The space Konrad led them into was exactly as Damian had imagined, for the first time since arriving in Jahrmarkt. Dim and musty, it was lit by a single purple mage light and what light filtered through small high-set windows covered in brown paper. Most of the room was filled with tables and counters stacked with strange equipment Damian could only guess the purpose of.

  Konrad shut the door behind them, walked to one of the tables, and set his box down. Damian followed suit. A thin piece of metal served as a makeshift crowbar; when wedged between the lid and the crate’s wall, it pried the wood loose with a groan. The lid popped off, revealing... mushrooms. The box was full of dried mushrooms.

  Even from a few paces away, the earthy, herbal smell filled Damian’s nose. It came with an overwhelming urge to sneeze that refused to follow through. For a few seconds, he stood there, face scrunched in anticipation, before the feeling passed and he managed to recover.

  By the time Damian pulled himself together, Konrad was already sorting pieces of dried mushroom into neat piles, muttering under his breath. Damian couldn’t be sure, but each pile looked exactly the same. As in—perfectly measured, courtesy of a skill.

  “So... what’s this for?” Damian asked, watching over Konrad’s shoulder.

  Konrad scoffed. “Really? You need me to explain?”

  “I don’t—well, I couldn’t say for sure,” Damian replied, his tone carrying no small amount of snark.

  Konrad looked at him with an approving grin. “Hey, you’re getting it. We’ll make a decent [Liar] out of you yet.”

  Damian didn’t grace that with a response, waiting for Konrad to actually answer his question. It was the same kind of deflection Finn had favored, and Damian knew how to deal with it. His chest twinged at the thought of his friend, but he ignored it.

  “Well,” Konrad said, turning back to his work, “in the interest of transparency, I am indeed a no-good producer and distributor of prohibited substances under Marduk's blessed Word. A sinner and terrible human garbage, such as it were.”

  Even though Konrad was clearly mocking the Word—and Damian didn’t have strong feelings about the god of law’s book of laws—he had to admit Marduk might’ve had a point here. His face scrunched as he watched Konrad drop one of the mushroom piles into a small cauldron of water. “Okay... what exactly are you making, then?”

  “Ah, all sorts,” Konrad said dismissively. “You’ve got no clue about the Word, right? Well, suffice it to say, not everything’s banned. Alcohol’s fine, the mist’s good too, so long as it’s pure, and somnara’s okay—”

  “Okay, hold on,” Damian interrupted. “I don’t know what mist is. Or somnara. Explain it to me like I’m five.”

  “Well, you kind of are a...” Konrad started, then trailed off. Damian glowered at him, and he shrugged sheepishly. “Okay, in the world of drugs, there are a few types. Some get you a little buzzed, some relax you, and some do the opposite. Technically, they’re called depressants and stimulants. Actually, that’s too complex. Basically, there are stronger and weaker drugs.”

  “Okay,” Damian said, grateful Konrad had dumbed it down without him having to ask.

  “Stimulants are illegal unless you’re a [Healer] or have a waiver as a [Warrior], [Adventurer], or [Alchemist]. Weak depressants are allowed, though why alcohol counts as weak is beyond me.” He paused, clearly expecting a comment, but Damian stayed quiet. “Anyway, there’s a third category the Word tends to overlook; hallucinogens. That’s what I work with.”

  “So, you’re an [Alchemist],” Damian summarized. “A [Black Market Alchemist].”

  “No, I’m a creatively inclined amateur alchemist,” Konrad corrected. “Never got the class. Didn’t even really want to make this stuff myself, but it’s the only thing I’m decent at.”

  “So... what is your class?”

  Konrad smirked. “You already told me what it is. [The Chosen One] and allat.”

  There was that deflection again.

  “Yeah... but you had a class before that, right?” Damian pressed. “Did it consolidate, or do you still have both?”

  “It consolidated,” Konrad answered quickly, irritation creeping into his voice for the first time since last night.

  “Into what?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Konrad scoffed. “I’m dead anyway, remember? Dead as sure as the sun rises and the stars shine.”

  “Humor me,” Damian persisted.

  Only then did Konrad scowl—the same look he’d worn when they first met. It was an ugly expression on an otherwise pleasant face. “My first class was [Hedonist], okay? Then [Alchemical Hedonist]. Then it consolidated with this... chosen bullshit. That good enough for you?”

  What in Nephret’s name had the Great Game been thinking, giving [The Chosen One] to an [Alchemical Hedonist]?—was what Damian wanted to ask. But he didn’t. It would’ve been rude, especially since Konrad had been quite polite to him so far, if rough around the edges. More importantly, it wouldn’t have helped Damian’s goal of getting him to take his class seriously.

