It took a few hours, and several abortive attempts to make something with more power, but they eventually narrowed down when exactly the machine needed to be used. It was during the final stages of creating Dryd, when the Aether was drawn out of the monstrous ingredients. By filling the solution with excess Aether, the resulting potion was considerably more powerful.

  It wasn’t a perfect replication of what the Brotherhood did, but Natalia assured him that such fine detail would come in time. For now, she was pleased that they’d found a way forward.

  “The most important part of this comes next,” Natalia said, holding her third successful attempt at making the empowered Dryd. “This is the foundation for a new category of potion if I’m right, and answers a question about the Brotherhood.”

  “It does?” Verdan arched a brow questioningly, unsure of where she was going with this.

  “It does.” She nodded firmly, tapping one finger against the glass of the vial. “When we discovered the bait to lure the Vespa, I was impressed, stunned even. It was a marvel, something entirely that went beyond my experience. Now, I realise that I was approaching it from the thought of using normal Dryd. With this stronger source of magic, I could easily develop something similar, adapting a normal bait potion. In fact, I’m fairly sure that’s what they did. A standard bait potion, empowered with this magic and then altered just enough to use the pheromones of a Vespa Queen.”

  “Alright, I can see that.” Verdan concealed a smile at how affronted Natalia seemed by this revelation. “I’m not sure what your point is, though.”

  “My point is that we’ve been thinking of the Brotherhood as masterful alchemists, able to create wonders with their potions. Now, though, it’s clear that they aren’t. I think they must be focused entirely on the Sigils you’re been learning about. That is their focus, and this is all a side effect from developing this machine.”

  “You’ve lost me there,” Verdan said, shaking his head slightly. “I think I’ve missed something. Why are they clearly not masters of alchemy? They still had to develop the new potion, after all.”

  “True, but with another year or two of training, even you could do that.” She paused, seemingly realising what she’d said and blushed a little. “I’m sorry, that came out wrong.”

  Verdan laughed heartily as he shook his head. “No need to apologise, I understand what you’re trying to say. I’m little more than an amateur compared to you. I understand that; it isn’t like alchemy is my main focus.”

  Natalia relaxed a little, and Alden coughed into his hands, not quite hiding his smile. Clearing her throat, she took a moment to compose herself before continuing. “My point was that anyone with training could do it eventually. There’s no artistry or development here, just the application of more power to an existing recipe.”

  “I see what you mean,” Alden said, nodding slightly. “It’s a brute force solution using a clever application of these Sigils, rather than brute force Sigils with a clever use of alchemy.”

  “Exactly!” Natalia grinned as she presented her vial once more. “This changes everything for alchemy, and they’re using it in the most basic of ways.”

  “I understand now,” Verdan said, nodding to Alden appreciatively for the useful summary. “So they’re Sigil users primarily, not entirely surprising, I suppose. That might well be a weakness we can exploit at some point, though.”

  “Oh, it’s more than that,” Natalia said, a wide smile spreading across her face. “It’s an opportunity for us to get ahead of them. Alden, do you think you can do this process alone?”

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “I think so, maybe show me one last time?”

  Natalia nodded, running through the process with him until Alden was confident he could keep going on his own. As they did, Verdan sent a message to Nikau to meet him downstairs.

  Excusing himself, he went down to find the Captain of his guard already sat waiting at one of the tables. “That was quick.”

  “I was already here, actually,” Nikau said with a shrug. “What do you need?”

  “Are you familiar with the metal machine we brought back, the one upstairs?”

  “I am, though only that it exists, I don’t know what it does.” Nikau’s eyes narrowed. “How important is it?”

  “I have a feeling it might be the most important thing in this building, even beyond the Aethite stock we have. At least, it will be until I can learn how to replace it.”

  Nikau let out a low whistle. “Alright, that’s pretty important. So, what do you need from me, guards on it?”

  “Not guards as much as a review of security for the estate as a whole and the workshop specifically. I’ll be placing some protections, but I want to make sure we’re as well protected as we can be. I expect the Brotherhood to make some sort of attempt against us, but what form that will take, or when it will be, I’ve no idea. Stealing back that machine might be part of it, or it could just be a punitive attack.”

  “Understood, but that’s not a lot to go on.” Nikau frowned, drumming his fingers on the table. “If we want to make things more secure, I’ll need to bring more people in. I’ve increased our guards at the gate with how tense things have been, but perhaps that should remain the standard. I’m not a fan of having them stand out in the open like that, though.”

  “What about a guard post, something solid and defensible just inside the gate. Big enough for just those other two?”

  Nikau’s eyes narrowed, and he nodded slowly. “That would be good, or if we could make it a little larger and have a break room there, that would be ideal. Right now, we’re using some rooms in the workshop, but if we have a secondary point there, it will give me some flexibility with positioning.”

  “I could make sure we keep some medallions and enchanted arrows on hand as well, for emergencies.” Now that Nikau had expanded the scope, Verdan could think of some good ways to make sure his guards had the ability to fight back. They all had Aether constructs bound to their weaponry, but if the Brotherhood attacked with wand users, that sort of protection wouldn’t last long. The magic flying around would destabilise and destroy anything as fragile as an Aether construct.

  “That all sounds ideal. Do you want me to pick out a point where it would be best placed?”

  “I think that would be best. I’ll be going to speak with the Fwyn this afternoon, so I’ll look into the Brecan making it for us. They’re not imaginative, so you’ll have to design it for them, if that works?”

  “I’ve seen enough that I can make do, assuming that they’ll tell me if it won’t work?”

  Verdan laughed and shook his head. “To be honest, no they won’t. They’ll just brute force the solution. So try to make it at least look roughly right. In the end, it’ll be stable and workable, just perhaps bigger than expected.”

  Nikau nodded and left to go start working on his design, leaving Verdan to sigh to himself. The Brecan truly were deeply flawed builders, and the fact that wasn’t general knowledge yet probably didn’t help matters. He’d explained it all to Samuel when they started building the watchtowers, but that was one man and one situation.

  How exactly was Verdan meant to influence the opinions of a whole city without delving into politics?

  Unsurprisingly, Verdan didn’t manage to solve that question before Natalia was finished upstairs. Coming down to join him, she motioned for him to follow her. “Come on, I want to show you something.”

  Putting aside his concerns, Verdan followed her out of the workshop and back over to the mansion. Heading up to their room, Verdan took a seat as Natalia rifled through a set of drawers, eventually pulling out a small leather-bound journal.

  It wasn’t one that Verdan recognised, but then that wasn’t exactly surprising. “What’s that?”

  “Before my…” Natalia started to answer before faltering and falling silent. When she spoke again, her voice was thick with emotion and her gaze fixed on the book in her hands. “Before my father died, we used to dream up things we could create. Experimental potions and techniques, things we could do, and things we couldn’t. It was a game as much as it was a genuine attempt to find new ways forward. He believed strongly that the lack of power in Dryd held back modern alchemy. Together we made a series of recipes that we thought possible, but only if we had Dryd that was two or three times more effective without being diluted.”

  Verdan’s eyes widened. “Recipes that you still have?”

  “More or less. I recreated all that I could as a way to keep him close to me, but I never expected for any of this to actually be of use. I’ll have to work to adapt them to the new Dryd we have, but we have a starting point and a book full of ideas.”