System Change

“No!” Roman cried. “Not all at once, you’re not some dumb….” He looked over at the dwarf, but didn’t finish his sentence.

“I’ll be perfectly fine,” Derek said as he gently placed the now empty mug between himself and Roman. “He…” he nodded his head at Braxton. “Seemed to be confident to drink the whole thing, so I’ll be more tha—” he tried to finish, but instead stopped speaking once the first shiver went down his spine.

It was like he jumped in ice water without any preparation, then the heat hit him. Instantly, his body went from cold shivers to feeling like he was standing on the top of an active volcano. But, again, that feeling didn’t last very long, either. However, once the heat left, the true reaction began.

Derek felt like he was above his own body, watching down. It was basically an out-of-body experience, and it was almost like the body he was watching was paralyzed, other than the fact that if he thought really hard and really forced himself, he could make the body move a little, but it was more like he was a puppeteer instead of the actual owner of the body.

Is this what had the dwarf staring straight ahead, out of it? Derek questioned himself. But before he could continue that line of thought, he was pulled back into his body in a very jarring manner, and the world started spinning. He tried to open his mouth to say something to the concerned, but upside down, Roman, but his head was spinning so badly that he couldn’t even get his words straight, much less speak them.

Instead, the best he could do was brace himself for what came next. If it all went the same as what happened with Braxton—which it seemed it was—then the next step in the brew’s reign of terror would be unconsciousness. And sure enough, as soon as the world came to a screeching halt, Derek was hit with a sleepiness that he hadn’t experienced in ages.

No, it was a sleepiness that he’d never experienced. Like he’d been awake for multiple days and was now being given anesthesia. It wasn’t enough, however, to actually cause Derek to fall forward. Instead, he clenched his fists and flexed every muscle that he could over and over. It was almost impossible for him to fully move himself, but he could at least still do that.

After a handful of seconds that felt like forever, the sleepiness faded, and Derek was left with an actual bona fide buzz. A nice sense of warmth, much more comfortable than the previous heat, started in his chest and slowly, almost at a crawl, began expanding throughout his body. This, combined with a little lightheadedness and a small sense of euphoria, brought back some memories. Derek took a deep breath in as he felt relaxed.

“Not bad,” he finally said. He looked to his left, and the dwarf was face down on the bar once again. “Looks like he still couldn’t handle it, even though he knew it was coming,” Derek chuckled. “Well… I guess he did drink the whole thing after a single sip had got him before.”

“You’re… okay?” Roman asked.“I’m better than okay,” Derek replied. “This is actually kind of nice. I wouldn’t say it’s like actually being intoxicated, but more of a much lighter version of it.” If I had to explain it to someone, I’d say it was like having a very light, but persistent, buzz.

“What’s going on? What did it do? That dwarf took his second ‘drink’ before answering any questions,” Roman asked. “What did he mean by dangerous?”

“Well, for me, nothing’s that bad mentally. Obviously, this assassin over here had, and is having, a much more intense reaction than me,” Derek explained. “For me, other than good feelings of relaxation, a cozy warmth spreading through my body, and light euphoria, the only negative feeling once the… main reactions were finished, was a very small amount of lightheadedness. But that has already gone, and I’m left feeling only the good things. Even those, however, are pretty light.”

“I see,” Roman said as he was quickly scribbling down notes in a notebook that magically appeared in his hands. “Please, continue. What happened in the beginning?”

Derek then told him about intense sleepiness and other reactions happened before the final effects settled in. Roman scribbled everything down like a machine. “Fascinating!” the Alchemist said. “And what about your health?”

“Oh… I haven’t checked,” Derek said. “I didn’t feel hurt at all, so I didn’t even think about it. Give me a second.” With that, Derek pulled his Status Sheet up and his eyes widened in shock.

“What is it?” Roman asked after seeing Derek’s shock.

“Do not give this to anyone other than me… or maybe this dwarf, if he was paying attention,” Derek said.

“Why? What are you seeing?” Roman asked again.

“My health is at seventy percent right now, and is not moving,” Derek said.

“So? That’s not bad, is it?” Roman asked.

“For me? It’s terrible,” Derek replied. “The fact that my HP is not recovering means that the brew is damaging me at the same rate that my… extremely high regeneration can heal. I can almost guarantee that nobody in this world has as high of a natural regeneration as I do. And thirty percent of my health is enough to kill most people.”

“Aye!” A groan sounded from the side, and Braxton began to slowly raise his head. “If…” he took a few deep breaths in and out and slowly swayed back and forth as he sat up on his stool. “If… you could… do away w-with…” he hiccupped. “With those early… ee-effects…” he hiccupped again.

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“If this didn’t have those effects at the beginning,” Derek said. “Then the aftereffects would work as a poison that could probably sneakily kill anyone without them ever noticing or feeling bad. Am I right?”

“Exact… Exactly that…” Braxton belched, then swayed to his right so far that Derek had to push him off his hip—as the man was too short to reach his shoulder. “Dangerous stuff…”

“Indeed,” Derek said.

“Look at… the burning…” The dwarf’s head fell, then he raised it up really fast.

“The burning?” Derek asked in confusion, then realized what the drunken dwarf was trying to convey. He quickly touched the center of his chest, and his armor and shirt all disappeared—leaving him wearing nothing from the waist up. “Oh… wow,” he said.

“That’s amazing!” Roman said excitedly, then pushed himself up onto the bar and leaned across it to get a better look at what had appeared.

