SerassStarryNightWorks
patreon
The Alchemist’s daughter
🕑 Added 2025-01-25 09:04:39 +0000 UTCIn the kingdom of Aurion, on the eastern edge of a continent shaped by endless wars and delicate alliances, lived a court alchemist named Ardin Corvellen. For two decades, Ardin served King Ivar and the nobles of the palace with unwavering loyalty. Through potions, salves, and mystical experimentation, he kept the royal family and their court healthy and strong—curing them of unknown diseases, finding new ways to fortify their armies, and even dabbling in arcane spells that few dared to attempt.
Ardin’s workshop, nestled in a high tower overlooking the castle’s main courtyard, overflowed with vials of shimmering liquids, sacks of rare herbs, and carefully tended caged beasts whose body parts or blood might be used in some complex tincture. He was no ordinary potion-mixer, nor a simple scholar. Ardin stood at the forefront of the kingdom’s pursuit of knowledge.
Watching over his shoulder most days was his daughter, Cerys. She was slender, with black hair that tumbled down her back and wide, bright eyes always lit with curiosity. Since childhood, she had quietly observed her father’s craft, learning the fundamentals of alchemy and magical herb-lore. By the time she was seventeen, Cerys knew enough to brew remedies that could cure the mildest fevers or grant brief bursts of strength to tired soldiers. Ardin promised that once she turned nineteen, she would be deemed a full apprentice, allowed to invent her own potions and conduct more daring experiments.
The court saw only a polite girl with inky smudges under her fingernails from mixing powders, a girl overshadowed by her father’s brilliance. But beneath her unassuming manner lay a sharp mind. She carefully studied scrolls Ardin brought from the library vaults, memorizing entire passages about alchemical transformations and rare arcane elements. Sometimes, she practiced small experiments in secret corners of her father’s workshop, the flicker of candlelight dancing across her determined face. Cerys was no mere bystander.
Yet in those peaceful days, she could not fathom the transformation fate had in store for her. The seeds of darkness had already been planted in the halls of Aurion’s palace.
Jealousies and rivalries swirled around Ardin Corvellen like vultures circling a wounded beast. Though the king himself trusted Ardin, several nobles felt threatened by the alchemist’s influence. Rumors spread that Ardin held arcane secrets that could topple kingdoms if he ever turned traitor. Whispers claimed he brewed elixirs that, in the wrong hands, might poison an entire legion or enthrall a person’s mind.
Chief among the conspirators was the royal advisor, Lord Thetom, a cunning man with a silver tongue and hidden ambitions for the throne. He saw Ardin as a threat. If King Ivar died unexpectedly, Thetom wanted to consolidate power, not let an alchemist hold the kingdom’s most dangerous knowledge.
In back chambers and candlelit alcoves, Thetom and a handful of powerful nobles conspired to rid themselves of Ardin Corvellen. They wove lies that Ardin was secretly plotting to overthrow the king, brewing mind-control potions, and dabbling in dark sorcery. Little by little, their web of deceit caught the unsuspecting monarch. Soon, King Ivar, once a faithful friend, began to doubt Ardin’s loyalty.
The downfall began when one of Ardin’s experimental potions, tested on a royal guard volunteering as a subject, triggered horrific side effects. With cunning speed, Thetom pinned the blame on Ardin, claiming he intentionally poisoned the guard as a step toward overthrowing the crown. Though the guard eventually recovered, the damage was done. Ardin’s reputation suffered a fatal blow.
Cerys watched helplessly as the illusions of safety crumbled around her father. Soldiers invaded the workshop, seizing his notes and potions, ignoring her pleas that her father was innocent. Ardin’s pleas fell on deaf ears. He was chained and escorted away as the conspirators gloated. In the courtyard, before assembled nobles, Ardin was branded a traitor.
King Ivar, confused and manipulated by Thetom’s cunning, did nothing to stop the sentence that echoed across the stone walls: execution.
