Forget-Me-Not (dreamxreader)

49 || New Recruits

TW: SWEARING, YELLING, SLIGHT GORE, MENTIONS OF DEATH, INTIMIDATION

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The makeshift lab was small, the chemical engineers I had with me barely fit inside. I hear the scratch of lead on paper as they scribble furiously making notes as I explain to them how the potion works. It had been a hard potion for me to design, it took a lot of hours and complaints from George about the mess I'd made in the lab room in the basement. 

There had been dozens of accidents and failed trials but thankfully we always had healing potions on hand and milk to reverse effects. It was a slowness and weakness potion hybrid, my area of expertise was in healing potions. My healing abilities were a gift from Apollo I had worked out. 

The stench of fermented spider eyes was going to make me dizzy if I stayed in this tent much longer. I was feeling the pressure of eyes on me as I worked, it wasn't something I was used to. These people all had previous experience with potions and, although I knew I was the only one to have accomplished hybrid potions, I felt as though I needed to impress them. They also seemed incredibly professional in labcoats whilst I was just wearing my regular loose shirt, trousers and crown. I felt incredibly underdressed. 

"Finally, when it comes to adding the sugar there's a particular trick," I mention and bring out what I had been calling my secret weapon. I open the small pouch and the room floods with the stench of fermented sugar. It was a sickeningly sweet and rotten smell. Like bad over-candied fruit that had been left in the sun for one thousand years. I noticed nearly everybody in the room hold their noses. 

"Yeah, it's not a nice smell. Fermented sugar, you will all be provided with it when you start working on these potions. You must add exactly one spoonful, any more and you will either have a weak potion or a lot of mess on your hands."

I take a teaspoon of the foul substance and level it with my finger before pouring it into the brewing stand. I close the pouch and wipe my hands on a nearby towel. 

"That's pretty much the whole process. The regular fifteen minutes of brewing or until you hear bubbling is plenty and then you can take it out and it will be ready. Any questions?" I look around the room feeling relieved that my demonstration was over. One of them raises their hand and I gesture for them to speak. 

"Slowness and weakness are effective yes, but why aren't we making poison and harming hybrids?" he asks haughtily. I struggle to keep my cool. 

Harming and poison potions were the most dangerous in the world. Poison potions killed you slowly from the inside out, making you vomit and feel dizzy. Not many people have been able to study its effects, but I had done my research. Effectively, it turns your insides to mush and uses a numbing effect so you don't feel it. If you drink it, you die from the stomach acids that leak from your intestines and break down your organs. Breathe it in and it suffocates you by pouring blood into your lungs as they burn. Touch it and it soaks into your skin making it green as it kills all the cells, you eventually die of internal bleeding. 

Between poison and harming, poison was the nice one. You died ill but arguably peacefully. Harming potions were invented to be used as torture devices after Old World's destruction. People were hung up on racism and who had done what and ruined whose lives and whatnot. 

Harming potions were lethal and killed you even slower than poison. They were designed not to kill you but they were poorly created and people died to them anyway. If a Harming potion were to touch your skin, you'd feel the burning immediately. It mimics fire. It sears your skin, gets into your blood and then it turns it into acid. I don't understand how you don't die as soon as your blood is acid, but it lasts longer than that. As the acid is pumped around your body you feel intense pain, inexplicable pain. People under the effects of Harming potions have been known to throw their swords onto themselves.