New Friends and Alchemy (OC Petrification) (Patreon)

“Ok, I think I’ve passed that sign before… and that one… and that building looks familiar…” A young woman muttered to herself as she walked through the city, looking at a slip of paper in her hand. She wore mostly black - a black robe, black hat, a hefty black backpack - but had a number of flowers strewn about her clothes that added dashes of color, along with her pastel blue hair. She looked around again, and nodded confidently. “Yep, I recognize this place. That means I walked around in a circle, somehow.”

Sighing loudly, Flora slumped against a wall to take a breather. This was the third time she’d come through this intersection. It wasn’t her fault, really. It wasn’t like she had no sense of direction. But when you live in a forest for sixteen of your nineteen years, you don’t know jack about how to walk through a city. The tall stone and brick buildings blocked her lines of sight way more than even the densest thickets back home! How was she supposed to find anything? Let alone one building that looked just like all the others!

Maybe she should have let Ria keep escorting her, Flora thought with another sigh. She’d wanted to show the knight girl she could take care of herself, and besides, Ria did have other duties!  If she couldn’t even find the workshop, she’d never make it as an alchemist in the city.

The piece of paper she had, admittedly, did contain directions. Her uncle wasn’t that forgetful. But, well, it wasn’t her fault the city was so fascinating! Upon entering the walls and splitting from her friend, she’d realized that Ria’s propensity for arriving at everything early had made her bring Flora to the city hours earlier than she was expected to. So that gave her empty time, and she’d gone exploring, as she is wont to do.

Flora psyched herself up for another run around,when a black hat bobbed past her vision. It was a fairly big hat, on a smaller young woman than her - and it was also instantly recognizable as a witch’s hat. Surely a fellow witch could help her out!

“Hello, excuse me, sorry to bother you!” Flora called out, stumbling after the young woman. “I was wondering if I could ask for some help if you don’t mind?”

The woman looked over at her. She was a short girl - Flora wasn’t by any means tall, but she had at least a head over her before the hats came in - with fiery red hair. She looked Flora up and down, looking a bit suspicious. “Oh? And what could you need from me?”

“Directions!” Flora replied. If she noticed the odd look, she didn’t say a thing about it. “I’m looking for the Flynn Atelier? It’s a workshop my uncle runs and I’m supposed to start working there today, but I’ve never been in the city before!”

“And you expect me to know where some random workshop is?” The girl asked. “I’m some random stranger.”

“The hat, duh. That means you’re a witch too, right?” Flora said, stating the obvious.

The girl flushed. “M-Mage! Witch is disrespectful, it’s for country bumpkins who never got an education!”

Flora shrugged. “...Well, isn't that rude. At least you’re not a wizard. Grandma said they’re stuffy-robed ponces.”

The young woman’s eyes lit up. “Ha! Yeah, they totally are! The University can go get stuffed for all I care.” She stuck out a hand in greeting. “Lina, good to meet you!”

Flora laughed a bit, but took the hand cheerfully. It was good that they’d found something to agree on, she’d worried she’d made a bad first impression. “Flora! So, uh, sorry, but do you know where that workshop is…?”

“Huh? Oh right, that place. Sure, I know it. You work there right? You have a key?” Lina asked.

“Uh huh! Uncle sent it over.” Flora said. “He said where it was, but all the buildings here look the same to me so I can’t find it…”

Lina nodded, looking like she was thinking about something, then smiled. “Course I do, I know everything about the city.”

“Cool! Glad I bumped into you then!” Flora said cheerfully. “Lead on!”

Lina looked Flora over again. Did she think she was serious? Just how sheltered was she?

Whatever. She led the pair onwards for several minutes - somehow, Flora had wandered into the entire wrong half of the city. They ended up standing in front of a building that to Flora looked completely identical to one three blocks back, and she wondered if they’d gone in a circle again. But Lina stopped in front and pointed out the sign - Flynn Atelier, as promised. The building seemed split down the middle, on the first floor at least - one side was the store, and one the workshop. Both needed entrances because it wouldn’t do to have customers coming into the space where potions were made, but they still needed a street entrance to the workshop for when ingredients were delivered.

Flora tried out her key, and said a soft “Yes!” as the lock turned - she was inside. “Well, come in! Grandma always said we had to show proper hospitality.” she said cheerfully. Then she paused. “Wait, do I have the right to invite you…? I don’t own the place…”

“Thanks, I’m coming in~” Lina ignored Flora’s confusion and waltzed in, looking around.

“A-Ah, don’t touch anything-” Flora started, but then trailed off as she examined the room for herself.

The workshop was an orderly sort of place. The back walls were lined with bookshelves, which were fulfilled up to the brim with assorted books, scrolls, and other loose bits of text. Another wall had a rack of potions along with a second door that went out to the side and into the public storefront. The other shelves and cabinets in the room seemed loaded down with different ingredients, many of which Flora recognized but a number of which she didn’t. The center of the workshop was filled with tables bearing alchemy equipment - empty bottles, beakers, mortars and pestles, a cauldron, and so on. Many of the tables had intricate magic circles carved into the metal or stone surfaces, probably to make casting frequently used spells as simple as pushing mana into the surface.

