My gaze drifted to a tall shelf.
Rows of glass vials and flasks stood like silent sentinels, sealed with wax or cork.Some were clouded, stained with the remnants of past experiments, while others held liquids that gleamed with an unnatural luster—like they contained something more than mere compounds.
Beside them, a tarnished copper alembic rested, its curved neck poised to distill not just elements but essence itself.
On a nearby table, I traced my fingers along a mortar and pestle, its bowl dusted with the fine residue of crushed minerals.Sulfur.Possibly cinnabar.A heavier pestle sat beside it, meant for breaking down metals—its surface still gleaming from recent use.
A set of brass scales rested, perfectly balanced, near the table’s edge.Tiny fragments of mercury and salt clung to its surface—symbols of alchemy’s eternal pursuit—transformation, the line between ruin and rebirth.
I moved toward the furnace.Its dormant heat brushed against my skin as I leaned down to peer inside.The air still carried the faint scent of scorched metal.
A pair of soot-stained tongs lay discarded nearby, their edges blackened with residue from something recently extracted.Just behind them, a set of bellows rested, its handle worn smooth from years of use, waiting to stoke the fire into a roaring blaze.
But the scrolls unsettled me the most.
Hung on the walls, rolled and pinned with care, filled with symbols, diagrams, formulas—many of which I couldn’t decipher.Their meanings eluded me, but the weight of their significance pressed against my chest.
This wasn’t the simple workshop of a healer.
This was a place of secrets.
Of experiments.
Of someone teetering on the edge between science and something far darker.
I let my fingers brush the worn leather cover of a manuscript, the grain of it rough beneath my touch, as if time had etched warnings into its surface.My gaze wandered to the large retort on the adjacent table, its snake-like neck poised to condense vapors into liquid gold—or so the legends promised.
A soft hiss reached my ears—something bubbling in one of the alembics, its sound hypnotic, alive, full of potential.
The air here was thick, with something more than heat and alchemical residue.
It breathed.
This wasn’t merely a study in transmutation; this was a place where ancient philosophies met modern ambition, where the impossible—the Philosopher’s Stone, the elixir of life—felt, for a moment, tantalizingly close.
I prowled deeper into the room, muscles taut, every sense attuned for the unexpected.
And then—I saw it.
A flower.
Suspended within glass, untouched by time.
Its petals were silver and black, spinning slowly as though dancing to an unheard melody.
A prickle of unease crept up my spine.
This was no ordinary bloom.
It was the Noctyss flower.
Rare.Forbidden.A harbinger of death.
My pulse quickened.
This—this was the handiwork of the one who had unleashed death upon the Timehunters’ orgy in France.
A confirmation.A warning.A threat woven in delicate petals and dark magic.
