Well, no one was going back into the city for a couple of days so Emilie had time to work on her true craft. While Zeter worked on his runes, Damarys went off with Arjana, and Kasyn left to, probably, pray to Akumu, Emilie set herself down at her alchemy workbench. It was fortunate that she’d been traveling to Yomichi, intending to set up in the tower of the Sages of the Mercurial Robe since she had all of her tools, reagents, and everything else she needed with her. If she’d been inside the city when the Tower of Light attacked, there would have been no way for her to have carried it all out of the city in the midst of the battle.

Since alchemy tended to be a rather smelly and unpleasant practice to be around, she had her workshop set well apart from the rest of the camp. Workshop was probably a bit too generous a term for the large tent that enclosed her workspace but it was hers and she didn’t mind the smells. A large part of alchemy was learning to recognize the right and wrong smells for each process in order to tell if what she was making was turning out right. The last thing she wanted to do was to hand someone a potion only for it to poison them. Such clients tended to get understandably upset and poor alchemists didn’t last long in the profession.

As she readied her most common reagents, she checked a small note she had tacked to the side of her workbench. It listed all the requested potions, mostly for healing or to aid in Jelvaic’s farming initiative. Beside that note was another one, written in a different hand and not placed there by Emilie. She frowned upon seeing it but wasn’t surprised to find it here. On it was written a single line: 27 Sages in need.

That was more than last time, Emilie noted. They were spreading it around, it seemed, and she didn’t like what that might mean for her or them in the future. It had been a year since her so-called breakthrough where she concocted what she’d hoped would be an amplifier for magic, allowing a person to surpass their normal limits of casting and avoid the side effects of over-channeling. Well, it did do that, but it was also highly addictive and was a terror to ween yourself off of. Emilie had only taken the potion twice and it still took her several months to stop having the shakes and headaches. She could only imagine what it would be like for those who’d been using it for a year now.

They’d tried to divine what it was made of so they could make it themselves but Emilie had, so far, kept it a secret. Part of the reason for her move to Yomichi was to get away from those who were addicted to the potion, now called Sages Brew. It seemed the addicts had followed her here, regardless of her promise to continue supplying them, albeit from a distance.

“I wonder if Ketty’s using it now,” she mused aloud.

“I’m not,” came the reply from directly behind Emilie, causing her to jump and cry out in surprise. “Though Armand has somehow gotten his hands on some and may need to be supplied in the future until he can be weened, stupid boy.”

Ketty Pordis stood in the corner of the tent, mostly concealed by the shadows, her arms crossed and a scowl on her face.

“Were you selected to lead this bunch or did you choose to come?” Emilie asked without trying to hide her dislike for the other woman.

“Both,” she replied. “Armand is, like I said, addicted now and I need to correct that error. As for the others, even they agreed they needed someone not clouded in judgment when it came to the Brew.”

“So is anyone actually here to help the people or is it just Brew and books they’re after?”

“Brew and books,” Ketty admitted without even a hint of embarrassment. “Let’s be realistic here,” she continued as she stepped out of the shadows, “Akumu is defeated and Yume is about to be carved up by every neighboring country. Shinrai’s already here and they’re the least warlike of the bunch. The knowledge in the Toshokans is invaluable and who better to safeguard it than the Sages of the Mercurial Robe?”

“Sell it, you mean,” Emilie countered.

Ketty didn’t bother to try and deny it. Instead she just shifted her weight and cast a silence spell around the tent.

“The fools drinking your Brew are getting desperate,” she warned Emilie. “I’ve caught a number of them already trying to sneak into here to look for some. They’re practically chugging their way through their reserves and worry they’ll run out before they can get more. I’d suggest you apply yourself to keeping them happy. Or,” Ketty turned a wicked grin to Emilie, “you could teach me the recipe and I’ll take the burden off of you, splitting the profits sixty-forty in your favor.”

Emilie suspected Ketty would try and get as many of the Sages addicted and then use the Brew as leverage over them to exert control over the entire organization. It would be a quick way to be named the new archmage if ever Emilie had heard of one.

“No thanks,” Emilie stated with a flat smile on her face.

Jelvaic was right to turn them away and their ‘offer to help’. Emilie may be a member of the Sages of the Mercurial Robe, but that didn’t mean she was blindly in step with everything they did. In fact, the higher she got in the organization, the more she regretted it. That was probably why she’d stagnated these last few years as far as her personal advancement was concerned. The Sages Brew alone should have warranted her own apprentices and a full lab for research but instead she was only allowed her transfer request to Yomichi where the archmage knew it was more to get her away from the addicts than anything else.

The archmage. He’d been inside the tower when the city was attacked.

“Have you heard anything from the tower?” Emilie asked.

