Moss cursed under his breath. He rubbed his face with his paws, letting out a frustrated sigh. "Such a tight window...its still not enough."
He looked to the poor dandelion that was now fully shriveled in on itself and stained blue with the glittering sculk. He dumped the contents into a larger jar next to the four other dandelions that met a similar fate. He sat down and leaned back in his chair, looking up at the ceiling in thought.
He had decided that morning he was at the very least finish where his notes has left off. He might not be able to entirely cure sculk, and the sight of it still made his skin crawl, but the guilt of Angel getting worse when he could have done something to help had eaten at his mind the past two nights.
He would scold himself later for stuffing his feelings aside just for this one thing. He just had to get this working. Just this one piece. Just this one thing, he wanted to do. One thing he wanted to make sure would lead to some good for a change.
Moss sat back up in his chair and looked back down at the scribbles in his notebook.
The components alone weren't enough. He was running out of things to toss at the sculk. And worse, running out of clean samples to work with. He shuttered at the thought of having to collect more.
He flipped a few more pages back to the first page: a drafted concept for a cosmetic potion. His eyes wandered to his hand, to his forearm, down to where the golden markings were hidden under his black fur.
Could...could he really do it? A spell? Was he ready for something like that?
Moss took a breath and flipped to a clean page in his journal. He recalled Tidbit's advice. He couldn't jump right to this. What if there was something missing he didn't realize yet? And how would he know how to test it?
But he had casted spells before. He knew how to do it safely. He knew that they depended on whatever you used to cast them. And, so long as he was careful, and so long as he understood what he wanted out of that spell...
He wrote out the end goal:
Slow the sculk long enough for everything to react.
Moss paused, and scratched through. Too vague. That was a request, not instruction. He started to write again.
When something occurs that would normally let sculk grow, keep it hidden from the sculk longer than normal.
He striked through the last half of sentence and tried again.
obscure the trigger so the sculk can't sense its presence long enough so that another reaction can take place. Once the other reaction happens, then reveal the reaction to the sculk.
He dipped the tip of his quill back into the ink and chewed over the words again. Now he had a base...but how to structure it?
Well, he thought, there's parts to this.
He needed something to mask, something to stall, and something to clear the reaction so that things can continue. The components, the neolith, the vegetal, the fissure plum, he was sure by now they were the best candidates to use in a potion. Now he just needed to guide them along.
He thought of how to address each one. He was reminded of how spells often used alternate words for what they were addressing, likely to avoid overlapping with something else. He thought of how poetic they all sounded, and he thought of the way his mother's spell curled and danced with a melody.
He wasn't sure if he could come up with a tune to match hers, but he could at least figure out what words to use.
Oh pieces to turn this key
let my voice amplify thee
to the opened dragon's eyes
cover where the infection lies
the rich meadow that gives flowers their bloom
cast a mist over the gloom
turn the creature's eye away
let it not yet see the rising of the day
and once the clouds have parted ways
let the fruit clear it all away
the sweet juice shall give all things strength
so the plant is cut before its final length
He read the spell once over, then over again. He read it again. It had to work. It had to.
Moss turned on the burner and prepared the ingredients for another potion. He set them into their own bowls and watched the potion base begin to bubble away. His heart hammered in his chest.
Moss took a long, slow breath. He closed his eyes, and focused on the space around him. He listened to the liquid boiling, to the small twitches and adjustments of the various items in the research center. He felt the heat of the flame faintly against his hands. He pictured the sensation he had felt weeks ago, the strange heat that felt cold in his markings.
He opened his eyes and spoke softly, gently. He took the neolith and combined it with the vegetal. They fell into the bottle at the same time. It created a brilliant, sparkling swirl of pink and green that eventually shimmered into a black substance. Halfway through the spell now, he took a smaller piece of fruit and crushed it in his fingers. The juice dripped into the potion and it reacted with ember-like flecks dancing out from within.
He finished the last couplet, and immediately felt himself growing dizzy. In turn, the liquid in the beaker began to shimmer faintly. Moss caught himself with the table, panting as his senses reoriented themselves. He looked over, and watched with amazement at the liquid beginning to lighten in hue.
He turned off the burner. The potion settled on a shade of dusty, dull blue.
Moss swallowed. He waited to make sure the glass was cool before taking it from the holder. He looked to the bottle of infected dandelions, then back down at the potion he had just made.
He quickly prepared a new sample tray. A fresh flower from the pot he had been growing them in. A glass plate, with a centimeter sized portion of sculk an inch away from the flower's head.
Moss took a scalpel and cut the dandelion in half. Simultaneously, he dumped a teaspoons worth of the potion onto the sculk. He waited.
The liquid foamed and frothed. The sculk didn't move. Moss held his breath. The reaction kept going. It wasn't until the sculk had completely consumed the last of the liquid did it finally take notice of the plant.
Moss stepped back, astonished. He let out his breath in a singular laugh. He brushed his hair up against his forehead.
"I did it..." He repeated, louder, "I did it!" He shouted, "YES! YES I DID IT!"
