Bookworld Online: Marsh Man

Bokuboy

In the morning, fifteen couples were married by Greta and myself. She even did up little pieces of paper she called wedding certificates and put their names on them. Everyone celebrated and pretty much had scheduled a party all morning.

Greta and I left almost right after the ceremony and went to the potions room. We successfully diluted the rehab potions down to the proper doses and increased our supply significantly. It would do them all for two months and allow them to fully recover from the physical hardships of being a slave. Unlike them, I would wait until later to take a full normal vial and drink it.

After that, we worked on making the potions for Linette. We worked for the rest of the morning and finished just as Linette showed up. When she saw the stacks of crates we made for her, she nearly fainted and I had to hold her up.

“If I wasn't unhappily married and locked into a contract, I would take you to bed.” Linette said and turned in my arms to face me before she kissed me deeply.

“Linette!” Greta gasped.

“What? I did that the last time, too.” Linette said with a soft laugh.

“I shouldn't have invited you, then.” Greta said. “David just learned that...”

“You don't have to tell me that!” Linette spat and cut her off, shocking Greta, then she looked into my eyes. “I cannot express my deep sorrow over what happened. I secretly came to check on things when I was able to.” She sighed and rested her head on my shoulder. “I couldn't do anything for him, even with the last of the potions I had access to.”

“It's all right now.” I said and rubbed her back. “He's gone on to a better place.”

Linette lifted her head to look at my face again. “It would be nice to believe that.”

Greta couldn't stop her smile. “David, you lay down and take the rehabilitation potion while I tell my sister about what happened last night.”

I nodded and let Linette go, grabbed an undiluted potion, and went to the bed we had set up for easy observation. I was going to need it soon to take my regeneration potion. “Can you put me to sleep?”

“Easily.” Greta said as I took the potion. “I'll wake you up when our estimate of the time you need expires.”

I stripped off my clothing down to my underwear and then drank the potion.

“David!” Linette gasped. “That was undiluted! You're going to kill yourself with such a high dose!”

“No, I'm much stronger than everyone else.” I said and nodded at Greta. Then everything went black.

_______________

You are now unconscious by magical means. Performing diagnostics.

Mental stability at 90% and stable. Learning capacity at 95% and stable.

Personality completion at 100%. Physical damage at 30% and stable.

Blood loss at 20%. Heart damaged and working at 75% efficiency.

Magic capacity at 134%. Magic Burn at 5%. Magic Level at 76% and stable.

Warning: A new substance has entered your system and has initiated the minor repair function. Working... working... analysis done. Performing diagnostics.

Mental stability at 95% and stable. Learning capacity at 100%.

Personality completion at 100%. Physical damage at 20% and stable.

Blood loss at 15%. Heart damaged and working at 80% efficiency.

Magic capacity at 140%. Magic Burn at 2%. Magic Level at 82% and stable.

Substance has been assimilated and can no longer affect you.

Physical status returned to 'normal'. Skipping unconscious state. Done.

_______________

I woke up with a start and looked at Greta. She was not wearing the same outfit as before. “How long?”

“Two days.” Greta said with a smile. “You just kept twitching and ran over the estimate.”

“I suspect it worked hard to try and counter the excess damage you've suffered.” Linette said and cast several diagnostic spells at me. “You... well, I...”

“What is it?” Greta asked.

“He's significantly healthier and stronger magically than he was when he took the potion.” Linette said and gave me a look. “I can't recommend taking another dose. It might put you in unimaginable pain and you won't gain anything from it.”

“I know.” I said and sat up. I was covered in sweat and smelled pretty musky. “I need a bath!”

Jill was there after a moment and Hanna was right behind her. “We haven't found another personal maid yet, my lord.”

“I doubt you'll have anyone agree to come here after everyone realizes what I've done.” I said and stood as I put my boots on. I felt a lot better and I looked down at my body and the returned muscles. They had expanded out a bit and I had lost the thin and scrawny look of a slave.

“My... my lord.” Hanna whispered, her face red.

“I'm glad it worked.” I said and pat my chest. It had actual definition on it now and you couldn't see my ribs anymore.

“When do we start taking our doses?” Gella asked as she entered the room.

“Now that David is up and proved that the newest batch isn't going to kill you all, we can start bringing in those that don't have a lot of duties.” Linette said.

