Lust for knowledge

The master apothecary was sitting on the balcony with his second in command, drinking wine, looking into plans for the upcoming months in order to get all the supplies in time.

"This is some good wine you have here." said the master apothecary
"Thank you, it came yesterday with a trading caravan, I was waiting for it for so long. Do you want me to pour you some more?" he asked.
"No, no, that is enough, I must leave now, many things to do." said the master apothecary, while trying to stand up.

His nose started to bleed and he was getting dizzy. He gestured to his second in command to come and help him, but he continued to sit and watch as life was draining from the old man. The master apothecary collapsed on the floor and he was gone. There was nothing anyone could do.
Finally, he was the master apothecary of Republic of Unimbalor. No one will suspect anything, since all examinations after someone of high stature dies were done by him for so long, since the old man did not want to do that anymore.
From the first day of styding for the apothecary, his ambition was big. He wanted to be best of the best to understand nature, to be able to tame it. For years he had to hide his experiments in his basement, working in secret so not to raise suspicion. At first, his experiments were only done on plants, trying to merge a couple of different species into a new one. He was able to pull it off a few times.
There was the one that he was not proud of. It was just beautiful and nothing else, a rose that would last for a couple of cycles after it was cut from the bush and its colors were intense. He pretended to discover it while taking a walk in the hills and brought seeds to his garden. A good that came out of it was that he was earning some money from selling it, since being an apprentice was just helping him get by.
The one that he was proud of and did not share with anybody was the plant that helped him get the current position. It was by accident that he was able to create poison from the new plant. The only problem was that it took so long to extract it from the plant and in most of the cases extraction failed. So he waited, he needed time to extract it and put it in the old's man drink. He knew he needed to use the new poison, since the old man was paranoid - he would take antidotes for all known poisons every morning. It had to be something new, strong enough to kill fast before the victim could react.


After becoming the master apothecary, his resources became inexhaustible, whatever he needed for his experiments, he could get. Senate did not ask questions, he said that he needs them to defend the Republic. They had much bigger things to worry about than why would an apothecary need some animal.

And so he started to experiment on animals, trying to see what makes them tick while they are still alive. He was making progress, figuring that some of the species are more like each other then others, so he categorized them in the bestiary. But his madness was getting better of him.
Soon he wanted more, he wanted to understand everything to see how the gods created the world. If he could replicate that, he would become a god himself, but to do that he needed to expand what he was studying. He found people that were willing to go to any lengths to get money from him and they started robbing graves.

The serums were created by extraction of bone marrow from the subject and then combined with other serums in hope to create something that would ascend him to god. He knew what needed to be done. He would need a live subject to experiment with the effect of serum, but to get it while not raising any suspicion will be hard. There was an option to get slaves from one of the kingdoms, but having them in the Republic was against the law. He could move to another place, but that would be a problem. He was the master apothecary of the Republic and it would raise questions. Then he figured it out, there were people living on the street. If he takes them, no one will ask any questions as long as it is a small number.

More then two dozen of subjects received the serum. They all ended up in agonizing pain. With each failed experiment, he became more and more angry. What was he doing so wrong that he could not create something worthy of a god?

One night he awoke covered in sweat. Subjects were the problem, not the serum. They were not strong enough to receive the power of it. He rushed down to his lab. It was filled with all sorts of jugs that contained strange things gathered from various experiments in the past. In the middle of the room, a big table stood. On it was a vial with liquid, glowing with blue light, his masterpiece. The serum of creation as he called it. He came to the table, opened the vial and drank from it.

Soon the agonizing pain began. His body was changing. Finally, he will show the world his power. The pain was so intense that he collapsed. While lying on the floor, his arms and legs became tentacles. From his body, a green slime started to come out and more and more of his body was now covered in it, from it more tentacles came, and soon most of his body were only tentacles.

When he woke up, he was no longer himself. His mind was not his anymore, something dark was there now.

He moved to the mirror, he will now see the face of a new god. But there was no face of god in his reflection, rather a creature of horror with tentacles that you could not count, wherever he would look there were only tentacles. He opened his mouth in horror and saw even more tentacles. What has he done, is this the culmination of his knowledge? He could not accept it, he needed to continue his research, but where and how? This time, he needs to leave the Republic. He could go to the east, there are vast lakes there, he could create a new lab there. The decision was made. He took the Bestiary and set his lab on fire.

All images generated by AI