On the day of her father’s execution, Cerys stood in the crowd, tears burning her cheeks, nails biting into her palms until they drew blood. She watched Ardin remain proud and defiant, even as the headsman’s axe rose. In his final moments, he locked eyes with his daughter, mouthing a silent apology for leaving her alone in such a terrible world.
When the axe fell, Cerys felt a piece of her soul shatter irreparably. She didn’t scream; she didn’t faint. She just stared, numb, the sting of salt tears mingling with the roar of the crowd. The last vestiges of warmth in her heart fled that very moment, replaced by a cold, implacable hatred.
The conspirators might have left her alone to scrape by on the palace’s pity. After all, she was just an alchemist’s apprentice, easily dismissed. Yet they did not anticipate the fury that would ignite within her. Grief-stricken and furious, Cerys slipped away from the courtyard while the crowd dispersed. She knew she had to act fast.
She hurried to the workshop tower, locked, but she forced her way inside. Ransacked by the palace guard, the place was disheveled. Shelves lay overturned, glass vials scattered. Every important scroll or standard potion had been taken, yet beneath a half-broken table, Cerys found a hidden compartment in the floor. Within it was her father’s most guarded research: a wooden chest lined with black velvet, housing half a dozen vials whose contents shimmered and swirled with arcane potency.
These were no simple healing brews or conventional elixirs. Each potion was a bold experiment in metamorphosis and the manipulation of magical energies. Her father had once warned her, “Some potions should never be drunk by mortal lips, for their power surpasses all sense of reason. They can twist flesh and mind into monstrous shapes, unleashing horrors that defy the natural world.”
But Cerys no longer cared for caution. She had been stripped of everything, her family, her security, her innocence. Opening the chest, she gazed upon the swirling liquids. There were six potions in total, each a different hue: ruby, emerald, onyx, gold, amethyst, and azure. She lifted each in turn, uncertain whether these potions would kill her or transform her.
With a final glance at the door behind her, she decided. She would become something more than mortal, or she would die trying. Summoning her father’s memory for courage, she pulled out the first vial, the onyx-colored one, and drank it in a single gulp.
The moment the liquid touched her throat, Cerys felt a searing, frigid pain in her core. She let out a strangled cry as her limbs spasmed. Her body glowed with an eerie, blackish gleam. She collapsed to the cold stone floor, the vial falling from her hand and shattering. But she did not stop, her mind was set.
She forced the second vial, amethyst, down her throat, though her vision blurred and her stomach churned like a violent sea. An acidic taste flooded her mouth. Then came the third, the gold-hued fluid, and the agony in her veins multiplied tenfold.
With trembling hands, she grasped the ruby potion next, aware that it might be the final straw. Nonetheless, her rage overshadowed her fear. She drank greedily. She felt her flesh tingle and begin to melt, not in the sense of physical pain alone, but in a transformation that defied explanation. Her skin began to shimmer, her bones felt as though they were dissolving and re-forming in new shapes.
She heard a voice in her mind, her father’s warning voice, perhaps. But it was too late for caution. She was lost in the swirl of unstoppable magic. Ignoring the dizziness, she reached for the emerald and then the azure potions, taking them in rapid succession. One poured down her throat in a wave of cool bitterness, the other in a fiery burst that almost blinded her.
Her entire body convulsed. Then, as if in one unstoppable wave, it happened.
Her limbs seemed to liquefy. The lines between flesh and slime blurred. Gasping, Cerys tried to stand, but her legs were no longer entirely solid. Her arms dripped like living gel, shimmering with an uncanny translucence. Her insides, every muscle and organ, felt as though they had been replaced by watery, viscous fluid. She screamed, but the sound distorted in her half-solid throat, emerging as a faint, gurgling croak.
