Chapter Forty: The Most Frightening Thing Is When the Air Suddenly Turns Silent

Vygma – Temple District – In front of Kalkstein’s Alchemy Workshop

“Kalkstein is an eccentric alchemist. He rarely shows himself in public, and most of his income comes from supplying unnamed potions to several nobles over the long term. It’s said he is extremely difficult to deal with; almost no one can have a normal conversation with him...” At this point, Angoulême paused.

“Well... hmm... and then?”
“There’s nothing more.”

The air suddenly grew quiet.

Victor’s voice rose a notch: “That’s it? Are you kidding me? That introduction is as good as useless! I gave you ten days’ head start and this is what you bring me?”

“No, Captain, honestly! That’s all I could find out from the people around here. You told me not to approach him directly, not to give him any preconceived notions. What else could I do?” Angoulême protested, looking both wronged and aggrieved.

Just when he thought his subordinate was making progress, reality slapped the captain in the face.

With no other choice, the young man sized up the unremarkable house. Only the name “Kalkstein” on the door indicated that the renowned alchemist lived here.

They were already here; there was no point overthinking it. Victor led his teammate inside. The ground floor was laid out like any ordinary home and was empty, though faint sounds of an argument drifted up from the cellar.

After a moment’s consideration, Victor motioned for Angoulême to wait upstairs, then descended the stairs alone. The smell of potions grew stronger as he went, suggesting that, as with most alchemists, Kalkstein’s laboratory was in the basement.

As he descended, the voices became clearer—they were debating about the plague. Rounding a screen, Victor stopped. Before him sat two men locked in conversation, a study in contrasts.

One was short, sporting a luxuriant, long goatee; his hair was slicked back to reveal a broad forehead and his features hinted at some ancestral throwback.

The other was tall and thin, his short curls unruly, his nose hooked like an eagle’s beak, yet somehow attractive beneath a carefully trimmed mustache.

“Listen, Alexander, your idea simply won’t work…”
“No, no, no! Kalkstein, shut up and at least let me finish. My point is…”

So absorbed were they in their debate that neither noticed Victor’s arrival.

Victor, for his part, did not interrupt them, waiting quietly and not stepping further forward, as the Wolf School medallion at his chest trembled, warning him of nearby magic.

A casual glance revealed several magical traps, blatantly unhidden. Clearly, this alchemy master was no stranger to magic, and his laboratory’s defenses wouldn’t stop at what was visible.

Victor continued his observations. The spacious workshop had bookshelves along one wall, tools on the other two. Extraction flasks, mortars and pestles, mixing beakers, fermentation barrels, distillers, and filtration pots abounded. And of course, at the room’s center, stood the great cauldron—indispensable to any alchemist or witch.

Imagining himself working here, Victor felt sure he would enjoy the tidy, efficient arrangement. He resolved to model his own future laboratory after Kalkstein’s.

“…In short, Karl, besides the known routes—contact with patients or corpses, splattered pus or blood—there must be some decisive vector. Otherwise, the Catriona Plague couldn’t have spread so far…”
“Hm… water, air… Most likely some living carrier. Whether the carrier itself is affected by the plague is hard to say…”

At this, silence fell. Both men lapsed into thoughtful quiet.

Then, suddenly, a strange voice broke the stillness: “—It’s the rats!”

Kalkstein, startled, turned to the newcomer and replied calmly, “We’ve already considered rats, but found no symptoms among them, nor any signs of rat bites on the original patients.”

Alexander, also surprised, looked up to see a young man—no older than twenty, dressed as a mercenary but with a herbalist’s satchel slung over his shoulder, making him look a little out of place.

The young man ignored Kalkstein’s dismissal, his expression calm and full of confidence. “No! It is the rats, but more precisely, the fleas on the rats. Flea bites—that is the primary vector of the Catriona Plague.”

Catriona, so named after the Nilfgaardian ship that brought the plague.

Most victims developed sudden inflammation, swelling, and tenderness in the groin area, sometimes bursting into oozing sores; a few began with symptoms in the armpits or neck.

Yesterday at the tavern, listening to Shani describe the symptoms—pus-filled boils spreading across the body, ashen skin, blackened limbs—Victor’s mind had instantly leaped to a disease he’d never witnessed but knew well from history: the Black Death, or plague.

But the scholars of this age were no fools; they had already adopted the right measures: cleaning homes to reduce contamination, indirectly culling rats, isolating the sick, burning corpses. They had done as much as could be done in the absence of antibiotics.

Victor had had nothing to add to Shani’s account; they even had masks—oddly shaped by modern standards, but effective enough.

So, when “flea bites” was spoken aloud—

Kalkstein fell silent.

Alexander was speechless as well.

Then, abruptly, the tall Alexander leapt from his chair, incanted a spell, and conjured a shimmering, milky-white portal. In his haste, he neither greeted nor acknowledged Kalkstein, but strode through and vanished.

Kalkstein, with his atavistic features, looked up thoughtfully, waved away several magical wards, and beckoned Victor to take a seat.

He pressed a hand to his chest. “Alchemist—Adalbert Aloysius Kalkstein. Who are you, stranger, and what brings you here?”

Victor pressed his own hand to his chest and bowed in return. “Victor Corleon, from Bell Town, east of Zerrikania. Alchemy apprentice, come in search of wisdom.”

Kalkstein’s atavistic face broke into a smile. “From what I see, you’ve already displayed no small amount of wisdom—to make Alexander lose his composure like that, the idea of flea bites must be of great value.”

“That wisdom isn’t mine,” Victor replied. “My homeland too once faced the threat of Catriona. Yet even now, there is no certain cure—only public health measures can gradually see it fade.”

The alchemist nodded. “No matter. That is Alexander’s field of research. I was merely discussing it with him. Now, let’s speak of your request. Since you claim to be an apprentice alchemist seeking wisdom, let us converse as alchemists would. Tell me: What do you believe an alchemist truly is? I warn you, if your answer fails to satisfy me, you may leave.”

It was a perplexing question, but with Angoulême’s unreliable intel, the discussion he’d overheard, and Kalkstein’s demeanor, Victor had formed a rough outline of the alchemist’s character.

Naive, pure, obsessive—a scientist in pursuit of personal truth.

So Victor replied, “An alchemist is—a seeker of truth.”