A Taste of Nitratus of Silver - By Sasha

Once upon a time in the far away land of Edmontonia, there lived a bright young scholar named Alexa. She had journeyed a long way from her home, riding principally in the backs of trade caravans and on spare horses of passing travellers. She loved her family back home in Calgarias, but she was a driven young woman who was determined to become the wisest practitioner of earth magic in all the world.

Alexa found that life as a scholar was different than she anticipated. Back home, many people knew of her and her family. In the realm of Edmontonia, she found that she was naught but a passing flea in the fur of a mangy wild dog. She walked into her first lesson bright-eyed and eager to learn, only to find herself surrounded by several hundred other hopefuls. The professors, who looked so wise with their long white beards and vast knowledge of magic, were not as helpful as Alexa had anticipated. She thought that every student in an academy of magic would have their own mentor, but alas, it seemed that only happened in stories.

One of Alexa’s least favorite subjects was potions. She had to get up at the crack of dawn every Thursday morning to walk to the academy and start brewing mixtures of strange fluids and herbs. To make matters worse, her teacher, a gnome, didn’t seem to know Human very well – she preferred to speak only in Gnommish.

Alexa struggled to wake herself up every morning to attend her potions class. She would much rather sleep in – some days, she thought about how much easier it would be if she hadn’t made the pilgrimage from Calgarias. Her brothers had stayed behind to become apprentice blacksmiths, which seemed like a much more reasonable goal than becoming a mage. Alexa’s dream of being the most powerful practitioner of earth magic seemed to have little hope.

On one particular foggy morning, Alexa was sleeping late, as usual. Luckily, a passing songbird tweeted a particularly lively melody just outside the young girl’s window, upon which Alexa jolted upright and rushed to grab her cauldron and stack of scrolls before she rushed out the door. She managed to make her way to the classroom only a few minutes late, though she did bother a family of sleeping rabbits along the way.

Most of the students had already started their cauldrons boiling by the time Alexa arrived. The room was beginning to fill with the usual thick smoke that accompanied amateur potion brewing. Alexa apologized to her teacher, but the gnome merely nodded and gestured for her to get going. She quickly went to her seat and pulled out her cauldron and magical text, the “Labus Manualus.” She followed the instructions for brewing that day’s potion very carefully.

Eventually, the potion she was brewing called for a particular grey liquid, called Nitratus of Silver. Alexa looked around the classroom, and beheld a small pot of cool silver fluid, connected to a strange contraption. She grabbed one of her glass phials and examined the contraption a little closer. The instructions read “Presseth the button, and ye shall receive this ingredient.”

Alexa pressed the lever at the top of the nozzle of the contraption, but nothing happened. The button would not budge. She tried again, but still nothing. Already frustrated from her lack of sleep, Alexa called for her teacher, who shuffled over lazily and attempted to dispense the Nitratus of Silver.

Alas, even Alexa’s teacher was unable to extract the Nitratus of Silver from its delicate hold. Both Alexa and the gnome grew increasingly angry, and instead of examining the apparatus further, decided to slam on the button harder until results were obtained. Eventually, the nozzle erupted and the silver liquid sprayed all over young Alexa and her teacher.

“Behold!” exclaimed the gnome moments after Alexa extracted the last of the silver liquid from her skin and clothing. “It appears that the cap was still on the device.” Alexa looked, and saw that indeed, if they had taken the cap off of the nozzle, the entire process of obtaining the Nitratus of Silver could have been much easier.

After cleaning herself off and finishing her potion, Alexa did not think much about the mishap of that morning for the rest of the day, or indeed, for the next few days. She was far too busy marvelling over the intricacies of earth magic and physical magic and mathematical magic that she was learning in her other classes, from her wise, bearded professors. In fact, it was not until several days later that Alexa thought back to the events of that particular potions class.

It was on another foggy morning that Alexa woke up and looked at herself in her magic mirror. At first, she was shocked. Surely, some mischievous sprite had put cursed fairy dust in her bed while she was sleeping! How else could her face and arms be covered in little grey dots?

“Magic mirror,” said Alexa, “Tell me what is the cause of this malady?”

“Why, you are the cause,” replied the magic mirror. “You did not read your Labus Manualus properly, or you might have learned that Nitratus of Silver causes grey discoloration when in contact with skin. It should disappear in only a few days, but until then you might look like you have a sort of strange illness. I must say, you will not be the fairest in the land for at least a week.”