But first, there was something else he had to do. Ashton had the backpacker give him a few more materials beyond just the moondew's venom. Some magic stones, some poison ivy and other toxic plants, and the soda slime from before.
For now, Ashton was hiding out on top of the wooden castle again. It was a decent enough hiding spot, and it was on the safer end even if he were to be spotted, though he doubted that would happen. It also had enough space for Ashton to do what he wanted to test out first.
He took a bottle's worth of water and formed it into a bubble, proceeding to heat it up with the salamander's flames. Ashton mixed some of the dried toxic plants into the water with some crushed-up magic stones, and then proceeded to mix in the unprocessed soda slime.
As long as Ashton was just holding the water up like this and didn't have to move it too much for the time being, it was easy enough to keep control over it even while all of this was going on.
Once some of the water evaporated and the bubble was about half the size as before, Ashton injected some of his own mana and changed its pattern to 'accept' magical affects into itself, and then added in the moondew's venom. While mixing it all together, Ashton made sure to inject a few other small things into it.
Now, changing mana's pattern wasn't easy. It was like a balancing act, because if even a small part of it was wrong, the whole thing could collapse and crumble, potentially causing unwanted or even dangerous effects. As for when the 'accept' pattern was disrupted in a particular way, it would change into a pattern more aptly named 'reject'. Rather than compressing and containing the effect within itself, the potion would force it all out of itself in the form of an extremely potent mist.
Frankly, this was the number one cause of death for potion-makers. Even Ashton had died to it more than a few times, though he was always forced back to life by the Summoner. He almost shuddered at the memory, but he held himself back, focusing on the 'potion'. Really, this wasn't a recipe at all, it was just all the toxic stuff that he could get his hands on without any of the materials or measurements that would change them into something beneficial.
The blue moondew's venom would paralyse them, and the other toxic plants would damage them otherwise even if they managed to hold out against the paralysis. And as for the soda slime, it wasn't just there to increase the mana that was in the 'potion', increasing the effects a bit, but since Ashton didn't treat the slime first, it was still extremely acidic to the point where it would tear up the mucus membranes of the monsters as they inhaled it, making it absorb into their blood even faster. On top of just, once again, damaging them as much as possible.
But soon, he was done. Ashton grabbed the extremely unstable bubble and funnelled it into some glass bottles. He was running low on these, so he should try and get his hands on some more.
Ashton placed some of the smallest, most fragile magic stones he had into the bottles so that they could break and start up the chain-reaction of the mana crumbling later on.
With three small half-litre glass bottles filled, Ashton was ready to go.
[[Observer in the Veil] is unsure if that potion will be very good for you]
Ashton sighed, "Obviously not, it's not a potion."
[[Daughter of the Scarlet Heart] points out that it's not a great poison either]
[[Executor of the End] agrees despite their lack of experience with either]
"Either trust me, or shut up," Ashton told them, finally climbing off the wooden castle. He looked over toward the garden, seeing the bush where Poppy was hiding. In case they were watching right now, Ashton waved at them with a smile, and then continued on to the front of the school grounds.
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Luckily, there weren't any more monsters coming to take a look right now. Rather, they didn't seem particularly interested. It was likely that they figured that there was nobody that could take down that many of them at once. Though, that was perfect for Ashton.
As he came a bit closer to the main camp, he still couldn't see the leader of these guys. Just around fifteen goblins and an orc out there. It looked like the rest of them were inside, in the building right next to the camp.
But that was fine. It was why Ashton made more than just one dose. Well, he didn't really have to think too much about it. He grabbed the bottle and chucked it right into the middle of that rudimentary camp.
Almost immediately, a thick white mist started spreading throughout it. The goblins and leftover orc started coughing, trying to get out of the mist. Ashton could hear a couple of thuds as some of the goblins fell down, though a couple seemed to understand what was happening and managed to hold their breath.
Ashton took a deep breath and approached the mist. He had specifically constructed the collapse of the magic pattern to then fall off extremely fast.