  “Yeah,” Damian said softly. “So you’re making... hallucinogens?”

  “Bleh.” Konrad pouted. “It sounds weird when you say it like that. I’ve been making some stuff for a while—Aetherdust. But since I got my new class, I’ve been trying a new mix with my new capstone skill. Man, it’s incredible. Been calling it Saint’s Breath—figured it was right on brand for my kind of irony.”

  “How’s that?” Damian asked, still not sure what irony was.

  Konrad grinned. “’Cause it’ll make you see Marduk. Call it my own personal form of worship.”

  “Isn’t that... likely to upset the [Judges] or [Clerics] of Marduk?” Damian asked cautiously, not entirely sure what counted as blasphemy. Religious study hadn’t been a focus in Bekham, but logic suggested it was best not to piss off the lawkeepers of the city you lived in.

  Damian’s question only made Konrad grin wider. “You betcha. Here, let me show you how this works...”

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  If someone had asked Damian two weeks ago what could possibly lead to him learning illegal alchemy in the largest city in the region, he’d have said such a scenario didn’t exist. And yet, here he was, watching Konrad grind wet mushrooms in a mortar and pestle. Well—rehydrated, not wet. Apparently, “dehydration” was just a fancy word for drying, and “rehydration” a fancy word for making them wet again.

  “I prefer dried and wet,” Damian muttered, earning a snort of amusement from Konrad.

  After wetting and mashing the mushrooms, Konrad added them to a fancy glass bottle, which he placed beneath an equally fancy glass tube. He explained that as the water in the mash boiled, it carried oils upward into the tube, where they’d cool and condense back into liquid before being collected in another bottle. Damian didn’t understand maybe one in four words, and hadn’t even known steam could turn back into water, but he did his best to follow Konrad’s wandering explanations.

  As it turned out, purifying the oil was only one step in a very long process.

  Even though Konrad claimed he didn’t ever want to be working with alchemy, the more he showed of his clearly sophisticated setup, the more Damian wondered why he hadn’t tried applying himself as a proper [Alchemist]. Konrad clearly had a passion for the work itself, not just the product—or at least it seemed that way from how he talked about it. Mostly, Damian just nodded and listened, but whenever he did ask a question...

  “Why not just mix them?” Konrad echoed, glancing up from his maze of glass tubes and magic flames to look at Damian. This step involved heating two extracts until they boiled through a tiny hole in the glassware. His eyes were alight with something perhaps a bit manic as he explained, “Glad you asked. We could just mix it, sure, but a simple mixture would be incongruous—that means not uniform or harmonious. Or—nevermind. Anyway, if you want a perfect mix, you have to force it to blend perfectly. Makes sense?”

  “Uh...” Damian frowned. “Not really?”

  “Okay, think of it this way, have you ever tried to mix oil and water?”

  “Yeah,” Damian admitted. Mother Ethyl had once shown the hearth how oil and water behaved in a rare glass flask during a cooking lesson. “They don’t mix.”

  “Right,” Konrad said with an eager nod, “but if you had to make them mix, how would you do it?”

  Damian hesitated, his gaze sliding past Konrad to the strange glass behind him. “Boil it through a small hole together?”

  Konrad deflated slightly. “Well—yeah, but that’s cheating. I already told you that.”

  “Right,” Damian agreed.

  “Or you could use an emulsifier, which is an alchemical compound designed to make two things that don’t mix, mix.”

  “Why don’t you use that?” Damian asked, actually enjoying this side of Konrad.

  Konrad snorted. “’Cause I’ve got a skill to keep them mixed, and it’s cheaper. And it makes it smoother and more reliable. The emulsifier also cuts the purity. But mostly, it’s my skill. All rules are only rules until some skill breaks them.”

  “Right.”

  Once Konrad had explained the entire process, they began working in earnest. It was an ongoing procedure, since his equipment could only handle a small portion at a time. Damian took on the simpler steps while Konrad managed the work that required a finer touch. Constantly adjusting the heat on the boil-through-a-tiny-hole contraption so it didn’t explode was well beyond Damian’s comfort zone. But watching the mash boil and turning off the heat before it burned? That he could handle.

  It was kind of cool, playing at being an [Alchemist]. Damian would’ve forgotten lunch if Konrad hadn’t handed him a sandwich. What struck him most was how many [Alchemist]-sounding skills Konrad had, despite claiming not to be one. His [Complete Boiling] skill meant there was no waste in any of the boiling steps. [Stable Emulsion] kept the final product together. And apparently, he also had a skill to keep the glassware from breaking, though he didn’t say what it was.

