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Dezzie hummed to herself as she examined her latest potion through sunlight. She frowned a little. The glow of it wasn't quite right... maybe too much powdered mandrake? No, that wasn't it. Still, it should be good enough for the moment to see if she was on the right track. This batch hadn't exploded and shattered her beaker like the last one, that was plenty of progress. Maybe. Okay, a little more of something might balance it out. She hadn't blown a hole in the roof this month, it would be good to keep that going. Well. She hadn't blown a hole in the roof this *week* at least.
*Maybe a little ammonia would fix this...* she mused. It was a trusty standby. Good thing she'd lost her sense of smell years ago. It made being a modern alchemist so much easier.
There was the sound of squeaking from the floor next to her. Dezzie looked down to see Albrecht's semi-successful necromancy experiment staring up at her curiously. "Oh, hello, Gerald," she said absently. She rather liked the little zombie. Granted, it was basically a torso with a single useable arm attached to a cart at this point, dragging itself around the lab to observe everything silently. Gerald didn't bother anyone and didn't complain about the smells. Or the noises. Or anything. In many ways, it was a more tolerable human being than its creator.
"Dezzie!" came the frantic cry of the wizard from the other room. *Like clockwork*. She sighed and set the beaker down over the flame. She started rifling through her supplies, trying to ignore Albrecht. It didn't help to indulge him everytime he randomly shouted her name to complain about the little things like who moved the salt or why his coffee machine was dismantled for parts. Seriously, couldn't he tell that she needed more salt for her potions than he did for his meals? Selfish people. And the coffee machine was just practical. Man didn't need caffeine to be wound up, why let him add it to his system?
Squeaking told her that Gerald had begun to move away from her, dragging itself one arm length at a time to a different part of the lab. Probably over to the greenhouse. Gerald seemed to like her fruit experiments.
She went back to her humming and her brewing. The good thing about the humming was she could tune out Albrecht.
"Dammit, Dezzie! Answer me!"
Sometimes.
"What?" she shouted, flipping down her goggles as she started preparing to pour the ammonia into the beaker. In the brief moment of silence between shouts, she could hear frantic squeaking and growling. Huh. Maybe Gerald had learned to make noises finally? That'd be interesting. Make him a bit more like a cat that way. She liked cats. She carefully tilted the container over the potion, steady hands making sure she got *just* the right...
"Dezzie, why are there strawberries with teeth chasing Gerald around my lab?!"
Dezzie's head whipped to the side. *I'll be damned.* Her strawberries, larger versions that she'd been cultivating for a few months, had finally borne fruit the other day, and they kept growing. Now they were about the size of apples. And apparently carnivorous. The things had detached themselves from the plant and were hopping behind a frantic Gerald pulling itself away as fast as it could. The entire front of the strawberries were wide open with jagged teeth.
That was weird, that shouldn't have-
The beaker in front of her exploded suddenly and catapulted its way through the ceiling. Dezzie jerked her head back to the steadily pouring ammonia that was now drowning the flame the potion had been resting on. She looked up at the roof and sighed. Next to the dozen patch marks, there was a new hole. She carefully set the ammonia container down and found a sign that Albrecht had insisted since they put in place.
"Days since Dezzie blew up the Roof." Mournfully, she erased the number six and added zero.
The growling reached her ears, along with Albrecht's increasingly frantic ranting about wild fruit and her 'insane' experiments. Her face brightened and she reached for some tongs and garden trimmers. The day wouldn't be a total loss after all. Time to go strawberry hunting. Hopefully they tasted good.