Sable led me to a room full of bottles, vials, beakers, and powders, as well as some lab space. An alchemy lab, one might assume.
“So Morgan, have you had a college-level Chemistry course with a lab requirement yet?”
“Yeah, got that out of the way freshman year.”
“Great, so I probably don’t need to go over the safety precautions too much. The first magic we’ll go over is alchemy. We’ll cover the more fundamental topics later, but for now I just want to get you used to processing some ingredients and brewing basic potions.”
“How will this help against an elven wizard?”
“Patience, padawan. You have to crawl before you can run. First off, you’ll find potions fairly useful to have in general, and while I can make them for you, you can make your own too, and I could also use a trained hand in the lab for more complex recipes. Second, these recipes often involve very minor spells that will give you practice with feeling and directing mana. We can do other things from there.”
From here, I laid out the various herbs, fruits, and mushrooms I’d collected while out in the barrier zone, and Sable instructed me on how to properly process them, showing me how and where to reference instructional texts on a nearby bookshelf about various alchemical ingredients and their properties. Another book came out that appeared to contain medicinal potion recipes, and Sable instructed me to brew a basic healing potion while she worked on something else involving the tissue with Lyris’s blood in it. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, so I got down to the healing potion.
The basic instructions didn’t seem that hard to manage; chop some different leaves finely, boil the contents, add some kind of salt. Things got more complicated when a drawing of a diagram not entirely dissimilar to my tattoo came up. While the design was very simple in appearance, I still had no idea what the various patterns meant. The book indicated I was supposed to use this “sigil” to infuse the concoction with healing energy.
“Sable, what’s it mean by ‘use this sigil’ here?”
“Ah, you’re at a good spot. So, sigils like this are a form of spell distilled into a written form. They’re kind of like… instructions for how the mana has to flow and change to get the right effect. If you channel some mana into it, it’ll activate assuming it’s written with an appropriate substance.”
“Instructions for mana, huh?”
“Yeah, I’ll try to teach you how to write these later but they’re pretty hard, so for now you can just use the sigil in the book. Hold the beaker over the sigil, put your fingers on these nodes here and here, and… the next part is figuring out what mana flow feels like. Here, I’ll show you.”
Sable placed her hand gently over the hand I had touching the sigil. It was soft and warm, and I blushed lightly at the unexpected contact.
“Aww, there’s my innocent kitty maiden.”
“Shut up.”
Without warning, I started to feel something flowing through my hand and down through my fingers. The sigil on the page lit up with magic.
“Concentrate on how this feels. Does it feel like part of you is moving into the paper?”
“Yeah, it’s super weird.”
“Good. Now I’m going to start lessening my flow. You focus on keeping it at its current level.”
I felt the energy flow dip, and focused, returning it to its previous level. I felt this get a bit more difficult and knew Sable must be reducing her own mana flow more. I focused on keeping the flow going.
“Wow, you’re doing good. Apprentices usually have a hard time with this, but I guess sharing mana with you makes this easier.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Normally an apprentice witch has her own mana, and if I tried to make mine flow through her like I did with you, it wouldn’t work. It’d be rejected and feel bad for both of us. But we’ve got the same mana flowing through us, so I can move mine through you to show you how to do it. An apprentice witch can’t really be shown how her mana flows directly so it can take a while to get it right.”
“Okay, I’ve got mana flowing through the sigil. What next?”
“Go back to following the directions. I’ve got to finish my own potion.”
I looked back at the book. I was supposed to hold the beaker of fluid a few inches over the sigil while lightly agitating it until it turned a red color. Of course healing potions were red. I swirled the beaker gently while channeling my mana. I could feel how the mana was flowing and changing within the sigil, which was very interesting. It was like an extension of my body. I inspected the various patterns and symbols on the sigil. They somewhat resembled the way resistors, capacitors, and other electrical components were represented in a circuit diagram, but unlike a mere diagram, these seemed to have actual function based on their shape. While I wasn’t an electrical engineer by any means, I was familiar enough with the basics to find this pretty interesting, and wondered if I could work out the principle behind it…
The fluid in the beaker turned red, and I had to pull myself out of my reverie. There were a few minor steps left. I had to mix two kinds of salt together and sprinkle it in as a preservative, divide the beaker up into a number of small vials. While the instructions mentioned corking and sealing the vials with wax, Sable seemed to be a bit more practical, as the vials she provided were plastic test tubes with screw-on lids.
