The Alchemist enjoyed his room immensely, it was plain and bare, which appealed to him. Strangely enough in the night stand was a published work on alchemical processes called Alchemic Processes written by both Aurelius and his mentor Phineas. The fact that that book was a pleasant surprise and it seemed as if this particular room was prepared for him.
The Prince was a good host, Thought the Alchemist,
I wonder if the other rooms are prepared equally well for the strange assortment of wizards here. Aurelius went to his table that were filled with his tools. Among the table was a forge for smelting and can double as a heating element, there was also filtration and purification tanks. There were a myriad of other tools and other such devices that could be used to make potions, poisons, and even could help with the process of changing the nature of base metals.
The
Magnum Opi that he found needed to be ground up and then used in the distillation process of making a potion. In order for the old Alchemist to grind up the flower it first needed to be dried. There were two ways to dry an object, naturally or to provide an artificial heating source, most accomplished alchemists had their ways to dry their ingredients. Some alchemists who practiced other schools of magic could dry it that way, but Aurelius was not magical, he was only an alchemist. So, to dry his ingredients, he had used an artifact from a past civilization he had acquired in past travels. It looked like a short cylinder with small knobs on the sides. If you pull the brass top off of it you can see the inner workings of the artifact. It showed an orange crystal with gears surrounding that, the inner workings were not entirely understood by Aurelius even after numerous studies enacted by him. The best he could figure out is that the crystal emanates a raw power that is amplified the gears and the metal around It to create heat. He turned the knob to lowest possible setting and placed a metal plate with raised edges in on it. Inside the plate he place the flowers and left the room, determined to explore the tower with his trusty staff.
Aurelius made his way down to the ground floor and saw a Fenneca, a bestial race that he once studied in their wooded homelands. That however led to an attempt on his life and forced him to run like the wind to escape e the bi-pedal deer people. That actually led to a dislike and small fear of the creatures. It also left Aurelius with a strong wish to never be attacked by one and its dark magic.
Aurelius had views on all of the schools of magic. Telepathy seemed like a very strong magic and could be very useful to the most manipulative of people. Alteration was like alchemy in ways and involved the changing of the physical matter, it appealed to him, but sadly he didn’t have the spark that was needed for magic. Destruction magic was a very broad magic and can have impressive, violent uses. However what some do not know is that in very small doses it can be used to heal. Combat magic was a very resourceful magic using basically two schools of magic to augment yourself. Alchemy was another school of magic, but not like the others. It used the physical traits of regents and formulae to create numerous things. A carefully guarded secret of all alchemists is the basic changing of states that certain potions can enact, which includes lead into gold. A lesser known secret is the ability of alchemists to inhibit changes in biological matter, like taking away the aches or pains from an old man such as Aurelius. The dark occult magic was evil and legend says it was taught to man by a great arch-demon to create strife upon man, the powers within occultism frankly frightens him. Mysticism was an intriguing concept to Aurelius seeing as it involved a fixed fate which Aurelius never believed in. Planar magic was something that he has never understood, but always wanted to explore more into the theory of, but that was hard seeing as the complex magic didn’t allow many mistakes. Finally was rune magic, which was something seemed easy enough to Aurelius, but deep down he knew without proper training it was a deadly art.
While off in his thinking the Alchemist walked into a sparkling clean marble corridor that led to a set of hallways. Choosing one at random he went through and found himself in the same exact spot again. Confused he took a different passage again and the result was the same. As he tried the last hallway he felt a sort of beating while he walked slowly through. The sound befuddled him, as well as the magical transport.
Not everything is as it seems. A thought resounded in his head. He wondered if something was trying to corral him. To avoid making some being angry and turned around to find himself in the library in front of another copy of his one of his books. He turned around to see a troll reading a small book and looking back at another, translating the words.
Why is he here? Are there troll servants? Well none the less Aurelius said hello and began to look for alchemic books published by other authors than himself. Seeing as alchemy emerged as a major field only fifty years earlier he had contributed knowledge to the others in the last thirty odd years as he made breaks and began to understand more and more. He found work published by a renown elfin alchemist and fell into the small world he was holding, impervious to the troll reading under his breath.