Lee Singed, A Love Story

Lee Singed, a love story

By MasterShake

The young brewtech sat at his desk, head in hand, muttering to himself. It had been a long time since last he slept, too long. The potion he had planned for the master was not panning out the way he had imagined in his mind and on paper. “Why wont it coagulate” he moaned, “In every other condition my sample works, but put it in a bottle and it becomes completely inert.”

The master strolled among them, walking down a row of students, he was just one among many upstarts in his class. His nickname among his classmates was singe. One time was all it took. He had been in lab, fussing with the burner and had accidentally moved it too far to one end of the table. His classmate’s toga went up in flames in an instant and all he could think about was the idea that it did not make a whole lot of sense for someone to wear highly flammable material in a lab class. Needless to say, he was stunned as his classmate started flailing violently and screaming, “Put it out, put it out!” It didn’t take long for the name to stick after that. In part he couldn’t blame them. If had it been someone else he might even have been him taking part in the jest.

Now though was inspection, as it was every morning. The entire class of fourth years stood as still and silent as statues. The master walked amidst them, relishing the obedience. “Now” he growled softly “Who here is feeling confident?” No one spoke, the statues remained motionless. “No one?” The master spoke in his gravely monotone, more of a statement than a question. Singe fell back within himself as he often did in these morning rituals. He remember the first and only time someone challenged the master. A behemoth of a man, constantly boasting of his hand to hand combat skills. “I need no weapon,” he used to say “My fists are more than enough for anyone!” Singe recalled being amused, even a little envious of his classmate’s confidence.

The large man took three steps forward, the master paced him out of the corner of his eye. The student gracefully sank into the fighting pose of his people. Standing on the ball of one foot, he slowly lifted his other knee waist height and clenching fists above his head. However, before he could even finish this motion the master disappeared completely. No smoke, no illusions, just gone. A few in the line of statues gasped.

Singe quickly looked back to his classmate to see how he would respond, but he saw nothing. It was as if the large man had not even noticed what happened. Then his eyes began to bulge. Singe had never seen such an expression of horror and utter surprise on anyone’s face before. And then his chest exploded. Bits of gore and human flesh spattered everywhere and someone next to Singe retched. The behemoth that had been so confident, so self entitled now hung limply on the forearm of the master, a clawed fist protruding out the front of his chest where his heart had been just moments earlier.

Singe heard a crack as his head hit the table. He hadn’t realized that he had dozed off and he scolded himself for being so undisciplined. Now was no time to be unfocused. He had prepared so diligently for the upcoming event. All the sleepless nights and failed experiments were not going to be for naught. He was optimistic as some of his experiments and tests were coming to fruition. He finally had a completed product for his primary initiator, the gas. He had tested endless theories, some bizzare, others mundane, one even burst the door off his antechamber after the pressure built up too high after discarding what had thought had been inert burnoff. Perhaps his nickname was not too far off the mark he mused. Now though, he had what he needed in order to challenge the master and graduate from this ungodly place. He knew what it took and he recited the simple mantra the master had given all of them on their first day. “All that is needed is to last more than ten seconds in open combat with me. To succeed is to graduate. To fail is to die.”

Singe gritted his teeth and focused back on his work. What made the gas so beautiful, so efficient at what it did isn’t it’s toxicity to living creatures, after all there are many known substances that have much greater toxicity if ingested. Rather, it is it’s ability to linger in atmosphere for long periods of time. If a container of the liquid form was to be upended, it would immediately vaporize and hang suspended no more and no less than three meters in circumference.

And that wasn’t even his ace in the whole. Only two days prior did he have his crowning moment, though truth be told the breakthrough was more of an accident than any predetermined notion. He had been testing field mice with a theoretical concoction