Домагой Курмаич - Mother of Learning

"Throw in that modified Gate spell of yours and we have a deal," Silverlake said.

"Ah, no, I can’t agree to that," said Zorian with fake sadness. "Still, that spell isn’t completely out of the question… if you agree to some additional concessions."

Silverlake scowled at him, but Zorian completely ignored her displeasure. If she could be greedy, so could he. He could tell she really wanted that Gate spell, so why not get everything he could out of it?

"I suppose you have something specific in mind?" she asked him.

"I want to acquire the ability of soul perception," Zorian said. "And unfortunately, the potion made out of dirge moth chrysalises is not an option."

"Yes, that potion doesn’t keep well at all," Silverlake confirmed. "It can last six months at most, and even that’s pushing it. But really, why are you bothering me with such a minor request? Just go kill some people. That’s how nearly all necromancers get that ability these days. Even if you have no talent whatsoever at soul magic, you should be able to get it after twenty or so sacrifices."

"That isn’t an option," Zorian said, glaring at her lightly. "At all. If I have to ritually murder people to get the ability, I’d rather give up on the idea."

"Bah," Silverlake spat. "What’s a touchy-feely, squeamish kid like you trying to get soul perception for, then? You’ll never achieve anything worth a damn in soul magic with that attitude."

"I may need it to save my life," Zorian told her. "It’s not something you need to worry about. The question is: can you do it? Can you make me a potion that can grant me soul perception in less than a month’s time?"

"Hmph," Silverlake scoffed. "Do you even know how difficult it is to acquire soul perception through a mere potion?"

"Yes," Zorian said decisively. "I really do. That’s why I came to you for help."

Truthfully, most of what Zorian knew about that came from Sudomir, who had been extensively interrogated for his knowledge in previous restarts. Alanic contributed some, but the scarred battle priest was cagey about his knowledge of necromancy and outright admitted to be inferior to Sudomir in that regard. Anyway… apparently, all souls had some measure of soul perception in them by default, but it was tightly locked and unavailable for use. Alanic’s explanation for this was that soul perception was something the gods intended to be only activated after death, to help guide the soul to its destination, and that its premature activation on the material plane was dangerously tempting . Thus, the gods sealed it away until death, lest it lead people to heresy and sin. Sudomir’s explanation was that this ability was something inherent to souls themselves, and that the gods had selfishly sealed it away because they were afraid of humanity’s power and ingenuity. Considering necromancers tended to be wildly immoral, Zorian was kind of leaning towards Alanic’s side of the argument.

It didn’t matter, though. Even Alanic admitted that soul perception wasn’t evil by itself. The Triumvirate Church urged people not to deliberately seek it out, but at the same time they encouraged its use among their priesthood. Every high-ranking priest and quite a few lower-ranking ones had some measure of soul perception. With the disappearance of the gods, the Triumvirate Church had to find a way to make up for their loss of divinely-granted powers… and granting soul perception abilities to their priesthood on a mass scale was one of the methods used. It was the Triumvirate Church who developed and perfected the dirge moth potion – the most affordable and reliable alchemical method of gaining soul perception to date. It was just that the recipe for the potion was so simple and distributed so widely that it eventually leaked outside the Church hierarchy and became wildly employed in necromantic circles.

Zorian once felt it was strange that a potion only available in 23-year intervals would be so attractive to people… but then he found a fragmentary recipe for an alternative potion in Sudomir’s memories and immediately realized why. The ingredients required absolutely couldn’t be acquired either in stores or on the black market. These were the sort of things one needed to personally seek out in the wild and dangerous corners of the world… and most of the ingredients came attached to creatures possessing some method of attacking the soul. Even for Zach and Zorian those things were a major danger. In order to make a potion outlined in Sudomir’s memories, one would have to possess top-notch connections or a great deal of time to track down all the ingredients, have enough power to claim them, and then find someone with enough alchemical skill to make a complicated potion they had probably never made in their life and succeed on their first try.

On top of that, all such potions were based on the same basic principle – they brought the imbiber on the very brink of death, only to pull them back at the very last moment. Very much like that special training Alanic had put him through, only even more extreme. Needless to say, if you made that kind of potion incorrectly, you were highly likely to die on the spot after drinking it. Dirge moths may only come every twenty-three years, but they were rather abundant when they did show up, thus allowing alchemists to actually practice with the ingredients.

Of course, there were other methods of getting soul perception. They just weren’t very useful for him.

For instance, one could simply be born with it. Some people had innate soul sight, called ghost eyes by the scholars, much like he had been born innately empathic and capable of instinctive mind magic. He obviously wasn’t one of these. Some people, after almost dying, unlocked the ability by accident. But this was something that couldn’t be counted on, since nobody knew how that really worked. Finally, there was a really simple, accessible method involving a sacrificial ritual. All one needed to do was forge a temporary soul bond with a person and then kill them. Slowly. While keeping them conscious, because of course it wouldn’t work otherwise. This was the method Sudomir used, and the method that most budding necromancers used, since it was cheap and easy to set up.

Having experienced what the procedure entailed from Sudomir’s memories, Zorian knew he didn’t have what it took to go through that. He was, as Silverlake said, way too squeamish to basically torture a dozen people to death.

"If you know how difficult those potions are, then surely you understand that making one of those in a month is nonsense, even for me. Just gathering the ingredients alone–"

"Whatever ingredients you need, we will procure for you," said Zach, cutting her off. "You only need to put them together into something that works."

"Hmm," Silverlake said, humming to herself thoughtfully. "You did kill the grey hunter while not damaging its egg sack in the slightest. That speaks well of your combat skills. Still, gathering ingredients for an old-fashioned soul perception potion will require you to have at least elementary soul defenses."

"We have those," Zach told her.

"You do?" she asked, sounding surprised. "Well fine then. So long as you take care of ingredient collection, I guess I can make you a potion of soul perception. But only that! I will not give you the recipe or allow you to watch the creation process itself."

"Acceptable," Zorian nodded. He waited for a few seconds, but it did not seem like she would say anything else. "So, do we have a deal then? In exchange for the grey hunter’s eggs, research access to the portable pocket dimension in our possession and my expertise with the Gate spell, you agree to teach us pocket dimension creation and make us a potion of soul perception."