Peter was feeling nervous as he walked to work. He was pretty lucky to be employed in a prestigious alchemists lab, even if it was just as a cleaner and general assistant. Magus Alexei - his employer - wasn't exactly the friendliest of bosses, but he paid reasonably well. Unfortunately, Peter had not come into work the previous day and now Alexei would likely be in a foul mood.
Catherine, his wife, had fallen ill a couple of days ago and had been rapidly declining - yesterday she had been completely bedridden and Peter had stayed home to care for her. The couple had only been married for a year, and it was breaking Peters heart to see her in such distress. They couldn't afford a doctor, and when he had gone to the local herb witch she had said there was nothing to be done except to make his wife comfortable and hope the sickness passed on its own. But Peter couldn't just stand by and watch his wife waste away, he had to at least try and do something. So this morning he had left Catherine at home and come into work. He had a vague plan of asking Magus Alexei for help. Peter knew that nobles and wealthy merchants came to Alexei when they were struck down with illness or misfortune - surely there was something the alchemist could give Peter for Catherine? He had been a reliable employee for two years now, surely Alexei would understand his need?
Peter mustered his courage, and opened the door to the lab. Almost instantly, he was greeted by a hoarse reprimand.
"You're late. And you never turned up yesterday."
Peter was caught by surprise. He wasn't expecting to be challenged before even getting through the door, and stuttered a response.
"I...I'm sorry sir. My wife, sh..she's sick and I needed to care for her. I..was hoping maybe that..."
He was cut off by Alexei before he could even finish. The alchemist's beady eyes stared at Peter from behind the wizened old mans' crystal spectacles as he barked out his words.
"Your woman being sick is no excuse for being late. Women are weak creatures and get sick all the time. Half the potions I make are for womenfolk thinking they are about to die of a simple cough. If you are late tomorrow, don't bother turning up. I'll just hire someone else. Now get to work - there is a lot of equipment that needs to be cleaned up. And make sure to be quiet, I need to prepare for an important visitor tomorrow."
With that, the old man turned his attention back to his current project, a complex arrangement of glassware filled with brightly coloured liquids, some of which were bubbling and hissing as he carefully stirred and added more ingredients. Peter was filled with anger at being ignored like this, and for Alexei to have dismissed Catherine's illness so off-handedly, but he swiftly deflated. He should have known that the greedy alchemist would never help him and would not forgive his absence the previous day.
Peter's shoulders slumped, and he shuffled over to the storage area where dirty vials, beakers and other alchemical paraphernalia waited to be washed and sterilised. Peters got to work, wondering what he could possibly do to help Catherine now. It looked like there was no chance of Alexei being a generous man and helping him, and Peter could never afford to buy even the cheapest of the cures the alchemist sold. As he finished drying yet another batch of beakers and went to store them in the glassware cupboard, he walked past a bench where the alchemist must have been doing some kind of work the previous night. Alexei was always working on odd personal projects, but this one seemed to grab Peters attention more than usual. Sitting on the workbench were a trio of vials filled with red liquid, and which seemed to be faintly...glowing? Peter rubbed his eyes, sure he must be seeing this, but no, there was definitely a faint red glow coming from the liquid in the vials. The rack they sat in had a hastily scribbled note attached to it.
Peter quickly glanced around to check what Alexei was doing, but the alchemist was lost in his own work and wasn't paying any attention to the rest of the lab. Now sure that Alexei wouldn't notice him Peter bent down and strained his eyes to read the crabbed writing on the note - he couldn't read very well (especially not Alexei's near-illegible scrawls), but he was pretty sure the note read "HELTH ELXIR, DLTN". He wasn't sure what the last part meant, but the first two words were probably Alexei's shortened way of writing "health elixir". He had overheard the alchemist discussing something like that with the Duke a few months back, and he was pretty sure that the Duke was the "important visitor" that Alexei had mentioned. These vials must be for him, and if so, they were probably worth a lot of gold. There was also a glass flask on the workbench that looked like it must have been used for some kind of distillation process. In the bottom of the flask there still appeared to be some liquid remaining. There wasn't much left compared to the full vials, maybe enough for a quarter of a vial at most, but an idea came to Peter, and he called out to the alchemist across the room.
"Mr. Alexei sir, do you need me to clean out the glassware from last night?"
Distracted with a bubbling green mixture, and not even glancing up from his work, Alexei grunted a reply.