Once, he made such a bad mistake that he accidentally caused a 'Berserker Potion' to explode out and cover a full mile radius in it. Not only did Ashton go so mad that he nearly ripped off his own arm, but everything in the vicinity with lungs to breathe it in or skin to absorb it through became a physically strengthened, furious maniac with the inability to feel pain... and that time, the mist lasted for a full week.
That was not a good week. As a punishment, the Summoner left him in there, erecting a barrier around it, and resurrecting him whenever he died.
But after that, Ashton at least made sure to learn everything he could about preventing this from happening again.
One of the goblins stumbled out of the mist, and Ashton flicked his wrist, sending the wisp toward it. Its was dead before it could even react. Ashton stood there for a moment, and asked the backpacker for a cigarette, one that had had prepped earlier. He took a spark from the salamander and lit it up.
It was a basic detoxifying effect to help Ashton against anything lingering in the air that wasn't directly visible.
By the time the mist faded, most of the goblins were either down on the ground or barely holding on. Even the orc had dropped onto one knee. The goblins were taken care of easily, and the even the orc, stumbling around like a drunk, was dispatched with a few relatively easy attacks.
Ashton wished he could have done something like this earlier, but this kind of potion caused too much collateral damage. He didn't want it to soak into the grass or ground that the kids might play on later. Plus, it wasn't like he had infinite resources.
With the monsters out here taken care of, Ashton approached the house. It was a quite small place, on the corner of the street across from the school. For a moment, Ashton did wonder why the monsters chose this one, since there were plenty of other houses adjacent to this one, but it was most likely just because the door to this one was already open.
The lock was perfectly intact, so it wasn't broken open, at least. The windows, while broken, weren't shattered enough for something to climb through, either. It was clearly just extremely bad luck.
Now that he was inside, though, Ashton felt immediately a bit more comfortable. He did call the salamander back into his vessel, though, since he didn't want to cause a fire or anything, but in here, it was so narrow that he would have to fight one or two monsters at a time. And if he could only fight one or two at a time? There was nothing here that could take him down yet.
Well, maybe the leader of this group could be a threat, sure, but otherwise? It was easy. Some goblins were sitting around on the couch, others were in the kitchen, throwing plates and cups and glasses onto the ground, tearing out the cabinets, and just trashing everything they could. And the moment Ashton entered each room and the monsters realised someone was in here with them, Ashton already hit them in the face with his staff.
With how many monsters were outside, and with the size of this place, Ashton figured there would be another twenty goblins at best in here. And within the course of around ten minutes, there were none left alive.
Ashton got up to the bedroom at some point. The woman that owned this place, she had hidden in here. She had tried pushing the drawer in front of the door, but monsters had forced their way in. It was likely that she tried to leave through the front door, but was seen. The monsters ran inside, she fled up the stairs and into her bedroom.
But this was her last stop.
The bed was covered in blood, vomit, and bits of torn flesh. It smelled... unpleasant, to say the least. Ashton walked up to the window and slowly opened it up. Some scavengers would get in here through the window in time and clean this place up. Or at least, mess it up enough that it wasn't so obvious what happened here.
Nobody should see something like this.
Ashton leaned out of the window and took a deep breath. He took a last puff of his cigarette and put it out on the windowsill outside.
While he was at it, looking outside, Ashton could see exactly where his next target was. Right outside in the garden, sitting on the armchair that had been pulled out.
The orc was sitting there, with a torn leather jacket, just as the kids had described, and to Ashton's surprise, a red wolf right by its side. It was incredibly injured, and clearly it was that orc's doing.
Just like the kids were saying, this orc was at least a head larger than others. Its tusks were so large they almost tore into its own cheeks, one of its ears was torn off, and it was covered in scars.
"Huh... Let me guess, you've got the 'Warlord' trait?" Ashton asked, grabbing one of the other prepped bottles from the Backpacker.
The orc looked up at Ashton, yelling out at him, but before it could even get off the armchair, the bottle broke on the ground and a thick white mist spread through the garden.
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