Extended Family

Chapter 129: Sticky Solving

Takes place at the same time as chapter 108

Castor frowned at the vial in her hand, inspecting the fluid within critically.  "I think you're right.  Something's off about it."

Alicia growled and glared at the cauldron, personally offended.  "It was made with the usual methods.  No deviations."

Castor stirred the cauldron slowly, watching the potion swirl within the vessel.  "Hmm."  She lifted a ladle full of potion and slowly poured it out.  "It's watery.  And the color is not quite right either."

"That's why I asked for you to inspect it," Alicia sighed.

"These the materials?"  At Alicia's nod, Castor looked over the things still on the desk.  She poked through the mortars and touched some of the unprocessed materials.  "Everything looks okay.  Smells okay.  Hmm.  Strange.  I wonder what the difference is."

"The only thing I can think of is that we had a different source of the glasswort," Alicia said.

"Oh that's right, we're trying a different supplier."  Castor picked up a sprig of glasswort and held it up to the light.  "You know what, it's slightly cloudy, not as clear as we're used to."  She shook the sprig, listening to the tinkle of the glasswort bulbs rubbing against each other.  "Sounds funny too."

"Bloody hell," Alicia swore.

"Quite," Castor agreed.  "Well, I guess this is what we get for trying to skimp on cost here and there."

"We bought a rather large amount of them, I hate for them to go to waste," Alicia grumbled.

"We're going to have to run trials and see if we can get our usual results by changing the ratio maybe.  Hopefully it's something simple like just adding more of this substandard stuff.  We can do that later.  I'm going to call and yell at the distributor.  Quality supplies my arse," Castor sighed.

They looked up in surprise when they heard yelling outside of the lab room.  "Check that," Castor said.  "First we find out what that yelling is about."

"It sounds like Daphne," Alicia said, slightly worried and intensely curious.

"Now I have to know what's going on," Castor said eagerly.  "I've never heard her shout like that before."

"I have but it is usually reserved for one of three people," Alicia said.  She followed Castor into the hall and the full force of Daphne's shouting could be heard.

"HOW DID IT HAPPEN?!"

Other apprentices and people that worked for Castor were either staring at Daphne's office with wide eyes or were fleeing the scene.  Despite her door being closed, the woman could be heard clearly and like Castor, the vast majority of people have never heard Daphne sound so loud or angry.  At Castor's gesture, they all left and Castor opened the door and poked her head inside, eyes sparkling and smile wide.

"Look, it's not my fault!"  Tracy's voice came from a small mirror that Daphne held in a white-knuckled grip.  "And you should be proud of me for calling you first to ask for help instead of throwing it about and have I mentioned how beautiful you are today?"

"NOT THE TIME TRACY!" Daphne shouted.  "What happened?!  I thought you were helping with some sort of miniature project!  How in the world did this happen to her?!"