“Was that really a worry?” Greta asked.

“You saw what happened to Eludora when she tried to rush with the quarter dose.” Linette reminded us and we nodded. “We'll pick the biggest and strongest slaves first. If they can take the quarter dose without harsh effects, we'll distribute the doses liberally. If they suffer too much, I'll have to get you to split the doses.”

“I believe they'll be fine.” I said and picked up my clothes to hand to Hanna. “None of the slaves I've seen were in Eludora's reduced physical state.”

Linette and Greta nodded to me.

“I'll come back here after my bath and we can get to work on distilling the pigment potion.” I said to Greta and then left with Hanna, Jill and Gella with me. “Where's Farra?”

“Working with the old man. We need a lot of number ten potion to get the third floor converted properly.” Gella said. “That and they want to play with some to see what else they can make.”

I nodded. “It's too bad we can't find Frank and his men.”

“I asked a few of the less recognizable slaves and two crew members to go around the city and ask questions about that.” Hanna said. “As far as anyone can determine, they moved away.”

“What about their families?” I asked as we entered our room.

“Some stayed and some left. No one knows where and the ones still here won't talk about it.” Hanna said. “I think you know why.”

I nodded and went to the bathroom to fill the tub with water. “They made sure that the mages couldn't track them down.”

Jill and Hanna bathed me and dried me off, then I laid down and Jill blushed.

“You don't have to do this.” I said.

Jill took a deep breath and her face changed back to normal. “Until we can find you a real personal maid or return you to the ones that have gone, I will do my duty for Helena, my lord.”

I nodded and Jill nodded back, then she did her duty and performed the ritual. Once again, she did it perfectly and moaned when I finished for her. She swallowed it all and cleaned me up, then looked at my face with pride clear on her face.

“I do not want to mount you, my lord.” Jill said and reached under her skirt. A moment later, she pulled her hand out to show me dry fingers.

I nodded again and stood as Jill washed her hands and then she and Hanna dressed me. I returned to the potions room and Linette had already left. She had the crates of potions delivered to the medical ward over the last two days and now she had to get back to work.

“Linette said she'll come back as soon as you tell her you're taking the regeneration potion.” Greta said.

“Good. I don't want to suffer like the last time.” I said and we settled down at the main work station. We had to work out what we were going to do to get the potion out of my flesh samples. It took us several hours and having supper brought up to us, before we figured out that we needed to dilute the flesh and break it apart. That was going to be a lengthy process to get it down into a liquid form without burning off or ruining the pigment.

It had been a good idea of mine to take more flesh than Greta thought we would need, because we messed up the first attempt and the mixture lost the white color completely. We took what we learned and broke it down, analyzed the processes, and figured out where we went wrong.

It was the light in the room. Mage light, to be exact. It screwed up the distilling process by adding unnecessary ambient magic. I sat Greta down on a chair and told her not to move before I turned off the lights.

Greta let out a surprised sound and then laughed softly. “It's pitch black in here! How can you see anything?”

“I haven't needed my eyes to see anything around me since I was a child.” I said and repeated the process with the next batch of skin harvested from my back. With no ambient magic for the skin to absorb, hence not activating the pigment potion, the sample dissolved into the concoction we had come up with to break it down.

Of course, this was only the first step. It had to be separated carefully, each stage siphoning off more and more of the physical matter to only leave the liquid behind. There was almost no blood, considering how the skin got that way, and I continued to work for nearly an hour as I slowly boiled the water away to leave only a small amount of pigmentation potion.

I turned on the lights and Greta jumped like she had been slapped. “Did you fall asleep?”

“N-no.” Greta lied and winced, then she rolled her eyes at me. “It was only a nap.”

I picked up the single vial of pigment potion to show her and she gasped.

“You completed it? I thought you were just separating it!” Greta said, almost as accusation.

“I did separate it. Out of that huge pot, this is what's left.” I pointed off to the side and Greta saw the sludge I had ladled out into the other pot. “Once it was down to just liquids, refining it to this was simple.”

Greta nodded and we got to work again. She cast a dozen spells, telling me what they were, then she grabbed some of that special parchment that was spelled to extract the infused blood from the potion. It was only a small piece, just to see if there was actually blood in it or if they had cheated somehow. It only took a minute for the parchment to change and a drop of blood formed in the middle of it.

