The following morning, Lucas' intelligence had fallen by one. Bringing it down to nineteen. While that was expected, it turned out to be the tip of the iceberg.

He spent those first few days in the lab looking at various ingredients and making novel connections he wouldn't have made before. He made a soul elixir that was +8 soul for five minutes, though at least for now he was hesitant to try it, both because of the side effects as well as the strange ingredients he'd used. Something about using dried ectoplasm and ground ghast guts disturbed him.

Elixir of Haunting Epiphany (3 dose): 8 Soul (Unchained), 3 poison (wasting), 1 intelligence (keen), -4 endurance (dying). Duration: 5 minutes. Those who imbibe this elixir are prone to out-of-body experiences, poltergeist activities, and other strange phenomena for the next 48 hours.

This wasn't quite enough to meet the average number he was shooting for, but he was getting closer every day.

"First, you try to ruin your brain, and now you think about poisoning your soul?" Heisenburgle asked when Lucas showed him the lightly glowing elixir. "There's some religious sects that would burn you at the stake just for making this."

However, despite the gnome's complaints, he didn't tell Lucas not to try it, so he took that for permission. Instead, he explained how well the lance project was going and how many difficulties the water-cooled armor was experiencing.

Both were interesting projects, of course, but in many ways, the lance was just a very long gun with extra steps; its effectiveness, would eventually come down to the bullet it fired, or in this case, the poison, because even a cannonball wasn't going to do shit to a dragon.

He made some progress on everything with his new perspective, really. He even wrote a lovely letter to Skylara, apologizing for being an ignorant cad and begging her to take him back. He didn't mean a word of it, but he didn't think that came through the prose. It was hard for anything to come through when all he did was make allusions to the fact that she was the real treasure.

Lucas appreciated how much emotional distance this elixir gave him, because he would never have written this without it. Still, he didn't send it; he wouldn't do that until he'd kicked the habit. He'd need all his wits about him when it came time to meet with the woman again.

No matter what else he spent his days doing, for the duration of the elixir, that happened every day. It was really only at full potency on that first day. His thoughts slowed slightly, and his insights came less frequently. After that, the bonus continued to fall, until on the seventh day, it was zero.

It didn't stop there, though. It just kept going. For the next week, he got a little stupider every day. It was subtle at first. Eventually, he no longer trusted himself to talk around people. Intelligent or not, though, his transition from genius to Neanderthal did nothing to help the cravings.

After about three or four days into his little intellectual rollercoaster, all he wanted to do was get another hit of the stuff. It made him wonder just how far down the rabbit hole of functional addiction the Prince was, but he could no longer imagine anyone as anything but being as miserable as he was.

There was no placebo to be had, for him, though. No matter how many books he read, or how politely he asked Heisenburgle for the recipe, the gnome wouldn't give it to him. The most he would tell him was, "The sweetness comes from fermented treent sap. I sip or two might take the edge off, but too much can be toxic."

Fermented Treent Sap (aged): Poison 6, 5 endurance (enduring), -3 agility (rooted). More effective in potions of a sylvan or elven nature.

The ingredient surprised him, because it had absolutely nothing to do with intelligence, but then, that often seemed to be the case with magical alchemy. It was the reason why Lucas often made potions that were completely different from Heisenburgle's. It was enough to make him question, and even curse the God of Alchemy, but that, at least, he was smart enough to do silently, in his own head.

The gnome insisted that kicking the habit early was important, as if that was something Lucas didn't already know. He emphasized that with continued use, it became utterly impossible. "Trying to quit after a years long addiction would prove fatal in most cases," he explained when Lucas complained about how much this sucked. "If I were you, I would never try this particular enhancement potion again."

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Intellectually, Lucas believed him. Despite the fact that he got no pleasure from the stuff, his body certainly craved more of it. The fermented sap didn't do much good, though, and neither did either of the addiction-curing potions he tried making. All those did was make him sleepy and give him a bit of experience points.

Still, Lucas endured. He even spent some time in the laboratory, trying to make intelligence-boosting potions to ameliorate the problem. He was restricted to following the directions of recipes he found in books for this because his brain was thoroughly encased in wool at this point.