A deep, black, rough circle had appeared in the center of Derek’s chest, and was slowly, very slowly, expanding. The expansion came in the form of the small vein and spider-web like patterns. On Derek, it wasn’t moving nearly as quickly as it had been on Braxton, but it was definitely moving. Derek took a quick glance at his health pool again, and, sure enough, it had dropped by another couple of points.

“It’s actually faster than my regeneration can heal,” he muttered. Then, he noticed something that alarmed him. The more area that the pattern covered, the faster it started to spread. Is it the same for everyone? Does it start slowly and then move fast? He wondered. No… Braxton’s was already on his face at this point, and mine hasn’t even spread to my neck yet.

Derek looked over at the dwarf again, who had gone very quiet. Once again, he was surprised. The dwarf was sitting with his eyes closed in Meditation as the black pattern pushed its way up his face. It was at the bottom of the dwarf’s cheeks, and it was going down one tick, then up two.

“He’s struggling this time,” Derek said to Roman. “Prepare your potion.” Derek checked his health again and saw it down even further as the pattern spread. As it reached his neck, he realized that the size of the pattern was proportionate to the amount of remaining health he had.

He’d say that his body was probably around forty percent covered by the pattern, and his health was missing right around that much. Very interesting, he thought as he continued to watch the pattern move. It had stretched and begun wrapping around his sides, and had even reached his waist and disappeared into his clothing already.

Derek closed his eyes and activated Greater Meditation for just a few seconds, then looked at his body. The tendrils were now back at the edge of his clothing and had not yet made it around his side yet. They had also pulled themselves back from his neck. His Greater Meditation, especially when he gave it full concentration, was more than enough to fight the effect.

“If that pattern makes it to his eyebrows,” Derek said to Roman. “Force him to drink a health regeneration potion. A good one, too.”

“Done,” Roman said as another potion appeared on the bar. “What is that pattern?”

“I’m not sure, and I’m really curious as to what happens once it’s complete, but it’s definitely not something we’re going to try to find out with the people here,” Derek said. “The amount of coverage indicates the amount of health it has taken. So, once it’s completely covered your body, I suspect your health would be at zero, but I don’t know.”

“Interesting!” Roman replied as he wrote more in his little book. “I wonder if it would kill or put someone in a ‘dying state.’”

“I’m not sure,” Derek said. “It may push them to dying, but make the state last shorter. The only way to tell would be to actually see it happen.” He thought about his experience, then continued. “The fire and ice feelings at the beginning, though intense, aren’t exactly painful. I suspect that anyone would withstand them. The out-of-body experience afterward is just weird. And then there’s the dizziness that gives way to unconsciousness.”

“What about it?” Roman asked.

“Well, nothing about the potion screams lethal,” Derek said. “Even with the side effects at the beginning, I don’t think many people would really look at their health until it was too late. And that is doubly true depending on how long they stay unconscious during that stage,” he explained, then nodded at Braxton. “Give him the potion.”

“Huh?” Roman looked over, then, “Oh!” He grabbed the potion, brought it to Braxton’s lips, then turned it up.

That let Derek know that the dwarf did have Greater Meditation, as he opened his mouth without the pattern gaining much more ground than it was before. Interesting, he thought. There weren’t that many people who would have been able to get Meditation to that point. He and Brandi were outliers.

“I guess that’s enough for now,” Derek said. He still felt the relaxation and the euphoria, which made the brew even more scary. Feeling good like that could, once again, cause someone to pay less attention to their overall situation. Actually… he thought. I think the feeling of relaxation and euphoria grows stronger as the pattern grows… that’s even more scary. He gulped, then was impressed by how Braxton had entered Meditation of his own accord after the pattern had already spread so far. That’s some pretty great willpower, he thought.

Derek thought about letting the pattern spread more just to see how much the feelings increased, but, in the end, he chose not to. Instead, he closed his eyes and used Greater Meditation. In no time at all, he pushed the pattern all the way back to his chest, then stopped the meditation.

His health was back up to seventy-five percent at that point—it seemed that the brew took a quarter of someone’s health just to create the beginning of the pattern. Will this stay as long as you want? As long as you control it and don’t let it spread too far, and don’t heal it completely? Woah… he thought, then pushed the pattern the rest of the way off of himself—causing it to disappear.

“You’re not selling this to anyone,” Derek said once the pattern was gone. “Even if they could handle it, I feel like, for those without very high wisdom and willpower, they will either become addicted, then have an accident and die, or they just won’t be able to control it. This is not something you want your name attached to.”

“I have to agree,” Braxton said from the side. The regeneration potion that Roman had given him was not just a good one, it was a great one. As far as Derek could see, and by the way the dwarf was speaking, it seemed the pattern was completely gone. “As great of a brew as it is, it’s not something that should be sold. It would be a great training aid to increase one’s willpower, though. But that would be towing a dangerous line, too.”

“Yeah,” Derek replied. “And the scariest part is that I think it’s all based on the person who’s consuming its health pool.”

“Twenty-five percent?” Braxton asked Derek.

“Exactly,” Derek replied. “And there is no way we have the same amount of health, endurance, and everything else…”

“Agreed,” Braxton said with a nod.

“I guess I won’t make anymore,” Roman said.

“Now, now… I didn’t say you should go that far,” Braxton said. “Just give me the jug, and I’ll test it and think of a plan.”

“Yeah…” Derek snorted. “For research purposes, right?”

“Exactly!”