“We'll need to filter it out.” Greta said and showed me the process to do that, using more of that parchment. It was interesting to see her get quite a bit of blood out of that small vial. Whoever they were using to make the potion was either horrible at judging how much blood to add, or they didn't care if the person donating the blood died. I suspected the latter.

Once we had the blood out and reversed the infusion, the ingredients almost separated themselves. With our extensive potion making experience, we easily tracked the processes backwards and analyzed the effects of each ingredient. When we were done an hour later, not only did we have the recipe for making the pigmentation potion, we also had the counter options written out.

“This really will work best with mother's creme recipe.” Greta said and went to her bag beside the work bench. “Here are her notes on the breakdown.”

“So, you didn't only sit at my bedside for two days and stared at my chest as it expanded?” I asked and accepted the notes.

Greta huffed a laugh and shook her head. “You're not tricking me with that attitude, mister.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I'll only sleep with you if we are under contract and I know that you are never going to enter another one.”

I opened my mouth to respond and she put a hand over my mouth.

“I am not a commoner and my beliefs, and personal practises, are different from theirs.” Greta said. “Despite my very real desire to pleasure myself with you, I cannot subject you to that kind of restriction.”

I nodded and she moved her hand. I immediately thought about Lady Ming and Mage King when they met on the clipper ship. They hadn't had any male equipment among them and they seemed to have pleasured themselves just fine.

“We don't have to have sex for you to feel pleasure.” I said and Greta's eyes went wide. “We can just rub ourselves on each other and I can lick you out down there.” I nodded to her waist.

“D-David, I... no, we can't.” Greta said and shook her head. “If we do that, I would beg you... beg you on hands and knees... to take me and make me yours.” She reached up to cup the side of my face. “I lo... I care about you too much to have my mother force you into a contract after that.”

“Lady Marks would make me, wouldn't she?”

“Yes, and she would destroy our relationship with that one piece of paper.” Greta said and let my face go. “I would rather be your friend for the rest of my life than trap you like that again.”

I nodded, because it really had turned into a trap that the Hag had sprung on me and then wrecked everything. I felt hatred build up inside of me at the thought of her and that emotional dam inside me cracked a little more. I made a fist with my hand and my magic flared for a moment.

“David!” Greta said and I didn't respond. “DAVID!”

“WHAT?!?” I yelled and she looked startled, then she cupped both sides of my face.

“Calm down. Whatever you were thinking about just now, push it aside. You're shaking the equipment and we have work to do.” Greta said and she looked into my eyes, then she sighed and leaned in to kiss me softly.

My anger seemed to flee at the kiss and Greta's magic flowed into me. Mine responded and flowed out into her, making her moan. She broke the kiss and little sparks passed between our lips until she was about an inch away.

“Oh... oh, my.” Greta whispered and covered her mouth with a hand. “I need to... get to bed. Yes, I'm tired. It's been a long day and it will take us quite a while to work the new counter agents into my mother's recipe. A few days, at least.” She said and walked over towards the door. “Testing and redoing the recipe for more testing after that could take weeks.”

“Perhaps more. Everyone is different and took different amounts of pigment potion to be changed into this.” I said and waved at myself. “I know I took nearly twenty minutes and several full dunks into a large vat of it.”

Greta's face paled at that. “You... you mean...”

“They tried to drown me to get me to change? Yes.” I said and she looked sad.

After a moment, Greta straightened her back and nodded. “We'll work at it and we're going to make sure that everyone you've rescued that's been subjected to that awful potion, will have it removed.” She said and then smiled. “Especially you.”

I thought about that and smiled myself. “Just my skin. I think I prefer the long white hair.”

Greta looked at my ponytail for a moment, then she nodded and left with her head held high and a determined look on her face.

I went over to the work desk and picked up the inventory of ingredients that were ready for me to use and I thought about the potions I knew. With an entire guild's worth of ingredients, most of which were stolen from me, I wouldn't have to go back to the marsh until I ran out of the rare ingredients.

That thought reminded me about my strength and fortifying potions. I quickly checked through the inventory and found substitutes that were weaker and also not as effective. That meant I needed some of that magic quick growing grass that I had helped cultivate. It also meant that I needed to go and visit a certain someone to get some of it. My botany teacher, Mage King.