DWinchester
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Brewing Bad Ch. 81
🕑 Added 2024-09-23 14:00:03 +0000 UTCCh. 81 - All Nighter
Lucas tried hard not to laugh as the three-foot gnome in front of him struck a pose and delivered his last statement like it was supposed to be intimidating. In the end, he was unable to keep the smirk entirely off his face. So, instead, he bowed low enough to hide it as he introduced himself.
“It’s nice to meet you too,” Lucas said, “I’m Lucas Parin.”
“Hmmph - never heard of you,” Heizenburgle answered haughtily. “You should stick with Mister Blue. It suits you better. You are a one-trick pony, after all.”
“Is that so?” Lucas responded, biting his tongue to avoid snapping at the little guy. The sooner I make nice, the sooner I can be done with this project and go home. “What makes you say that?”
“Because if you had any achievements of note beyond stumbling on a very profitable recipe, I would have heard of you,” the gnome said smugly, “And it’s very clear you haven’t been to any of the proper skills. I wouldn’t be surprised if you have no guild ties at all, though I’d hardly be the one to hold that particular detail against you.”
Well, it’s not like I’ve heard of you either, Lucas thought, quickly deciding that was exactly the wrong response.
“Oh, have some kind of falling out with them?” Lucas asked blandly, suppressing a yawn. He was happy to change the topic. He didn’t exactly enjoy being talked down to by someone half his height.
“A falling out? A falling out?!” Heisenburgle had started turning around to take care of other things, but as soon as Lucas asked that question, he whirled around. “How could you have heard of Heisenburgle the Black but not the ways that I was so woefully mistreated by those ingrates?!”
For a second, Lucas thought he was supposed to get a three-hour backstory about the man, but instead, just before the gnome could start what looked to be a long tirade, he yawned. Then, his expression softened, and he said, “You will be disappointed to hear this, but that story will have to wait for another night. The hour grows late, and I must put this experiment behind me.”
“Sounds good, man,” Lucas answered with a shrug, following the gnome down the stairs at the very slow pace that Heisenburgle walked.
The gnome talked the whole way down, though he kept jumping topics so often that he was hard to follow. Sometimes he was bragging about nebulous achievements that didn’t sound like much to Lucas, and other times, he was bemoaning the failure of his most recent experiment. “Starlight is very subtle stuff. It’s very hard to gather,” the gnome complained, making defensive statements that would have made a whole lot more sense if Lucas had been needling him.
He hadn’t, though. Other than the occasional “Yeah,” or “That’s rough,” whenever the gnome finished talking for a bit, making him feel the need to say something appropriate, he hadn’t said shit.
It was only when they reached the bottom of the tower and were once more in the long, carpeted hallways that he asked, “So, what’s the plan? What time are we meeting tomorrow to do this thing?”
“Well, I had been seeking to use the air laboratory at night to replicate your formula at the Prince’s request, but that was based purely on my own guesswork,” Heisenburgle said. “Depending on your elemental formulation, we may prefer to use the earth or the water laboratory instead.”
“You have more than one laboratory like that?” Lucas asked.
That stunned him for two reasons. The first was that he couldn’t imagine how many dragons it would cost to build just one of those monstrosities, let alone two or three, because of some outdated superstitions. The second was that he’d had to climb all those stairs for nothing. If the gnome had another laboratory in a more convenient location, then they should obviously be using that one instead.
Before he could ask about that, though, Heisenburgle scoffed, “There is not a single laboratory in creation that is optimal for each sort of formulation. Tell me what the major and minor elemental aspects of your narcotics are, and we can decide where best to—”
“I’m gonna be straight with you, man,” Lucas said, bracing himself for the response he knew this statement was going to get him. “I have fucking clue what the elements in any of my ingredients are. I just—”
“What?! WHAT?!” the gnome squeezed so loudly it echoed down the long corridor. “You just mix things together without taking the elemental balances under consideration? But if you… then how can you… I…”
Lucas had braced for exactly this sort of reaction, but this was worse than he’d expected. He thought that the little guy was going to stroke out.
Finally, before steam could start coming out of his ears, he said, “I cannot begin to fathom what it is you are up to, Mister Blue, but I am much too tired to deal with it just now. Meet me here tonight, on this very spot at sunset, and we will review your ingredients and make those determinations then.”
Lucas followed the peevish little alchemist down the hallway as he muttered to himself about the importance of elements, but as soon as they came across the first servant, Heisenburgle quickly fobbed Lucas off on them. “Show my… ahrm… assistant here, to his quarters. I am tired of his presence.”
Lucas glared at the gnome for that but said nothing. Instead, he went with the servant and was escorted to a room on the second floor, fuming the whole way about what the gnome had said. Not the being tired of him part. That feeling was pretty mutual. It was the other bit that got under his skin.
