Arthur stood looking out the window towards the fields of cultivated plants with a soft smile on his face. The simple life he made for himself and his wife was just about everything he could have wanted or even asked for in life.

  He had money, knowledge, and love. What else did he really need?

  Given it was still morning and he had yet to eat he didn’t waste any more time and turned back to the kitchen to make up something for himself and Calavia.

  The night prior the two had finished up the rest of the soup they had so Arthur went about making another. First thing he had to do was fill the pot with water, which was a simple task with his skill in hydromancy. Second he needed to quickly run downstairs to the basement where they kept all of their food and find a combination that would go well in a soup. The third and final step was to simply cook the soup, something that he would have little difficulty with as it wasn’t anything special.

  Calavia of course was taking her time rising from bed like she had been for the past several months, thankfully for Arthur this afforded him more time towards getting breakfast ready. And just as the soup was nearing the end of the cooking process Calavia walked down the stairs and over to the table, her swollen belly showing she was several months pregnant.

  “Good morning my love.” Arthur said with a soft smile as he turned to his wife. “You have wonderful timing, breakfast is almost ready.”

  Calavia nodded sluggish as she found a seat and slowly sat down, around her eyes were deep and dark bags telling Arthur she was still having trouble sleeping.

  Within just a few minutes Arthur finished up cooking the soup and quickly filled two bowls, one for himself and another for Calavia. Quickly he took a seat next to her and placed the second bowl he had in front of her, she stared at it half awake as Arthur looked on worried.

  “More bad dreams?” He asked and she slowly nodded in agreement.

  “You know they can’t hurt you, and it might be good to try talking about it.” Arthur half pleaded again, this had been an ongoing issue for a while now. Arthur’s personal theory was Calavia was simply nervous about being a mother and the stress was eating at her when she slept. Yet for some reason she never told him what happened in these bad dreams.

  For a short while the two ate breakfast together in silence, something that was becoming more common with each nightmare that Calavia had. Arthur finished first and waited until Calavia was done before taking both of their bowls and cleaning them quickly.

  With little else to do Arthur made his way towards the stairs so he could start working on the potions he needed to brew up, he had a fairly large backlog of potion orders from Lindum which he would need to start soon if he wanted them out by the end of the day. But just as he was about to touch the railing Calavia spoke up.

  “You were in my dream.” She half whispered as her eyes stayed on the table where her bowl once was. Arthur had stopped in his tracks and was giving his wife his full attention.

  “You were fighting a group of maybe fifteen people who were all dressed in worn clothing. All of them carried weapons, I think some had bows and a few others were carrying torches. They tried to kill you, and you just tore them apart without hesitation.” Calavia looked up towards Arthur with tears welling up in her eyes. “You were so angry at them, and I don’t even know why. You kept yelling at them as you cut their arms and legs off, you didn’t stop until they were all dead. And when one started running away you chased after him.”

  Arthur rushed over to his wife and wrapped her in a hug. For a while the two just stayed there as Calavia quietly cried in Arthur's arms.

  “It was just a dream.” Arthur told her as he soothed her. “Nothing is for certain.”

  Calavia nodded as she wiped her tears.

  “If you feel the need to come and see me today don’t even worry about it, do it right away. I just need to brew batches of potions for the common folk of Lindum, nothing that will explode or hurt anyone.” Arthur told his wife as he stood up, Calavia wordlessly nodded and Arthur gave her one last kiss before turning back towards the stairs.

  *********

  Arthur managed to get around halfway done with the orders at around noon when he heard someone enter his small workshop from the stairs above. He turned around to find Calavia slowly walking down with a nervous expression on her face.

  “G-good afternoon Arthur.” She stuttered as she slowly crept forwards. “I wanted to see you.”

  Slowly a smile crept up on Arthur's face as he stepped towards his wife who was now averting her eyes. “Did you need something dear, or did you just want to spend some time with me here?”

  “I- was wondering if you could maybe show me a little bit of your alchemy, if you have the time of course. I don’t want to interrupt the orders you need to fulfill."

  “It's alright.” Arthur said with a voice as smooth as butter. “I am almost done with what I have scheduled for today, so I should have the time to show you a few basic potions. That is if you want to work in this stinky alchemy lab with me.”

  Calavia let a small chuckle slip from her mouth. “It doesn’t smell that bad. But even if it was, I would be happy to spend as much time with you as possible.”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  “Well then, just give me a minute to fetch the necessary ingredients and I will have everything prepared for you.”

  Arthur quickly rushed towards and then down the stairs to the basement and snatched a basket on his way down. When he returned the basket was filled with several types of plants, most of which were the types he used when he first started his journey into alchemy.

  Quickly he brought Calavia over to one of the empty tables and brought out his spare set of alchemy equipment before sorting out all of the ingredients into four different piles.

  “Alright, time for a basic lesson in alchemy.” Arthur said as he turned to see Calavia looking at the equipment and ingredients with pure bewilderment in her eyes.

  “First things first I am going to teach you is how to make a nutrient potion. It is a very simple potion for a beginner, in fact it is the very first potion I ever made myself.” Arthur said with a touch of pride, and for a moment his mind went back to when he was a simple apprentice in the art of alchemy. It would have been around six years ago now when you consider how time rewound itself back a year during the second war between the kingdom and empire.

