A Wild World- A Witcher FanFic

Chapter 15

A.N.~ Short chapter but I waned to try a change of pace. :-O
Behold a chapter I actually had fun writing ( lol I love them all but this was just a nice change)

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Crash!

"Wrong again!"

Another jar crashed angrily against the stone wall, its contents leaving a dark inky green smear down the wall. The glass pieces joined the shards of previous failures. A graveyard of potions and alchemical tonics spread out across the vast chamber, a testament to the innumerable failures. The scorch marks from his last encounter were scrubbed neatly away by both servants and magic.

"I will get this perfected, and I'll have them pay in blood, tenfold."  He growled through gritted teeth. "Just need more wolfsbane extract."

He had to find that gateway. Last time she had escaped, and now she and that damned witcher evaded every tracking spell he could conjure up thus far. He had wasted enough time since that day healing and restoring both his study and laboroatory. Now he needed something much stronger, a tracking spell that no living thing could escape.

The elf readjusted his deep red hood before pulling down a small jar of clear yellow liquid.  With skilled hands he measured a half spoon before letting it drip slowly into another vial containing some deep brown liquid. 

His face held pure concentration.  One mistake and the whole project would have to be restarted - again.

As he poured himself into this endeavor his mind wandered back the first time he had used this laboratory.  He had been searching for a gateway then too; although, he had been much less ambitious and much more unrecognized for his plans.

After years of being silenced by the sages and other mages about his novel ideas, he was left with no choice but to ignore them and experiment. He vowed to show them all. His own ideas of grandeur and theories on restoring the Aen Elle would outshine anything those fools could do.

It was only their poor decision to remove him from his post as a mage that made the last straw. He retreated even more deeply into work. All his life, self, and soul he had poured into this lab, here in isolation hidden in the world of these disgusting dh'oine.

As he worked his mind wandered deeper back to those first trials. The many trials to find the connection point between worlds. How long ago those days seemed...

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Although not small, but for all the items it contained, the laboratory may as well have been a broom closet.

Flecks of potions and otherworldly materials scattered a highly used work bench. Books from various ages and disciplines from astronomy to psychological disturbances obscured the lower shelves, a table, and an armchair they had spilled onto.

Bones from long extinct creatures were a deathly pale white against the colorful array of other ingredients. Jars of multicolored eyes that twitched eerily and dried patches of, what could only be described as, scaly skin sat on high shelves. Feathers from griffins and marrow from ghouls filled opaque jars labelled with a hurried hand. Other jars of various shapes and sizes lined a large book shelf. Several highly used ingredients had been suspended magically to hover just beside the table at the experimenter's convenience.

Long yellowed herbaceous grasses hung from a deep red string tied to a low rafter. Other herbs were propped up in small jars along the back of the desk, petals from the flowers dried yet frozen in full bloom.

Dominating the far wall stood a large convoluted series of alchemical glassware. The set up had multiple flasks joined with distilleries and dehydration areas. Small knobs and stoppers marked points of access to add fresh ingredients. The main glass tubing bent and ran the length of the wall with other tubes connected to suspended chemicals which flowed in controlled by a series of metal stoppers.