“There’s so much stuff!” Flora said in awe, looking around at the different tools, particularly at the magic circles and the cauldrons. “Back home, grandma and I didn’t really have a lot of magic tools. She said if you needed tools to do the basics for you, you were no alchemist.”

“Hmph! This is basic stuff!” Lina said with an air of superiority, or at the very least, she tried to say it like that. “If you want to do more complicated potions, this is the bare minimum. Probably.”

“Oh, is that so? Have you made any fancy potions yet? Cast new spells?” Flora asked, pressing close all of a sudden. “New inventions from the cities? My Grandma seems to know basically everything, but we don’t get out too much so maybe there were some new potion recipes? Or some new magic circle construction methods?”

Lina flushed. “Oh, well… I am still an apprentice but- I think I have made some quite fine potions if I do say so myself… and I can cast some really good spells…” she stammered.

Despite the clear hesitation, Flora didn’t seem to find it the least bit suspect. “Oooooh, can you show me something then? I’m always looking for new things!”

“S-Sure, of course I can, who do you think I am?” Lina stammered out. “What could I show… what could I show… plenty of options and all…” she muttered, “Maybe… a reinforcement potion? Something that makes people tough and strong!” she said, looking around the shop. “They probably have ingredients for that here, right?”

“Oh, I’ll start looking!” Flora said cheerfully. While she didn’t know what specific kind of potion was being made, she was confident in her ability to identify herbs and their magical properties, so even if she wasn’t sure of the recipe she could help!

Not wanting to let herself be outdone (and noting that she’d tell anyone who asked that the apprentice gave her permission), Lina also started scrambling for ingredients. Some of it was simple, the sort of base you’d find in any potion - water, some salts, a few common herbs. But the important part was the more specific, magically-inclined ingredients.

Flora was surprised to find so many ingredients that were rare in such large numbers. She took a fairly sparse amount though, not wanting to use too much of her uncle’s things for a demonstration potion but still too caught up in her own excitement to consider not having it made.

One ingredient was one she actually hadn’t seen before - a flower seemingly made of stone. It would surely be filled with earth mana, and that was usually associated with defensive type magic, so she grabbed it for the pile.

When she got back, the cauldron had already been filled with liquid, and the magic circle provided a steady, easily adjusted and consistent heat source to bring it to a boil. Lina was already starting to put in ingredients, stirring the pot after each one to mix it in well and let it dissolve. The liquid in the cauldron was a sapphire-blue color. “Here, I got the rest!” Flora said cheerfully. T

“Ok, put them in one at a time…” Lina instructed, and Flora did as she was told cheerfully. The bubbling potion quickly turned a lighter blue, and after the flower was put in a steely grey. “That’s normal… probably…” Lina muttered under her breath, before beginning to push some of her magic into the potion to activate it’s effects properly. The bubbling grew more dramatic, almost violent, as the potion seemed to spread to fill the cauldron.

“Huh. Aren’t they usually supposed to have settled by now?” Flora said, tilting her head in confusion. A part of her had the instinct to poke the potion. That was an awful idea though so she smacked that instinct down.

Lina flushed with embarrassment. “N-No, most potions do, but this one is a bit odd like that.” she said hurriedly. “Watch, I’ll just scoop some of this up…” The smaller young woman took a glass bottle to the still bubbling liquid and quickly scooped it up, placing her cork in it to keep it from bubbling out of the top. “It just means it’s really potent, obviously!” she said with as much confidence as she could muster.

Flora nodded, getting closer to observe the potion. “I see, I see,” she muttered. Although, it seemed like it was getting almost more violent in it’s shaking…

“Yes, it’s perfectly fi- gah!”

The bottle burst, the pressure inside having built up too much for the glass to contain. Silvery grey splattered across both Flora and Lina, making a thorough mess of the surrounding lab.

Flora wiped some goop off of her glasses. “Are you ok? I’m sorry, this must be my fault from one of the ingredients-”

“N-No… I should have been more careful…” Lina admitted. She wanted to be cool and all, but she didn’t want a cute girl like that to blame herself!

“Ok… well, I guess we should start cleaning… up… huh, I feel kinda funny…” Flora muttered.

Lina gasped. “Are you ok!?” she asked, before pausing. “...Oh, I feel a bit weird too...” she realized.

The pair looked down at where the potion had splashed. It didn’t look wet anymore, on either of them. In fact, it looked bone dry, the clothes wherever the potion had touched dyed a dull grey. “Well, that’s weird. Wasn’t supposed to be a dye…” Flora said curiously, poking at her chest where the potion had splashed. She poked it expecting the usual soft give of cloth, but instead, the grey-toned area resisted any kind of movement. “...Ooooh. I see!” she nodded.

“You see what!?” Lina demanded - the splash had gotten on her more than it had Flora, covering her hand and with flecks on her face.