  “The first step is to use the mortar and pestle to grind up each of the ingredients while keeping them separate. Then you will need to add a cup of water to the healing root and mix them together before boiling them for half a minute and leaving to cool for a full one. Next you will add the ground up witch’s ivy and knotweed and mix well. Finally you will need to use the retort to distill the mixture into a proper nutrient potion.”

  Calavia followed along to the best of her abilities as Arthur explained what she needed to do. But her nonexistent alchemy knowledge kept her from understanding anything she was just told, and Arthur could see as she nervously looked between the four apparatuses unsure of which was the mortar and pestle.

  “I think we need a bit more of a detailed explanation.” Arthur said, stepping in between Calavia and the table.

  Reaching over he picked up the mortar and pestle and handed it to Calavia. “This here is the mortar and pestle. This is what you will be using to grind up each of the ingredients for the first step of the potion.”

  Calavia looked across the simple piece of equipment with a mix of interest and confusion. She had several questions, Arthur knew her well enough to know.

  “Do you really need something like this in alchemy? I always assumed it was the ingredients themselves that made the potions work. Why can’t you just add the ingredients like making a pot of soup?”

  “Now it is a little different from making a pot of soup, but not that much different. For starters you don’t just add all of the ingredients at once to make a good soup, you usually have to cut them up or crush them before you add them.” Arthur reached towards the knotweed as he spoke as it was the largest ingredient from the potion, with it in hand he made some cutting motions like he was holding a knife like he was cutting carrots to add to their soup. “That way the ingredients cook better and are small enough to fit into your mouth. I suppose you could say something similar applies to alchemy.”

  Calavia stood for a moment with her mouth open as she was deep in thought, eventually she nodded and closed her mouth.

  Arthur brought Calavia closer to the table as he lined the three ingredients out for her to easily differentiate. First he gestured towards the one on the furthest left, a plant that somewhat resembled a turnip with the texture of a potato that had a large stalk that likely stuck above the ground. “This here is the knotweed, most non magical potions as well as the more beginner magical potions use this ingredient. It can be found most places with the only real exception being places that are very cold or very hot throughout the whole year.”

  Arthur brought Calavia's attention towards the second plant in the middle of the table. It resembled a normal herb that a well off commoner might use to add flavor to their food, only this was quite elongated somewhat reminding Arthur of a vine. “This second plant is called a witch’s ivy, like the knotweed. It is a very common plant but doesn’t have very many uses outside of a handful of potions.”

  Finally Arthur brought their attention towards the final plant on the table. “This is the healing root.” Arthur pointed towards the plant as it rested on the right side of the table, it was quite an outlier to the other two which looked almost normal. The healing root was quite a bit larger with a tall central stalk covered with all sorts of leaves, the roots hanging from the bottom were still attached as they were needed for the potion to work properly.

  “How many potions are you able to make with all these ingredients? With just these three plants alone I imagine it would be a sizable amount.” Calavia asked as she picked up the healing root by the stalk and started looking it over.

  “Well that would depend mostly on how good you are as an alchemist.” Said as Calavia put the healing root back on the table and did the same with the witch’s ivy. “When I first started this amount we currently have on the table would last me at most two potions due to waste. Right now I could easily make five or six, but I would expect no more than one from you.”

  Slowly Calavia returned the witch’s ivy back to the table, but instead of doing the same thing with the knotweed she instead chose to turn to me with a nervous expression.

  “So I would be wasting ingredients if I was to try making one of these potions?”

  “No no, of course not.” I said as I reached forwards to hold her hands. “These things just take time to learn and improve on. I did the exact same thing you are doing now when I was first learning alchemy.”

  For a moment Calavia looked split, but eventually she gave a small nod.

  *********

  For a time Arthur helped her with these simple potions. For a while it was the simple nutrient potions, but eventually they moved onto drowsiness potions and a few other simple non-magical potions that were well within a beginners skill.

  When he was certain she could be left alone to her own work Arthur returned to the orders he needed to fulfil for most of the remaining day while taking a break every so often to make sure Calavia was still alright with what she was doing.

  But eventually like all things the day came to an end. Arthur finalized the shipment and had his delivery man take the potions into the city where they would arrive by the evening and later be delivered or picked up in the next morning.

  He also took the time to speak with those under his employment making sure they were alright and asking if there was anything they needed. He even had a short conversation with the twin brother, they had come a long way from where they had once been and were now becoming a sort of authority figures to the other young men Arthyr later hired.

  When he and Calavia got home the soup from before was heated up again and served up. Arthur and Calavia had their fill as they sat next to each other and looked out the window at their farmland. They admired the landscape they had carved out of the forest as the sun slowly dipped below the horizon, and only when they needed to conjure up fire to see did they decide it was time to go to sleep.

  For a while the night was peaceful and both Arthur and his wife had wonderful dreams, until his dreams started to smell of smoke with no noticeable source. Slowly a realization dawned on him crawling up his spine like a cold chill.

  You shouldn’t be able to smell things in dreams.