Assistant. Lucas thought in annoyance. Motherfucker, if you were so smart, you would have already figured this shit out. Maybe I just need to assist you in pulling your head out of your ass.
Those angry thoughts swirled in his mind until the young man opened a door partway down the hallway, and Lucas saw his luggage opened and his clothing hanging in the wardrobe. He hadn’t been sure what he’d been expecting, but it wasn’t this. Certainly, he thought there would be a guard or maybe bars on the windows. There wasn’t, though. Instead, it was a well-appointed room with curtains and a bedspread. There was even a writing desk with pen and ink, which made the whole place seem a lot more like a guest room than the prison cell he’d feared.
“Will there be anything else, sir?” the young servant asked.
“Yeah, where do I go to get lunch later?” Lucas asked.
The footman explained the way to the dining room and was so polite as he did so that Lucas almost tipped him like he was some kind of bellhop. Instead, he thanked the lad, then went into his room and promptly passed out.
Lucas didn’t even bother to strip before climbing into bed. He just kicked off his boots and climbed into bed. He was too exhausted to do anything else. Not even his aggravation at the gnome or worries about what it was that might happen next were enough to keep him awake, and Lucas drifted off into a deep and largely dreamless sleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.
He probably would have slept until sunset if he could have, but the sun disagreed with that plan. Despite the thick curtains, a single stubborn ray of light managed to sneak between them and find Lucas’s left eye, though, forcing the issue.
For a moment, he didn’t remember where he was, and it was only when he noticed that the sheets were much too white that he remembered he wasn’t in Parin Manor anymore. After that came the memories of the conversations he’d had with the gnome last night, which left him far too aggravated to drift off to sleep once more. So, reluctantly, he changed into something that was less rumpled and went off in search of something to eat.
The dining room of this place, whatever it was, had a number of small tables in it rather than one large one that seemed more typical for the rich, making it seem more like a cafe than anything. Lucas noted that there were many people eating at various tables scattered around the place. Most seemed to be guards, but there were a few other research types like Heisenburgle, though Lucas didn’t see the gnome anywhere.
A few minutes after he sat down, a maid approached him and asked if he’d like the soup or a sandwich. “Both, please,” he responded, not trying to hide his exhaustion, not that he could. The way that his eyeballs felt like sandpaper, they were almost certainly bloodshot and loaded down by heavy bags under them. “And a pot of tea, as strong as you can make it.”
The maid left with a tiny courtesy and walked away, and instead of checking out her ass Lucas just rubbed his tired eyes. Some of the other men in this room looked pretty tired, too, but some of them were wide awake. It was a strange place, and it left him wondering what was really going on here.
The Prince sent me here to make a better blue, and Heisenburgle was trying to distill starlight, which apparently is a thing that’s possible, Lucas thought as he tried to make sense of things. So what in the hell is everyone else up to.
His mind chewed on that until the maid returned with a little serving cart that contained everything he’d asked for. That gave him something else to chew on, at least. The food wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t half so good as the food he’d gotten used to in the Manor house. It was hard to screw up a BLT and some tomato soup, though, or whatever the equivalent of those things were here.
He thought about that for a long time. Even after the meal was over, and he found a balcony on the third floor that he could stand on and appreciate the almost warm weather before things started to cool off again, in spite of the constant hammering from some smithy somewhere.
He’d stayed with the Parin’s less than a year, but already he was completely spoiled by the experience. It was better than he’d eaten as a reincarnated orphan in this world, and except for missing Mexican food, it was a hell of a lot better than the fried, grease-ridden existence he’d enjoyed in his last life.
“I’m going to need to get back there as soon as I can,” he said to himself as he stood there looking at Lordanin near the horizon.
Lucas wasn’t sure it would be a simple thing, but he was going to do it as fast as possible anyway.
Well, unless they’re planning to use it to poison the water supply or something, he thought to himself. At this point, Lucas wasn’t particularly proud of letting this genie out of the bottle, but if it turned out the Prince was going to do something truly evil with it, he would probably have to do something about that.
Comments
D. Winchester
Hah. I get that. 2 chapters will start when I get back to Germany from america. I scheduled one chapter a week until then because thought I have a giant backlog, it is not infinite. 2 chapter a week starts for RR as soon as October starts, so they can close the gap back to 10ish chapters ahead. I think the patreon is 15 ahead right now.
Darastrix
Are we getting 2 chps next week or the week after? How do u count October starting? In a weird convuluted way I miss hanging off of the cliff :P
Jack Smith
Great chapter as usual, just a bit unfortunate that we only got to witness luca sit down and eat a sandietch