“Stoneskin potion.” Flora said. “My grandma told me that that’s a pretty common type of defense potion, giving your body an infusion of earth mana to boost it’s defense. I think your potion might have been a bit too potent! It’s supposed to be figurative, not literal.”

As Flora spoke, Lina realized that the grey was spreading. It had already completely coated her hand, and she realized she couldn’t move her fingers anymore. It was a bit strange - she could definitely still feel the petrified part, but it simply would not move as she told it to. “Ah! I didn’t mean to make it that strong!”

“It’s kinda impressive though!” Flora said cheerfully. “I’m sure we’ll be fine, this is Uncle’s workshop, he’ll find us soon enough.”

Flora was ever the optimist. As far as she was concerned, this was just another new experience, and an opportunity to thoroughly analyze! Alchemy wasn’t the kind of discipline where you could usually test new potions by using them on oneself, at least not if you wanted to live very long. She watched with fascination as the flecks of grey that splattered her chest and stomach spread.

While she couldn’t see through her clothes,  she could feel that the petrification was going right through them and into her skin - that was probably the magical side of it more than the liquid itself spreading, which was fascinating. Now that she was rooted in the spot, with the petrification having claimed her hips and moving down her legs, she had nothing to do but observe.

“Ooooh… I’m going to be in so much trouble…” Lina lamented, the cool-girl facade she’d been trying to put up falling away. She hoped Flora’s uncle wasn’t the type to punish too harshly. Her own master certainly was, and she was in for enough pain already when she was late back to their workshop.

The petrification, of course, didn’t care about how much trouble Lina might be in. The stone spread rapidly up her arm and across her chest and legs, and soon enough only her head was left untransformed - and that was changing quickly as well, along with Flora.

“S-Sorry… this is probably my fault…” Flora apologized again. Any response was lost as the stone covered Lina’s mouth, and shortly after, both girls were completely petrified from head to toe.

The magic faded from the rune on the counter, and the cauldron stopped bubbling. The workshop was silent, much the same as it had been before but with two statues added.

-----

Flynn left his bag on a hook and sighed softly as he finally was able to return to his workshop. The client he’d been working with had been a stubborn one, and that forced him to run for longer than he’d expected - long enough he was even too late to greet his niece as she arrived. It was irritating, but that was the job sometimes. He wouldn’t complain about the overtime.

He settled in at his desk, sipping at an energy potion he’d brewed - it was going to be a long night without even taking into account getting Flora settled. So he needed the boost, really.

It was only after he’d sat there for a few minutes when he blinked and realized he’d missed something walking in. Clearly he was more tired than he had realized, since he’d waltzed right past a pair of statues that weren’t supposed to be there, and right next to the heating rune too.

Sighing loudly and pinching his nose as a headache came on. He walked up to the statues, giving each a knock on the head. The dull thud of stone was all he got back. Yep, petrified straight through.

Flynn considered the statues. One of them looked a whole lot like his sister did, if younger. That was probably Flora, then. He was kinda curious about how and why she might have ended up like that, until he looked at the other statue. That was Lina… Gyre’s apprentice? He’d told Flynn once she considered Flynn’s workshop as a “rival” atelier, so she’d probably taken advantage of Flora just coming in. And looking at that cauldron, they’d accidentally made a petrification potion.

He sighed loudly again. What a pain…

-----

“Well, that was interesting!” Flora said, sitting up suddenly. From her perspective, one second she was in the process of being frozen solid, and the next she felt really light and mobile. So she figured she must have been cured. “I’ve never been petrified before. I’ll have to write down what that felt like and what ingredients the potion used…”

She’d somehow ended up in another room - this looked sort of like the main living space in her Grandma’s house, but not quite as old and a bit smaller. The couch she was on was pretty comfortable though, and the rugs were nice enough looking.

The man sitting beside the couch rubbed his forehead with clear exasperation. “...Hello, Flora. Good to see you back to normal.”

“Oh, you must be Uncle Flynn. You visited us once when I was a kid, right?” Flora asked. “Thanks for turning me back to normal! Did you take any notes watching it?”

“...You really are just like your mom, huh?” Flynn sighed. “...You can see them later.”

“Ehehehe… thanks~” Flora giggled. Then she blinked. “O-Oh, sorry about using the ingredients without asking. I wanted to try out all the tools here…”

“Water under the bridge.” Flynn said, standing up from his chair. “At least, since you fessed up and all. Might have been a bit annoyed if you hadn’t.”

“Oh, by the way, did Lina go home already?” Flora asked, looking around.

“...She’s taking her punishment for convincing you to let her in here. She’ll go home in a few days, cleared it with her master already.” Flynn said. He paused again. “I’ll show you to the room I prepped for you. It ain’t much, but hope it’ll do.”

“Oh! I get a room!” Flora said excitedly, standing up and following after Flynn. The alchemist took his hat off before heading up the stairs, leaving it on top of a statue in the corner that Flora hadn’t noticed.