Game of Alchemy 1 (Commission) (Patreon)

King’s Landing smelled just as foul as I expected it to. A city braising in shit, piss, and other grime I didn’t want to think about, all centered around a gaudy chair that looked more uncomfortable than a birthday party thrown by the Joker. Still, if I wanted to get anywhere in this world, I needed to be here. The power I’d gotten would let me do a lot, but only if I was given the opportunity to impress the locals.

Setting aside my ruminations, I stood up and inspected the circle I’d drawn in chalk. Everything looked right, and the pieces of wood and flecks of old paint were in the right spots. Kneeling down, I placed my hands on the edge of the circle and let the power flow. There was a brief flash of light as I focused, picturing what I wanted in my mind and following through with the changes that would turn trash into toys.

When the light faded, I reached over and inspected the dolls in the center of the circle. The ball and socket joints all moved the way they should, and I smiled, before turning back to the wide eyed children who’d watched me. Holding out the dolls to them, I kept my posture relaxed and open. After a moment, one of the poorly dressed girls ran up and grabbed a toy out of my hand. She was soon followed by another, and in moments all five dolls I’d made were gone.

They giggled as they ran off, comparing their new toys, and I let the smile drop from my face. I’d been in the city for one day, and I was certain that those girls were going to tell the city’s predominant spymasters about me. It would only be a matter of time before I’d be approached by people on the payroll of either Varys or Baelish. Treacherous weasel that he was, I honestly hoped it was Baelish. Varys’s fear and hatred of magic meant he would be especially dangerous to me.

Ideally I’d be able to use the power I’d gotten while dumped here to give him a subtle death. The problem with that was that if there was a way to use Alchemy subtly, I hadn’t figured out how. I’d tried the clap method and it didn’t work for me, so that meant more traditional methods of Alchemy. At the moment, I didn’t have any way to use it in a fight, and until I had the influence to find someone who was a skilled enough smith to make me something with a very specific circle on it, I wouldn’t.

It was something to think about later, for the moment I tucked the stick of chalk back into my shirt and dusted my hands clean. Making my way out of the alley, I wondered how long I’d have to wait before I was given an invitation I couldn’t refuse.

[hr][/hr]

“I honestly thought this would take longer,” I mused to myself as I sat in a chair across from one of the most dangerous men in Westeros.

“Oh?” the goateed man who could only be Lord Baelish asked, raising an eyebrow in curiosity, ignoring the two whores making out in the bed off to the side.

“I may be new to these lands,” I said, not letting the display distract me. “But after a fortnight without seeing anything akin to my art, I knew that my display would draw attention.”

“And where might you be from?” he inquired, turning the majority of his attention to the documents in front of him.

“I doubt you’d heard of it, but it’s a nation called Amestris. My ship was waylaid by pirates and sunk. I drifted ashore and started making my way along the coast. Eventually I found myself in a village, and from there I came here,” I told him. It wasn’t the entire truth, but it was close enough.

“And can your art do anything besides make trinkets?”

“In theory, or in practice? In theory, so long as I have raw materials I can make anything. In practice I’m limited to what I can mentally visualize and can prepare a circle for,” I said with a shrug. I was taking a risk, sharing so much with the well known schemer. But the more he knew about my limitations, and the more I focused on them, the less of a threat I was.

“What do you need raw materials for?” he asked, glancing up at me. It was quick, but I caught a glimmer of curiosity in his eyes.

“It’s one of the underlying rules of Alchemy: ‘In order to obtain or create something, something of equal value must be lost or destroyed.’ It’s referred to as Equivalent Exchange. In the case of the toys I made, what I did was break down the wood and pigments in the paint to their most basic parts and remade them into a new form in a process called Transmutation. Following that basic principle, breaking something to its most base components and reassembling them into a new form, the only real limit is the size of the circle to focus the energies and the ability of the alchemist to visualize the process.”

He hummed, looking me up and down, before he finally said, “Show me. It is one thing to hear about something, another to see it.”

I nodded, and glanced around the room. There was a fire place with the leftover charcoal logs in the back and I knew exactly what I was going to do. Walking over, I pulled out the charcoal and walked back. Setting my material on the chair I’d been sitting in, I pulled out my chalk and started drawing on the floor. The two women paused in their affections with each other to watch, and Baelish leaned forwards curiously.

With the circle finished, I placed my hands on it and focused. The chair was mostly fine, the cushions were comfortable and the way it supported the body was perfect. The changes would be in the embellishments. The charcoal would be broken down into its base carbon, arranged into a fine lattice pattern to form diamonds, which would then be set into the back and armrests of the chair. The impurities in the charcoal would be condensed into a single condensed ball, which would be placed in the center of the diamond on the back. The circle glowed, and with a flash of light the chair I’d imagined was formed. The two girls shrieked, clambering over themselves as Baelish stared intently at the chair.