The transformation left her sprawled upon the stone floor, panting. Then she felt a surge of raw power flood her being. She rose, half-melted but stable. Somehow, though her body no longer looked human, her mind felt sharper than ever. She looked at her arms, which had become translucent, shimmering with dark swirling motes. She focused, and the slime reformed into a more recognizable shape: shoulders, hands, slender digits that could pass for human if viewed in the dim light.
In that moment, she became slime and flesh made one. She felt strong, flexible, and infinitely hungry.
Cerys discovered she could shift her form, compressing herself to squeeze through narrow gaps or extending a limb into a whiplike tendril. She possessed incredible resilience; mundane weapons would barely cut through her jellied mass, and even if they did, she could reabsorb and reshape.
Yet the most terrifying change was the hunger. It gnawed at her, more ravenous than any normal appetite. Her entire body, now more slime than flesh, craved living essence, some primal drive embedded by the potions’ combined magic.
She left the workshop under cover of darkness, slipping through the palace corridors like a dripping shadow. The conspirators never expected retribution in such a monstrous form. The palace guards, in their ordinary routines, didn’t notice the silent slime creeping across the stone floors.
Down in a low-lit corridor, she heard a guard gossiping about her father’s final moments. The man laughed about Ardin’s frantic pleas of innocence. Rage rose like a tide within Cerys. She extended her arm, turning it into a thick pseudopod, and enveloped the guard’s face. He tried to scream, but her jellied mass filled his mouth, muffling every sound.
For the first time, Cerys felt a horrifying ecstasy as her slime body constricted and pulled him inside. His struggles were useless—his arms and legs flailed, but his flesh sank deeper into her. Her entire body rippled with dark delight as she felt the guard’s essence melt. The potions’ magic greedily broke down the man’s form, absorbing it into her. She dissolved him. She could feel every inch of him disintegrate, leaving only bones that she pulsed and pressed until they, too, were absorbed or spat out as useless remnants.
When it was over, Cerys felt a surge of vigor rush through her. Her slime glowed briefly as if charged by the man’s life force. She looked down at herself, taller, more voluminous. Her shape was more robust, her color deeper. Shock and guilt battered her mind for a moment, but then the memory of her father’s severed head flashed across her thoughts, and her heart hardened again. This guard was part of the system that killed Ardin. He deserved no less.
So began her deadly rampage.
Night after night, Cerys haunted the corridors. She discovered more about her abilities, how to compress herself into a thin, gelatinous layer that could slide under doors or drip from ceilings, how to reshape her features into a near-human form to lure unsuspecting nobles, and how to silence her prey with a single engulfing strike.
Each victim she devoured fueled her metamorphosis. Her father’s research potions had gifted her with far more than physical transformation: They granted her cunning, an almost supernatural sense of hearing and smell, and the ability to manipulate her internal acids to either kill swiftly or prolong the dissolution. She found, to her own grim surprise, that the sensation of people dissolving inside her was strangely pleasurable. It was as though the last vestiges of her humanity were dissolving right alongside her victims.
She savored the fear in their eyes just before they vanished into her dark slime. She enjoyed the slithering quiver that spread through her body as their flesh, bone, and soul energy were consumed. With each new meal, she grew taller, heavier, more formidable. Her body could morph in seconds, from a small puddle to a towering, vaguely humanlike shape with dripping arms and a face that sometimes retained just enough features to be recognized by her prey.
Soon, the stories began spreading throughout the palace. Lowly servants spoke of a “slime specter” that roamed the halls at night, leaving no trace of its victims except a few scraps of clothing or an abandoned sword. The conspirators who had condemned Ardin to death grew uneasy. Lord Thetom in particular felt a chill each time the rumor of this horrifying entity reached his ears. Little did he know, the specter was none other than the alchemist’s daughter, gradually tearing through the ranks of those who had sealed her father’s fate.
Her vengeance was methodical. She started by hunting the minor lords and advisors who had supported Thetom’s lies. These were the men and women who whispered in corners, forging the false evidence that condemned Ardin. One by one, they vanished.
