum the combat crew together. It was him, his doubles, his elentals, Aclysia, Beatrice, Claire, Momo, tra, Rave, Nia and Lee. Everyone else was either far above the challenge rating of the Raid, under it, a non-combatant, or not present. Lee was present to set-up the Fateweaving for them. A single Interdiary Barrier, for a couple of hours, without ti dilation, she was capable of.
“Alright, won,” he raised his voice in that overacted, motivational speech tone, “today we-“
“BOOOOOO!” his girlfriend shouted. “Show us your tits!”
“Can I at least finish my joke before you start yours?” the Gar complained.
“No,” Rave responded and blinked, as if the suggestion flabbergasted her.
While John grumbled sothing, his eyes fell on Claire. The vampire maid was jumping from one foot onto the other. “Excited?”
“I haven’t really fought anything since getting into our contract,” she answered, reducing her excitent to rely shifting her weight back and forth. “I do so enjoy murdering things.”
“As long as it stays at ‘things’ and not ‘people’,” John warned.
Claire responded with a charismatic smile that disard him without clearing his suspicions at all. It was terrifyingly adorable and his mind just turned sowhere else. He trusted she wouldn’t do anything he wouldn’t approve of.
“Anyway, what I wanted to say is that this will be pretty easy, all things considered,” John told everyone. “We are overlevelled, not as badly as we were for Ohmior, but still. I hope we can breeze through this in a couple of evenings.”
“Then let’s go!” tra demanded.
John did as the blonde berserker demanded and turned around. One push of the door later, he stepped into the darkness behind the I.D. Gate. A darkness that was swiftly replaced with the cylinder shape of the Music Library. The room was filled with shelves, stacked with nicely sorted vinyls and CD cases. There were only five genres represented: classical, tal, pop, jazz, and techno. Of those, the pop segnt was oddly greyed out and dusty. A visual consequence, no doubt, of the Pop Queen being defeated.
There were at least five more bosses for John to deal with. The four bosses from the other genres and Steve. The owner of the shop sat behind the register and waved. He was three tres tall, but otherwise he looked like the everyman of music store owners. Short, dark hair, covered by a cap, with an average build covered by a black shirt and blue jeans. Aside from John’s intuition, it was also his Loottable that gave away he was going to be a boss.
The thing was that John did not trust he was the final boss. When sothing was obvious, there usually was a secret attached. That’d have to be uncovered after he got there though.
“Any special wishes for the next boss?” John asked.
“Let’s get classic out of the way,” Rave suggested. “I wanna keep techno for last.”
Not exactly solid reasoning, but absent of any other suggestions, John went with that. “You heard the thorn in my life,” John said, to the protest of his girlfriend. “Put on the classical music, if you would.”
“Custor is king,” Steve said and placed a vinyl on an old-tiy player he had behind the counter. The shelves all around faded from existence, while a blast door ca down and hid Steve safely behind it. Left behind was a large, empty room. The ground turned black, assuming that specific texture of a vinyl disk. A part of the cylindrical wall slid aside and revealed a tonearm that slowly lowered onto the spinning disk. The needle touched the floor and began to trace the path.
In the middle of the room, from the spike that kept the vinyl in place, rose in gold and silver the boss. Like Pop Queen, his energy body lacked any defining features. In details, he had only a powdered, white wig and the kind of 16th century coat that one would commonly imagine Mozart to wear. In his hand manifested a baton which, with all the dramatics of a conductor, he proceeded to swing.
’40 levels under us, should be really easy,’ John thought.
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