“Interesting,” Baelish muttered, before looking up at me. “You have quite a gift.”

I shrugged, “It isn’t that unusual in Amestris. The majority of the military are composed of alchemists, though I didn’t receive the right kind of training for it.”

He looked up at me sharply, “It has applications in battle? Wouldn’t creating the circle take too long to be practical?”

“What I just did was a temporary circle, one drawn to have a one time effect,” I explained. “But if a specific circle is etched into something, then it can be used to perform the same Transmutation over and over again. Like I said, I haven’t been trained in that form of Alchemy and I lack the skills to make such a tool, but there was a rather well known individual who had a special pair of gloves that let him make a blaze with a snap of his fingers.”

“Can you teach this to others?” he asked, his eyes focused and intense.

I hesitated, gathering my thoughts, “I can certainly try. I haven’t taught anyone before, and it’ would be best to start teaching at a younger age.”

“Oh?”

“Would a scholar prefer a student who is still growing or someone who has already spent years practicing their particular craft?” I asked rhetorically. “I use scholar intentionally, because there is a lot of knowledge required to make it work.”

Baelish frowned, but gave a reluctant nod. He then stood up and walked around his desk to inspect the chair. He ran his hands along the diamonds now embedded in it, kneeling down to get a closer look. Tapping a finger against one to listen to it, he stood up before turning his gaze to me.

“Can you turn diamonds into charcoal?” he asked, his eyes narrowed.

I nodded, “Diamonds and charcoal are made of the same thing, simply arranged differently. Think of charcoal as a pile of boulders and a diamond as a stone wall. Both are made of stone, one is spaced out and full of random, chaotic components, while the other is stacked and organized from regular pieces.”

Baelish hummed in consideration, “I think we can work together. Might I ask your name?”

I’d already decided on this long before I arrived in King’s Landing. A new life meant a new name, and there was only one possible name that would be appropriate, “Nikolas Flamel. And yours?”

“Lord Petyr Baelish, Master of Coin on the Small Council.”

[hr][/hr]

Meeting with Baelish allowed me access to the Red Keep, and gave me another opportunity. It wasn’t meeting with the other members of the Small Council, the newly crowned King Joffrey, or the Queen. No, it was exploring the lower tunnels and finding the dragon bones that the recently departed King Robert had hidden away. There was one key thing I’d neglected to mention to Baelish, in large part because I’m not sure if it was something that was part of actual Alchemy or if whatever gave me Alchemy threw it in for the hell of it. I think it was the latter, but I didn’t know for sure.

When I broke something down using Alchemy, I had the atomic and molecular structure of that item downloaded into my brain. Meaning that whenever I broke down something new, I’d have that material’s structure in my head and could recreate it. One of my next goals was to eventually get a piece of valyrian steel to break down so I could then make valyrian weapons out the wazoo.

But considering both how rare and precious valyrian steel was, that was going to take some time. In the meantime, I was going to break down some dragon bones. Dragons made no sense from an anatomical perspective, they were so big and awkwardly shaped that they shouldn’t be able to get off the ground, and that was ignoring the fire breath. I know some would say ‘fuck it, magic’ but I couldn’t accept that. There had to be something in their bones that I’d be able to spot.

The circle I drew was a lot smaller and more basic than the ones I’d used to make the wooden dolls and to show off to Baelish. The size was because I was breaking down one of the apple sized skulls, and simpler because I only needed to deconstruct it. Hands go here, and I closed my eyes to brace myself for the incoming deluge of information.

When I opened my eyes, I stared down at the small piles of raw elements in front of me. There were the standard elements found in bone, along with a few impurities, but they weren’t what had my attention. No, that would be the pile that my Alchemy didn’t recognize. It was small, barely the size of an ant, and had an almost oily sheen that I could see, even in the low torchlight. I vaguely remembered something about a black stone in some of the fanfics I’d read, and now I was wondering if this stuff was it.

If it was, then it was possible that it was the root of everything magical in the world. From the information the destruction circle had dumped into my head, the magic material (really need to come up with a better name for it) was practically woven into the dragon bone. If I broke down enough, and broke down different kinds of bones to make sure the distribution was the same, I could potentially give myself dragon bones. I’d need to test it on some lab rats first, just to be safe. It would probably take a couple tries before I got it right, and I didn’t know if the fire breathing was connected to the magic material in their bones. I had no idea how I’d figure out fire breathing if it was unrelated to the bones.

Regardless, I couldn’t help but grin. This had a lot of potential, and I couldn’t wait to explore it in depth.