Each time, Cerys experienced the same twisted thrill. The moment she felt her victims dissolve into her liquid flesh, their panic and pain fueling her power, she recalled the image of her father’s final stare. Her hatred was unstoppable.
And with each feeding, her body grew. At first, she was merely a slender, slime-like silhouette able to pass for human if she wore a cloak. But after devouring a half-dozen courtiers, she was nearly eight feet tall when fully upright, her translucent mass swirling with flecks of dark color. She exuded an unsettling presence that caused even palace hounds to whimper and flee.
Guards tried to hunt her. Archers fired arrows, but the shafts lodged uselessly in her malleable slime. Swords slashed through her, only to meet minimal resistance. Once parted, her body simply flowed back together. Her only vulnerability seemed to be intense heat or magical fire, but precious few in the palace possessed such spells at the ready, and her own father’s knowledge gave her insight into countering lesser flames. She was unstoppable.
At last, Lord Thetom realized that the rumors of a monstrous slime were more than drunken gossip. When those who had conspired with him began vanishing nightly, Thetom barricaded himself in his luxurious suite, ringed by the palace’s best swordsmen. One night, in desperation, he performed a dark warding ritual, an attempt to keep evil spirits at bay. But what prowled the corridors was no mere spirit.
One stormy evening, Thetom’s guards stationed themselves at every door, torches in hand, determined to burn whatever approached. Thunder rumbled, and lightning flashed through tall windows. At the stroke of midnight, a faint dripping sound echoed in the corridor. The guards peered nervously around, but saw nothing. Suddenly, one of them let out a startled cry as thick slime poured from the high ceiling, forming a roiling pillar of dark jelly.
Cerys had arrived, and after weeks of devouring lesser prey, she was bigger than ever. Her shape towered over the guards, every step a sloshing swirl of malevolent life. The guards thrust their torches forward, but with a sickening hiss, Cerys lunged. She flung out an amorphous arm that snuffed the flames, coating the guards in a sticky mass of slime.
In that single instant, she absorbed two soldiers at once, her hideous form dividing into twin pseudopods that each engulfed a man. Their screams were muffled as their bodies dissolved in unison. Not a drop of blood escaped; everything was hungrily consumed.
Now Thetom stood alone, trembling. Without his guards, he had no real protection. He backed into his suite, fumbling for a dagger. Cerys slid beneath the door crack, reformed to her full height, and advanced on him. He raised the blade, but it did nothing; a dagger might as well be a child’s toy against living slime.
Thetom recognized the remnants of Cerys’s face in the shape that loomed before him, her eyes, swirling with hatred, seemed to meet his. She uttered no words, but her fury was palpable. Lord Thetom realized at that moment the monstrous cost of his betrayal.
He tried to bargain, to beg for mercy. He even offered to name her the new court alchemist, to give her riches. But there was no bargaining with the unstoppable appetite pulsing within Cerys’s jellied mass. Without hesitation, she lunged and enveloped him.
As she did to the others, she absorbed him completely, feeling his terror and agony ripple through her form like waves of savory energy. She exulted in the sensation of his heart ceasing to beat within her. He was the man who masterminded her father’s doom, and now she felt his life dissolving inside her. It was the sweetest moment she had ever known. Thetom’s final shrieks were lost in the swirling darkness of her body, and she relished every instant of it.
Word spread across the palace like wildfire: the monstrous slime had consumed Lord Thetom and his entire retinue. Chaos seized the courts. Some nobles fled in the night, trying to abandon the castle and save themselves. Many found themselves ambushed on the roads leading out of Aurion. They would hear a faint squelch in the darkness, and then a living torrent of slime crashed upon them.
Cerys’s hunger had become unstoppable. She no longer restricted her vengeance to those directly responsible for her father’s execution. Now, everyone in the palace was complicit in some form, for none had raised a hand to save Ardin. She saw them all as guilty, or at the very least, easy prey to slake her infinite appetite.