"Yes, yes. Clean everything. Now shut up and let me work in peace."
Peter let out his held breath - yes! The residue must be leftover from whatever Alexei was making for the Duke. His plan might work! Heart pounding, Peter took the flask with the red liquid at the bottom and carefully poured it out into a much smaller stoppered bottle that Alexei normally used for expensive perfumes. There wasn't much left, it barely filled the tiny perfume bottle, but he hoped it would be enough. The liquid was quite viscous, definitely a lot thicker than water, but it hardly left a residue on the original flask when it flowed out. Once Peter had it all poured out into his small bottle, he stuffed the tiny container into an inner pocket of his jacket, where it would hopefully remain hidden and safe. He made sure to thoroughly clean all the remaining glassware on the worktable and then continued with the rest of his day - cleaning, tidying and carrying for Alexei before heading home.
******
Later that night after Peter had left, Alexei stretched his back and went to return to his work from the previous night. He chuckled as he thought of how much money he was charging the Duke for a couple of diluted vials, while he kept the rest of the wondrous concentrated elixir for himself. The Duke had fronted most of the money of course, but he didn't need to know that Alexei was keeping most of the resulting product for himself. He had already made one spare "dilution" that he was planning on selling to the Duke for his wife, and he was thinking of making a few more to sell to other rich nobles once the efficacy was proven. Soon, he would be the most celebrated and acclaimed alchemist in history!
Happily lost in thoughts of what he would do with all of his soon-to-be gained wealth and prestige (perhaps purchase a title for himself?) he fished another vial out of the storage cabinet, filled it most of the way with an inert filler liquid and gathered his smallest and most precise pipette. He sat down at his workbench ready to work, but as he went to grab the flask containing the concentrated elixir he froze, and his eyes went wide as he finally noticed the sparkling, clean and EMPTY flask that had - until that morning - held the final results of nearly a decade of careful work. He had spent hundreds of gold (well, the Dukes gold) and untold hours and weeks preparing and sourcing rare and powerful ingredients for this, his greatest creation, and now there was nothing but an empty flask on the workbench.
Last night had been the final distillation. There should have been enough potent liquid left for DOZENS, no, HUNDREDS more diluted solutions to be made. Now all he had were three diluted vials, and he had already promised two of those to the Duke. If he didn't deliver what he had promised to the Duke, he had a strong suspicion that he might swiftly become intimately familiar with the Dukes dungeon and jailer, which left him with just one measly vial for himself. An unearthly scream of rage was let loose in the lab, followed soon by inconsolable sobbing as the alchemist remembered that he had, in fact, been asked by Peter about cleaning out the glassware but hadn't been paying attention. The idiot peasant probably thought it was left-over residue and just poured it down the drain. The sobbing (mixed with curses) continued long into the night as the Alexei mourned his lost masterpiece...
******
Meanwhile, Peter returned home with hope in his heart. It was raining, and the cobbled streets were slippery but he avoided falling as he hurried home as fast as he could. When he got to their door he slowed down to catch his breath before entering. Their home was a small 2-room apartment, just like hundreds of other families in the poorer neighborhoods of the city, consisting of just a bedroom and a living area/kitchen. They didn't have running water, but the public water pump was less than five minutes walk away. As he walked in, he heard a weak cough from the bedroom, and went in to check on Catherine.
She was lying on the pallet that served as their bed, and looked even worse than she had when he had left that morning. She was shivering under the bedsheets. Peter dropped down beside her and laid his hand over hers, squeezing gently to let her know he was there. When they had gotten married just a year ago, she had seemed like an angel - long blond hair that hung halfway down her back, a radiant smile and a mischievous sparkle in her eyes as she looked at him. She was pretty flat-chested with smatterings of freckles all over her body, and while some men were put off by her waifish looks, he had always felt that they just added to her charm. Now he could hardly reconcile that happy image with the woman who lay before him. She was worryingly pale, and her eyes looked sunken in her face. Even her hair looked somehow limp and unhealthy.
Catherine looked up at Peter, and a glimmer of her former beauty seemed to shine through for a moment as she smiled at him - but then she was forced to hunch over with a sudden coughing fit. Peter immediately knelt down to hold her, and he was sure he saw flecks of blood on her hand as she shielded her mouth. Once the coughing had fully passed, he fetched her a glass of water from the pitcher in the kitchen and then sat down on the bed beside her. Catherine gratefully took the water, but then tried to apologise for her condition.