  Well past midday, they finally finished, and Damian gave their product a critical look. Two boxes of dried, well-packed mushrooms, mixed with a few other ingredients Konrad had produced, had yielded barely a dozen small vials of shimmering, viscous oil. It didn’t look like much, that was for certain. Konrad hadn’t let him get close to the final product, and when he handled it, he’d covered his face with a cloth stitched with runes.

  “So,” Konrad said, gesturing at the vials, “what d’ya think?”

  Damian turned to the grinning blond man. “I thought you said you weren’t an [Alchemist]?”

  “I’m not,” Konrad said quickly, his tone evasive. “Maybe [Alchemical Hedonist] overlaps a little, but I went from [Hedonist] to [Alchemical Hedonist]. No [Alchemist] step.”

  It took Damian a moment to decide how to respond to that self-damning statement. “Okay... but you seem like a good alchemist, class or no.”

  Konrad just huffed, running a hand through his long blond hair.

  “Well, anyway,” Konrad said, “time for the other half of my job—if you can call it that. Eh, who am I kidding? I make more than most [Merchants] my age.”

  With a single swipe, Konrad dumped the vials into his bag of holding and gave his equipment a quick check before heading to the door. Once he’d let Damian out, he locked up behind them. As the key turned, half a dozen runes flared on the door before fading from sight. It occurred to Damian this wasn’t some half-assed, thrown-together operation. All that magic and specialized glassware must’ve cost a fortune.

  It must’ve taken a lot of effort, and no small amount of skill, to put it all together.

  Konrad led them back to the main street and turned to Damian with a grin. “We’ve got some time to kill. Anything you want to see? Business doesn’t really start until sunset.”

  “You’d know better than I,” Damian said, not really caring. He planned to spend their walk thinking about how to convince Konrad to take him seriously. There was an angle to play here with his dedication to his craft—Damian was sure of it. Finn would’ve known what to say. Mother Revna would’ve known what to say. Damian just had to figure out what that was.

  Konrad led them to the edge of the city, down toward the port. The ships in the dockyards were unlike anything Damian had ever seen—gargantuan vessels that made the longships he’d glimpsed from afar look like toys. The largest had a dozen masts, their gangways wide enough for carts to pass in both directions simultaneously. When he caught himself gawking, he quickly activated [Focused Mind], letting the world blur until only Konrad remained clear.

  As they walked, Konrad babbled on about this and that, and Damian wondered where the dour, defeatist man from last night had gone. It had surprised him how easily Konrad had taken him at his word—no questions, no denial, just weary acceptance. That was the part of Konrad Damian couldn’t reconcile with the rest. It was... incongruous.

  “Ah, but it’s getting late already,” Konrad said suddenly, pausing to gaze into a blur of distance Damian couldn’t make out.

  “What?” Damian said, confused. He ended [Focused Mind], and the world snapped back into stark relief. This time, with his legs planted, he didn’t stumble—though the shift left him lightheaded for a moment. Now that he could see clearly again, he noticed the sun was already near the horizon. “Oh. So it is.”

  “Well, now the plan’s to find a seedy tavern or mist house and look for people interested in something a little more fun,” Konrad said cheerfully.

  “Right...” Damian said, his tone wary.

  It had been easier to ignore the real point of Konrad’s—er—profession when they’d only been making the stuff. But selling it... Damian wasn’t sure how he felt about that. He squared his shoulders, telling himself it was all part of learning more about Konrad. It was a puzzle, and he could feel he was close to solving it.

  “Oh, that’ll do,” Konrad muttered, making a sharp turn toward a unique looking building.

  For one, the exterior was lit primarily by oil lamps instead of the mage lights most buildings in the city favored. It also wasn’t stone, but a tan, dappled material Damian guessed might be clay or mud. Inside, the air was thick with alchemical haze, dimly lit by blue mage lights. Quiet, drowsy music played from somewhere out of sight. Like the place he’d woken up in yesterday, silk sheets hung from the ceiling, dividing private corners where people gathered to share what Damian assumed was mist from the strange metal-and-glass contraptions.

  Now that he’d spent the day making—well—product, the contraptions didn’t look so strange. In fact, they seemed downright simple compared to what he’d been working with just a few hours ago. All around him, people huddled around the magic machines, lounging on cushions and sprawled across mats. Each of them looked... vacant, as though focused on something distant only they could see.

  The sight made Damian’s skin crawl.

  Konrad nudged Damian’s shoulder to get his attention, flashing him a lightning-bolt grin. “It’s sleepy as fuck in here, innit? Let’s bring some real party to this dump.”