Healixir Blending
The process for creating a Healixir took two lifetimes to perfect. Rolyon Jepperman, an alchemist from the Coastal Safe Zone, and his daughter Telessa the Crimson, another alchemist, are credited as inventors of the process. The creation of the Healixir is widely considered to have triggered the biggest change to society in recorded history.
The Pre-Healixir Era
Before the invention of the Healixir, adventurers had to use a number of other means to keep themselves in condition to fight while on a quest. Every party needed at least one member proficient in Healing Magic, to restore Health between fights. While there were no downsides for the recipient of the healing, accumulated Fatigue at an accelerated rate in the healers. This meant that by the final stages of a dungeon one essential member could no longer be in fit state to fight or heal adequately. Because of this workload placed on the healer(s), they struggled to keep up with the need to cure conditions and Debuffs on party members. Some of this load could be alleviated by use of potions, but this created its own problems with encumbrance. In order to cover all the different types of healing required, adventurers needed a large selection of potions, with little room left for other types of potion. Healers often returned from a quest with so much Fatigue that it took them weeks to recover, leading to extended downtimes between quests for adventuring parties. Worst of all, it was not uncommon for a party to clear a dungeon with one member suffering a condition. If they did not have the right kind of potion to cure it, and the healer(s) were out of mana, the condition was likely to become permanent.Discovery
Rolyon Jepperman was an alchemist living in Anong's Crucible. He was an eccentric even by the standards alchemists working there, who already had a reputation for obsessive dedication to pet projects. He had been forced to retire from adventuring at an early age after suffering a permanent broken limb condition left him unable to walk properly. He became obsessed with the idea of a potion that could cure any condition, reducing the number of different types adventurers needed to carry, one that would have saved him had it been available. He started from the premise of simply mixing different condition-removing potions together, to see what resulted. Sometimes the mixture would retain the power of one or both of its constituent potions, as determined through magical analysis, but only for a day or two at most. Retaining permanent potency was elusive, for even the most simple mixtures. Experimentation with temperature, catalysts agitation and other alchemical processes extended the life of the mixtures by some, but not enough. For the next thirty years, he became more and more obsessed with this work. In his monomania he had extended the scope of his project to a general healing potion that could cure any condition and restore Health, causing minimal Fatigue. Ultimately, he spent so much time on his pet project that he had eglected his alchemical business. His daughter had effectively been running it for him from when she was twenty, ten years later the customers started calling it her shop and many of them had never even seen Jepperman. Telessa was a research alchemist of no mean skill herself, offering advice and assistance to others in the field as a consultant, which supplemented the income from the shop. Jepperman's obsession was becoming more and more expensive in reagents and equipment. Telessa was spending so much time keeping the family afloat that she didn't notice when her father's health deteriorated. He was working through the night, no longer sleeping, and starting to test his potions on himself as that was quicker. Ultimately he passed away from dehydration. When Telessa entered his workshop to clear it out, she saw that he covered two entire walls with charts of interactions and notes on stability, as well as a pile of lab notes as tall as she was. To her astonishment she discovered that he had real progress in his quixotic mission. He had even succeeded in his original task, more or less. He had created a potion that cure most common conditions, that remained potent for up to two months. Despite herself, she began to read his notes. His seclusion had disconnected him from the state of the art in alchemy, and Telessa realised that some of her other research solved many of the problems her father had wrestled with. She took up where he left off. Her first step was to work on blending the reagents early, before the individual potions were brewed. Almost immediately, she was aware that she was very close to a major discovery. For the next fifteen years she continued methodical experimentation. When it became a struggle to fund the research, she sold the shop on the understanding that she had a lifetime lease to her workshop. When that money ran out, she took out a series of loans, each larger than the last. Because of her previous reputation as a reliable person, no-one suspected that she was paying one loan with the next and staying one step ahead of financial ruin. When her final loan repayment was two months overdue, she had perfected the formula. She fled her workshop with her notes and her last reagents, and arranged a meeting with the local Adventurers' Guild. The Guild representative found her in the meeting room. She had bruend her arm, stabbed herself in the one leg and carefully broken the other. She persuaded the representative to stay and watch rather than summon help. She patiently mixed up a vat of her formula in plain view, and used that vat to fill three separate potion bottles. She invited him to check that the same potion was in all three, using equipment she had brought with her. When she drank the potions, one after another, her leg mended, her burns disappeared and her wound closed. She had demonstrated the first Healixir.The Healixir Era
The one remaining limitation on Healixirs is that they need to be blended to match the Skill of the drinker. However, since their introduction Healing Magic had become almost completely obsolete. They are essential kit for any adventuring party. It is now almost unheard of for an adventurer to pick up a permanent condition. The only significant improvement over the original formulation has been to reduce the Fatigue caused by the potion. It is not so low that adventurers can pursue quests back to back.Remove these ads. Join the Worldbuilders Guild
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