According to the recipe, this potion could be spread on a wound to close, though depending on the wound it could leave a scar. It would generally also repair cut or torn muscle and other tissue involved in the same wound. Drinking it could help with internal injuries. It would not restore lost blood or mend broken bones, nor would it repair damage to organs beyond simple cuts and tears.
I noted that the belt Sable had given me to hold my foraging bag had several leather loops on one side that I had interpreted as being for hunting ammo; they probably were originally made for that, but understanding dawned and I slipped a few healing potions into the loops.
Done with my brewing for the moment, I walked over to where Sable was brewing. She was doing something a bit more complex involving a cauldron, and a few glowing, circular sigils floated in the air around her. I watched with interest as she seemed to finish up, the liquid in the cauldron congealing into a small drop of something. She took the cauldron off the heat and grabbed one of the sigils out of the air, pointing it at the drop. Icy air seemed to flow out of the sigil, and the drop hardened.
Sable popped the hardened drop out of the cauldron and held it out to me. “There, all done. Now eat this.”
Skeptically, I took the lozenge and inspected it. It was a dull red color.
“This has Lyris’s blood in it, doesn’t it? What is it?”
“The name doesn’t translate well, but I’ve been calling it a Sympathy Potion. It’ll give you a bit of a link to her. Nothing major, like your bond with me. It has two main effects: you’ll be able to sense her general direction, distance, and condition, and you’ll be able to speak her language.”
“This’ll teach me Elven?”
“You’ll be temporarily fluent in whatever dialect she speaks. We’ll practice it a bit, and that should help it stick in your mind even when this wears off eventually.”
That sounded useful. Being able to talk to Lyris in future encounters instead of relying on Sable to negotiate would be handy. I popped the lozenge into my mouth and chewed it. It tasted bitter and salty, but I got it down.
Sable said a few words in Elven, and I found I could understand them.
“You understand speaking?” I could tell more directly that she only had an awkward grasp on the language.
“Yes, but it should be ‘Do you understand my speech?’”
“Smart bottom, but good practice making.”
Over the course of the afternoon, I practiced making several other basic potions, and Sable and I tried conversing solely in Elven to get more used to it while I worked and she instructed. Meanwhile, I corrected her grammar every chance I could get. We could also use this to speak about magical topics in public without being understood by anyone not in the know, so it was a handy upgrade.
Meanwhile, I could sense Lyris. I could tell she was still within the barrier, though the distance and direction didn’t mean much to me while indoors. She had a bit of a dull ache in her leg where I scratched her, but she was otherwise stable.
While I felt like I was making good practice on potion making, my focus eventually waned, and Sable checked her watch. It was past 5.
“Ah, let’s call it here for today, Morgan. Good job.”
“Call it? We don’t need to prepare more?”
“Well we do, but elves aren’t generally hasty decision makers. When a hitch comes up in their plans they tend to pull back and observe for a while. I doubt they’re going to do anything immediately. Also I’d prefer not to have to pay you overtime.”
Her concern with office procedures seemed a bit out of whack compared to the rest of her personality, but at least it was predictable at this point. “So what now?”
“Well, I have to take care of some personal things but wanna grab dinner and drinks later? There’s a bar nearby I like to take my employees to. Good burgers. I’ll expense it.”
Was she seriously switching modes from “make potions to fight magical invaders from another world” to “let’s go have a welcome dinner for your new job” that fast?
“Uh… yeah, I guess I could do that. If you can do something about the ears and tail anyway.”
“Ah yeah, hold on.” She left the room for a bit before coming back with a beanie and a skirt.
“So the beanie goes over my ears, and the skirt…”
“I’d normally suggest wearing a hoodie so you can hide the tail inside it but it’s a bit warm today. Summer break and all. You can keep the tail concealed under the skirt. Plus I think it’ll look cute on you.”
I looked at the skirt a bit and sighed before going back to my room. After a few minutes I came back looking smug. I had changed, but not into the skirt. I was wearing the beanie over my ears, of course, but I’d kept the shorts on and was wearing the men’s t-shirt instead of the blouse. It was a little baggy on me now, but I could wrap my tail around my waist and keep it hidden under the shirt.
Sable nodded with approval. “Clever, though not as cute as I’d like. As long as you’re comfortable, though.”
She texted me the address of the bar and said she’d be there at 7 before heading out of the manor herself, leaving me a key so that I could lock up. I considered my options. I could try going back to my dorm and hauling my stuff over here, but I still wasn’t comfortable showing up somewhere people might sort of recognize me. In a few more days the dorm would have cleared out more. I’d get to it eventually.
