They told me that alchemy was not a real thing. That I couldnt turn something into something else. Listen, Ive been to the same schools as all of you. I know the rules and how those people who made them take so much time to explain why those are the rules.
I know all that. I do, I promise. Look at all the qualifications I have. All the things, signed by all the people. I am qualified to do the magic. Thats not the point though.
The point is that … what if theyre wrong? Not wrong like lying to us, although, that isnt something to take as gospel. Theyve lied to us before, remember? No, what I mean is what if they just dont know.
What if someone made that rule oh so long ago, and it just hasnt been updated for the new era of magic? Lots has changed even since I left school. We can do so much more with less. Those of us who are qualified, at least.
Now Im not saying that alchemy is real. I probably cant turn something into something else. But just because I cant, does that mean that no one can? Does that mean that God wont allow it? Questions like that are how we established ourselves. When we were kids, we were told of the great heroes, of their journeys across this world and how they bent nature to their whims and brought about our great golden age.
We can do that again. Imagine, just for a moment, even the simplest alchemy. Imagine turning hydrogen into helium. Simple change, but monumental. If someone, if I, can prove this is possible, then someone else can take the next step: how do you turn any element into any other? The world would change in a heartbeat. All thats needed is that first step.
I am losing my mind. Its there, right in front of me. I can see it. The patterns are there and they should connect; the final pattern should show itself and finally I will be able to rest.
My life has revolved around this one problem, and no one disagrees with any of my findings. Thats the annoying part. Everyone agrees that my reasoning, my logic, my problem solving has been accurate. I have the right path. But I cant find my way to the end.
Let me start again. Slower. I have found a way by which I can manipulate helium so as to separate the two hydrogen atoms within the confines of the helium electrons, but thats about it. The helium, very stubbornly, remains helium.
On the other side, I can introduce two hydrogen atoms in such a way that makes it appear that they have formed helium, but theres no actual proof of it. Any test that is presented will continually show just hydrogen or simply nothing.
Other people have picked up on my research. They have taken my hypotheses and tried to come at it from every single angle they can. No dice. There were a few promising leads, but they all turned out to be charlatans. Selling the idea of alchemy to unwitting rubes. History repeats, right?
Maybe Im trying too small?
She was a teacher until the end. In her own way, I think this was how she wanted to go out. Perhaps with a bit more showmanship, but ultimately killed by her own obsession.
Her experiments with hydrogen and helium will go down in history, of course, but they will be overshadowed by her radioactivity experiments.
I will always remember her pacing across her office when she was meant to be helping me with my paper. She would be ranting about how nature actually has a way of doing alchemy. How radioactive decay turned one element into another. Obviously I knew all that, but hearing her speak through the ideas she had, hearing her make connections that no one else could was something that only a few of us ever got to experience.
People have suggested that I am taking after her. That I have gathered up all her research so that I can pick up where she left off. It is tempting, I wont lie. She left a large amount of knowledge and it wouldnt be difficult for someone, even at my level, to finish her studies on radioactivity. I dont want to go down her rabbithole of alchemy though. My current tutor shakes his head whenever I bring it up. He says that theres one of her every generation. They never find anything new, and they tend to die in giant explosions. I guess, in that sense, shes living up to the theme.
I know, shut up. But she was genuinely onto something. Ive not told anyone about it yet, but Ive gone and done a bit of research; radioactivity is not, generally, my scene. Shes stumbled onto something that I dont think has been published.
Shes been trying to find some way of replicating what happens when an atom decays. In nature, I mean. I dont understand it entirely, but its chaotic and random, and shes hooked in on that. She understands that we, as people, try to even out that chaos, but she thinks if we embraced it, then we can understand it that little bit more and then … not control it, but guide it. I have to do more research. I dont think Im leaving school just yet.
I cant turn lead into gold. That much I can tell you, but Ive managed to reverse some radioactive decay. I dont know how, but Ive set up an array which is focused on the radioactive sample. It can detect when it does its random decay thing and then activates.
It then uses the arcane pressure surrounding the sample space and with my intent, forces that which was decayed off back into where it came from.
Its not alchemy, not yet, but I think I have the idea of how we can do it.
Ive made sure she is getting the credit she deserved for this. It was her notes that led me down this path and it was her stubbornness that inspired me to continue with it. I can leave off now, happy in my lifes work and happy that the one hero of my education is, finally, proven right.
Today I managed to turn hydrogen into helium and back again at will, without degradation of the sample. Its a pretty hefty set up, but others are already working on ways of simplifying it. It may not end up being a household device, but thats ok. The slog is over, the threshold has been crossed and now people much smarter than her or I can continue. Its time for me to rest.
Sixteen fucking years of this goddamn bullshit. All the cynics were right, yeah yeah. I know. Shut the fuck up.
Sixteen years since that little twerp changed hydrogen into helium and now its my problem to ‘do that but with bigger things.’
Do they even know what theyre asking for? Do they understand what this will mean for everyone? Anything can become anything else! If everyone can do it – and Im led to believe that thats the goal, holy shit are they dumb – then nothing will stop some random person from making platinum out of tinfoil. Gold out of their own shit.
Ive explained this to them. Ive told them that all of this is a bad idea. That I could just report that anything bigger than helium is impossible because of the number of whatevers involved. Nope. Not allowed to do that. Everyone has seen the potential here and now they want to be the first to have a generalised alchemy machine. How the fuck am I supposed to do that?
Someone beat me to it, the fuck. I was actually starting to get interested in this work. I dont think Im any closer to it than I was a few years ago, but it is hard to tell in this climate. Theres that telltale smell in the air; it lingers. Makes it hard to concentrate sometimes, but I know that means that something is reacting. Something is changing. There was months where I didnt smell anything at all, so its good to have that hanging around again.
Not that it matters, of course, I have a meeting in a couple of hours with my ‘benefactors,’ whoever the fuck they are. Theyre going to cut my funding and throw me out into the street. Cannot have shit in this town.
It was an accident, and I will maintain that to my dying days. Which may be very soon if certain people have their way.
Accidents happen in labs. Thats how that one woman went. Some radioactive mishap while she was researching this. We all know this. Except, this time, the accident turned out for the best. What was a solid lump of aluminium is now iron.
Hell if I know the actual way this happened, but my team and I are currently going over every inch of the lab. Theres an expert in from somewhere I cannot pronounce who is studying the leftover arcane energy and the lay of the objects in the lab; obviously we havent touched a single thing and no one is allowed to interact with us. This does include having a look at me and a few others. To get a read on how we proceeded with this experiment and if something not part of the plan was introduced.
Its been a week and I am still locked up in my office. That horrid smell is still hanging around and no one can explain why it hasnt dissipated yet. The experts have left and the word is theyll be sending their report soon. I wont get to read it, of course, not until its gone through all the big wigs upstairs. If they see something they dont like, then I dont get to see that bit. Its all a bit rubbish, isnt it?
As a side note, I heard through the grapevine that everyone else who was working on something similar has stopped. No more funding. They think we did it and are giving up. If only I could reach out to them and explain what happened.
The lab is now just straight up iron. Everything in it has been changed and is now iron. So far as anyone can tell, there was no experiment. No one did this, it just happened. Spontaneously and naturally. There were no arrays set up, no intentions. There wasnt even another sample of aluminium or any other pure element to work with. I have my theories, but my isolation has been upgraded. Im no longer in my office, I am in a cell. I dont know where, but I would bet anything that I cant pronounce it.
“Welcome to your first day of class, I hope youre all ready to begin this course in the application of arcana and your own minds. I want to start with, if you all dont mind, about what is and what isnt achievable with these systems of magic. The first is alchemy.”