Unfortunately, any relief they gave him provided a window of lucidity for only an hour or two before he returned to his wretched state. Heisenburgle assured him that the effects weren't permanent, but Lucas couldn't shake the feeling that he'd inflicted the same sort of permanent brain damage on himself that he'd seen friends do huffing gasoline and paint.

For as long as Lucas's intelligence held out, he worked on his boost potions, and he started drawing up ingredient lists for dragon poison. Heisenburgle had finally given him permission to schedule an expedition to the Greenwood to gather some of the things he'd seen there.

When all of those concepts were too complicated for him, though, he focused on his sword practice, to the exclusion of everything else. In some ways, being dumber than usual actually helped him with his sword work, and he grew to enjoy that.

If I'd been born an idiot, I would have become a brute, he decided as he moved through the motions and the drills.

Normally, his mind was always racing, and his thoughts distracted him, but right now, that wasn't a problem. Right now, he could move in exactly the ways that his teacher had instructed him so many times without questioning why or wondering if he might improve them. His form made tremendous gains that week, as he worked himself to exhaustion several nights in a row.

He had more trouble finding people to duel now that he'd shown them the freakish strength he was capable of when he was juiced up. Even when he wasn't, though, more and more he found that most of the guards couldn't hold their ground with him. It was a good feeling, knowing that he could beat people with skill more than strength now, and he was looking forward to dueling the leader of the Knights of Brass again someday soon, but not until he had his wits about him again.

Instead, he just lay awake in bed, dealing with the night sweats and the cravings as he waited for his self-inflicted hell to pass. Only the little countdown on his status screen made the ordeal any better. Something about knowing when it would end made it easier. He'd never had that in rehab back on Earth. They couldn't give him anything but the vague promise that things would get better someday.

Someday wasn't a ghost here, though, and even though Lucas was annoyed to see that when his addiction countdown reached zero, it was replaced by a two-week timer that read Lesser Addiction: Elixir of Superior insight. Even that was progress, though, and by the time he reached it, his intelligence had stabilized at thirteen, one below where it usually sat,

This is why you don't do drugs, kids, he told himself as he vowed not to get hooked on any of his other concoctions.

Lucas even delayed meeting with Sir. Milen again until after his addiction had partially subsided, and he felt more like himself again. By that point, his lack of intellect manifested more as an occasional frustration that he wasn't as smart as he'd been under the effects of the Prince's potion than anything.

Still, Milen didn't seem to notice his handicap. Instead, as they sparred, he complimented Lucas on the gains he'd made. The compliments were backhanded and meant to be vaguely insulting, but they were compliments all the same, and Lucas appreciated them, even if he didn't say as much.

The knight still won, of course, but Lucas made him work for it more, which was all he could ask for. Fighting him was like climbing a rugged mountain peak, Lucas decided. Every time he thought he was approaching victory, his new mastery revealed another section of trail that continued to snake through the art form.

When he mastered strikes, it became footwork, and when his stance was perfect, he saw how much more he needed to tune his counterreactions. Lucas' lack of intelligence made him blunder into a few more blows than normal, but the bruises they raised on his skin were nothing he couldn't resolve with a healing slave.

"Not going to best me with your alchemy again?" the knight asked toward the end of their lessons.

"Why?" Lucas answered, panting only a little. "Against anyone human, that wouldn't be a real victory. It would just be showing off. "

"Well, then, one wonders who exactly you plan to best when you're at full strength," the man laughed. He meant it in jest, but Lucas could see him probing too, and resisted the urge to overshare.

"Those aren't for me," he answered with a shake of his head. "Those are for sale. I'm just the only one stupid enough to test them."

They both laughed at that. Truthfully, the training was the least important part of this session, though. What really mattered were the messages. This time, as much as he wanted to read what Danaria had sent him, what he wanted more was to send the message back to his crew that he'd be in the Greenwood in a few days.

While he trusted that Kar'gandin, Hura'gh had everything under control, he still wanted to meet with them. It had been nearly two months since he'd gotten out of his little bubble, and he desperately wanted to let them in on what was about to go down, so they could assist him in his endeavor.

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