The once shining halls of Aurion’s castle became a haunted place. Tapestries hung tattered, abandoned. The patter of fleeing servants echoed through corridors. Guards deserted their posts, knowing that steel was useless. In the central courtyard, King Ivar tried to rally his knights for a final stand. But even the king was losing his grip on reality, terrified that his loyal alchemist’s daughter, twisted by the potions and by grief, had returned for a reckoning.
When at last the king stood with his remaining knights in the great throne room, hoping to entreat or negotiate with the slime creature, Cerys arrived. She poured through the gates in a monstrous wave, no longer needing subterfuge. She had grown gigantic from the souls devoured—rising nearly twelve feet high in a massive column of glistening, undulating slime. Her surface pulsed with eerie lights, swirling with the essences of dozens of devoured victims.
The knights charged. She extended tendrils from her body, capturing them, snapping them up like morsels. King Ivar shouted desperate pleas for mercy, but he, too, was soon overwhelmed. The great throne room echoed with screams, then gurgling, then silence. Marble floors and gilded columns were left slick with leftover glimmering residue. In the center, Cerys’s shape expanded, devouring one victim after another in a crescendo of horrifying triumph.
By dawn, Aurion’s palace was a graveyard. Not a single soul remained—only the monstrous slime that had once been Cerys Corvellen. Having consumed every possible living body within those walls, she oozed through the gates and into the city beyond. Panic reigned; citizens fled their homes, but the unstoppable wave of slime pressed forward.
She was not mindless. She remembered her father’s gentle smile, his dreams of using alchemy to better the realm. Yet that memory lay drowned beneath the unstoppable ocean of her hatred and hunger. The unstoppable force she had become no longer drew a clear line between vengeance and wanton destruction. All that mattered was the next person, perhaps the next hundred people, she would devour.
Townsfolk, soldiers, even wandering magicians who tried to stand against her all found themselves engulfed. With each new life absorbed, her body grew larger and more potent. Within a week, the entire capital city of Aurion had fallen silent. Her shapeless mass loomed over the crumbling walls, a mountainous being of translucent slime shot through with whorls of darkness.
Reports trickled to distant lands about the monstrous entity that once was the alchemist’s daughter. Nations quaked, unsure how to stop something that seemed to feed on entire armies. Some whispered she was unstoppable. Others claimed the unstoppable plague would eventually vanish. But Cerys only continued to slither outward, her roiling tide swallowing all in its path.
Eventually, fear gave birth to a new title among those who had never even seen her. They called her the Slime Empress—a being so vast and terrible that entire kingdoms might kneel before her or else be absorbed into her living ocean of vengeance.
And in the silent expanse of once-thriving Aurion, a half-forgotten tower still stood—Ardin Corvellen’s old workshop, with shattered windows and spilled potions. In that place, if one listened, they might almost hear the echo of a father’s gentle voice, lamenting what had become of his beloved daughter.
Yet for Cerys. gigantic and all-consuming, only one truth remained: the dark satisfaction she felt at every dissolving soul inside her endless body. Her father’s betrayal had awakened a hunger that no mortal force could quell. She was her own kingdom now, a relentless empire of slime that would forever spread and consume, crowned by the memory of betrayal that fueled her rise to power.
Thus ended the reign of King Ivar and began the era of the Slime Empress. No walls could confine her, no swords could penetrate her, and no pleas for mercy could reach a heart consumed by hatred and twisted magic. In the end, an entire realm paid for a single execution. Some might say it was an overreach of vengeance; others would see it as the ultimate testament to a daughter’s fury. But those who witnessed the final devastation knew one thing beyond any doubt:
Nothing could stand against the slime-born wrath of Cerys Corvellen, and in her endless hunger for the final retribution, she would never stop devouring until all of Aurion , and perhaps the world beyond, lay dissolved within her impossible domain.
