“Master, we should leave,” Jaesi said, feeling nervous as Yukai City was beginning to become unstable. The gangs and guilds were out in force and something horrible was happening at the palace district. Out the window, the young alchemist apprentice could see the smoke and the orange glow of flame. She flicked her ears in nervous agitation.

“Yes, yes. In good time,” her master said, seemingly unconcerned. He was a human, but not an easterner. They were both foreign to Mikuma and the east. “We still have to finish this last batch of corrosives for the Unseen Watchers.”

Why do they need so much? We’ve already delivered six crates of this stuff to them today.

How her master maintained such easy composer, Jaesi didn’t know. At times she thought she couldn’t apprentice under the man, but he had taken her so far in her studies. I can’t leave now, she thought, but what if he gets me killed?

“They ordered a batch, and we will deliver. They sent a man just hours ago confirming that we were still on to supply the chemicals to them.”

“But did you see what’s happening in the city?” Jaesi said incredulously as she looked out the window and gestured.

“Indubitably! However, it’s of little concern to us.”

“It will be if whatever’s happening reaches this part of the city.”

“Well then, let us finish our task and then we can be on our way.”

Jaesi sighed. “I still don’t know how I feel about mixing up batches of corrosive chemicals for gangs. Infusing them with magic makes it even more dangerous!”

Her master sliced her with a sharp gaze. Jaesi looked down at the bowl of materials she was putting together to avoid that look. He was often an easy man to deal with and simply brushed most things aside, which made her feel comfortable in her outspokenness around him. Unfortunately, what the master alchemist did not like was when she challenged his authority as the master.

“Now,” he said, scratching at his greying beard. “Yes, that batch. Mix that up. This has been activated here. No, no. We don’t mix these yet, my young apprentice. It must rest, remember? Otherwise the compounds would emit a magical explosion large enough to destroy the walls around us.”

He was working on a bench to her right. Her eyes widened. The near proximity of the dangerous compounds and magicks added to her anxiety. Her fur stood on end. “Do you mean you’ve been mixing all this here, together, all day, while I’ve been in the back?”

Her master stopped stirring the batch he had infused with magical energy. He hadn’t yet taught her the magicks he used. It was mostly rune magic he bought off of certain vendors as he himself didn’t possess magical capabilities.

That was probably for the best.

Without receiving an answer, Jaesi shook her head and stirred up her compound. It was seething and boiling, it’s color a bright glowing purple.

“Let me see.” He stepped over to her side, looked into the bowl. “Very good. Now these must rest before we mix them, or we’re going to have an accident we may not even realize until it’s too late.”

“Should the bowls be so close?”

“It’s fine,” he said offhandedly as he turned and scribbled some notes down into his journal on the other side of the long table Jaesi was working at. “Ah,” he added, still scribbling. “Could you bring me some more of the Akrulian salts?”

She looked about. “Where?”

“Uh,” he mumbled. “Up on the shelf behind you, I believe.” He said the words, gesturing offhandedly without even glancing in her direction.

She nodded, turned and reached up to the shelf. As she made to grab the vial of blue salt, she caught sight of something. It was long, like an oddly fashioned rope with hairy fibers.

“Master, what is…”—she grabbed it, and it pulled back. She screamed as the thing scurried across the wall.

Jumping back, she knocked into the table behind her, her hands scrabbling for anything she could to defend herself from the disgusting spider on the wall!

It’s huge!

“What is it—why are you shouting?”

“Don’t spill—ahhh!!”

“What—whatwhathwat?”

She screamed again as the thing scurried.

He screamed again. “What have you done?!”

Her hands—why were her hands burning? She brought them to her sides and rubbed them over her tunic. It felt like she had put her hands in hot coals. She screamed as the fiery pain spread, her tunic beginning to disintegrate.

Her master shook his arms wildly. “My hands!”

Turning toward him, she found him rubbing his own hands against his body, the purple corrosives infused with magic spreading about.

He hit the large spoon in the bowl he had been mixing and a large glob of the magically infused compound went up into the air and came down onto the stone floor where the other chemicals had spilled.

The cat eye apprentice and human master alchemist looked at one another, eyes wide. “NOOOO!!!!!”

The reaction hissed, and then…