Instead, I went back out into the barrier and up the mountain, following my empathic connection to Lyris.
It was a bit longer of a distance than my previous excursion, but I was comfortable with both the terrain and my ability to move rapidly through it. I also had a clear destination and fairly clear indication that I wouldn’t run into Lyris before I spotted her. I moved quickly and silently through the woods, and even encountered a few magical woodland creatures that failed to notice me in time to get out of sight: something that looked like a pig with tiny wings, a rabbit-like creature the size of a dog, and something deer-like that moved fast enough that I couldn’t tell whether it actually had a human-like face or if I was just imagining it. Eventually I spotted what I was looking for: Lyris sitting in the branches of a tall tree, trying to wind a bandage around her leg. I stepped forward and coughed to get her attention, and she stopped and looked startled at me, like a child with her hand in a cookie jar. I spoke to her in fluent Elven.
“Hey, sorry about that scratch.”
She paused before answering.
“You can speak my language?”
“Yes. Here, use one of these.” I figured drawing attention away from how I could speak her language was probably for the best, so I tossed one of my red healing potions at her and she snatched it out of the air, inspecting it with suspicion.
“What is this?”
“Basic healing potion, rub it into your wound to close it up.”
She looked at me curiously for a moment before trying to open the bottle, but had trouble with it. Probably didn’t have plastic twist-cap vials in elf land.
“No, uh, turn the cap like this… no, the other direction.”
Eventually she got it open and gave it a sniff before eyeing me again. Apparently not sensing any deception, she poured a drop on the edge of one of the scratches and watched it close up. Convinced of what the potion could do, she poured more on, sparingly, and rubbed it across the scratch marks. They sealed both skin and scale and didn’t appear to leave any scarring. Thanks to the Sympathy Potion I could tell the aching had also abated.
“Why would you heal me?”
“I don’t really know what you’re up to, but if possible I don’t want to be enemies.”
She considered this for a moment. “Neither do I.”
“So, why are you here?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Can’t or don’t want to?”
“Can’t. Master has ordered it so.”
“And you’re unable to disobey your master?”
“I can, I suppose, but not without punishment. I won’t risk it.”
I wondered about the implications of that. She wasn’t magically prevented from disobeying, but she feared some sort of retribution. It was possible that like my bond with Sable, her wizard master could use her senses to see what she was doing if desired, maybe even across the portal. The fact that she plainly stated she would be punished also suggested she had a different relationship with her master than I had with Sable.
“Morgan, was it? Was that all you wanted, to give me a potion and talk?”
“More or less. But since you won’t tell us why you’re here, we have to assume you’re trying to break our barrier in some manner. Until we decide what to do with you I’ll be showing up at random to check on what you’re doing. And I can find you anywhere.”
I watched her expression twist into confusion at that last bit, and she likely finally got around to processing the fact that I had snuck up on her here in her hiding spot.
“How did you-”
“Just some magic I can do. I brewed that healing potion I gave you, too.” Sure, I technically hadn’t brewed the Sympathy Potion, but it was still magic that I was using. And of course I had brewed the healing potion. I was looking for a reaction, and she gave it to me with her look of surprise.
“You can brew potions and do magic?”
“Yeah, I can. Can you not?”
“No, familiars aren’t allowed to have magic of their own.”
“Maybe where you’re from, but all the cool familiars around here can do magic.”
It was a bluff, of course, but again technically true. Given that I was the only familiar from around here, and also cool. I watched the gears turn in her head.
“Earth Witches give their familiars access to magic? Do they have a death wish?”
A death wish? That seemed a bit extreme, but perhaps the familiar dynamic she was used to was much different than mine after all.
“No, I don’t think so. But in any case, if I find you back here causing trouble we might have to fight again. See you soon.” Turning to leave, I gave her a smile and walked away. She sat on the tree limb looking a bit stumped, clearly unsure of how to proceed.
I had achieved my goals for this outing: I determined that she couldn’t use magic and gave her reason to believe I could, and could also find her at will. The implied threat and asymmetric capabilities might give her enough pause to be much more cautious in her approach, giving me more time to prepare. I ran back to the manor, hoping that this had actually been a clever ploy.
By the time I returned, it was time to head out if I wanted to reach the bar by 7. I locked up the manor and got in my car. It was my first time out of the house as a catgirl-in-disguise, and I was a bit nervous about it.