--- Kat ---

Kat continued to help Appoline with those potions for the rest of the day. They took a short break for lunch, and Kat made sandwiches for everyone, though nobody actually stopped for lunch properly. Appoline took the time of Kat’s break as a chance to catalogue and gather more ingredients and once the sandwiches were done everyone just... kept at it. Kat went back to helping with the potions because it wasn’t like she needed her hands, and Appoline was able to eat while watching the cauldron.

Everyone else just continued playing cards. If it wasn’t for the fact that Kat also provided them a bunch of drinks for them, Kat wasn’t sure that they’d actually bother to get anything to drink. In addition, Tweedle apparently turned up at some point... and had gotten roped into the card game as well. Kat wasn’t sure when that had happened, but she was guessing a bit ago if Tweedle’s slightly pleading look was anything to go by. ’Get me out of this’ it said.

Kat just shrugged back at her ’Just leave if you want to’ and then proceeded to go back to helping Appoline. Tweedle would eventually make it outside, but it took a few more hours for that to come to fruition. Before that, it was just Kat and Appoline. Trying to make that ’anti-personnel snowstorm’ potion. Arguably they succeeded... but the arguable part was because Appoline postulated there attempts to be a bit too good.

The first successful bottle was actually shaking on the table. It looked like a snowstorm and acted like there was one inside too. It had been spewing out snowflakes a bunch towards the end and even when bottled it apparently wasn’t happy to be forced to sit still. Kat had asked, "How are you even meant to store something like that?"

"Usually in a cushioned box or by using particularly strong glass and just dumping it in a barrel," Appoline had replied. Which... really did explain everything even if it was a bit weird to think about. Kat had asked for some more details, but not too many of them because she was more focused on what Lily was doing.

Her girlfriend had gotten hungry... and they’d failed to consider the need to leave food behind. It wasn’t too bad, arguably Lily could’ve lasted for quite a bit longer... but she didn’t need to, especially not with the greenhouse at the start of the facility. Kat had been a bit worried about more golems but Lily had proven she could fight them off by herself and Lily would almost certainly here anyone moving around before they heard or spotted her.

Back with the potion making, as the previous attempt had clearly been less a ’group weapon’ and more one for city blocks, perhaps even further. Appoline... really wasn’t sure what she was going to DO with the thing. It also wasn’t clear exactly how potent it was. Not all powerful potions caused such a raucous when trying to store them after all... but nothing weak was ever going to threaten to jump off the table either.

The problem was that Appoline really hadn’t been using anything all that strong, so she didn’t know why it had turned out that way. She’d even gotten multiple dosses out of the cauldron! It was at least twice as effective as it should be, and that really was the minimum possible. Sure Kat’s demonic fire was solidly ice aligned but wasn’t this a bit much? Appoline wasn’t sure... she didn’t really have anything to compare it to.

For all that Kat was restricted to something around her level, she was actually Rank 4, and a demon at that, and considering the constant supply of demonic fire it meant that arguably, it was the primary ingredient in the potion even if it didn’t technically touch the pot at all. So Appoline got to work again. This time going as light as she could manage on ingredients... and this just failed. Completely.

The problem at that point, was that the demonic energy was simply too much. Even with her own prodigious skill, Appoline found that she couldn’t keep the essence in place. There just wasn’t enough of it, and compared to the weight of demonic energy acting on it... the essence simply wouldn’t stabilise. This resulted in the entire thing burning away once she stopped controlling the essence... which was a little weird, especially when the flames were orange instead of purple and weren’t really hot or cold... just... flames. So back to the drawing board they went.

On Lily’s side of things, she’d made it to the greenhouse and back with no trouble, not from golems or from anyone else wandering in. It was honestly more of an issue to work out what was edible. Plenty of scents she didn’t recognise but luckily her instincts were well enough tuned that she could work out what was good to eat... well that or her digestive system was simply capable of dealing with a wide enough range of foods to cover everything she picked up.

It wasn’t ideal, no meat for obvious reasons, but despite looking like a cat, Memphis were omnivores. Even if it was clear Lily craved meat more often now, especially in this form... she was perfectly capable of eating and enjoying fruit. Though as for tasting good? Some of them really didn’t and Lily probably wouldn’t finish all of them unless she really needed to. For now, most of the stuff she gathered sat in the bag she had on her human form while she relaxed as a Memphis. It wasn’t entirely clear how nutrition worked with both forms and Nira’s advice hadn’t been the most useful. ’Just eat when you’re hungry’ but Lily supposed it was different with magic. Might still be worth checking in on later.

Making her way back was just as simple, nothing bothered her and she was able to eat the food she’d collected without issue. It did require using her shadows to avoid eating on the floor, but that was hardly a challenge. After the meal Lily couldn’t quite avoid napping again. It felt wrong after leaving her post... but it wasn’t like there was too many ways to get past here, and Lily didn’t smell any foreign scents around. Plus the door was obviously closed and her paper traps were all still in the same spot so it was probably fine.

Back with Kat and Appoline, they tried the snowstorm idea a few more times before giving up for now. It seemed like going too light on ingredients caused it to fail and too heavy caused it to be far too potent. Appoline did make some other changes of course, and the resulting potion wasn’t always bouncing around... but two of the heavier ones were and the third literally screamed at you when you poured it. The sound was mostly muted after it was put in a bottle, but not completely.

Appoline would’ve broken that one if it wasn’t for the fact that would simply unleash the storm. Instead, Appoline simply took it to the basement where she locked it away and slapped a note on it that said ’Screaming Frost Potion: Too powerful to easily dispose of and too noisy to keep elsewhere. Open at own risk’ which Kat thought was fair enough and at least you couldn’t hear it anymore once it was locked up.

Despite that technically being a failure, Appoline was somewhat interested in the idea of screaming sonic potion to act as some sort of non-lethal sonic attack so she tried to lean into that for the next brew. The first one didn’t work at all, freezing over after only a few ingredients had been added to the cauldron. "Hmm... balance was poor, not enough to offset the icing effect..." mumbled Appoline.

The second time around was arguably more successful but still a failure in the end. The cauldron had started to vibrate after the fourth ingredient had been added to the cauldron. Not an immediate issue, but one that made things harder. Appoline added some things intended to stabilise the potion... but instead the reaction simply got more violent. Appoline seemed ready to continue, but Kat had a bad feeling. Without prompting for Appoline she cut the demonic energy and hurled the cauldron away. When it landed a piercing scream rang out as well as a massive explosion of snow, coating EVERYTHING. "Ah... not ideal. This will take some time to fix..." grumbled Appoline.

Kat had waited for everything to fall off her and then walked inside to go get started on dinner. She wanted to make it a bit fancier than lunch and Appoline needed the chance to clean up a bit after the issues with the most recent potion. It probably wouldn’t take all that long, but that was fine. Appoline should probably rest a bit before dinner anyway. Just as Kat picked up one of the cutting boards, she felt something... twist for lack of a better word. When Kat tried to focus on the feeling, she blinked, and suddenly she was somewhere else completely. Lily was also directly beside her. *Well fuck.*