“Tritendo got a message out on the day of the attack, saying the tower was besieged,” Ketty said, “but nothing since then. I suspect the tower, like the city, is under lockdown until whatever threats remain are neutralized.”

Tritendo was just a low level courier for the Sages so it was likely the archmage had instructed him to send the message, but why hadn’t the archmage reached out himself? Even if the tower was on lockdown he should be able to contact them.

“You’re busy,” Ketty stated, “I’ll leave you to your work. Let me know if you need any reagents, but it seems you’re well stocked, for now.”

She strode out of the tent and the silence spell dropped. Emilie had magical wards to keep people from spying on her in here, but perhaps she would need to increase her precautions. At least a way to keep unwanted visitors out. Jelvaic, at least, would hear about this, though she’d keep the Sages Brew secret. The fewer people there were who knew about it the better and even Jelvaic wasn’t someone she would trust with this information.

“I wish I’d never made it.”

Too late for that now. She had 27 people to supply and that would cut into her other brewing she intended to do and it wasn’t like Sages Brew was one of those potions that could just be set to the side and ignored. It required a fair amount of time and attention to get it right. Well, best to keep them happy and off her back for the time being. She could make enough for them if she made a large batch and thankfully Sages Brew didn’t lose its potency over time like some others did.

As midday crossed into afternoon and eventually into evening, Emilie found herself walking down towards the Sages camp, her bag of holding full of vials of Sages Brew. There were a few lookouts at the entrance to the camp and more than a handful of her regulars hanging about, clearly waiting for her.

She could almost see the message spells being sent, notifying the others that she was here and within less than a minute of arriving she had a throng of sages pleading for more Brew.

“Back up. Let me in and get set up!” she barked at them.

When they didn’t, she projected a shield in front of her and forced the crowd back. More than a few shouted out angrily but she didn’t react to them. Instead, she pointed at an empty plot of ground and a stall was magicked into existence. Upon seeing that, the crowd actually calmed down and began to form up a queue. That was a relief to Emilie as she sat herself down behind the stall.

“Before we begin,” Emilie called out to them, “I need to let you know that I’m limiting sales of Sages Brew to three vials per person. I’ll be here twice a week with more to sell.”

A loud outcry was their response. She knew six vials a week would not be enough for the most heavily addicted among them.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t spend all day every day just making Sages Brew. If you’re that concerned over it, then stop sharing it around and getting more people addicted.”

“We’re not addicted,” a few of them tried to lie but they all knew the truth.

“Three vials per person, twice a week, is the best I can offer you,” Emilie told them. “Take it or leave it.”

At the back of the crowd, Emilie spotted Ketty Pordis keeping an eye on the situation. It was one of the few times Emilie was actually relieved to see the woman. If any of the Sages got out of hand here, at least Emilie would have backup.

One by one, the Sages bought their Brew and then hurried off, likely to squirrel away their vials out of fear of having them stolen. Judging from the looks on some of their faces, it wasn’t an idle concern. When the last of them had bought their Sages Brew and left, Emilie still had a surplus, though she didn’t tell them that. She knew keeping them to three vials would be a risk so she had enough in case she lost that argument.

“You know it’s me who’ll have to deal with them when they’re clawing at the gate to be let out in search of you and more Brew, right?” Ketty asked Emilie once they were alone.

“Just be glad I’m still making it at all.”

“Mmm, could I get a vial or two for Armand?”

Emilie hesitated but did as she was asked and Ketty paid her for them.

“I’m going to need more alchemical supplies,” Emilie said. “You don’t have supply lines established yet, do you?”

“No, but it’s something I’m working on. How are your supplies?”

“I’ve got enough for now.”

Emilie hated all the cagey answers but she had to remind herself that she and Ketty were not on the same side. Even before Akumu’s fall, she and Ketty had been at odds.

“Well, I’m glad you’re not hurting for income, at least,” Ketty smiled while nodding to the overfull coin pouch.

“You can’t plow fields with gold,” Emilie pointed out, “and unless we get traders and merchants coming back this way it won’t be able to buy the supplies we need, either.”

“I have every confidence in you and the others,” Ketty replied and Emilie couldn’t tell whether or not she was being sincere. “Once Autay Wa is restored and people can move back into the city, it’ll only be a matter of time before life finds its way back into something resembling normal.”

“Right,” Emilie sighed, “well, I should be going.”

She pointed at her stall and it vanished, along with her coin pouch.

“See you in a few days,” Ketty waved her off.

In a few days, Emilie thought to herself, either Nyla would be back at the main gate and Autay Wa would be safe again, or Emilie and the others would be dead. No, Emilie could still be dead in either scenario. Any of them could be, really. She kicked herself for wasting an entire day making Sages Brew and hurried her pace back to her workshop. There were far better potions she should be making. Ones that could save their life and help them in the fight to come against the soldiers of the Tower of Light.